Two In Common?

I glanced at the news last night and found out that a talk-show host/comedian had been confessing his sins in the national spotlight. I haven't kept up with the comedian's life since I saw him live in person a year and a half ago when I was accosted in the street by a person giving away tickets to the Late Show who insisted they needed people to fill seats. I can see why - the main guest that night was an aged comedian named Charles Grodin showing bad photos of horses and the best skit the show's writers had was seeing if a tub of cottage cheese floated - typical style humour for that show.

From the news, I gather that the comedian is reverting to the same techniques used by religious show hosts when losing viewers. Do you remember Jim and Tammy Faye Baker or Jimmy Swaggert? Anyone who airs their dirty laundry on the national stage is getting desperate. But these days, desperate times call for desperate measures, eh, Mr. Letterman? Is it time to start asking your viewers to send in their seed money? Do you have gold clothes hangers or need to send your wife on a retail shopping therapy trip to save your marriage?

Of course, Johnny Carson nursed the divorce jokes for years so this is old hat, or could be, for ol' Letterman.

My wife enjoyed watching They Might Be Giants on Jimmy Fallon's show last night. She's glad Letterman is not part of her viewing routine - Letterman's humour never was her taste and an old man talking about cheating on his wife is definitely not appetizing - there's nothing funny about bragging about breaking your wedding vows, especially with a young son to inherit the braggart's YouTube swagger videos about his mother.

We all make mistakes but does that mean advertisers or viewers have to agree with you after apologizing? No. Others aren't complicit by living in the same society. We move on to something else more positive. My wife and I striked Letterman from our viewing a long time ago and now we know why. Bottom line: he's just not that funny. Time to give young kids an opportunity to save CBS from itself.