Lopez Tonight

I watched the opening monologue on Lopez Tonight yesterday, 12/22/09, on TBS and thought George was good. He entered the stage supremely confident and owned the audience. The energy in the room was high and positive reactions appeared genuine. His stand-up was varied, crisp and adult, and you can tell his "voice" has been developed after many years of honing. I can see that cable is allowing him leeway with language and subject manner as he laced several obscenities into his monologue. George doesn't need to use obscenity to be funny, but I suspect he is using it intentionally to separate himself from other late night talk shows.

I especially liked his jokes about Sarah Palin and her new book, "Going Rogue." Any chance to zap Palin I'm all for. I look forward to her next work "Go Away and Never Come Back" and liked his hand gestures, non-verbally, pushing her out of the spotlight and off the stage. I wonder if he did any of these jokes when he was performing for Obama at the White House. I thought he did a nice job interacting with Slash, the band, the live audience and the camera.

While I lose interest in talk shows during guest interviews, they are long form commercials for actors pimping their soon to be releasing movies, in the future I'll give Lopez Tonight a shot beyond the monologue. Definitely worth continued watching.