With just a couple of days left, NBC is closing in on at least a silver medal for its coverage of the Salt Lake Games, and it still has a shot at the gold.
Costing the network points with the judges — a lot of points — is the one unadulterated disaster on its schedule. The so-called "Olympic Tonight Show" is a blight. An embarrassment. A travesty.
Jay Leno should be ashamed. So should NBC. Neither, of course, feels the least bit of remorse about what they're foisting on America.
There's nothing the man can't turn into a sex joke. Think I'm exaggerating? Sit down and watch one of his monologues and count just how many of the "jokes" turn to sex. And many of them start out having nothing to do with sex, but Leno takes them there.
"Tonight's" Olympic correspondents are bad and worse. The segments with Ross the Intern are occasionally funny — but it's the people he talks to who provide the humor, not Ross himself. (And there's something cruel about the laughter at the expense of Ross' flamboyant gayness.)
Alleged comedian David Chappelle, on the other hand, is nothing short of crude and revolting. Every night he's on, his act, such as it is, includes "jokes" that are far too risque to repeat in a family newspaper — the sexual innuendo is so strong it can't even rightly be called innuendo.
And where's Jay Leno during all of this? He's guffawing in his Burbank studio, egging Chappelle on.
The pair have also had a field day with drug humor — which, once upon a time, was supposedly banished from the NBC airwaves.
Somewhere, Johnny Carson and Jack Paar must be cringing in horror at what has become of "The Tonight Show." Steve Allen must be rolling in his grave.
The rest of us just suffer.
TURN TO THE "LATE SHOW": While Leno sinks to new depths during the Olympics, David Letterman has been nothing but inspired. He's been on top of his game since the Games began.
The "Late Show" is getting unbelievable mileage out of the fact that CBS is shut out of the Salt Lake Games because NBC is the broadcast rights holder. And Dave's Utah correspondent, Stephanie Burkett (his assistant back in New York), has been wonderful — she's completely natural and funny.
Letterman is always good and sometimes great. This is one of those great times.
FROM THE "LATE SHOW": A few excerpts from a comparison of Salt Lake City and New York City:
- NYC: You can buy souvenirs on any street
SLC: You can buy a figure skating judge
- NYC: People visit Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Center and dozens of other points of interest
SLC: People visit when there's a layover on their flight to Hawaii
- NYC: Six rats for every man
SLC: Six wives for every man
- SLC: Has a large, salt water lake
NYC: Has many puddles of viscous liquid
- SLC: 2002 Olympics
NYC: 2002 Starbucks
- SLC: Average winter temperature is 33 degrees
NYC: Weather-monitoring equipment was stolen years ago
- NYC: Home of the "Late Show with David Letterman"
SLC: Home to nearly a dozen viewers of the "Late Show with David Letterman"
IT'S NOT JUST ME: Here's some of what Ed Bark of the Dallas Morning News wrote about Leno:
"Debasing the Winter Games seems to be easy as (American) pie for Jay Leno, whose ongoing 'Olympic Tonight Show' has been remarkably lowbrow, even for him. The NBC show's rampant drug and sex humor is a stark contrast to the pure-as-the-driven-snow dispatches from David Letterman's mom, Dorothy, during CBS' late-night recaps of the 1998 Olympics. Four winters later, Leno and his show's principal on-site "correspondent," comedian Dave Chappelle, seem determined to leave a ring around the traditional five Olympic rings."
And Charlie McCollum of the San Jose Mercury News wrote that the "Olympic Tonight Show" is "an uncomfortable grafting of Leno's usual yuk fest onto more traditional Olympics coverage anchored by Dan Hicks and Pat O'Brien in Salt Lake. . . . It's been unfunny, disjointed and — at times — downright irritating .
"The irony is that, over on CBS, Letterman is doing a far better job of spoofing the Olympics."
THE RATING GAME: NBC got a big boost from the women's figure skating on Tuesday nights, garnering a big 22.3 rating and 34 share — the highest numbers since the opening ceremonies. The Tuesday numbers peaked between 7 and 7:30 p.m. MT (when Michelle Kwan skated) at a 27/39.
The Olympic rating was 43 percent higher than ABC, CBS and Fox combined.
The Salt Lake market led the way again at 39.9/58.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company