I haven’t been this riled up since the whole Team Edward / Team Jakob battle.  Except this time, everyone is wearing a shirt and nothing is sparkling.

Except the lofty, copper  locks of Coco.

I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to acknowledge the travesty that is befalling the towering, pasty-skinned, red-haired comedian we all know and love at the hands of the scrambling, delusional National Broadcasting Company.

So, uh, yeah.  I acknowledged it.  I don’t know that I have anything particularly insightful to say about the situation that anyone with a robust and respectable sense of humor doesn’t already know.  And by robust and respectable sense of humor, I mean humans that recognize the hopeless banality and blatant laziness of Jay Leno’s jokes on television.  (Hold on, I feel a snotty, critical tangent coming on…wait, no, no, yep, there it is.)

In the unfortunate moments I’m caught watching Leno, I’m overcome with the sense that his jokes aren’t written so much as generated by a poorly designed computer program implemented by a programmer who learned the mechanics of comedy in a poorly written manual by an author who learned comedy in a second language.  Yeah, that’s right.  My metaphors are Meta-META.  Leno’s monologue jokes are painfully obvious, weak in delivery, void of insight, and cater to everything that is mediocre in America.  And the sketches or gimmicks that even remotely approach entertainment (”Jaywalking” and Headlines) are completely unrelated to Jay Leno’s talent or sensibilities as a comic.  They are simply ”found” comedy – they rely entirely on someone else doing all the work and providing all the laughter.

That’s why it’s such a ridiculous shame to see a talented, hard-working comedian asked to grab his ankles and grin by a clueless group of corporate executives who misguidedly believe they can turn back time and restore everything to some past utopic ratings level with sad, sorry mediocrity.  I hope Conan finds his rightful place (with Andy!) with people who value his comedic contributions.  And would it be too much to ask of karma that his show totally kick Leno’s ass across the equally misguided Nielsen ratings board.

Long live Conan!

Down with NBC!

Now let’s form a group and do something about it!  These pitchforks and torches aren’t going to mob themselves.