Leno Replaces Conan on Tonight Show...

I don't even dislike CO'B that much, I just seldom watch him cuz the stuff Carson and Letterman used to do in dribs and drabs -- shticking about how underwhelming the show was on a given night-- seems to be the BASIS of Conan's persona!

The guy is mostly an interviewer, not a comedian. That's his job. And I don't want to waste any more of my life watching talk shows.

dude nobody watches jimmy fallon

And I don't want to waste any more of my life watching talk shows.

DVR has made talk shows so much more palatable for me.

dude nobody watches jimmy fallon

We'll see! I'm not a fan, but I also think the worst of the American public.

conan does need to ease up on the self-depreciation tip tho - it's funny as asides but that I DRIVE AN OLD CAR sketch was like ooookkay dude - also it's hard to pull it off when nbc took jay leno out with the trash on your account

except they didnt dude they fucked him and kept leno on at 10p

but still

I think the NYTimes piece on Conan proved to me that he overthinks things too much, and some of the bits (like the car thing) seemed like concessions to a segment of the audience that will never warm to him, no matter how much he condescends to them.

When he was on the tram, screaming "NOOOOOOO", the glazed-over, hateful looks of some of the passengers reminded me of Tom Green.

The tram circle was fucking killing me.

it probably would've been a bit annoying to experience irl but i thought it was pretty funny

basically, one cannot root for the Leno 10pm show to fail, cuz then he jumps to another net at 11:35 and prospers there.

leno should just do a 30 min headlines show every night, it would be >> whatever he's really gonna do

I kind of want a Bitch beltbuckle, but that's neither here nor there.

I know Fallon's ratings started off stronger than Conan's had been in a long time, but I don't know whether or not that's still the case. His show has gotten marginally better, and he's settled down a lot.

Conan has a comedic bag of tricks for sure, self-deprecation being chief among them. It's either something you grow to like or you never do. I just appreciate that he has no shame when committing to a bit, because Leno would've never gone shopping in the hood (and neither would Letterman).

The guy is mostly an interviewer, not a comedian.

wrong

That's his job.

to some extent, but it's gonna work a little differently now

i didn't think conan's monologue stuff last night was very funny, but he's got plenty of time to loosen up. his funniest stuff is what happens between the actual jokes, anyway. the "trying on clothes" bit was pretty good, dude ended up looking like a cross between axl rose and mystery.

basically, one cannot root for the Leno 10pm show to fail, cuz then he jumps to another net at 11:35 and prospers there.

I agree! And anyway, there hasn't been a show on at 10pm on a network that I've enjoyed in quite some time, so for all I care he can prosper there as long as he wants.

i was hoping it would come back to him wearing the bitch buckle with his suit.

me too!! i liked when he picked a fan off that pile of junk and carried it around.

fallon's show is still a disaster imo - his monologues or horrible for someone who did weekend update for a few years, his pre interview bits are almost uniformly not funny (or at least not commandingly funny) and his interviews are good sometimes cuz they get him good guests, but he's just disastrous at interviewing - the steve martin interview last night was crazy uncomfortable

i was hoping it would come back to him wearing the bitch buckle with his suit.

― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Wednesday, June 3, 2009 12:23 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

this!!!

also conan's monologue was weirdly bad last night - like a winehouse joke and a kirsty ally joke - i guess hollywood needs a new famous drunk crackhead and a new fat person

monologues are horrible*

Conan not a comedian? WTF?!

http://yourkidsnotgoingpro.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/thesimpsons-margevsthemonorail_1157690485.jpg

Every time I accidentally catch a bit of Fallon's show it seems like ?uestlove thinks he's fucking annoying too.

plz let me know when comedy segments equal 51% or more of The Tonight Show, k thx bye

(I assume it could happen when the ads reach 25 mins per hour, so maybe a year from now)

plz let me know when comedy segments equal 51% or more of The Tonight Show, k thx bye

6/1/09

Every time I accidentally catch a bit of Fallon's show it seems like ?uestlove thinks he's fucking annoying too.

hahahaha YES

perhaps that was bcz it was the debut and hence unrepresentative, gabbfuckface?

How much of NBC's keystone late-night franchise is "comedy segments" is independent of whether Conan is a comedian, Morbius. This is basic stuff here. Dude wrote some of the funniest things ever to appear on both "The Simpsons" and SNL. Good enough for me.

perhaps that was bcz it was the debut and hence unrepresentative, gabbfuckface?

i dunno dude, but i watched it and you didn't, so, you know, stfu. no thanks, btw.

THAT WAS A DIFFERENT JOB

COMEDY WRITER IS NOT COMEDIAN, EITHER

Letterman, Stewart, O'Brien, Colbert, Ferguson...all comedians first, interviewers second. If you want to see an interviewer only, then watch Charlie Rose or Tavis Smiley.

TONIGHT SHOW IS NOT EVENING AT THE FUCKING IMPROV AND NEVER HAS BEEN

Stewart and Colbert spend about 6-8 minutes per show doing interviews. Not same as others. (however, Letterman has slipped from treating all interviews as a joke, which is why he used to rule)

wait, really? xp

really glad y'all are here to suss out the distinction between "comedian" and "interviewer" for me. really gonna impact my late night tv decisions from here on out i think.

Conan & Leno can never be good at those monologue zingers because they aren't constitutionally mean.
Only someone with true darkness in his heart can bring it.

if it's not someone standing on a stage with a mic, it's not comedy, apparently

btw, If you weren't too busy teaching us about the good old days to actually know anything, morbs, you would understand that Conan has always treated interviews as fodder for comedy (including neo-sketch comedy) and it appears that he will continue to do so in the new show. you can impose a comedic agenda over a promotional agenda in a subtler fashion than dave does/did.

Every time I accidentally catch a bit of Fallon's show it seems like ?uestlove thinks he's fucking annoying too.

I suggest you not read ?uestlove's Twitter, which is a series of posts about how he thinks everything on the show is HILARIOUS!!!

Even though I take that at face value, who on Earth would badmouth their highly-visible job on a highly-visible medium like Twitter?

?uestlove does always look annoyed

Thinking back on ?uest's previous tv appearances over the years, I think that's pretty much his all-the-time face.

I wish they would put Andy on the couch :(

ditto: a lot of what's funny about Andy isn't that he says anything amusing, it's that every facial reaction he has, to almost anything in the universe, is lovable and hilarious -- the best possible late-night use of this guy is just to have him sitting behind the celebrity being interviewed and grinning goofily

I saw the second episode last night and was trying to figure out where the heck Andy actually was. Does he really have a little podium-like thing down on the floor?

Yeah, he's at the edge of the audience risers.

Yep, he has a podium on the side, next to the audience. Agreed with Nabisco. Put the guy on the fucking couch. Giving him an occasional 1.5 seconds worth of camera time and forcing him to butt his way into the show to make a side comment is not playing to his strengths.

Yeah, which sort of bothers me, because isn't the whole recent tradition of having a sidekick there sort of built around people on talk shows joking with their stage managers or producers -- i.e., people whose job is supposed to involve standing there all night? Having a person just be there in a sidekick role seems a bit dumb, but I guess lots of people do it now.

Um, Ed McMahon.

just a theory, but maybe andy is there in the stuttering john position to smooth the transition for people used to the leno version.
(isn't max weinberg positionally where kevin eubanks used to be also?)

Kind of ridiculous, but maybe the decision to keep Richter on the side was some sort of concession to the balding Leno demographic? Like they thought the old folks couldn't handle having a second youngish smartass on camera all the time with Conan?

I don't know, that's stupid, but I can't think of why Richter wouldn't be back on the couch, considering that to me that seems like the golden era of Conan back in the 90s, and I most people I've ever discussed the issue with (all 3 of them) have thought the same.