Television in the Internet Age

Watching this Andy Kaufman interview on the David Letterman Morning show,

as opposed to this other David Letterman morning show,

… tap tap tap…

Forget I posted that.

So, regarding that bit of Andy Kaufman performance art, a simple question: how does it stack up against this bit of a performance act by Madonna on for Jay Leno, in conversation with her in response to the Madonna interview for David Letterman?
It’s kind of the same general theory of artiface, isn’t it? 

Youtube is really distracting.  It’s alarmingly good at culling out any watch-worthy moment out of what are generally humdrum affairs for… oh, 29 years of Johnny Carson’s career, 17 years for Conan…
… if I stated Letterman at his 28 years, I’d be leaving off that Andy Kaufman appearance, as well for that matter his foray into game shows.

And all the rest.

Oh, and if we’re dwelling on late night television personalities, there is also Jack Paar’s toilet humor, and if you really must it’s not too hard to find Tom Snyder talking with Charles Manson.

tap tap tap…

I think you could get the same thing for soap operas if you wanted.

… On that note, let’s all remember when American children started loading itself up on loads of sugar thanks to the DuMont Television network!
(Skip to 11:20 to see the brilliant innovation of the DuMont network in cutting production costs, as Captain Video takes a look at how his “Western Agents” are doing by — cutting over to cheap Western movies.)

Leave a Reply