I have been watching television talk shows for as far back as I can remember, particularly the late night shows.
When I was a kid, I watched "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" pretty much every night (my parents were NOT strict with me, at all...my dad took me to the theater to see "The Exorcist" when I was 8...so, yeah) and continued to watch late night talk shows religiously after that.
My childhood was filled with late-night visits from old school legends like Don Rickles, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and more. TV stars like Adrienne Barbeau (who I just interviewed on The Nick D Podcast), Telly Savalas, Robert Blake, Redd Foxx, and more.
Even visits from zoo representatives Joan Emery and Jim Fowler were memorable, because they brought animals to the show, and they would climb all over Johnny's desk, and sometimes they peed on him. It was awesome!
After Johnny's show was over, you'd stay up and watch the "Tomorrow" show with Tom Snyder, which was completely awesome and completely different. Eventually, the great (and my all-time favorite) David Letterman took over for Snyder, and late night got even better, hipper, edgier and cooler. I loved late night TV.
I would watch them all. Here are some of the hosts that I have watched (some are good, some are great, some are TERRIBLE): Dick Cavett, Rick Dees, Bill Maher, Merv Griffin, Pat Sajak, Craig Kilborn, Craig Ferguson (second only to Letterman in my world), Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Bob Costas, Carson Daly, Joan Rivers, Chevy Chase, Charlie Rose, David Brenner, Byron Allen, Howard Stern, Dennis Miller, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Stewart, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Alan Thicke, Jerry Lewis, Regis Philbin, George Lopez, and I'm sure I'm missing a few.
On the surface, these hosts are pretty disparate, but they do have one thing in common: Almost NONE of theses pre-taped shows were edited heavily, and/or chopped up.
My point being, that on the old shows, particularly during interviews with guests, the segments were almost always unedited, and allowed to take a natural progression and course. It felt live, it felt legitimate, it felt real...like anything could happen, and often it did.
On the old "Tonight Shows" of the 70s, everyone smoke, drank, and screwed around constantly, and none of it was edited out...NONE of it. It felt like a free-flowing private party that you were invited to. It was fresh, it was naughty, and it was joyously entertaining.
From Dean Martin flicking the ashes of his cigarette in Frank Sinatra's drink, to Burt Reynolds shooting whipped cream down Johnny's pants, to Shelley Winters dumping a drink over a very drunk Oliver Reed's head...it all stayed in the show, and it was glorious!
Interviews were long and rambling. Pauses, both comfortable and uncomfortable, occurred regularly (you know, like real conversations), celebrities said goofy, sometimes offensive stuff, and it stayed in! Technical errors, cue card mess-ups, sets falling apart, second bananas showing up drunk (looking at you Ed McMahon), guests walking off the show, audience members interrupting the proceedings...they were all nightly occurrences.
Can you imagine anything like that happening in today's environment?? No way. EVERYTHING is edited, and edited HEAVILY.
The late night talk show line-up these days: Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers, Corden (before he left)...ALL of them edit their shows like crazy, with seemingly no rhythm, or rhyme or reason, at all. (NOTE: This doesn't apply to the brilliant "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" which is an entirely different type of show).
The monologues have cuts immediately after jokes are told (with no beat for a laugh or groan). Visual gags are chopped up so they barely register. It completely ruins the comedic timing.
But, the worst is the editing of the interviews themselves. The cutting of the interviews is often maddening, with no regard of continuity, train of thought, or even acknowledgment of the words that the guests or hosts are saying.
I just was watching an interview that Seth Meyers (whose show is easily the best in late night right now) was conducting with Natalie Portman, and the editing was so disruptive and random that I almost threw a show at the TV....and Seth has the best show in late night!
The most egregious use of this ridiculous practice is (not surprisingly) on Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show," which is, by faaaaar, the worst show in late night, and chops the shit out of their interviews with no apparent attention paid to content at all. It's a joke.
Why is this the practice now? Why is it so commonplace? Who thought this was a good idea, or a way to broadcast a decent conversation. The feeling of any spontaneity is completely gone, and the result is bush-league production and careless presentation. It's gotten to the point where I sometimes have to turn it off, or change the channel because it's so, so frustrating.
I started to really notice this practice a few years ago, and thought maybe it was because of the production changes, and editing requirements that were implemented during COVID, but nope, it's stuck around.
In my opinion, this sloppy, ugly editing is ruining late night talk shows. So, my message to the producers of the late night talk shows: KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE EDITING! I HATE IT!
What do you think?
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