Frankly, I got a little annoyed with all the fulsome praise for Dave. I loved his shows about 20 years ago, but as you know, I post the monologues every day, and it has become a real chore to sit through his monologues recently. Not only does he tell the same jokes night after night, sometimes with slight variations but sometimes not even that, but he has been telling some of his 2004 jokes for ten years. Apparently he thinks George Bush is still President.And, c'mon, the guy has almost never won his time slot, and was frequently dead last behind Leno and Nightline. In terms of ratings, he's not the Jerry Seinfeld of talk shows, but more of the Matthew Perry.
Moreover, I've found some of his attitudes annoying. While he has had acerbic Q&As with helpless reality stars like Paris Hilton about their public misbehavior, he has taken just the opposite tack with his buddies, and has actually been enabling the sociopathic public behavior of Alec Baldwin, for example. The saddest part of that situation is that Dave has earned enough respect that a rebuke from him might actually get through to Baldwin.
Oh, well. There's no gainsaying Dave's innovative contributions in the early days, and his show has still been entertaining when he got to work with stars with whom he had great chemistry, like Robin Williams, Norm MacDonald, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and others. I won't miss him soon, but I'm guessing I will at some time in the future.
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