He did, though it was one of those "you're going to voluntarily retire in x amount of months" sort of things. He got the primetime show because NBC didn't want him to go over to ABC and compete with them there, and then the rest is history.

Ironically, he really hates the Castro brothers.

Funny, because it seems like everything I've ever seen him in has had him trying to be edgy and failing. Admittedly, there was probably only so much he could have done with the pimp role in Glitter, but he was definitely one of the least scary pimps ever put to celluloid.

Eh, that wasn't Leno's fault. It was 95% Jeff Zucker's fault, maybe 4% Conan's for not accepting the time slot change, but Leno doesn't rate more than 1% of the blame for what happened. Zucker pressured Leno into taking a job that he couldn't do with the alternative of getting fired, then he got fired, and then was…

I'd love to see Maron become the new Dick Cavett.

I'd rather see Jeffrey Tambor host in character as Hank Kingsley. Admittedly, it would probably just be a riff on Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, since the two characters are extremely similar.

Are we playing Jeopardy now?

Literally all I remember of his brief tenure there was William Shatner reading Sarah Palin's tweets, and the batshit insane stuff he did after getting the ax. Kind of anticlimactic that he just went back to hosting a late-night show, especially one that seems to have a fraction of the cachet he previously did.

Hey, it wouldn't be too bad if he brought back Kel as a sidekick.

Given her track record, "executive producer without portfolio" seems to be the best possible role for her. $40 million versus one cancellation already, and another likely to follow.

too many of his characters depended on how irritating he could be

@avclub-ea9f8af74617d1b0e067f75ebcbaf515:disqus His William Howard Taft material was killer!

His Adam Sandler impression was pretty good.

Night of the Hunter isn't a noir, it's a fractured fairy tale, which is told from a child's point of view. And Mitchum is essentially asexual, which makes the fatale idea difficult to apply. Haven't seen the other movie though.

I think it's complicated. I think the appeal of the show breaks down into a couple of different factors:

It's to try to fool people into thinking (a) that it either really happened, or (b) that it could easily have happened.

It's because Blair Witch was a huge hit, and the Paranormal Activity movies are big hits. Success is instructive.

'bout time Paul Walker broke into dramatic leads again.

Chloe from 24 didn't suffer all that much. Aside from her sublimated crush on Jack Bauer.

Well, clearly, Mary is the femme fatale of the piece.