September 16, 2009

Redskins joke on Tonight Show

On Tuesday's Tonight Show (airdate: 9/15/09), Conan O'Brien mentioned Indians for the third time. (Or the fourth time, if you count his discussion of scalping.) Here's the joke:A group of Native Americans are trying to force the Washington Redskins to change their name because they find that word offensive. So the team will now be known as the Maryland Redskins.Comment:  This must be a record for a network's late-night show. Perhaps for any network talk show. Kudos to O'Brien for including Indians, even in a minor way.

Patrick Barkman adds:Leno actually had a good one, said the gov't had promised to look into the matter (of the R word)...."And you know if the federal gov't makes a promise to Native Americans, you can take that to the bank!"Incidentally, I watched Monday's debut of The Jay Leno Show at 10 pm. As the critics said, it was a total rehash of Leno's Tonight Show. I think The Tonight Show with Conan is better.

For more on the Redskins, see Redskin Magazine Changes Name and "Redskins" Case Reaches Supreme Court. For more on The Tonight Show, see Medicine Crow Joke on Tonight Show and "Chief" Joke on Tonight Show.

2 comments:

dmarks said...

I'm likely to watch Leno more than I've watched the "Tonight Show" by far, because it is in a much better time slot.

I always wondered why Fox did not do something similar, considering that their prime time ends an hour earlier than the others. They have that open hour already.

Rob said...

You need TiVo!

Yes, the Leno move is probably a good idea from the networks' standpoint.

What amuses me is how they're portraying this as some bold new experiment. Apparently they've forgotten that they used to broadcast these things called "variety shows."