The TV Zone

Ooooh, boy. Where to begin? All these years - that went by far too quickly - and tonight it all comes to an end.

"Late Night with Conan O'Brien."

Conan, of course, continues. "Late Night" continues. But the specific show that he improbably hosted for sixteen seasons and which made him into one of the great late night talk show hosts ends in about twelve hours.

There's been a ton of press on this ending, but in a strange way, it's been an amazingly muted departure. We all remember the Letterman exit tour, accompanied by a giddy press spasm of gossip, speculation, rumor-mongering and (on occasion) actual reporting. Covering Leno/Letterman was like covering a war - a Marx Brothers war, to be sure, but a war nonetheless. Imagine! Front page stories, week after week, on "will David go," or "will Jay stay?" Yes, it did happen, and yes, it was a terribly silly and innocent time (wasn't it? )

In contrast, Conan leaves and hardly anyone pays any attention at all, relatively speaking. Why is this so? There are many reasons. NBC, a mess in so many other ways, long ago learned how to handle late night transitions. This one almost blew up in its face, but by virtue of the fact that this also played out over so many years, the network actually had the time to adjust. By contract, Letterman/Leno played out over months, even weeks, complicated further by the fact that no one running the company had a clue what CARSON intended to do, until the moment he stood on the Carnegie Hall stage and told a thousand advertisers that he was going. (Bill Carter's fine book on all of this, "The Late Shift," even became an HBO MOVIE; there will be no movie this time.)

And in a way, the trend-setting part of pop culture - that mega-sharp tip of the spear that restlessly, relentlessly seeks out that which is HOT - long ago moved past Conan. Who knows why this happens, but it's to Conan's enormous benefit. One does not aspire to "hotness" when one assumes the role of "Tonight Show" host. This role is the anti-thesis of hotness; it is a slightly chilled role. The "Tonight" host is a bread-basket persona. The ideal host is someone who appeals to a middle-aged white person in Lincoln, Nebraska, who works hard all day, and wants to go to bed forgetting about everything that happened over the previous twelve hours. The perfect "Tonight" host - Allen, Leno, and of course Carson - allow them to do this. (Paar was probably too hot.)

Finally, there's Conan. He's a fundamentally decent guy - smart, talented, funny, and all that. But fundamentally decent. Yeah, sure, Jay and Dave are as well, but they are also insane. Conan is not: A balanced person who wanted something badly (this show) and didn't blow it because his head swelled or he started to believe his press clips or he became a raving, ranting a-hole.

Honestly, it's very very easy to become Larry Sanders. The great ones - from Carson to Conan - do not.

Enough. I've said my piece. Now, quickly, let's pull just four little clips from the years past. They're not necessarily representative of this remarkable run but they are funny.

The last one: I've posted the first nine minutes of very first show. (Pay close attention, and you'll see that Conan gets his revenge on John Tesh in the "satellite survey" clip...) In these first few minutes you instantly realized, this will be a long and splendid run. It was.

The Shatner Funk. Do not adjust your computer.

Wise-arse Finnish Kids

Satellite Channel Survey

September, 13, 1993...

(Pix: NBC)