Monday
01Jun2009
Conan Takes Over 'The Tonight Show' Tonight
Monday, June 1, 2009 at 11:26AM
I've always thought that it was the writing that made Late Night with Conan O'Brien rather than Conan himself. When you look at Carson, Letterman, and even Craig Ferguson, those are clearly host-centered operations, but the strength of O'Brien's show was always the other stuff. Conan replaces Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, and even though Conan's not the best host around, it's still a big improvement. I just hope it's less kiss-ass than Leno's show was.
Reader Comments (3)
I'm excited about the change, but there doesn't seem to be too much hype nationally the way there was during the Late Night Wars of the early 90's. As Leno and Letterman duked it out, along came this kid named Conan, poised to fail, and a yet a generation slowly began to realize his show was actually pretty funny in a nerdy sorta way.
Still, now that the kid is all growed up and inheriting some pretty pricey real estate, I have to wonder if the entertainment industry hasn't changed too much to prevent Late Night television from being the water-cooler pulpit it once was.
"I just hope it's less kiss-ass than Leno's show was."
Isn't the purpose of the show about that very thing plus a few laughs? I recall hearing of the pitched battles to nab A-list stars between the Leno and Letterman led shows. The very nature of such back and forth to claim first dibs probably lends more to the kiss ass mentality than not. No one tunes in to shows like Tonight expecting anything above topical banter and comedic sketches. Celebs come on to sell whatever it is they've got coming out, perhaps share some cute little self deprecating personal story, dodge a few queries into who or who they are not seeing, have a few laughs and soak up the adoration of fans.
That many a host will become an extension of the fanbase and gush over a celeb just seems par for the course on these shows. The celeb gets exposure they need, the show gets that all coveted ratings/demographic boost that it needs and fans get to suck it all in. It makes the network suits happy, it makes the studio suits happy, it makes the ad execs happy and makes most fans happy... count that as win/win all the way around.
In the case of both Letterman and Carson, it never has mattered who the guests were. You watch the show for the host. The guests fill time. Johnny Carson didn't dominate late night for all those years because he had Jimmy Stewart and Joan Embry from the San Diego Zoo. He dominated because he had Carnac.
Leno was nothing more than a kiss-ass, calling everyone his "good friend," asking the musical guests to sign CDs, giving the audience high fives. It was embarrassing.
The late night battles on the guest booking were all the doing of Leno's manager and executive producer at the time, Helen Kushnick. She got driven out of The Tonight Show pretty quickly for doing that, and it hasn't happened since. Now, guests are on The Tonight Show and Kimmel just days apart, and some guests will do Letterman and Jon Stewart on back-to-back nights and then host SNL that weekend.