Who Do We Have to Blow Around Here to Get a Lady in Late Night?

Okay, fine. We can deal with not having a lady president (still), but with the recent overflow of testicle-wearing late night hosts, it got me thinking, why no late night lady hosts?

Joan Rivers tried once and was ridiculed (and yeah, Joan isn’t my favorite lady comedian of all time, but come on, it’s not like she’s Chevy Chase), but there haven’t been many women on the late night radar over the years. Now View host Joy Behar is being given some sort of chat deal. Only problem is it’s at 8 p.m. Central time and on CNN. Not exactly Jimmy Fallon territory.

I mean, Fallon’s cute and all, and I can appreciate the Saved by the Bell reunion attempts, but please. Late night? I think he still only has to shave every other day. Jay Leno is a boring old toot who I will never forgive for selling out his comedy soul and pimping for Doritos, and now he refuses to retire. Conan is just fine, but Carson Daly? The dude should be lucky to have a cruise ship hire him. Colin Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel, Dave Letterman…I need a jock strap just to write this post.

Why won’t the public accept a late night female host? The days of women
comics making lame cracks about their periods are over — Margaret Cho,
Laura Kightlinger, Kathy Griffin, Carol Leifer, and I could go on. All
of them could riff on anything topical and interview guests, and while
they may not all make everyone laugh, you’ve got to agree any of them
could hold their own behind a desk.

Sure, women like Ellen
DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell had their own shows, but they’ve been
relegated to the mid morning ghetto. Late night, even in this land of
500 channels, is still a place where kings of comedy aspire to go, and
it’s still the place that makes news (e.g. the Palin/Letterman
brouhaha, the Leno interview of Obama, etc.).

This irks me (can
you tell?), but I have faith that when this glut of male late night
hosts is thinned out through the Darwinian ratings process, there may
be someone with a brain who thinks that maybe ignoring half the talent
pool is a problem. The bottom line is that we will blow no one to get a
late night lady comedian. Like having a female president, our day is
coming, and it is inevitable. Carson Daly, start calling the cruise
ships.