Leno Comic Serves Up Bland, Stale Twitter Jokes

by Rachel Sklar | 9:10 pm, October 30th, 2009

» 8 comments

Screen shot 2009-10-30 at 9.09.49 PM You know how people will say to you, “This is terrible. Taste it!” Well, that’s what I’m doing here with this terrible, excruciatingly banal set by comedian Jim Norton on The Jay Leno Show. Seriously? Making jokes about how tweets are boring because you don’t care what someone had for lunch? I watched this the other night, incredulous — I get that Jay Leno is geared toward “Middle America” (even though in “Middle America” they read magazines and websites and use social media — just ask my uber-wired pals in Minneapolis), but this level of Blandy-McBlanditude is really surprising. People criticize Leno a lot — often unfairly, in my view, since I’ve watched the show a few times and been pleasantly surprised by what I’ve seen — but it’s still a prime-time comedy show on NBC. It should be able to do better.

Maybe it’s not funny because it’s wrong. Norton opens with a joke about how yes he’s on Twitter, him and every 14-year-old-girl. Except anyone who is familiar with the subject knows that teens are actually not big on Twitter at all. When you actually know about your subject, the jokes tend to make more sense. What do you think? Am I being a Twitter purist/unduly harsh? For what it’s worth, I don’t even think he’s as funny as any girl.

Jay Leno, Jim Norton, The Jay Leno Show, twitter, Twitter jokes

Eliza

Am I being a Twitter purist/unduly harsh?

Not at all. The bit isn’t accurate or funny.

Also, for what it’s worth, it was your awesome tweets that led to me joining Twitter about a year ago.
Ben Linus

What the hell is this supposed to mean?
“I get that Jay Leno is geared toward “Middle America” (even though in “Middle America” they read magazines and websites and use social media….”

Yes, Rachel. Me, Bright Eyes. Me, Bright Eyes type-type on board of letters and numbers, then letters come up on glow square in front of Bright Eyes.
Me, Bright Eyes, no like joke-jokes of Dennis Miller and Lewis Black, they too intelli-, they too intelli-…uh…they too smart! NO LIKE!
Bright Eyes love Larry the Cable Guy. He funny. He not too smart.
Wait! Bright Eyes see shiny object in distance!
Bright Eyes, go — Bright Eyes, go!
Rachel Sklar

Don’t really know what you mean about Bright Eyes, but my point was, I get that “Middle America” in the Leno audience parlance has always been used to denote the more bland, less cutting-edge awareness of things like, say, Twitter. And I put it in quotes for a reason, to show the ridiculousness and snobbery of that, and to point out that the audience was ill-served by something so lowest-common denominator that it was way outdated and wrong. So – clearer?
rmbltmbl

This doesn’t have anything to do with Red Eye, does it?
Ben Linus

@Rachel
Yes, that was nice. Thank you, Rachel.

By the way, Bright Eyes is what Zira nicknamed Taylor in Planet of the Apes.
Puter Boi

Well…if anyone would know bland and stale jokes, it would be Rachel Sklar.

Good job, Rachel!

Go YANKEES!!
ImNotBlue

Go Yankees!
nickypeeps

having almost 7000 tweets doesn’t make you “familiar with twitter”. it makes you a self important bore. so does the phrase “Twitter purist”, as if the stupid website hasn’t only been around for two years. Did you really meet a super hot guy on the upper west side? must have been fun. yuck.

but i still thought to myself, “surely she isn’t uninteresting enough to be defending twitter,” or you’re mad because he’s literally describing you, until I saw your last sentence and realized this entire awful article exists solely because you don’t like that Jimmy has said most women comics aren’t funny. and how are jokes about folding a girl in half or sessions of foot fetish scrapping pandering to middle america? i don’t even like the show, but i can still acknowledge how Jay is trying to get away from having shitty country bands perform three nights a week