The Leno Situation is Clarified for Me

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

UPDATED at 10:07 PM–i think this quote from the issue of “Variety” that covered the announcement of the planned transition, published back in 2004, pretty much says it all:

Insiders said Leno didn’t want O’Brien to suffer the turmoil he did upon Johnny Carson’s announcement that he was retiring as host of “Tonight,” which set off a fierce war between the Leno and Letterman camps. Letterman, then the host of NBC’s “Late Night,” had assumed he would take over for Carson.

So how’s that whole Conan-not-suffering-turmoil thing going? To say nothing of what Conan’s writers, musicians, etc., are dealing with, since they won’t be getting a multimillion payout from NBC.

So I watched Leno’s show for the first time in a long time last night, and he did an interview with Jimmy Kimmel. And it was the single most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever seen. Kimmel was relentless in jabbing at Leno about his taking back “The Tonight Show” (which is, let’s face it, NBC’s plan at this point, although “plan” might be too generous a word.) And yes, Kimmel was on video screen which provided some distance, but even so, there was a certain ballsiness on Kimmel’s part saying this stuff to Leno’s face. And I thought, Well, that’s the historic job of the comedian, to speak truth to power. The court jester, after all, was ostensibly the only one who could take japes at the king…unless, of course, the king lost patience and beheaded him.

And that’s when I had a clearer vision of why the dynamics of this entire thing are off kilter, and why Leno displacing Conan is a bad idea. Not business wise, not ratings wise, but comedy wise.

The comedian is the court jester.

You can’t be the deposed king returning to power and court jester at the same time. Especially if you’re beheading the previous court jester.

PAD

27 comments on “The Leno Situation is Clarified for Me”

  1. PAD:
    “You can’t be the deposed king returning to power and court jester at the same time. Especially if you’re beheading the previous court jester.”

    Unless you are The Joker (crime boss and clown)

    2. Unless you are The Joker (crime boss and clown)

      Leno certainly has the chin to play the Joker. Most of the extreme caricatures I can immediately recall to mind show him with a long/large chin. 🙂

      Personally, I’m sad to see Conan go. I’ve watched every episode since he started. Leno’s Tonight Show … I’d maybe check it out on Mondays to see whether the Headlines segment was good or not. More often than not, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t even take the time to DVR the show or watch it on Hulu.

      Conan brought the show back to its roots. I remember Carson. If a joke bombed, he was the first one to groan and laugh at himself.

      And Leno could never come up with something as silly as the Puppies Dressed As Cats bit. Or fire a wax Tom Cruise and Fonzie out of a cannon.

  2. I loved the Kimmel interview last night and kept looking for a throbbing vein on Leno’s temple. That’s the forehead kind, by the way, not the “Beth El” kind.

    I usually watch Leno at 10:00 just because I prefer comedy to most of the other 10:00 shows. That being said, anything after the monologue usually finds me with a book. That in itself is not a bad thing, but I find that I’m reading much earlier these days. I used to watch TV until Letterman’s first guest. I prefer Letterman to either of them, but once I’m in a book I rarely put it down to watch Letterman. As far as local news at 11:00 goes, it’s mostly about football so I never watch it anyway.

    1. Gonna be kind of tough if the non-compete clause of his contract makes it impossible to watch him.
      .
      PAD

      1. Conan’s contract also gives him the rights to
        the “Tonight Show” name for the next 4 and half
        years. So I’m sure there will be some deal worked
        out with NBC and Conan. Especially with that $30+
        million buy-out clause he has.

      2. I’m interested in the wording of that non-compete clause. Is it just for hosting a late night talk show? Does Conan have room to perhaps to do something of a smaller scale show online? People could stream it whenever they wanted to do and it might not be considered competition. Remember, Fallon got some early buzz for his show by doing online stuff.

    2. Do we know the contract details? I can not imagine that a comedian would put himself in a position where he could not work for X number of years.

  4. The latest is that NBC is bragging about Conan’s high ratings…yeah, the guy who they are replacing. Wow. Calling them pinheads is an insult to pinheads.

  5. I am amused by the guy on there who lists the South Park definition of “fág” as if it has suddenly become the sole usage of the word.

  6. I don’t know how to quote people on this particular board. I’ll just say you wrote this.

    PAD wrote: “So I watched Leno’s show for the first time in a long time last night,”

    How many NBC execs are looking at the numbers, or reading how many statements just like that one, and are sitting back in their chairs, pressing their fingers together, and muttering “good…gooood…” 😛

    1. Yeah, except (a) I’m not a ratings family, and (b) I won’t be watching it again, but I’ll keep checking out Conan. I’ve been far more impressed with what I’ve seen there beyond the stuff having to do with the embroglio.
      .
      PAD

      1. Well, I meant either way, win for NBC.
        You specifically may not be a Nielsen family, but your opinions do represent the feelings of a group.

      1. Ugh. Ferguson was here last weekend, and I could’ve gone to the signing, but I just didn’t feel like leaving the apartment that morning. 🙁

    1. Conan had a great line last night: “In the press this week, NBC has been calling me every name in the book. In fact, they think I’m such an idiot, they now want me to run the network.”

  10. .
    Wow…
    .
    I just saw the clip on Youtube. You just know Leno wanted out of that interview by question #2. That was just painful to watch even if you think that Conan is the wronged party here.

  11. Just an observation:

    Will Leno’s return to 11:30 PM be called, “The Tonight Show: Classic”?

    (Just a little New Coke/Classic Coke humor).

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  14. I wanted to check and see if anything new has developed, so I just went to MSNBC.com to see if they had any news. I found an article about the SNL sketch on the subject from last Saturday. This line jumped out at me:
    .
    It was a relatively tame parody in comparison to the snipping that has been going on all week across late-night.
    .
    The sketch was less biting than the reality. I think that sums up a lot of what’s wrong with SNL these days.

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