Conan, don't do The Tonight Show. No, I'm not a technology-deprived hillbilly (cuz hello... blog!) who doesn't know that you were dismissed from the show, what I'm saying is that I sincerely hope that you don't leave and pull a Letterman. Or a Kimmel. Or any of the other Tonight Show-clones out there. Why?
You were, for a time, the host of The Tonight Show. Yay. What does that mean? It means that, at best, in the running to become the second best host that show ever had. Now, Jay will probably have that distinction, and good for him, but you have the chance to do something more.
Carson hosted a late night talk show... THE late night talk show. And he did so at a time when the late night talk show was important. Are they still important? All of these shows follow the "monologue/skit/guest/guest/musical guest" outline (or some may throw an extra skit in there) and that's fine, but in Carson's time there was no CNN or internet... so the monologue was important because it was the only way that a lot of people heard about some of the topics that were discussed. In today's society not only has everyone heard about all of the news that's discussed in a late-night monologue, but most have even read a few jokes about it on Twitter or a blog (for instance, I wonder how many feminine hygiene jokes will be made about Apple's new iPad on late night monologues contain this week... whereas I'm already worn out on them because of various tweets that floated around Minutes after the announcement was made.)
In Carson's time, a lot of people learned about actor's upcoming projects through late night talk shows. Now, there's YouTube, IMDB and Aintitcool.com. ow many people know that Iron Man 2 has already been shot and are looking forward to seeing it this summer? How many people are honestly going to watch The Tonight Show the night before and decide "hmm, that looks like fun, I think I'll see that."
Conan, my man, you are being given the opportunity (whether at Fox or wherever) to do something Different. Something relevant. Honestly you're almost there as it is... I mean the people on your show though up such timeless ideas as Triumph, the horny manatee and Robot Pimp. Those are wonderfully Original ideas. So, you can take this time off and come back and do yet Another outdated late night program, or... you can take these 8 months that you were given, sit down with your writers and invent something New and original. You can change late night television. You have the opportunity to break away from all of the clones and create your own thing.
Personally, I hope that you do. Because That... I'll watch. Well no, realistically I have to wake up pretty early, so that... I'll TiVo.
Except I have a DVR and not actually a TiVo, so...
2 comments:
Great post! Everyone has been so focused on *where* Conan will go that there has been little discussion about what a new show would look like. I think you're right that to be successful he'll have to break out of the standard late night mold.
Conan has a chance to do for late night tv what Monty Python did for sketch comedy.
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