When I heard that George Carlin and Ann Coulter were going to be appearing together on The Tonight Show Wednesday night, I got excited. Finally, I thought, there's something on TV this summer that's worth giving the HuffPost treatment! I have to admit, it's been a slow summer thus far; after the intesnse slate of season finales and the upfronts, there was little to grasp onto besides lame "reality" shows and Brangelina's baby.
But this? This was going to be a show! Coulter, the conservative screecher who seems to have built a career on controversial remarks, and Carlin, the aging hippie comic genius whose act has gotten so corrosive lately that he's now only funny half the time? It was going to be a bloodbath!
Anyone who's seen Ann Coulter in action knows why she can be explosive; she likes to say things to piss liberals off. You know, little things, like calling the the 9/11 widows "broads" who are "enjoying their husbands' deaths." She's classified liberals as hairy lesbians and thinks that they're eschewing traditional religion for the "religion of global warming." Similarly, George Carlin is not afraid to speak his mind: In the last ten years, he has told comedy audiences that religion is for idiots, the human race is killing itself off, and the government is so corrupt that it can't be trusted (like I said, he hasn't exactly been a barrel of laughs lately). He likes to riff off the colloquialisms we use every day, and it seemed like he'd be the perfect person to hone in on Coulter's rhetoric and mock it.
Plus Tonight, unlike most late-night shows, encourages interaction between guests. Even though it's not a debate show, Jay Leno has been willing in the past to have guests have it out with each other, usually in an attempt to get easy laughs. I was hoping to see the same thing from Carlin and Coulter, with Ann making a remark about liberal pigs, and George calling her a word that has to be bleeped. Even if it was just a two-shot of Carlin pointing at Ann and making a gesture saying "she's nuts", it would have been enough for me.
Alas, it was not to be. The two were extremely chummy with each other. After cracking a lame joke about "moving to the right," Carlin didn't say a word as Annie regurgitated her usual "liberals are evil" schtick.
That's how Coulter's prattle sounded to me: like it was schtick. An act. Which made me realize something: Carlin was silent because he was sitting back and appreciating Coulter's performance! Yes, Jay or NBC could have told Coulter and Carlin to not mix it up. But I tend to think that Carlin knew that Coulter was just saying what she was saying not to be evil, but to get an audience reaction. It's not that much different than what he's been doing for fifty years; it's just that he tries to get laughs and Coulter tries to get applause (or booing). So he just sat back and gave a fellow performer some room to do her stuff.
If you don't believe me, look at tapes of Coulter when she was on Politically Incorrect in the late nineties. Yes, she was conservative. Yes, she was a bit harsh in her opinions. But, back then, she really was known more for being a "hot blond conservative" than for having the extreme opinions she spews now. This "nutty Annie" act is a relatively recent wrinkle for her. I have to admit, though, that it's worked. Look at the coverage she got, for instance, after the remarks from her book about the "Jersey Girls" hit the papers. If she had just made her larger point, that Democrats trot out victims to support their agenda so people can't argue with them, without making that off-the-wall statement, do you think she'd be on every talk show known to man right now? I didn't think so.
(Not that what she did was right, of course. But everyone seeking fame has got to find their own path to it. If it costs her a piece of her conscience, that's Ann's problem, not ours.)
So Carlin knew that it wasn't the time to pick a fight. Though, right before Leno went to commercial break, the cameras did catch George rubbing his hands and blowing into them, as if to say "Jeez, she's a cold bitch." But it could have just been cold in the studio. Read into it what you will.
Either way, all I know is this: I'll never tape Leno again. Unless Lauren Graham is on. I'll always make an exception for Lauren Graham.