Posts by Ken Tucker

  • In Memoriam: James Garner of ‘Maverick’ and ‘The Rockford Files’

    The exact opposite of a mad man, Garner the actor was an assured, assiduously unpretentious performer who worked artful variations on a few essential themes of the rogue: that good looks did not equal genius, but helped a lot if you were a con man; that given a choice, one should take the money and run.

  • The Case for Colbert: He’s Just What Late Night Needs

    It’s still a little bit difficult to believe that Stephen Colbert has been tapped to replace David Letterman. Sure, he was the one who industry reporters said had the inside track, but let’s be honest: Any time anybody gets up from any desk in America, someone says, “You know who should replace that person? Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.” Nevertheless, it’s always startling when a network makes a decision based on quality of talent as well as herd-mentality consensus.

  • Johnny Carson

    Dream-Casting NBC's Johnny Carson Biopic Miniseries

    NBC has announced a Johnny Carson biopic miniseries, one of those “Oy, what a bad idea”s that could prove immensely entertaining. Carson was the most enigmatic of all mass-popular TV stars, a man who spent thousands of nights in Americans’ living rooms and bedrooms without revealing anything about himself that he didn’t want you to […]

  • Elmore Leonard

    Remembering a Master: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard

    In recent years, because of the well-deserved success of the FX series Justified, we became used to reading about how great Elmore Leonard was. Leonard, who has died at age 87, had praise heaped upon him by the producers of the TV show to the point where proclaiming Leonard’s genius became part of the show’s […]

  • Mike Darnell

    Mike Darnell: Fox’s King of Schlock Takes His Leave

    Hour for programming hour, Mike Darnell may be the most intelligent, imaginative, and beguiling purveyor of television shit who’s ever lived. Darnell’s exit as head of “alternative entertainment” for the Fox network, announced last Friday, isn’t so much the end of an era as an occasion to take stock of a man who altered television […]

  • Jimmy Kimmel returns to his birthplace, Brooklyn, NY, for an entire week of broadcasts of his late-night talk show, JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE, from Oct.30th to Nov. 2nd, airing 12:00-1:06am, on the ABC Television Network. Guests for WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31 include Dav

    The Tomorrow Show

    Assessing the state of late night after a turbulent week.