That’s what I was thinking as well.
Premature articulation is such a problem in Hollywood.
Yeah I guess it is uncool and unhip to admit this but I like Jay Leno.
For those fans of Conan and Letterman I can understand how they also have quite an appeal and popularity. Heck, I think they are also quite funny.
But what’s with the “Carson” fans here? Johnny Carson is a no-talent thief who must have made some deal with the Devil or must have had some very incriminating photographs of NBC executives to get the mega-salary he earned.
Karnac routine ?? STOLEN from Steve Allen
Tea Time Movie ?? STOLEN from Jackie Gleason
Steve Allen (may he rest in peace) gave Letterman quite a compliment. Allen said Letterman does comedy routines related to what he did on a late night show in the early 1960’s BUT David Letterman acknowledges that he owes a great deal of his show’s style to Steve Allen.
When has Johnny Carson ever creditted anyone for his success? his comedic style? his routines? I’ve never heard him.
Johnny Carson was simply the best. Conan may be funnier, but Carson had way more charisma. He was a great interviewer, a good comedian, but more important he was Johnny Carson. People tuned in just to see him. He didn’t have to do shtick - he could sit there and read the phone book and still be interesting.
He hasn’t been on the air for 12 years, and I still miss Johnny Carson. I think Conan is fantastic, but if I had the choice I’d take Carson.
Does anyone else think that announcing this so far in advance is going to make the next five years a little strange? Conan being the official ‘host in waiting’ of the Tonight Show is going to make for a strange dynamic on both shows.
We can only hope he gets Richter back.
I was thinking this. In fact it’s like what NBC did with Letterman, when they offered him the Tonight Show, but ONLY when Jay Leno’s contract expired in 18 months. Letterman’s people rejected it, surmising (probably correctly) that if Leno’s ratings go up, NBC will weasal out of the deal somehow, especially since it was offered at the time when Letterman was getting offers from everywhere! It seems strange that they are making Conan wait just at the point of time where he was starting to look at other options for the 11:30 spot. It seems NBC liks to try this technique.
As said, five years is an eternity in Hollywood. By 2009 the landscape may have changed so much that the Tonight Show wouldn’t even be viable. Or a 45-year-old host may be the wrong demographic. As William Goldman keeps saying about the business, “nobody knows anything.”
Conan does do the funniest interviews among the late-nighters, but his time-wasting shtick has gotten as bad as Letterman’s. I tape the show so I can just fast-forward through the gibberish and monkey moves and get to the comedy bits.
Will that work at an earlier, more mainstream time spot? My guess is no. He’ll be told to speed things up and keep the audience happy. Leno has beaten Letterman in the overall ratings for, I believe, the last ten straight years, ever since he dumped his insane manager along with the dour Branford Marsalis and changed the format to frontload the program with a long comic monologue followed by two comedy bits. Vastly more people want to see a standard comedy routine than Letterman’s twitches. Conan’s twitches won’t work any better at 11:30.
Letterman was funny about the whole thing. “If Leno’s retiring and Conan’s moving to 11:30, then Conan’s timeslot is open. That’s our old show, Paul. Maybe I should send them an audition tape.”
the big thing I’m wondering in this move is…the move. Does this mean that Conan is going to start doing his show in Burbank once he changes timeslots? One of the things I really loved about the current Conan show is all the New York-based humor he does, and I have a feeling that if he’s relocated, much of the charm he’s had will be lost.
I find it funny how this is considered big enough news to make the front pages. 2009 is FIVE years away…I have no idea what I’ll be doing, where I’ll be living, or what kind of TV I’ll be enjoying. Thinking out late night TV in 5 years is something I’ll worry about in…5 years.
Keep in mind, Jon Stewart’s contract with The Daily Show is up in 2008…and as far as I’m concerned, he is the king of late night. Does Leno actually get better ratings than Letterman right now? I’m rarely up late enough to watch either of them, but judging by the typical episodes I see of either of their shows, I wonder why anybody would want to watch Leno when they have the option of watching Letterman
Leno has beaten Dave in the ratings pretty consistently since the OJ trial. Dave spiked when he came back on after 9/11, and again after his heart surgery, but his ratings sank back to their former level in both cases.
I frankly don’t get Leno’s appeal. The last time I watched his show, I was amazed to discover his own audience doesn’t even think he’s funny; fully half the jokes from his monologue—some of them actually rather good—fell to the stage with a wet thud, drawing hardly a titter from the audience. What the hell are people tuning in for?
No argument there.
Not being a regular watcher of late-night TV I probably shouldn’t open my mouth, but I have never liked Conan. I watched the first few shows when he started and was convinced he would be cancelled within a month. Nothing has surprised me more than his success. From time to time I catch his show and still can’t understand why he’s so popular. I like Dave, and I like Jay, but Conan has no appeal for me…not as a person or as an entertainer. I know this places me in the minority, but I’ll skip late night TV if Conan is my only option.
Tim Goodman thinks it smells fishy too.
I liked Leno a lot before he took over the Tonight Show. He quickly lost something to me, having to try to be funny every night instead of an occasional “What’s Your Beef” on Letterman’s show. I can’t stand to watch the Tonight Show now.
I was a hardcore Letterman fan when I was able to stay up late on a regular basis but now I feel Conan’s show is funnier. Unfortunately, getting up for work at 3:30 AM now makes it impossible to watch any late night TV. I’m still disappointed that Comedy Central dropped Conan from their schedule.
I’m another viewer that feels that O’Brien will have to tone down his stuff for the tonight show, leaving him as much of a piece of soggy white bread that Leno now is now.
There will be no more Camel Toe Annie or Masturbating Bear, I imagine.
Let’s remember a couple of things.
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Jack Paar also “Stole” bits from Steve Allen, so by the time Carson came along, it was more “continuing a Tonight Show sketch” than “stealing.”
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Carson has acknowledged that a lot of his comedic style came from Jack Benny.
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Carson was simply the best interviewer in a late-night setting. True, Paar did more probing interviews, but Carson was a master of “chat.” He let his funny guests be funny, let his serious guests be serious, and was able to let the flow of the show take over when the situation called for it.
You don’t see it on the highlight reels because they focus on the big laugh. But for (first 90, then) 60 minutes, night after night, Johnny Carson maintained a consistent high level for most of the 30 years he was on.
And while we’re at it, Jay Leno’s weekly “Headlines” feature is pretty much directly ripped off from the old National Lampoon column True Facts. But even though it’s not exactly original, it’s still funny.
Not sure, but when they were thinking about who to give Carson’s show to, Dave told NBC that he wouldn’t mind moving the show to Burbank, meaning, IMO, that the Tonight Show will always be there.
The Columbia Journalism Review has had a page of these double-meaning headlines on its inside back cover since the 1960s. At least the copyrights in its book, Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim, go back to 1965.
Everything is earlier than you think. Steve Allen took some of his bits from Fred Allen.
First, I have to say that Johnny Carson should appear in the dictionary as the definition of ‘talk-show host.’ He had a way of always getting a laugh, even when a joke bombed. He’d make a joke about the lack of laughs, and end up with his laugh int he end. He also was the best celebrity interviewer in the business because he would make each guest look good. Everyone else (Leno, Letterman, O’Brien, and all the others) tend to pull attention away from their guests every time they make a witty remark. Somehow, Johnny could sit there being funny while not putting himself into the foreground.
Second, Carson and McMahon did The Tonight Show from New York for years before it moved to Burbank. I expect the network is thinking it has to stay in California, but it could probably survive at 30 Rockefeller Center.
Third, put me in the camp that doesn’t always get Conan. He’s funny, interviews okay, and can improv well in all the situations that come up. But his comedy bits seem to fall flat as often as they succeed. If he goes to 11:35, he’ll need to quit experimenting with off-the-wall ideas every single night, because that many stinkers just can’t work in that slot. That change will probably lose him many of his hardcore fans, who seem to like him because he takes all those risks.
Conan doesn’t have to be edgy to be funny. If he’s got to play to an earlier audience, no problem. This was the guy who was the head writer for The Simpsons, after all. Wrote some of the funniest episodes, too. (Monorail!)
Perhaps to fill out the show they’ll bring in Andy Richter. That would be way cool.
But back to Johnny Carson: Carson was good that back in the day when the stars of his era would have ‘clips’ of their best moments, often they came from the Tonight Show. Stars could be more proud of a killer appearance on that show than in the last movie they made. And the reason was that Carson not only made them all look so good, he oozed class and charm onto them. Stars looked bigger than they were when they were on Carson. Nowadays a Comedian’s career highlight might be an HBO special, but back then comedians measured themselves by how often they did Carson.
And Johnny never became a caricature of himself the way Leno and Letterman have on occasion. As he aged he remained essentially the same. A touch warmer perhaps, and a little more intimate. He relied more on the strength of his personal charm and a little less on schtick and props. Because he could. The best thing about the Johnny Carson show was always Johnny himself. Not the writing staff - no one said, “Johnny has great writers”. Not necessarily his guests. Some of his best moments were spent with relative unknowns - children, old people, various characters pulled from the public.
Carson also had a bit of the Sinatra/Dean Martin cool factor. You just knew that hanging with Johnny would be ultra cool. Whereas Leno’s a guy you’d like to talk cars with, and you get a feeling that hanging with Letterman would be hella uncomfortable.
But Johnny? Man, you could take in a round of golf and then go for cocktails at Harrah’s.
Well…at least one other person is as insane as me.