When Tom Leykis Has Guests

It’s been a couple of months. Time to write about Tom Leykis again.

It must be difficult to spend 20 hours a week doing monologues (even with long… pointless… pauses), taking phone calls, and plugging away at live commercials. It takes a lot of concentration and talent to keep high ratings in the desired demographics doing that week in and week out, year-round.

So I can understand how tempting it is for Tom Leykis to have in-studio guests (made easier, I would think, since his move to the Paramount lot in Hollywood, where some CBS and Viacom stuff is put together). Did I mention that he is on the Paramount lot? Yes, he’s on the Paramount lot. But someone in the powers-that-be don’t want him mentioning that. So I did. I'm the one who is mentioning here that Tom Leykis' show is now based on the Paramount Pictures lot. But I digress.

Anyway, I can understand how tempting it is for Tom to have in-studio guests or to gab away with someone on the crew in order to fill time with less effort. In the case of the guests – they are there plugging something. Just about any talk show appearance – radio or television – is to plug something, after all. So I understand why they want to be there. But why does Tom want them there?

The problem is, I almost never find these guest appearances (or chat with the crew member) interesting - they are extremely boring, usually - and it is such a break from the usual format of the show. I’d wager I’m not the only person who immediately turns away for the hour when I realize that the hour is going to be about plugging a comedy club appearance by a comedian, usually one nobody outside of comedy circles knows. There’s a lot of interesting talk radio during that time, so it makes it easier for me – one less station to switch to in the rotation of switching back and forth so as to not be subjected to ten minute breaks.

Perhaps Tom is returning favors when he has these guests on, or maybe it really is just Tom being lazy for that hour. Whatever the case, it is booooooooring. Being boring in talk radio is, of course, much worse than being disagreeable.

So please, Tom. Cut back on the guests and crew chit-chat. Heck, take even more vacation time if you need it. Repeats of your normal format is almost always more entertaining than an obscure comedian plugging his appearance in a place I'll never go.