Clark: Letterman and O'Brien — a new battle is on

By Pat Clark
pclark@modbee.com

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So now it's Letterman vs. O'Brien.

Before, it was Letterman vs. Leno — which flowed a little more trippingly off the tongue, yes?

I always was far more a fan of "The Late Show With David Letterman" over "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. Letterman, with his cranky and biting humor, is far funnier than ah-shucks-

and-schmooze Leno — by a mile. (Although I have to give a shout-out to the weekly "Headlines" segment on Leno when they skewered mistakes and misprints in newspaper copy and ads. That was some funny stuff, even though I lived in mortal fear of seeing one of my own professional gaffes served up and lambasted.)

Ill-advised recent jabs at teenage girls getting "knocked up" very much aside, Letterman's biting humor is just more appealing. Apparently, I like cranky.

Go figure.

But with Conan O'Brien stepping in to take over for Leno, the competition just got tougher. O'Brien is some kind of funny. Quirky funny. And I like that, too.

A story moved this week comparing the two late-night talk-show hosts and suggesting Letterman is a bit long in the tooth and may have let his old anti-talk show "subversiveness" of the 1980s slide into a more traditional sit-and-chat kind of program. It also indicated that O'Brien came from Letterman's old mold and is more like the Dave of yore — and more appealing to younger audiences. All-important audiences of the future, of course.

Along with the fact that aging audiences of the present are just as important, thank you very much, you have to take into consideration that we old folk who liked Letterman then still have a soft spot for the guy.

That said, O'Brien is goofy and satirical and, frankly at age 46, he's hardly a comedic young'un. A lot of us old folk have a soft spot for him, too.

Those of us in the Sacramento television station radius get a bit of a bonus when it comes to picking a single favorite: We don't have to.

Thanks to the decision by CBS affiliate KOVR to start its weeknight prime time schedule at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., the news ends at 11. That means we usually get to see Letterman's monologue, the Top 10 list and a little more before O'Brien even takes to our TV stages at 11:35.

Then we can switch over and catch the opening of Conan's set because, really, the guests are generally not that interesting. It's the monologues and comic segments from the beginning of the telecasts that are the best parts, anyway.

Oh, sure, if say George Clooney is Letterman's guest on a particular night, there would be no tuning away for Conan. Happily, we're able to make the choice.

Good for us. Let the rest of the nation struggle with the Letterman vs. O'Brien wars. We'll bask in the glory of having it all.

Elsewhere around the Scene:

Dads and trains — what could be better?

Sunday's Father's Day fete offers a chance for dads to ride the rails for free at Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown. All fathers accompanied by one or more children get a free ride on the excursion trains that depart on-the-hour from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The six-mile, 40-minute, round-trip rides take passengers through the gold country foothills. Families can take picnic baskets or treat dads to lunch at the park's new Carriage Room Café and Snack Bar at the Freight Shed.

It might be a good way to enjoy Railtown before the budget ax falls: it's on the state's closure hit list for parks.

Regular train tickets are $8 adults, $3 youths ages 6-17, ages 5 and under ride free. Railtown 1897 is at Fifth Avenue and Reservoir Road in Jamestown. Call 984-3953 for more information.

A music lover? Then you might want to hear The Music Lovers perform a show Saturday at The Partisan, 432 W. Main St. in Merced. The San Francisco-based group just released its third album, "Masculine Feminine," on Detroit's Le Grand Magistery Records. The Partisan show also features Kid Mud and Circles & Circles.

Doors open at 8 p.m., with the 21-and-older show at 9. Tickets are $5. 723-0599.

If comedy is more your thing, there's another World of Laughs comedy show Saturday at Club Maxx in the DoubleTree Hotel. Performing are Brandon T. Kingsley, Butch Escobar and Carlos Cano. Doors open at 8 p.m., with showtime 45 minutes later. Admission is $10. The DoubleTree's is at 1150 Ninth St., Modesto. 581-7643.

Reach Scene editor Pat Clark at pclark@modbee.com.