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post #61 of 212
6/5/09 at 6:02pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

"The Tonight Show with Co Co Christopher!" That would have made for a great April Fool's joke two months ago!

Also, on the subject of old farts, remember that they'll most likely follow Leno to the 10 PM time slot. Conan's younger generation has already followed him to the new show. Everyone is aging at the same speed, and each generation can't stay up as late as they could some ten years ago. So the late night time shift will most likely be suitable for everyone.
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post #62 of 212
6/5/09 at 6:18pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Francois Caron
Everyone is aging at the same speed, and each generation can't stay up as late as they could some ten years ago. So the late night time shift will most likely be suitable for everyone.


Is there some reason I keep reading this? I know of no evidence that indicates that the older you get, the earlier you go to sleep, or even that someone in their 40/50/60's needs more sleep than someone in their 20/30's.
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post #63 of 212
6/5/09 at 7:32pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

We don't need more sleep, we just get up at o-dark thirty in the morning.
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post #64 of 212
6/5/09 at 8:10pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

So, in another 17 years, Jay Leno gets the 9 p.m. slot, Conan gets the 10 p.m. slot, and Jimmy Fallon gets the 11:30 spot, and then Carson gets the 12:30 a.m. spot.
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post #65 of 212
6/6/09 at 8:16am

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricW
He showed it last night! They even animated it and added the music!

The part with all the kids conceived during Late Night was hilarious! Red hair as far as the eye can see!

Now that he's survived the first week and has demonstrated that he's still at the top of his game, it's time to create some new skits and get the band more involved in the daily banter. Pender hasn't screamed his head to a beet-red color yet.
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post #66 of 212
6/6/09 at 8:21am

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

one thing that bugs me so far is the high pitched screeching horn during
the opening while Conan is coming out from the curtain.
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post #67 of 212
6/6/09 at 8:55am

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Andy and Max may be splitting Conan's time, but they've both participated more in one week than John Melendez has in months.
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post #68 of 212
6/6/09 at 9:50am
Thread Starter 

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

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post #69 of 212
6/6/09 at 10:02am

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyD
one thing that bugs me so far is the high pitched screeching horn during the opening while Conan is coming out from the curtain.
That's always been there. Nothing new.
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post #70 of 212
6/6/09 at 10:06am

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

It seems to be louder to me now though.
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post #71 of 212
6/6/09 at 3:34pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
I have noticed that he is getting more and more "Hammy" in the monologue. Just like he was in the old show. I hope this doesn't scare away the old fogies.

Who gives a rip about the old fogies...and Conan doesn't need to stoop/pander/change to satisfy them ! although, the reality is...he has to make some concessions to an earlier/different crowd, its all a matter of how much.

I agree with you Scott, I am loving the new show, and I always loved the old show...which begs the question...when are we going to see Triumph !?!?!

The set/band kicks ass over that lame yuk-yuk Kevin and his group. I liked Jay, been to the show a few times, laughed my butt off (once with Jim Carrey), but I always like Conan's irreverence...you just can't go wrong with someone who wrote for the Simpsons !
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post #72 of 212
6/7/09 at 12:07pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex-C
Who gives a rip about the old fogies...and Conan doesn't need to stoop/pander/change to satisfy them ! although, the reality is...he has to make some concessions to an earlier/different crowd, its all a matter of how much.

i am definitley no old fogie. slapstick and ham-fisted humor is not my cup of tea. i am surprised that so many people here like him. i put him in the same category as will ferrell only slightly funnier. but still not funny.

interesting read:

Jeff Simon: O’Brien might be funny, but it just doesn’t matter : Entertainment : The Buffalo News

Quote:
Jeff Simon: O’Brien might be funny, but it just doesn’t matter

I’ll say this for Conan O’Brien: he’s not NBC’S very own late-night Edsel as host of “The Tonight Show.” He’s not the network’s New Coke either. He’s a little better than those two legendary marketing catastrophes that once marked the abyss of American executive decision- making.

That, though, was before we even reached the era when General Motors has to slink sheepishly into bankruptcy court.

O’Brien has been funny, more or less, as the new “Tonight Show” host. His accession to the job may have once marked the worst network executive decision I’ve come across in four decades of writing about television, but at least he didn’t blow it. (The network should have let the boy go to another network if he wanted and perish on his own as a kind of medieval object lesson in outsmarting yourself.)

He’s likable too in his energetically plastic and mediocre way. America now has its very own Harvard sillyboy at 11:30 p. m.—smart (so much so that he knows how to hide how smart he is and how entitled he feels), soulless, funny, and utterly empty except for the Brahmin social graces that are learned with privilege. (Silly self-deprecation, after all, is merely a kind of 21st century good manners.)

He may even settle into dominant ratings roughly comparable to Leno’s at 11:30 p. m. In other words, he may “beat” David Letterman in the numbers game.

And it won’t mean diddly. Because he won’t matter— not in the way Letterman still does, or in the way Johnny Carson once did and the way Jay Leno is about to in the fall.

Once NBC did a wild and crazy make-good on its original idiocy of pressing the Force Quit button on Leno and invented a bold 10 p. m. nightly time slot for Leno, the job of “Tonight Show” host turned into a functional irrelevance. And if ever there was a job O’Brien was just made for, it’s being an entertaining and funny irrelevance.

What we know for sure after almost six decades of late-night television is that over the long haul, something human has to register.

You don’t have to cry like Jack Paar, God knows. But any Johnny Carson watcher knew damn well how painful and humiliating those divorces were behind the funny jokes. Beyond that, Carson’s greatest strength was a kind of Midwestern reserve—a constant reminder to us all that being America’s premier clown and late-night comic arbiter were what he did, not what he was. And we’d never really know anything at all about that. (Years after his death, we still don’t. It’s a mark of America’s continued reverence for him that those who might know aren’t talking.)

Letterman is the closest thing to Carson on late night now. And he took Carson’s Midwestern reserve to a whole other level—a kind of deep and visible alienation from what he does on every show. You can see self-disappointment in Letterman’s face every single night. It’s his special brilliance that no matter how much watercooler stuff bursts from outrageous guests (Madonna, Farrah Fawcett, Joaquin Phoenix), the most dramatic things going on at CBS at 11:30 p. m. are Letterman’s bitter arguments with himself.

Let the Harvard goofball radiate chirpy self-satisfaction all he wants. It’s not in the Ball State grad’s makeup. And even when circumstances—9/11, open-heart surgery—turned his plight into the most dramatic we’re ever likely to see from a late-night host, you still can’t be sure that he’s convinced that what he does matters as much as it does. (And always will.)

Almost everything about Leno has been cloddish and ungainly from the beginning. (Did anyone ever find the dancing Itos funny?) But the human thing Leno has increasingly shown us over 17 years is an extraordinary working class dignity.

No one at TMZ ever caught Leno going to dinner parties at Tom Hanks’ house with Paul McCartney and Jennifer Aniston as TMZ caught O’Brien on Monday.

Leno spent all his free time doing his act all over America. And when he encountered important causes—like the paralysis of Buffalo police officer Patricia Parete encountered in a shooting in the line of duty—he donated a motorcycle to be sold for the cause.

I found his final gesture on “The Tonight Show” extraordinarily moving. This childless man who seems to have given standup comedy around America the energy so many of us put into parenthood, introduced at the end of his last show all the children who had been born from couples who met on “The Tonight Show” under his stewardship. His “legacy” he called it.

So help me, it was, when you thought about it, almost as moving as Letterman’s tears on his first night back after life-saving surgery.

Leno may be an oaf but he’s a mensch, too. He’s become, then, our oaf. I think America will take to what he does at 10 p. m.—not in a way that’s going to knock off the likes of “CSI: Miami,” but enough to make celebrities think of his network brother O’Brien as a second choice.

When the dust settles, O’Brien may wind up with all the important numbers and even less respect and cultural cachet than Ryan Seacrest.
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post #73 of 212
6/7/09 at 1:05pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

^ the only thing that doesn't matter is this reporter's opinion....

The Late Shows are just a vehicle to unwind at the end of the day and forget about your daily troubles before crashing for the night.. different hosts appeal to different tastes, that's all, no need to over analize to death all the details, especially with whom and where the host had dinner last night..who cares.
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post #74 of 212
6/7/09 at 1:22pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Mr. Simon's classism is kind of pathetic. I have my own biases about the wealthy, but that's taking it to a whole other level.

He must have popped a vein when Conan spoofed Leno's final gesture.
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post #75 of 212
6/7/09 at 2:52pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diallo B
i am definitley no old fogie. slapstick and ham-fisted humor is not my cup of tea. i am surprised that so many people here like him. i put him in the same category as will ferrell only slightly funnier. but still not funny.


Different strokes. I think Conan is probably the funniest person on television today. Why you're surprised so many people like him is beyond me, but whatever floats your boat.

Oh, and that reporter sounds like a total d-bag.
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post #76 of 212
6/7/09 at 3:10pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

All I can say is that -- well I can't think of anything to say about that load of garbage. How many times did he mention Harvard in that article with the insinuation that it was something to be avoided -- wouldn't any parent in the US be thrilled if their child was able to attend such a University? Just wow.

It's not like Conan is pulling a Wm F Buckley and intimidating his guests or even his audience. As far as I'm aware I've never heard him mention that fact in well over a decade. As far as having dinner at Hanks' house so what, it's not like Hanks is known for throwing Cocaine and Hooker parties. e Carson was well known for hitting the Hollywood Party Circuit with some less than pleasant results during his days and it was well reported in the Gossip Rags and Tabloids back in those days.

I'm not a big Leno fan though I respect him for his Off Hours work tremendously, but I;ve not watched the Tonight Show more than occasionally since he began hosting since I never liked his style humor or his interview skills at all. Carson mentored Letterman who essentially mentored Conan. I'm far from Conan's standard audience, but I find him far more entertaining than Leno and I enjoy he guest interaction so NBC at least has a chance to regain at least one viewer.
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post #77 of 212
6/7/09 at 4:11pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

while i agree that that particular reporter's slant against harvard-esque circles is ridiculous i find the heart of his argument to hold some merit.

Quote:
He may even settle into dominant ratings roughly comparable to Leno’s at 11:30 p. m. In other words, he may “beat” David Letterman in the numbers game.

And it won’t mean diddly. Because he won’t matter— not in the way Letterman still does, or in the way Johnny Carson once did and the way Jay Leno is about to in the fall.

Once NBC did a wild and crazy make-good on its original idiocy of pressing the Force Quit button on Leno and invented a bold 10 p. m. nightly time slot for Leno, the job of “Tonight Show” host turned into a functional irrelevance. And if ever there was a job O’Brien was just made for, it’s being an entertaining and funny irrelevance.

if leno was past his expiration date why did nbc do all it could to keep him on nbc.

the tonight show is toast regardless who the host is starting in the fall when leno premieres. and the fact that o'brien appeals to a limited demo will make it only worse for him.

the best thing about o'brien's version of the tonight show is the opening title sequence. i really like it. but is also shows o'brien's biggest weakness. he doesn't have as broad a base as leno does. if you watch both opening sequences back to back you will understand what i mean. jay is about the people and it shows in his opener. while o'brien's opener is nice, slick and art deco (and i love art deco) it is at the same time alienating. what does it mean? what does it demonstrate/show? i dunno. it is pretty and slick. but empty.

when i found out that o'brien was taking over and jay would stay on nbc i felt bad for him. if nbc wanted to move on it should have done just that. they castrated o'brien before he could even get started.
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post #78 of 212
6/7/09 at 5:37pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

I'm just not sure that Conan's demographic is more limited than Leno's -- different, but certainly not necessarily more limited. If people are tuning in to a talk show after their local news then Leno's pre-show should have minimal affect at all. A lot of folks who watch 11:30 TV are still going to watch 11:30 TV and aren't staying up to specifically watch Leno.

A few people will defect to Letterman, much less to Kimmel, many of the Tonight Show regulars are going to stay just out of habit. I'm guessing a number of Letterman/Kimmel folks will join Conan. The Nightline people will likely stay with Nightline. Maybe a few folks will even turn on the set earlier to catch Conan who used to play Video Games or surf the Computer until the 12:30 show.

Leno was supposed to be the death of the Tonight Show after they dissed Letterman. His ratings dropped substantially for awhile, but recovered and have held steady for several years relatively to his competition. I suspect Conan will do the same thing, but if he brings lower overall ratings but with a much younger demographic in the Advertisers Happy Zone, then NBC will be happy. How many added 20-40yo;s vs. lost 50+yo will make NBC and it's advertisers happy?
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post #79 of 212
6/7/09 at 5:57pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Norman
......but if he brings lower overall ratings but with a much younger demographic in the Advertisers Happy Zone, then NBC will be happy. How many added 20-40yo;s vs. lost 50+yo will make NBC and it's advertisers happy?

and, imo this is where time will tell. the problem once again is what will happen this fall.

i don't understand why so many people think that leno's demo is old people. most of the old people i know watch letterman......
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post #80 of 212
6/7/09 at 6:47pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diallo B
if leno was past his expiration date why did nbc do all it could to keep him on nbc.
The deal made back in 2004 was about Conan than Leno. NBC didn't really want to lose either of them. They didn't think about Leno not wanting to give up his job. They didn't want Conan to get impatient about getting the Tonight Show spot and jumping to another network so he could be on at 11:30, so they struck a deal with both parties so Conan was guaranteed the Tonight Show spot. But, they didn't think Leno's part through until they realized last year or this year that he didn't want to really give up his job, and they didn't want him to be competing with Conan on another network.

Make sense?
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post #81 of 212
6/7/09 at 6:48pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

I'm with the majority and I'll say it straight - that article was just plain shit.

Conan will be hosting The Tonight Show for a looooong time. He's only, what, 46-47? He's got 20 years, easy, maybe even 30.
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post #82 of 212
6/7/09 at 7:30pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Conway
Conan will be hosting The Tonight Show for a looooong time. He's only, what, 46-47? He's got 20 years, easy, maybe even 30.

Possibly, but remember Leno was only 42yo when he took over the job while Carson was only 37yo. Carson certainly had a rather liberal vacation schedule and only worked 3-4 night a week even when he was taping for much of his last dozen years.

Conan is 46yo and already has nearly 17years full time hosting late night shows.

Letterman was 35yo when he began his Late Night on NBC in 1982, so Letterman is only a couple years short of Carson's 30 year total tenure.

What is the endurance for a show like this? How many years can you do essentially the same job before breaking literally or figuratively.
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post #83 of 212
6/7/09 at 7:57pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Norman
What is the endurance for a show like this? How many years can you do essentially the same job before breaking literally or figuratively.
Leno is known to be a workaholic. If the 10pm show turns out to be a success, I don't see him leaving for at least another 15-20 years, unless health issues arise.
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post #84 of 212
6/7/09 at 8:05pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diallo B
and, imo this is where time will tell. the problem once again is what will happen this fall.

i don't understand why so many people think that leno's demo is old people. most of the old people i know watch letterman......


Interesting question. I'd always assumed The Tonight Show had an overall older demographic since all the TV Articles over the last several years were written that way. That's usually the kind of statement I bristle at and routinely question, but honestly never dug the numbers out to confirm it.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/05/21...the-week/19256

This site has a lot of articles in the archives with what I assume are accurate Nielson numbers.

2009 To Date:

Average Total Viewers: Leno leads +30%
Leno 5.1M
Letterman 3.9M


18-49 Demographic (%Total Viewers) -- not a huge difference Leno at +27%
Leno 1.87M (36.7%)
Letterman 1.47M (37.7%)

I don't have YTD numbers, but randomly checking some of the older articles I took several of the weekly 18-34yo Adult Numbers, the numbers are roughly the same (though the article seems to indicate a bigger difference) with Leno right about +30%
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post #85 of 212
6/7/09 at 8:07pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by ThomasC
The deal made back in 2004 was about Conan than Leno. NBC didn't really want to lose either of them. They didn't think about Leno not wanting to give up his job. They didn't want Conan to get impatient about getting the Tonight Show spot and jumping to another network so he could be on at 11:30, so they struck a deal with both parties so Conan was guaranteed the Tonight Show spot. But, they didn't think Leno's part through until they realized last year or this year that he didn't want to really give up his job, and they didn't want him to be competing with Conan on another network.

Make sense?

makes sense. but dumb move on nbc's part.
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post #86 of 212
6/7/09 at 8:11pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diallo B
makes sense. but dumb move on nbc's part.
What were they supposed to do? Let Conan go to another network and compete with Leno? I think Leno at 10pm and Conan with the Tonight Show works out fine. We'll see if it works out.
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post #87 of 212
6/7/09 at 8:15pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by ThomasC
What were they supposed to do? Let Conan go to another network and compete with Leno? I think Leno at 10pm and Conan with the Tonight Show works out fine. We'll see if it works out.

i don't like leno at 10 either. lesser of two evils since nbc can't seem to make the proper choices when it comes to choosing original programming. i know nbc was hurting for original content but i am sure that leno at 10 won't be a mainstay.

sometimes you have to make a choice. you cant always have your cake and eat it too.
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post #88 of 212
6/7/09 at 8:39pm

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

i hope conan really believes this....

What Makes Conan O'Brien Laugh?

Quote:
Some people don't think Conan O'Brien is funny. Those of us who do tend to think these people are just missing something — that they don't understand his jokes or appreciate the absurd, or that they just hate laughter itself. But O'Brien, who takes over The Tonight Show Monday, doesn't want to be divisive. He talked to TVGuide.com about what makes him laugh, what he tells his writers about comedy and how his new audience is different from any other for which he's performed.

TVGuide.com: What makes you laugh until you cry? Do you think that's the kind of thing that will play to the average person?
Conan O'Brien: I'm almost a zealot about not being a comedy snob. For example, one of the things when I was a kid that made me laugh the hardest was a Three Stooges episode where they go camping and a bear ends up stealing the Three Stooges' car, and it's a 1930s convertible. And the bear drives down this road, and it gets to the end of the road, and just as it's going out of view, it puts out its paw to signal for a turn.

And it was one of the funniest things I ever saw, and I always cite that to my writers, that funny is just funny. I appreciate a really great Steve Martin prose piece in The New Yorker, but I also loved it when he put an arrow on his head. There are so many different ways to be funny. What I've learned over and over again is that stuff that really makes me laugh hard works on other people. Funny is just funny, and that needs to be the focus.

I think the biggest danger to me taking over The Tonight Show, the worst mistake I could make would be to overthink it. I think it just has to be a funny show. And I have to worry about making June 1 funny, and then I have I have worry about making June 2 funny and June 3 funny. And if I do that, the audience will find it and we'll be okay.

TVGuide.com: So you never think you'll have to cut anything on the grounds that it's just too weird?
O'Brien: But that's different. There are things that we would do on the Late Night show that I'd cut left and right. There are some things I wanted to cut, but we didn't have anything to replace it with. There were nights that we did arbitrary humor — there's an arbitrary humor that's good and then there's an arbitrary humor that isn't good and I would give my writers a hard time, because I would say, I don't get this. And they'd say, well, the joke kind of is that there is no joke. And I would say, yeah, but we're getting paid. [Laughs] Maybe you don't get a paycheck if there's no joke.

Yes, there would be times that it would be 1:25 in the morning and we would have a cactus playing the flute for no reason, and we were doing things just to see: What the hell? Do I think we can do that at 11:35? No, I don't think we can do that at 11:35. Maybe we can do it at 11:55.

I keep reminding my writers: For the first time in my career I'm performing for people that are fully awake.
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post #89 of 212
6/8/09 at 5:17am

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

So definitely no more S&M Lincoln, eh?

I'm not sure how Leno's 10 PM time slot will go. Talk shows are normally played after the late evening news. Now NBC is asking its talk show audience to tune in earlier in the night closer to the time you'd normally watch a seventies weekly variety show.

I'm currently working at launching my own TV channel here in Canada, and I've included a talk show format which if it works out will air at 10:30 PM, allowing me to potentially grab viewers that finished watching the 10:00 PM CBC newscast, and before they start watching the 11:00 PM CTV newscast / Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the 11:35 PM talk shows.

My personal talk show preferences however depend on what I can find online the next day. I don't have cable.

Yeah. I know. I'm launching my own cable channel, and I don't have cable. Try to figure that one out!
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post #90 of 212
6/8/09 at 10:45am

Re: The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien

Quote:
Originally Posted by Francois Caron
So definitely no more S&M Lincoln, eh?


Loved S&M Lincoln.....and gorilla on an old-fashioned exercise machine listening to Juice Newton.
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