From the moment NBC announced that Jay Leno would take over the 11:35 timeslot again, there’s been an incalculable amount of simultaneous Conan O’Brien support and NBC hate flooding the internet, nearly all of it genuine and justified to a degree that merely re-affirmed how stupid the decision was in the first place.
While I certainly understood and shared these sentiments at their outset, and have likewise spent weeks uttering bewildered expletives at NBC and Jay Leno with renewed enthusiasm, I’ve done my best to view the past three turbulent weeks with some perspective, and after no small amount of effort and possible delusion, I’ve grown to view the entire Conan / NBC fallout as an enormous positive.
For those of you looking to move on from this exhausting disgrace of a situation, are Three Reasons To Stop Being Pissed About The Conan Situation:
1. The “Tonight Show” Brand Is Meaningless
While Conan’s statement about hosting the Tonight Show being “every comedian’s dream” certainly rang with truth, to the lay person, the actual “Tonight Show” brand simply doesn’t mean anything anymore. This isn’t a knock against Jay Leno or NBC for their handling of the brand, it’s merely the inevitable result of late night competition and television’s constant expansion beyond network domination.
Leno and Letterman hosted more or less equivalent shows for sixteen years (in terms of timeslot and notoriety, quality nonwithstanding), and most people referred to the programs as “Letterman” or “Leno” with little knowledge or care of whose show technically descended from the Tonight Show franchise. If Conan chooses to host another show elsewhere, the fact that it won’t be “The Tonight Show” will be a mere technicality to his fans; he already hosted it for a bit, so he’s already secured his spot in Tonight Show trivia history, and with the ever-expanding programming opportunities offered by the television universe, internet, and DVR capabilities, seeking alternatives to a particular network timeslot isn’t the laughable death wish it would’ve been fifteen years ago.
Yes, there’s a certain built-in convenience to an 11:35 network slot, but Conan could have that again if he moves to Fox, and even if he doesn’t, he could attract just as many legitimate fans — if not casual viewers and total ratings points — by taking over a cable spot, escaping the expectations of a once-historic timeslot, and routinely crushing Leno on the internet. NBC may have taken away Conan’s dream job, but they haven’t taken away his ability to reach a mass audience that’ll readily and devoutly follow him wherever he goes.
2. The last two weeks of Conan’s Tonight Show were historical television
One of the rarest, most exhilarating sensations a viewer can experience while watching a tv show is the sense that almost literally anything can happen at any time. I recall experiencing this most recently during the last few episodes in the Sopranos series, but no more than maybe a half-dozen other times in my tv-watching life. (Also, for the record, when I say “anything can happen” I mean “on an established institution where everything doesn’t usually happen” — it’s a markedly different sensation from, say, watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Tim & Eric where you’re well aware that crazy stuff is going to constantly occur.)
The last two weeks of the Conan Tonight Show — with the host unashamedly and cathartically slamming his bosses with a sustained passion we’ve never seen before on network television — were an absolute marvel to watch. You never knew who was going to walk out, or who was going to say which ordinarily-taboo insult when, and it just never got old because NBC deserved it so much. Seeing Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais, Gary Oldman, and just person after person rolling into the Conan set, instantly taking his side, and joining in his transparent criticism of the network was nothing short of a two-week triumph.
We usually swallow our network tv satire in sugar-coated doses, such as SNL’s “Obama walking onstage then saying the one thing he always says!” or Britney Spears doing a Top 10 List that admits she likes to party! But two full weeks of vicious, hilarious, totally on-point NBC bashing, by an NBC employee, on NBC, and with the entire (meaningful) world behind him the whole way? We’re never going to see this again in our network tv lives.
3. I’m more excited to see what Conan does next than I would have been to just see more Conan Tonight Show episodes
Lost in the tremendous and wholly deserving deluge of support for Conan over the past three weeks is the fact that Conan’s Tonight Show — while definitely hilarious and never feeling deliberately “compromised” from the old Late Night episodes — simply wasn’t operating on the level of transcendent, constantly-memorable comedy as Conan’s Late Night peak years.
As a personal example, I planned to compile a list of the 10 Best Conan Tonight Show moments to post on the eve of his final show, but I honestly couldn’t think of 10 truly “great” ones off the top of my head, or at least 10 that would crack the top 100 of Conan’s all-time bits. (Well, maybe the Heidi and Spencer interview).
When NBC announced it was putting Leno back at 11:30, the online outpouring of support for Conan was overwhelming and deeply genuine, but it was also the first time I’ve heard a bunch of people talking about the Conan Tonight Show since the week it premiered. Conan’s Tonight Show interviews were still as sharp as ever — the two-segment interviews created a more conversational and less rushed environment, and made everything feel more important — and his monologues were longer and more fulfilling than the old Late Night ones, which were usually just 3-5 almost anti-jokes (with one inevitably about the weight of Pavarotti, Anna Nicole Smith, Ruben Studdard, or Kirstie Alley, depending on the era) that were funny in a self-aware monologue-parody kind of way, but which essentially functioned as a short introduction before moving into the sketches.
That said, nothing about the Conan Tonight Show era before the final two weeks strikes me as particularly memorable, and I’m not sure why; I remember the bits with the stunt coordinator, and Conan working as a Foley artist, and the ongoing Twilight sidekick, and tons of other segments that made me laugh, but do any of those honestly stack up against Masturbating Bear, the Triumph shoots, Inappropriate, or literally hundreds of classic Late Night moments? Even if we disregard the nostalgia and unprecedented feel of those Late Night bits, clearly, something indiscernible was missing from the Conan Tonight Show.
None of this is to say that Conan’s Tonight Show was bad, just that nothing about it feels irreplaceable. I have absolutely no doubt that Conan could move to another channel this fall and immediately put together a show that’s as good or better than the ’09-10 Tonight Show, particularly if these recent transpirings continue to motivate him and his staff, and if the new network properly promotes the show as Conan doing whatever the hell he wants.
To say that Conan got jerked around by NBC is an understatement, and I certainly share the sentiments of the countless masses of Facebook-photo-changing Conan supporters who feel bad that someone so talented and likable had his dream job ripped away just months after finally earning it. But does anyone honestly believe that this is the last we’ve seen of Conan O’Brien, or that losing the Tonight Show won’t motivate him to come back stronger than ever before, proving himself in a way he hasn’t had to since the nineties?
In short, I’m excited about the Tonight Show fiasco and what it means for Conan’s future. It’s a historic milestone of network tv buffoonery, and just to have lived through it almost feels like a perverse honor.
And if nothing else, at least it’s gotten everyone to hate Leno even more.
