Conan The Man
Presented with a plan that moves his show back half an hour, Conan O'Brien is rebelling. In his statement, he correctly notes that The Tonight Show starting after midnight is no longer The Tonight Show. He rejects NBC's demands and won't be part of the destruction of a great tradition. (We've had five Tonight Show hosts. During that time, we've had eleven Presidents.)
Conan's done a poor job in his short stint as host, so for the first time in a while, I'm proud of him. He waited years for his shot, and is being treated so shabbily by his network that he shouldn't meekly accept their plan. Leno's ratings were behind Letterman's for quite a while, but they stuck by him. Give Conan his chance. Or fire him outright. No half measures.
Perhaps that's NBC's intent. Maybe they want Conan to leave, so they can go back the Jay Leno as host of Tonight. Though you have to wonder at this point if he'd go back to his old ratings.
PS I'll give NBC credit. For the last few days this brouhaha has actually made Leno, Letterman and Conan exciting to watch.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:37 AM
2 Comments:
Funny now I am in the habit of watching a talk show at 10 (one of the apparently small number of people who are), I would much prefer to watch Conan at 10 - (yeah I know- he couldn't be as edgy or funny so it wouldn't wok for numerous reasons) that the generally mediocre but available Leno effort (Although Jay's been much better now that he appears annoyed and doesn't give a crap- maybe that's the key- piss off Jay so NBC can have cranky alternative to CBS' cranky Letterman)
People watch late night because it's nice to close your day with (pseudo-)friends on television. Johnny Carson couldn't have pulled it off without Ed McMahon sitting next to him. His jokes would have been funny either way -- but at the end of the day, people want comfort, not pure humor.
Leno decided to omit McMahon and use the band leader as his foil. He knew that route would work, because Letterman had already tested it.
Conan was awesome in the 1990s with Andy Richter as his sidekick. I thought he lost a lot when Andy left. Bringing Andy back in 2009 was the key to making it work. And what did they do? They put Andy in a corner. Having watched Conan regularly during his first week at 11:35, and sporadically after that, I honestly can't tell you where Andy stands. I think it's to Conan's right, but is it also far ahead of him? Or is it next to the stage? Can they actually see each other? I can't tell.
What that means is that the chemistry is utterly lost. All we see is Conan alone on a huge stage, and Andy standing in some booth somewhere else, phoning in his replies. The jokes are funny, but the comfort angle is gone. A Seinfeld rerun is infinitely preferable -- Jerry's apartment is a comfort spot at all times.
Conan's jokes have been very funny this week, with all the NBC stuff, but the comfort level is (not surprisingly) even lower than usual! So I don't think Fox will pick him up. Why pay him millions to repeat his failure? Unless Fox reads this post and hires him and puts Andy back on the couch!
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