Thread: NBC and The Tonight Show Spectacle

I was wondering about what members thought of this situation. I watched Conan O'Brien's last show and although I do not like his comedy, I thought he showed a lot of class. HE is a living proof that hard work and accomplishment can go hand in hand, but office politics at NBC prove to be sh$%#tty again. I thought it was shame that he only got 7 months and after working so hard, just to get pulled. Leno is great in my mind also, but he left the spot, and to me should have left gracefully and walked away especially with the money he has. To come back after failing at his new time spot should not have made him able of taking back his old time slot.
I would love to know your thoughts because I have never been a late night watcher, but when I read about Conan and how he worked his way up, I think he got screwed.

33 million and he got screwed ? Poor Conan .....boo hoo hoo

Leno should have done the classy thing and retired. He spent close to eighteen years as the host of The Tonight Show, even though the job clearly should have been awarded to Letterman back in 1992. Dave was Johnny Carson's first choice, and god knows he had paid his dues at NBC for over a decade at Late Nite. That goes double for Conan, who was a total unknown at the get-go, but after seventeen years at 12:35, he built an incredibly loyal fan base. The same can't be said for Leno. Sure, he had decent ratings, but it's my opinion that the people who watched his show were simply accustomed to a certain TV schedule and didn't want it to change. If Leno was such a big draw, he wouldn't have had such a problem with ratings at ten o'clock. His audience would have followed him. Conan's fans, on the other hand, rallied together en masse, picketing at organized events across the continent, and probably elsewhere. They set up facebook groups, and set letters and emails to NBC's decision-makers telling them what a mistake they were making. And it is a mistake.

If they awarded degrees in comedy, O'Brien would have his doctorate. He was a writer and Editor in Chief for the Harvard Lampoon while he attended school there, and he went on to contribute to some of Saturday Night Live's and The Simpson's best seasons as a writer and producer. Then, astonishing everyone in the business, Lorne Michaels put his name in for the vacant Late Nite gig in 1993, because he saw in him a real talent. Conan especially thought it was a long shot, but sure enough, after auditioning, he won them over and got the gig.

Now if Conan had a PhD in comedy, Leno, comparitively, would be a high school dropout. (In fact, I believe he actually is a high school dropout.) When people talk about his show, what do they always mention? Headlines, right? Yeah, great comedy there. Glue a few viewer-submitted articles to some cardboard and read them. Brilliant! And let's not forget Jay-Walking. Asking morons on the sunset strip questions they don't know and then laughing at them? Wow! Hilarious! His monologues are garbage, with most of the laughter coming from Kevin who's behind a microphone, and on top of that, comedians everywhere will tell you the guy is a snake. Sure, he (literally) tries to play up the blue collar, average Joe thing, what with his denim uniform when he's off camera, but the guy is anything but. In fact, I know someone who was on The Tonight Show, and he was disgusted with the way Leno acted when off camera.

NBC made a huge mistake on this, mark my words. This the second time in recent years they've caused a host to leave their network in disgust, and it's going to come back and bite them. Their prime time blows, Leno blows, and with the weak Jimmy Fallon heading up their Late Nite spot, this was a costly gamble to give Leno his slot back, and it's not going to pay dividends.

YouTube - Hitler Learns Leno Is Moving Back To Late Night