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AP Photo/Paul Drinkwater/NBC
They've been planning the hand-off of the Tonight Show for five years, and the moment finally arrived on Monday night. The big question: will Conan O'Brien's college frat boy humor fit into this time slot? Or will he do what Jay Leno did to make sure he attracted and kept the right audience: he stopped being funny. Or at least he stopped being edgy, which I always thought was what made him funny.
So far, it looks like Conan is going to keep doing what worked for him on his late night show.
So, how did he do his first couple of nights? In my opinion, just fine. It hasn't been landmark or exceptional television, but it's been good. It's been Conan.
When Conan took over the Late Night franchise from Letterman in 1993, I didn't give him three months. He was awkward, gangly, uncomfortable and had the weirdest hair on television since Martin Short's Ed Grimly character on SCTV and Saturday Night Live. The hair hasn't changed, but he started his reign as the fifth host of the Tonight Show with confidence and introduced America to his very clever approach to comedy and comedy writing.
Conan spends a lot of time delivering self-deprecating humor, which makes him seem more down-to-earth than other talk show hosts who seem to be a bit full of themselves. Let's see if America likes it.
He entered the stage for his first opening monologue to an annoyingly long ovation. Finally, he was able to settle into his monologue with such gems as:
"I think I've timed this move perfectly. I'm on a last-place network, I moved to a state that's bankrupt and 'The Tonight Show' is sponsored by General Motors."
His first show had a respectable 7.1 rating and a 17 share, which was markedly better than David Letterman had, even though Dave is padding his line-up with A-list celebrities all week. Conan's debut still fell considerably short of Leno's final show last Friday.
Conan looks comfortable, the set is pretty cool and he's going to make the show his own. Now we just sit back and watch. Or, if we're so inclined, we switch back over to Dave once the novelty wears off.
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