Have the comedy gods been crying this week, shedding El Niño tears for the departure of Conan O’Brien from “The Tonight Show”? Or have they, as Quentin Tarantino suggested on Tuesday night, been “dancing an Irish jig”?
Rumors have been swirling that today is likely O’Brien’s last day as the host of “The Tonight Show,” ending seven months of hilarity and poor ratings. In short, to navigate through a confusing and constantly changing web of news, NBC has changed its late-night programming so that O’Brien will be replaced by his former predecessor Jay Leno, whose 10 p.m. “comedy” show was cancelled due to even worse ratings. And mediocrity commences.
Comic misfortunes aside, keep cool my babies. All hope is not lost, and I would agree with Tarantino to an extent. O’Brien is funnier than ever, and this opportunity for him to be free from NBC’s chains of blandness might turn out to be for the best.
Despite the distress this has caused O’Brien’s fans, the drama of the late-night lineup has been the most enthralling thing NBC has put forth since Sinéad O’Connor tore up that picture of the pope on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992, and they didn’t even do that on purpose.
The news has generated an incredible amount of attention too. Every facet of the press, from major newspapers to entertainment blogs, has covered this story, analyzing everything from the legal issues to who’s on Team Coco or Team Leno to NBC’s downward spiral into a toilet of boring.
I’m not going to list all the reasons why I loathe Leno’s comedic style (or lack thereof) because there is not enough space to do so, and I’m not going to write about the legal issues or how the ways in which we watch TV are different now. (Thanks, DVR. No really, thank you.) And I don’t know anything about Nielsen ratings or NBC brain trust politics, except that its headquarters are located in the seventh circle of Hell. When O’Brien took the position as host of “The Tonight Show,” the show’s producers wanted him to alter his distinctly wacky comedic style, which really meant, “Be less hilarious because Middle America and old people won’t understand you.”
While hosting “The Tonight Show” has long been the highest achievement for aspiring comedians and hosts, it limited O’Brien, who struggled with the order to be less hilarious. Still, I think he’s been a great talk-show host despite the unfortunate numbers that would superficially reveal otherwise. I’d love to see O’Brien stay on TV in a position where he can continue to skillfully interview and purr at his guests, make hilariously awful impressions of public figures, and wear rhinestone-studded, “bitch”-emblazoned belts in Compton.
I certainly won’t be watching “The Tonight Show” after O’Brien leaves. I know Leno wouldn’t have a dance-off with Shaq, race Teri Hatcher very nearly to the death, (O’Brien suffered a concussion after the aforementioned race,) let alone have a lively conversation with, um, anyone. I won’t watch NBC at all, in fact. If I see one more half-baked celebrity cameo on “30 Rock,” I’ll no longer “want to go to there” anyway.
As a Coco super fan, it’s hard to be pragmatic about this situation. I know that it’s all about the Nielsen’s, which, in turn, are all about the Benjamins. My super smart roommate, who knows a lot about the biz, has made good arguments about the realities of money and ratings within said biz. And as much as I can’t stand Leno, it’s only marginally his fault, and he’s a convenient and large-chinned scapegoat. But I still can’t help myself from feeling upset. O’Brien was successful because he worked hard and stayed true to himself, and as the sickly paradoxical wheel of the entertainment industry has turned, he’s now out of a job that many people truly loved watching him perform.
It’s been encouraging to see the support that O’Brien has received over the past week. A crowd of hundreds rallied in front of Universal Studios on Monday in the pouring rain and were greeted by Coco himself.
While these rallies and a 450,000-plus-person Facebook group won’t reverse the NBC executives’ decision, they prove that O’Brien has a following large enough that he’s far from gone.
Despite the stress, this has been exciting. O’Brien is too good and too interesting and too hilarious for the current pansy blandness of NBC, and I have no doubt that the Cone Zone will resurge soon, with the comic vengeance of a thousand El Niños.
Tuned In will run every other Thursday.
If you want free tickets to a taping of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”next month, e-mail McReynolds at dmcreynolds@media.ucla.edu.