Boodachitaville

An Official Position From the Editors of Boodachitaville’s Bob’s Blog

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Most nights when I sit down to hurriedly hammer out a blog before dawn, I have to spend most of my writing time trying to figure out what you the reader wants to read about. Luckily this is not one of those weeks. The news of the last week and a half has been so overwhelming in its magnitude and so earthshaking in its ramifications on the lives of millions across the globe that no one who has any contact with the outside world would not have heard of it. Hundreds of thousands of people are lost amid the carnage of this event and tens of thousands of people are praying, working, and using every resource at their disposal to set everything right again after what can only be called a cruel and bewildering calamity.
That’s right, I am speaking of the recent NBC late night talk show wars.
While many people, including the principles in the dispute Conan O’Brien and Jeff Zucker, agree that there are far more pressing issues to be dealt with there can be few issues Americans have more passionately embraced. Not even the vitriol surrounding the recent election of Scott “The Guy Who Stuck to Obama” Brown from Massachusetts to the US Senate has equaled the anger people in the two late night camps feel. And while Americans and people from around the world have given generously to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti we are all much more likely to see an “I’m with Coco” poster than a Haitian remembrance ribbon. Unless of course you are watching something from Hollywood, the only place left on Earth where wearing ribbons is still seen as actually doing something meaningful, then you’ll see tons of little, perfect, soon to be disposed of ribbons.
So anyways it is now officially time for us at Team Boodachitaville to weigh in on the greatest drama the world has seen since “Smokey and the Bandit 2″. And, even though I haven’t checked with Eric I am certain he agrees with me, we fully support and endorse Team Coco! Take that NBC!!!
Now many of you might think that this is a foolish position to take. You may be thinking “Why if this thing ever takes off and these guys want to get into the Saturday morning cartoon business their failure to support NBC might just kick them down to Fox.”
Well you would only be saying that because you have not yet realized that Saturday morning cartoons are dead and gone and so no major television network has anything to offer us.
What is more in your concern you would be missing the true point of our endorsement: Solidarity with other funny and groundbreaking entertainments that cannot justify their existence financially.
Sure under the new schedule Leno and Conan’s ratings sucked! But so do ours! That is no reason to stop making the show! If the fact that not enough people were paying attention was reason to stop doing something then Boodachitaville and nine tenths of the internet would be gone tonight!
Sure Conan hasn’t had the ratings. But neither have we! Boodachitaville is like the Professional Lacrosse of the Webcomic world’s ESPN! We’re like Carson Daily on a Monday night! And if someone tried to make us fundamentally change what we are so for their benefit you can bet I’d be a heck of a lot less gracious about the bouncing than Conan has been! Not Eric though. He is a pushover. Probably say he is sorry for being a disappointment or something. And I’d certainly let whoever was kicking me out have it with both barrels when the only reason I failed was because the support they were giving me was being yanked out from under me before I had a real chance to succeed!
You see what has doomed Conan’s “Tonight Show” and Leno’s “The Jay Leno Show” is the lack of exactly what Conan had when he took over “Late Night” from David Letterman in 1993, the generosity and farsightedness of a major sponsor for at least three years of support in the face of meager return so that new entertainment venture can find its feet and its audience. Conan had it back then and managed to become a huge hit. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” had it and is moving from cult hit to a bit of a money maker. “Arrested Development” didn’t have it and has gone down as one of the best prematurely ended comedies in American TV history. “Cheers”, “Monty Python”, and even “Seinfeld” were all great shows that needed time and support to become hits. And for some reason that support Conan got early on when he really sucked was not given to him or Jay this time around when neither were as bad off.
Luckily we at Boodachitaville do not depend upon a network to tell us whether we can create or not. Unfortunately others, like Conan, do. So in support of those who are dependent on the generosity of others and in hope that said generosity will be shown to truly innovative and groundbreaking performers and artists like ourselves, we’re with Coco.