He went through some major heart surgery back in February that he didn’t disclose publically until a month or so ago. He said that he left the Conan gig because though he felt better than ever, health wise, the “life-changing experience emotionally and spiritually” as well as his desire to be home with his family in New Jersey, and to explore new musical directions led him to leave the show.
Cite.
I am not a Conan fan, too manic for my taste, but I watched most of the show anyhow. Got some good laughs. Andy is a great sidekick. Would certainly watch again over Letterman.
I know. I was one of the three people in the country who watched them.
Overall I was pretty underwhelmed. I laughed twice: “comma Brett Favre’s Penis” and something Andy said that I can’t remember right now.
It wasn’t bad by any stretch, but it wasn’t too terribly good either. I love the way he looks. I thought he looked good clean shaven, and HORRIBLE with the homeless man beard, but he’s found a good median with the scruffy look.
We’ll see…
I liked the bit with the Halloween masks. Basically, a costume maker put out a rubber Conan mask, but apparently didn’t call it a Conan O’Brien mask in order to avoid having to pay Conan a royalty. Therefore, it was called an “Ex-Talk Show Host” mask. Conan and Andy had fun with that, both of them wearing one of the masks.
I liked it. I mean, it wasn’t amazing Conan, but it was a pretty decent episode.
I liked Andy the most, actually.
“The inside of this mask tastes like tears.” 
I don’t really like Coco but I LOL’d several times during the monologue and the opening bit. The “smells like tears” comment was truly classic. I think I’ll continue to watch. Ricky Gervais’ bit was pretty funny too.
Just out of curiosity, how much of a difference is there really between a network like 4th rated NBC and a cable only network like TBS? Yes, it’s not the Tonight Show, but if he still kicks Leno’s ass in the ratings, does it really matter?
I’ve never been a Conan fan, so I can’t compare it to his old show on NBC, but what with all the hoopla about the fiasco with Leno vs. Conan, I had to watch. Enjoyed his opening with the Godfather parody, and even his antics as he came out live before his audience; no barrier between him and the audience - a good idea; surprising audience members by approaching and hugging, shaking hands – good idea; able to be self-deprecating, excellent; ability to make fun of TBS and basic cable, excellent idea (I wonder if his contract with TBS includes an anything-goes clause); he comments that his tv viewers are those who can’t afford HBO, well, sort of true. (But just because one has HBO doesn’t mean one isn’t going to tune in to Conan.) I found the guest/interview segments the weakest part of the show. He needs to take a clue from Jon Stewart; although most of Stewart’s guests are plugging a book or movie, Stewart manages to engage them in an interesting back-and-forth discussion, with hard-hitting questions and spontaneous humor. (Letterman is also good at this, although a tad condescending.) I’ll continue to watch Conan for awhile, but if his guests don’t include smart, dynamic, engaging, informative personalities, and his interviewing skills don’t improve, I’ll probably drop out.
I love the Conan-Andy repartee. That’s the best thing. The one liners, the zingers, the witty banter and one-up-manship on the jokes… I love them.
And the string dance.
So glad they’re back.
The overnight ratings for the premier showed that Conan beat both Leno and Letterman in total viewers by a pretty big margin (4.15 million for Conan, vs 3.5 million for Jay, and 3.6 million for Dave). And he killed them in the young people demographic.
That’s very surprising considering Conan’s on cable. Obviously that number will fall as the novelty of the new show wears off, but if he can maintain a viewership that’s in the ballpark of the other two, he’ll be a huge success. I guess George Lopez was only getting around a million viewers in the same time slot.
I don’t see why it’s surprising that a cable channel is capable of beating a network channel. Doesn’t everybody have cable now? I mean, it’s not like TBS is inaccessible to most people.
Yeah, but networks still pull a lot bigger ratings than most cable shows. Again, if Conan beat Jay on a regular night, it would be amazing. It isn’t stunning he beat him on a premiere, just impressive.
Because OTA TV is condensed. Nieslen confirms people watch only 4 OTA channels regularly. Cable has much more to offer thus the audience is spread out. So the audience potential is bigger but it’s too spread out.
This often has been said what hurts cable is too narrow a niche for a particular channel.
Conan 11/09
Main guest: Tom Hanks
musical guest: Soundgarden
Another good show, Tom Hanks is always a great interviewee. The whale breaching bit with the background was hilarious I hope it’s used regularly.
Soundgarden sounded alright.
I’m curious about that background now. Is it just a giant blue screen that the audience can’t see?
Tom Hanks is awesome. I loved the whale thing!
I don’t know if this will be the permanent Coco thread, but until we have one, did anyone watch last night (Nov 11)? The Kanye bit was too funny. I laughed more or less continuously through at least half of it.
Conan should have gone trick-or-treating in it.
The whale thing was an homage to an appearance a long time ago where they dumped a ton of fake snow on him.
It’s blue enough that graphics can be keyed in, as long as they keep the shot locked down and carefully mask anything they don’t want keyed out.
For instance, on Thursday, the cruise ship in the background only passed behind Andy, steering clear of Conan and his blue shirt; the only thing they had to actually chroma-key was Andy’s head, and maybe some pieces of the foreground set.
Here’s my quick and dirty example. The area I colored green is chroma-keyed; the purple area is completely superimposed over the picture (to avoid garbage in the more detailed left side of the background), and the rest of the picture is left untouched.
Of course, the very next bit (a parody of local news) required a simple chroma key, so they brought out a green screen, and Andy’s green shirt, which was useful for the ship bit, appeared transparent.
I couldn’t decide if that was intentional. I thought the same thing had happened at the beginning of the boat bit but I could have been hallucinating.
