I don't know if you've ever tried doing stand up comedy, but I can tell you (from my very limited experience with the ordeal) that it's similar to the scene in Jurassic Park where Dennis Nedry has to leave the jeep to attach the wench while being sized up (and eventually being killed and eaten) by the dilophosaurus. You're basically throwing yourself into the wilds and hoping like hell you make it out with wounds that aren't permanent. Making people laugh when they aren't expecting it is actually not that difficult; but making them laugh when they ARE expecting it is the mental equivalent to a martial arts tournament.
It's no wonder that comedians adopt a violent natured vocabulary when describing their relationship to their audiences. "I killed 'em tonight!", "I was dying out there.", etc. When you also factor in that nearly everyone who goes into comedy does so to try to work through some personal darkness, it becomes easy to think of those who make us laugh as sort of cognitive fighters.
I look at a comedian like Steven Wright and I see a matador facing off against a massive beast (one that doesn't get murdered for the sake of entertainment). Ellen DeGeneres is a swashbuckler, more interested in making the blades dance than draw blood. The Pythons were the weapon designers, creating everything from flails to ballistae for young warriors to try on for size. And Seth MacFarlane is a brute.
But there's a special kind of comedian who regularly steps into the boxing ring, having to keep the crowds happy while also being prepared to take jabs from an unpredictable and often untrained opponent. These are the late night talk show hosts.
Have you ever really paid attention to these people? There is a lot more skill in being a talk show host than any of them will ever let on. Jokes have to be accessible to a national audience. Guests have to be treated with respect (the very opposite of comedy's nature). And sponsors have to be appeased. Meaning, when anything throws off the rhythm of a national talk show, it's on the shoulders of the host to protect everybody; utilizing every skill in their fighter's arsenal.
Realizing this, that got me thinking about the old 1983 arcade game Punch-Out!! where you take on the role of Little Mac and work your way through a series of boxers in a bid for the world championship. You know the one I'm talking about. "Body blow! Body blow! Duck! Duck! Uppercut! Knock him out!" And I started wondering, what might that game look like if it were translated into the late night talk show circuit, with various hosts as the boxers. I think it would go something like this.
6. Glass Joe
Okay, let's assume you're not familiar with the game. Little Mac is your guy with green hair and his body is presented in wire frame so you can see through him (exactly the way stand-up feels). He's center screen with his back to you and your opponents move around the ring facing him and the camera.
Glass Joe is your first opponent, and he's meant to be fairly unchallenging to get you to dump more quarters into the machine. His name is obviously a pun on 'glass jaw'.
Your opponent
Conan O'Brien. Now let me say at this point, this is not a list to suggest which late night talk show host is the funniest, it's only to analyze what I feel is each comedian's fighting style and to make the appropriate connection to the arcade game. Glass Joe is the boxer who teaches you how to play the game, and if you're going up against comedians, Conan is the guy you want to learn from.
Conan has the perpetual boyish charm, and he becomes funnier when he's surrounded by people who are deadpan serious. His humor is at its best when it's reactive; somebody gives him some things to work with and he puts them together in absurd ways. And this is why he's the right first opponent, it gives you a chance to control the playing field.
Again, let me stress I'm not placing him first on the roster as an insult Conan fans. It's just that everyone has a different sense of humor, and Conan's tends to be pretty sweet and generous. And it's also apparent when he's hurting. There are many sides to that whole debacle over The Tonight Show, but I will never forget how hurt Conan was by it and how much it showed on his face. Fullest round of bravado to him for getting back in the ring after that. He's easily the most vulnerable of all the comedians on this list, but don't let that fool you; he's still on this list because he's a force to be reckoned with.
5. Piston Hurricane
Your second opponent in the game is really when things get started. Kid gloves are off, boxing gloves are on. Old PH is a bruiser. You trade blows with him. He knocks you down. You knock him down. Then you feel like you've got the rhythm down. That's when he brings out the big guns, several rapid fire punches and an uppercut that sends you to the mat.
What the hell? Where'd that come from? You're back on your feet getting your groove back, when bam! He does it again? How do you avoid that? You replay it in your head looking for beats where you could block or counter. You've got a couple of ideas now but it's too late. You're down for the K.O. Damn it! Gimme a quarter!
David Letterman
Letterman made a reputation for himself by having a kind of snide quality. Some have called him mean-spirited, while others say that's just a synonym for funny. Whether or not you take to his particular brand of humor, you have to admit Dave had a sharp tongue. More often than not he'd withhold its use but if you gave him a reason to he'd give you a lashing and you'd feel it for years.
A friend of mine pointed out how well Letterman could recover from a bit that wasn't working. It's a skill all comedians have to learn if they hope to avoid being swallowed, but yeah, Dave could do it without flinching. I suggested to my friend that Letterman may have deliberately allowed the show to turn downwards just so he could save it. My friend was thrown by the idea. "I never thought about that, do you really think so?" Of course. No magician reminds the audience that everything is okay while he saws a woman in half. Tension-release doesn't work if there's no tension.
4. Bald Bull
A lot of people probably think that Bald Bull was the final boxer, and that's because so few people made it past him. Piston Hurricane was the first opponent who fought like he wanted to punch you through the floor. Bald Bull could actually do it.
You know I haven't mentioned this, I've never played this game. One of the joys of the arcade was being able to stand behind a total stranger and watch them test their own skill on their own quarter and reap the adrenaline of their success or failure. I can't tell you how many times I've held my breath watching Bald Bull go down for a count of three before rising up again and that health bar creeping all the way back to full. And then that look. Pure vindictiveness aimed at the player and the small group gathered around the machine. I knew we were all going to die.
Jay Leno
Hear me out. I know it's hard to imagine Mr. Headlines even in a fight, much less delivering a Bald Bull pummeling; but that's the trick. The mind of a comedian often follows the same beats as that of a sociopath. The main difference is that a comedian is not a sociopath, they know there are real people with real feelings who can be lifted up or beaten down by a clever turn of a phrase or left field comparison. Comedians use their own mental prowess to filter their own human darkness into manageable laughs for the rest of us. And the nice ones REALLY hold themselves back.
Look at Leno and every time he's chuckled and proclaimed some Hollywood a-hole as "a great guy". For decades he maintained that 'aw shucks' attitude no matter how much criticism or insults he took. Now look at his skills. The guy knows how to monologue. He's got jokes. Sure every comedian's got jokes, but Leno's got a full almanac at his disposal. Any situation, he can whip out a handful that are not only appropriate to the occasion but he has a sixth sense about the order to place them in. Easy joke followed by off the wall joke followed by cheap joke followed by cutting edge joke...
Now imagine going up against Leno where there can only be one winner. Now you see why he's the Bald Bull of the late night circuit? You only get the upper hand because he allows you to, just to see if he needs to dole out anything more than softballs. Then you put him in the corner and feel pretty good about yourself. He gets back up and gives you a puckish wink. And you're down. He helps you back up, and you're down again. And when you've had more than you can take, he stands over you jovially, telling you what a great guy you are.
3. Kid Quick
Any lucky schmoes who manage to survive the previous round are presented with what looks like it's going to be a breather episode. Kid Quick is exactly what his name implies. He doesn't hit you with single blows that put you away. He comes at you with a series of strikes that turn you into his punching bag. You try to retaliate and he dances around you. He shouldn't be this much trouble, so what the hell is happening?
Comedy, as an entity, will allow you through it's doors if you can only do one thing. That's all you need; to be good at one thing. But the tides of comedy also shift. And there will come a point where those who can only do one thing will be shown the exit. If you're going to stay in comedy, you've got to have versatility. One thing will get you through the door, but you'll need at least three to have any sort of longevity. Kid Quick tests your ability to adjust your tactics.
Stephen Colbert
With Leno or Letterman, if you got on their bad side you'd know it. You wake up in an alley somewhere with a new nose and a realization that challenging a freight train to a game of chicken was never going to end well. But you wind up on Colbert's bad side, you'll spend the rest of your life paranoid that the world never made sense. You don't wake up in an alley after being Colbert's punching bag. You wake up at home, in bed, in a Twilight Zone version of the life you formerly had where people who never gave you a second glance are now assuring you that "you did really well out there" and you have literally no idea what the f**k just happened.
The Daily Show has given us the heroes of legends, but nobody is more controlled and precise than Stephen Colbert. He's the comedic version of a surgeon. He brings a scalpel to a cannon fight, and you expect a barrage of force is going to obliterate him off the map before you even look his way. But then the dust clears, and he's dodged everything you've thrown at him. Damn it, Colbert! You reload your cannons and light the fuses, which burn halfway down before falling to the ground harmlessly, because he's used his scalpel faster than you can load your cannons. Now he stares at you, just out of reach, with an impish grin that says "Give me all of whatever you've got left." You have no option left but to charge him directly, not realizing that you only have one direction to move in and he has a whole plane in which to sidestep you. You're now face down in the dirt, at his mercy.
You're lucky he's only going to open you up and transplant some humility into you (you know who you are).
2. Pizza Pasta
I had to look this guy up online to prove that he ever existed. I swear I saw somebody fight Mr. Pasta waaaaay back in the day, but then he was gone (Maybe Nintendo didn't want to stereotype Italians?).
So...Pizza (you horrible parents, no wonder he's mad) was ultimately filler to delay the inevitable. He apparently has a special attack that drains your health, but really, who cares? What we need to know is this boxer was one shy of the champion, and only appeared in the first arcade game. So I'm going to treat him as an optional opponent.
Jack Parr
Very little still exists of Jack Parr's hosting of The Tonight Show (or Tonight Starring Jack Parr). His tenure ran from 1957 to 1962, having inherited the slot from Steve Allen. History records Parr as being emotional and unpredictable, at least for live television of the late 50's. For example, his introduction of Jayne Mansfield was a simple change of tense "Here they are, Jayne Mansfield!" referring to her iconic cleavage.
The most retold story about Jack Parr involved a bit he did in February of 1960 that centered around a "water closet" (oh my, what a rapscallion) or toilet, as we say in America. Network censors cut the joke without telling him. Parr's response was to tell his live audience "There must be a better way of making a living than this," whereupon he walked off the show during the airing. The details of what happened after that are unclear, but apparently he was persuaded to return on March 7 to pick up where he left off with "As I was saying before I was interrupted...I believe my last words were that there must be a better way of making a living than this. Well, I've looked... and there isn't." He continued hosting for another three years.
Jack Parr was obviously before my time, so I can't really offer more than a passing comprehension of who he was. And while I don't agree with walking out on your job over something so trivial, I have to admit that he must have been a badass. Not because he walked, but because he was not just allowed, but persuaded to return. He had to have been good at what he did. So if we're considering a host congruent with Pizza "the Hutt" Pasta (the guy one knockout shy of the world champion), Jack Parr is that fighter.
1. Mr. Sandman
Before the game series started kissing up to Mike Tyson to use his likeness as the final boss, Punch-Out!! had an original character as the final opponent, Mr. Sandman. The most interesting thing about Sandy was that there wasn't anything interesting about him. Each of the previous boxers had a quirk, some special move or weak spot or something to distinguish their fight from the rest of the game. Mr. Sandman didn't have any of that. What he had was the most skill overall.
When you imagine Punch-Out!! as only the tip of a rich iceberg of boxing history that has led up to this particular roster, a lot of questions answer themselves about why Kid Quick's tactics have moved him to a higher ranking than Piston Hurricane's combos. And the fact that Mr. Sandman is ahead of everybody else without any sort of signature move that only he can do, it tells you exactly how good of a boxer he is. And let's face it, in terms of late night hosts there was only ever going to be one guy at the top.
Johnny Carson
The comedians you see in front of an audience typically don't exist once they step out of the spotlight. The ones who do, like Groucho Marx, tend to drive their human counterpart into misery; Julius Marx was one of the greatest comedic performers who sadly never found peace through his craft. But the Carson that you know, or know of, stayed on the stage. The real life Johnny was incredibly shy. His friend Dick Cavett said that Carson was the most socially uncomfortable person he'd ever known. As such, Carson's public persona achieved the same thing for himself it did for the rest of us; transcendence.
All talk show hosts are their own circus ringmasters, but Carson was THE ringmaster. From start to finish, he was in control of the show. Under anybody else, there's always a chance of the trapeze artist slipping or the elephant getting blinded by flash photography. Not with Carson. The chaotic elements of show business obeyed his will. If Don Rickles started upstaging him, or Siskel and Ebert got into a tiff during an interview, it wasn't because Carson had lost control. It was because he decided it would happen.
So you're stepping into the ring with Johnny Carson. Here's a couple of tips. Give him all you've got, but not all at once. You dance with him, he's going to make you look good. Don't resort to cheap tricks, because he doesn't have the patience for it. Political or social issues? Don't bother. He's spent his life avoiding those jabs. And more than anything else, accept that you aren't going to win. The closest thing you have to a decision in this match is how he's going to put you down.
Remember Carson is Mr. Sandman. Not the video game character, but in real life. For thirty years and over four and a half thousand shows, he put America to bed. You're not going to be any different; you just decide if you want to be carried off the stage in a stretcher or invited over to the couch where he can tuck you in gently. Johnny Carson was the master, not because he had the sharpest wit or the fastest tongue, but because he trained himself to be ready for anything and everything. There will never be another Johnny Carson.
May the angels bring him the joy he brought to us.
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