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Conan O' Brien & The Tonight Show

If Conan brings out the lever that brings up hilarious cheesy clips from Walker: Texas Ranger again, he wins late night. Hands down.
 
I grew up with Johnny Carson. Each of the "new guys" is funny in their own way I guess, but none has the CLASS that Johnny had.

"The King is dead, long live the King."
 

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Wow, just watching Conan's last Tonight Show :47:
Who would have seen this one coming?

Obviously not even "Carnac The Magnificent" (god bless Johnny Carson, sure miss him as a host) :001_rolle

A 45 million dollar kiss off for just 7 months work

Classy wrap up on his part.

What will be next for him now? :a36:
 
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good question. my hope is that he is opposite leno on another network.

this is totally my opinion, but leno's jokes are lame. you laugh, because you know you're supposed to. i was watching the other night and laughed at a joke. afterwards, i though, "why did i laugh? that was totally stupid!"

my thought, is leno retired. should have stayed retired. pretty crappy to give it to conan, and then give it back to leno 7 months later because now he doesn't want to retire. :mad3:
 
When I was a kid, Leno was my favorite. As I got older, Conan became my favorite. Now, at 26, Letterman is my favorite.

I still like Conan, but his brand of humor does not appeal to a broad audience. He was so effective in his previous time slot because his humor was appealing to younger people who were still awake at that time. He's not going to appeal to a lot of older folks. It really does not surprise me that his ratings were as low as they were and that NBC pulled the plug. I didn't think it was going to work out from the beginning. I didn't expect them to yank him this soon, though.

The whole thing is unpleasant. I always thought Leno was a good guy and have fond memories of laughing at his jokes as a young adult. It's a shame that he's now being depicted as a treacherous sleazeball, whether that's the truth or not. I want to like him even though I don't think he's very funny anymore. He should definitely have handled this differently. And the idea for his 10:00 show was awful from the get go. I'm not at all shocked that that failed.
 
How is everybody liking Conan as the host of the tonight show. I saw it tonight for the first time with Conan as the host and my impression is he will continue to be around for a long time. He is a natural & very entertaining. He has come along way since writing for The Simpson's. Green Day rocked tonight's show and Tom Hanks was entertaining. Conan managed to kid him on some of his weaker script choices <ahem, Turner & Hooch>

I don't know how I missed this gem of a thread! I can't stand Conan and when I heard the announcement that he'd be taking over the Tonight Show I told my wife he wouldn't last 6 months. Well I was wrong he made it into the 7th month. :lol:

Now, all laughs aside, I'm sure we'll see Conan elsewhere.
 
Wow, just watching Conan's last Tonight Show :47:
Who would have seen this one coming?

Obviously not even "Carnac The Magnificent" (god bless Johnny Carson, sure miss him as a host) :001_rolle

A 45 million dollar kiss off for just 7 months work

Classy wrap up on his part.

What will be next for him now? :a36:

I saw it coming. I knew he couldn't hold that slot. He's just too juvenile in his humor to nail down that spot. Man, I wish someone would pay me 45 million and then fire me!
 
I always kind of liked Conan. I never got to see him on the Tonight Show, but you have to remember something. They tried to do the same thing to Leno when he took over. Initially, ratings dropped. I've heard they went to Letterman and offered to boot Leno and so he could take it. Carson visited Letterman and told him not to do it. Obviously, he took Carson's advice.
 
Leno is not to blame for the decisions made by the network executives. It was not Leno who made the choices, he is just going along with them. Show business is all about business, and that's what drives the decisions.
 
I watched Conan's last tonight show as well, I used to watch Johnny carson on the Tonight show when I was in High School....he was the best ever! made the switch to Letterman for many years, and watched Conan on his Late Night show. Never, ever, ever liked Jay Leno.....he's just never been funny to me. Just about all of his decent bits, are stolen from other comedians's schtick. This is why most comedians who are worth their salt secretly feel that Leno is a fortunate hack.

As another B&B member mentioned, when Leno first was given the Tonight Show his ratings suffered, and the network approach Letterman to take over...Johnny Carson advised Letterman not to take the job. Letterman did the classy thing, and stayed with his Late Show. Leno on the other hand, why the hell was he just hanging around, when he supposedly "retired" after his contract ended with the Tonight Show?

This last few weeks Leno has been trying to do damage control big time, wasn't he on Oprah saying that he's not the bad guy? Well if he would of retired like he claimed he was, NBC would never had him as a second option, and they would have allowed Conan more time to allow new viewers to warm up to him.

It's all a matter of personal taste I suppose, the network was basically going to give Jay his old "Tonight Show" time slot back, and force Conan to take his " Tonight Show" to follow Jay. Conan made a stand on the basis that the relevancy of the Tonight Show, was predicated by the fact that it always had followed the 11 O'clock news. The option he was given by the network, was essentially trying to appease Leno, and stealing the Tonight Show time slot from Conan, and allowing him the Tonight Show in name only.

The only semi redeeming thing about Leno is that he's a " car guy" who is very Knowledgeable about vintage cars...but of course he can afford to be. I've heard of a couple lawsuits where Leno was being sued over the amount he paid the relatives of a deceased rare Dusenberg automobile owner for the car. Turns out that Leno knew that it was only one of ten made, and is worth Millions...I'm sure he got it for a song.

And before someone points out that we do the same thing with razors, I'm not purchasing ultra rare razors from little old ladies and paying them a pittance of what they are really worth. Anyway, that's my rant on this subject...I will be following Conan to whatever network he goes to.

Go team Coco! :punk:
 
Leno is not to blame for the decisions made by the network executives. It was not Leno who made the choices, he is just going along with them. Show business is all about business, and that's what drives the decisions.

I agree and anyone who follows this train-wreck should remember that the network made the decision to "retire" Leno in order to keep Conan from defecting several years ago. Later they did not want Leno to leave the network so the earlier program was created.
 
Looks like the network realized the mistake they made.

Kind of makes them look rather foolish too. But then Conan is getting 45 million to leave, boy I'll bet that was hard to take, and he can go with a new network in September. Gee, I hope he doesn't have to go on assistance, since he was let go he'll probably be able to get food stamps. It'll be tough, but if he tightens his belt he should be able to make it through. :001_rolle :001_smile :biggrin1:
 
It is unfortunate how the situaiton unfolded. I don't hold Leno to blame, but Conan really got the shaft. Perhaps Conan wasn't the best fit for the Tonight Show, but he has always been funny to me. I know he will come out ahead, and I will watch his new show on another network.
 
conan should have been given more time. the guy has been with nbc for 20 years or more, between the tonight show, his show and saturday night live. just another show (not as in a tv show, but as in a show of true face) by nbc that it doesn't care about people, but money. maybe that's why their ratings are so poor.

conan may have gotten 45 million to leave, but does that all go to him? he was also negotiating for the tons of people that work on his show. even if it did go to him, that is a pittance in comparison to what he would have made over the lifespan as the tonight show host.

and i agree, leno is not to blame. however, it is still pretty much a schmuck move on his behalf. i hope they show him how much they care about him, too. if anything, his 10 o'clock show has shown how stupid his jokes really are. his bits are a bit played out, also. the only bit i look forward to is headlines, and really anyone can do that bit.

you'll get yours, nbc *shaking fist*
 
Looks like the network realized the mistake they made.

Kind of makes them look rather foolish too. But then Conan is getting 45 million to leave, boy I'll bet that was hard to take, and he can go with a new network in September. Gee, I hope he doesn't have to go on assistance, since he was let go he'll probably be able to get food stamps. It'll be tough, but if he tightens his belt he should be able to make it through. :001_rolle :001_smile :biggrin1:

Money isn't the biggest issue here. Backstabbing, false promises, and conniving are the issues.

conan should have been given more time. the guy has been with nbc for 20 years or more, between the tonight show, his show and saturday night live. just another show (not as in a tv show, but as in a show of true face) by nbc that it doesn't care about people, but money. maybe that's why their ratings are so poor.

conan may have gotten 45 million to leave, but does that all go to him? he was also negotiating for the tons of people that work on his show. even if it did go to him, that is a pittance in comparison to what he would have made over the lifespan as the tonight show host.

and i agree, leno is not to blame. however, it is still pretty much a schmuck move on his behalf. i hope they show him how much they care about him, too. if anything, his 10 o'clock show has shown how stupid his jokes really are. his bits are a bit played out, also. the only bit i look forward to is headlines, and really anyone can do that bit.

you'll get yours, nbc *shaking fist*

I agree 100%.
 
One part that nobody has mentioned is that a primary driving force behind the decisions for The Tonight Show has been the NBC affiliates. They all saw the ratings for their late newscasts fall and wanted a change. Many of them were threatening to run their own alternate programming in Leno's ten o'clock time slot to counter that.
 
One part that nobody has mentioned is that a primary driving force behind the decisions for The Tonight Show has been the NBC affiliates. They all saw the ratings for their late newscasts fall and wanted a change. Many of them were threatening to run their own alternate programming in Leno's ten o'clock time slot to counter that.

I agree with the stated fact about the affiliate stations. The problem is that it was Jay Leno's show, not Conan's, that caused the viewership problems.

Personally, I found Jay's new show to be like a pop song. Full of glitz and glam, but no substance. Variety shows are a thing of the past and people of these days don't like them. I found Leno's writers to be mediocre at best. The show was easily predictable and was basically structured to do the same thing every week. Conan had those too, but with him, things wouldn't show up every week, adding a hint of spontaneity to the bits.

The true villain is NBC. I now refuse to watch NBC news or late night. NBC really only has a few good shows (Community, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Sunday Night Football, and the matinee NHL games). As long as Craig Ferguson is on television when a sports game isn't, I'll tune into that instead.
 
Leno is not to blame for the decisions made by the network executives. It was not Leno who made the choices, he is just going along with them. Show business is all about business, and that's what drives the decisions.

I agree. :thumbup1: Neither of them are to blame. The decision to put Conan in Leno's time slot was stupid in the first place and now they are both paying for NBC's bad decisions.
 
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