THE RETURN!

And here we go again. Obviously, the big news is Leno’s show starting tonight, but we’ve been talking about that forever and so we’re going begin the rebirth of LNT by talking about something altogether different. We’re embarking on a new journey and adding additional content. We’re going to finally be providing an Index of Approval. Instead of having to wade through hundreds of (albeit glorious) articles to find out how to feel about Kanye based on what we’ve said in passing about him performing on Conan nine months ago, we’ll have a nice organized, ever-mutating listicle to point you towards. If someone or something is on the Index then they’re worth your time. If they’re not on the list, well, then you might have to still wade through those articles, or possibly start thinking for yourself (though we’d definitely recommend just wading through the articles).

Being that this week brings forth new television for us to enjoy we’ll be starting there, but don’t be a-feared. We shall soon branch out into LNT Approved™ Movies, Books (made solely of words), and most importantly Picture Books. Is there anything worse than spending 20 minutes in a Borders staring at the wreckage of the graphic novel aisle (truthfully, it’s probably more of a shelf than an aisle) and finally being forced to settle for a $12.95 book that you read once and hate so much you end up ranting on Twitter about how awful comics are? Of course there isn’t! Perhaps wasting a Netflix slot on Pathology because a couple months ago you half-remember someone saying it was probably worth watching is worse. Either way we’ll have you covered. Sort of. We won’t really be covering things that are just watchable. This is for stuff that’s actually good. And for the record, you were thinking of Quarantine. Pathology may have boobs in it, but it’s terrible (as you’ve no doubt noticed). Quarantine is the one with Dexter’s sister that’s an almost shot-for-shot remake of a Spanish film (Rec) from 2007 and it’s still pretty watchable. (It bears repeating, Pathology is awful, and not the fun awful.)

In the beginning is this week:
All Times EST/PST (OBVS)
Sept. 17: Parks & Recreation (8:30, NBC), Community (9:30, NBC), “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” (10:00, FX)

No, there isn’t anything worth watching until Thursday. But, Thursday is so good, we can’t complain. Let’s start with the new. Community is the new NBC show that’s probably second only to Jay Leno’s new joint in promo appearances. Don’t hold that against the show though. Community has a great cast and an equally great production team. This ain’t no The Single Guy (or even a Kath & Kim).

Parks & Recreation starts up season 2 and should be ready and raring. The first season of The Office (US) was mediocre and kinda boring too remember, but they hit their stride in season 2 (and immediately lost all of it, of course). So we expect big things out of Parks & Rec this season. Plus, Aziz Ansari is incapable of being unfunny.

And, who can forget It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. If we had a gold star system to award the real heroes, Sunny would have four massive gold stars next to it already. The resurgence of televised comedy may start with Arrested Development, but Sunny is really the foundation. They made a funny sitcom that didn’t require studiously re-watching every previous episode to get. And they’re still going strong. If you watch anything tonight, this is it.

Sept. 20: Curb Your Enthusiasm (9:00, HBO), Bored to Death (9:30, HBO)

You all know Curb, and we’re a little at loss as to what to add. They’ve been doing this since 2000 and they’re still doing it. For those of you worried about the readability of the Index at this point, don’t worry. We’re going to have fancy pictures for the illiterate and fresh, new write-ups for all the shows, so it’ll be nicer than this.

Bored to Death is the other new show worth watching this week. It’s dry, probably a little too dry, and the hero is boring. But, everything else about the show is great. Zatch and Ted Danson? C’mon! Plus, the guest stars are ridiculous. Patton, Oliver Platt, Wiig, Parker Posey? That’s a murderer’s row of greatness. This one is going to be huge.

So despite the fact late night, even with the return of Leno towering over them all, isn’t offering up much solace this week, know this; there are things to watch again!

And now, let’s get to the star of the show, the listings (Now with more Leno):

Monday:

• The Jay Leno Show - Jerry Seinfeld, Jay-Z with Rihanna & Kanye West
• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Charlize Theron, stuntman Steven Ho, Dave Matthews Band
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Adam Sandler, Cage the Elephant
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Sen. John McCain, Miranda Cosgrove, Rufus Wainwright
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Juliette Lewis, Alex O’Loughlin
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Gerard Butler, Nate Berkus, Maxwell
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Alison Brie, Brian Deegan, Franz Ferdinand

STEPHAN: It’s a good thing we started this thing back up this week. Otherwise, who would know that Gerard Butler was on Yimmy and the Dave Matthews Band (DMB4EVAH!!!) is playing some dumb song on The Tonight Show. What do you want me to say? Alison Brie is great, and you should sit through Carson Daly’s abortion of a show to find out? Of course not, just watch her on Community and stay away from Cancer Boy and his show (and, no, there really is no hope for Cancer Boy).

Who wants a DMB performance on the Tonight Show, by the way? People who like that type of music go and see the band play 15 minute versions of all of their songs live. Why would they settle for a 3-minute version on some show they don’t watch? And the rest of us who actually watch Conan want to hear no version of any Dave Matthews song ever. It’s a no-win. As happy as I am that Conan is doing the Tonight Show, the logistics of the move are still a huge bummer.

ERECH: Not sure what to think about Leno yet, even though we know exactly what we’re going to be getting. Next week we’ll give you a full rundown, but for now it’s all speculation. It’s a weird situation, on one hand I am slightly excited to get Jay back, because that means a new season of tv is sure to follow. Also, new things pique my interest. However, it’s Jay - and we’ve gotten 20 some odd years of the guy to date, and I’ve barely enjoyed much of it, even at his best. New show, new guests, and new time - yay. Jay Leno - boo.

That said, seeing Jay-Z listed with those other people means he’s going to be performing the only song on his new album I like, so there is that. Also, if this wasn’t pre-taped, we might get to see awkward Kanye squirm after his VMA business, so that might be ok too. Aww, who am I kidding, that guy doesn’t have a strong enough moral sense buried into his brain to honestly be embarrassed about what he did - he probably thinks he’s right. That’s faulty parenting right there, that’s what that is. And eff word him for it anyways, him and the VMA’s, why do I have to know who Taylor Swift is now internets? Thanks for that little nugget of useless, added to the ever growing pile of it you have growing in my skull already…

Tuesday:

• The Jay Leno Show - Tom Cruise
• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Jennifer Aniston, Ted Danson, Phoenix
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Anne Heche, Jim Parsons, Care Bears on Fire
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Anna Faris, Ghostface
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Danny DeVito
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Eva Longoria Parker, Kelly Clarkson, appearance by Matt Damon & Joel McHale
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Jesse Metcalf, Metric

ERECH: You had me at Ghostface, Jimmy2.

Letterman’s taking this week off to gauge the Leno thing I am sure, and I fully understand. That doesn’t make it sting any less though, because I have zero interest in watching any of that Conan business at all. Don’t get me wrong, Aniston and Danson are both folks who’ve done work I like - but watching them on Conze? Bleh. That show has gone from new badness with a pass for previous great, to a waste of my lazy ass time. I really, really dislike the new Conan show, and can’t quite put my finger on why. I mean, picking on the cookie-cutter sketches might be a start, and the lack of interaction between Andy and the rest of the show would definitely be on the list too. Even the tone of some of the new recurring sketches though really irritates me - the twitface one definitely seems to be written towards yokels and jocky jerks, right? Given the choice between watching a new Conze or throwing in 30 Rock Season 1 for like the millionth viewing, gonna go with the Fey every time. Every single one.

Carson back from his summer hiatus can only mean one thing - more horrible guests and more awkward talk. Is this what Stephan and I came out of retirement for? SHEESH.

STEPHAN: Why is Eva Longoria Parker still an A-Guest on a national talk show? Has something gone wrong with the Kimmel feed and we’re getting the San Antonio affiliate feed or something? She’s an ensemble member of a terrible primetime soap opera on an off television night. That show is #1 on Sundays guys!!! They’re totally beating the Seth McFarlane cavalcade on Fox and repeats of Cold Case: The Coldest Case: Fairbanks AK on CBS. Playing Bio Dome every Sunday night would win that time slot too, but I don’t see Stephen Baldwin or the Weeze getting shook down by Jimmy.

It just dawned on me that none of this is helpful to anyone. I’m just complaining. Um, Phoenix brings it always, and even though I’m pretty sure Ferguson is in reruns this week, you could certainly do worse.

Wednesday:

• The Jay Leno Show - Robin Williams, Miley Cyrus
• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Aaron Eckhart, Michael Strahan, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Billy Crystal, John Fogerty
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Charlize Theron, David Boreanaz
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Audrey Tautou, Ron Livingston
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - David Alan Grier, 10-year-old vacuum cleaner expert Gregory Evans, Pink
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Seth Green, Pete Yorn

STEPHAN: DAG!!! I love DAG, but the manic, free form DAG, not the Bonnie’s neighbor DAG, or limp sketch character DAG. Thankfully, that’s the DAG that shows up for talk shows, so tune in and enjoy. Then stay for the weirdest guest possible.

ERECH: Jay’s all-star first week guest line-up might impress some folks, but to me is just looks like pandering to the middle. Tonight’s so incredibly bad looking I almost feel like it’s a joke. Look, if you have an iPod full of Hannah Montana music and you love to rock out to her melodic offerings, more power to ya. Seriously though, anyone who tunes in to Leno tonight for those guests could never be a friend of mine. NEVER.

Thursday:

• The Jay Leno Show - Halle Berry, Bruce Hornsby & Eric Clapton
• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Megan Fox, Louis CK, the winner of “America’s Got Talent”
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Mike Myers, Ken Burns
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, Megadeth
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Drew Carey, Mindy Kaling
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Jenna Elfman, Danny Pudi
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Frank Caliendo

ERECH: Frank Caliendo folks. Frank Caliendo. A whole half hour of Carson and Frank. Isn’t that amazing?

If I was going to write a joke line-up for a guest on a show, that’d be the one right there.

(that Letterman repeat is pretty good though, once you fast forward past Myers pretending to talk like a human being would. Is it me, or is that guy skewing more and more creepy as the years go by?)

STEPHAN: ABC needs to fire a bunch of people. While everybody else gets pretty good guests (the vortex of suck, Last Call excepted) Kimmel’s stuck pretending that Jenna Elfman is anything other than the female Jim Belushi? Bummer for us, bummer for him. Can’t we get the Better Off Ted cast out here, or some of the Modern Family people? What about the Flashback Island cast? C’mon ABC, you’ve got some good shows now, cut your losses, and work your core! You can do this!

Friday:

• The Jay Leno Show - Drew Barrymore
• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Courteney Cox, Nelly Furtado
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Renee Zellweger, Gary Mule Deer
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Danny DeVito, James Blake, Keri Hilson
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Neil Patrick Harris
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Christian Slater, Ed O’Neill, Sofia Vergara, Shakira
• Last Call with Carson Daly - TBA

STEPHAN: Future historians will look back at Back to the Future as the high water mark of our civilization from the last millennium. This millennium’s greatest achievement: The inevitable Andrew W.K. cover of Shakira’s She-Wolf song. It’s going ot be epic! (Oh, and if you just watch these shows to see hot ladies dressed up all hot, you won’t beat Sofia Vergara tonight. She gets it done, if you know what I mean. [Yes, I mean bosoms.])

Incidentally, if you haven’t watched that She Wolf video yet, you owe it to yourself to watch it at least once. It’s potentially NSFW, but really it’s more R-tarded than R-rated (just in case, here’s a link instead of an embed): She Wolf

ERECH: I would watch Andrew W.K. cover that song over anything else going tonight by a good fair bit. Even poor Al Bundy on Yimmy can’t hold a candle to the potential there on that. Dear Mr. W.K., please get on that asap!

You heard the boys of LNT Andrew, get on it!

This is the spot where Late Night Thing usually makes fun of reader mail, or would offer up some unsolicited advice about trends or topics you probably don’t even really care about. This time around, we thought we would grade the summer season of movies, but it was so bad we’re not even going to bother. That list would honestly look like:

D
D-
F
C-
D
B
N/A
D
N/A
D
D
F

I think we can all agree that there were way too many bad sequels nobody really wanted, Christian Bale isn’t really that good of an actor, the CGI in District 9 was way better than it deserved to be, and the leaked workprint of Wolverine was way funnier than the version out on DVD now.

Pretty depressing stuff.

Instead, LNT would like to salute the fine marketing acumen of Jay Leno and his NBC handlers, for pulling in even more money to the sinking ship that is the television division of General Electric (a sub-division of The Sheinhardt Wig Company) with this devious plot:

“Jay Leno will race an electric Ford Focus and raffle prizes for McDonald’s during his NBC show that starts tonight, demonstrating how far the network will go to pull in advertisers.

Marketers such as McDonald’s Corp. are paying NBC a premium above standard 30-second ad rates to weave their products into the 10 p.m. program, according to Michael Pilot, the network’s head of sales. That increases the show’s revenue and makes it less likely viewers will skip the segments.”

Well if you can’t kill em with comedy, kill em with colon cancer*, am i rite Jay?

LNT - Dah dah dot dah dah, we’re lovin’ it!

LNT ARCHIVES

* EDITORS NOTE: We’d like to point out the tasteless nature of that joke, in light of the news of Patrick Swazye’s passing. RIP Bodhisattva, rest in peace.