Conan Heads West

Conan O'Brien wrapped up his last show in New York last night and now he'll be heading west to California and taking over for Jay Leno at the Tonight Show while Jimmy Fallon will be assuming his seat at Late Night. Personally, I'm not sure this is going to work.

When it was announced years ago that Leno was going to be retiring and O'Brien would be moving into the position it seemed like a lifetime away. But, as the day sped closer, Leno started to rumble that he wasn't totally ready to retire. He continued to get good rating and the people at NBC, who don't have many shows that pull in good ratings anymore, began to question how this was going to work. The couldn't let Leno walk and see him get a show on ABC, because then Conan would be going against Letterman and Leno. But, at the same time, there was no way Conan would allow NBC to back out of the deal they had agreed to and make him stay at 12:30. As a compromise, Leno will get a new show at 10, Conan will follow the news at 11:30, Fallon will go at 12:30 and Carson Daly and his 4 viewers will bring up the rear at 1:30.

I'm not sure O'Brien's humor is going to work as well at the Tonight Show. Leno's core audience loves the boring, bland monologues and non-offensive Jay-walking skits. They like the 20 minutes of safe jokes that no one can get upset about to start the show every night. Conan doesn't do monologues. Instead he's known for the stuff like the brilliant Walker, Texas Ranger Lever (look for the one with Haley Joel Osmand) and the masturbating bear. I just don't know if he'll be allowed to do that stuff an hour earlier or if the audience will accept it. Despite just being one hour later, you get a hell of a different audience at 12:30. And if he's not doing that stuff then he's not being Conan O'Brien.

Also, I think by putting Leno at 10 NBS is setting Conan up for failure. The hope is that Leno's audience will watch him at 10, stay for the news and stick around while Conan's core audience, who like me are now approaching 30 and can't stay up until 1:30 anymore, will watch him in droves. More likely than not, however, the current Tonight Show viewer is going to go to bed after the news. All that is going to do is deflate O'Brien's ratings. Another consequence is that Fallon's rating will also be effected. But, let's be honest, he'll do that all by himself (that decision will fall somewhere between bad and horrible. Fallon isn't funny.).

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. After all, I wasn't sure O'Brien would be as funny without Andy Richter and it turns out his show got better. But, in the meantime, since I couldn't find any footage of the time Conan had the all kids audience and brought in a sick, exotic bird parade, I'll just have to show my second favorite Conan clip of all-time.