Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien

[beelzebabette]

Given their respective time slots....

Prior to that, Leno was the lead in for Letterman on the same channel and Letterman's ratings were generally higher, even in the later time slot.

Context, man, context.

[TripletDaddy]

Given their respective time slots....

I already addressed this. When Letterman was on NBC, his ratings were higher than Leno's. Conan moved into Letterman's time slot and never achieved the same success.

[beefytee]

This is another area where Conan has some trouble. For those that are old enough to remember life before Conan, one of the biggest knocks on Conan's style was that it was a blatant rip-off of Letterman. Letterman was the guy that broke the late-night mold. Wearing those awful sneakers with his ugly suits, yelling directly into the camera, throwing things at the camera, doing live man-on-the-street gags......that wasn't being done on late night network tv before Letterman. Prior to that, it was all the Carson/Parr mold of desk/coffee mug/straight-up interview. Letterman deliberately introduced awkwardness into the formula. Much of his appeal was, as you say, a specific attempt to make his guests and audience feel uncomfortable or confused.

Letterman has since mellowed with age, but his craziness late night schtick is all his own. He really pioneered that.

One other interesting note about the Late Night rankings.....Leno's ratings have pretty much been higher than Conan and Letterman every single year since Letterman jumped to CBS. So the CUF rankings do not reflect popular sentiment. Prior to that, Leno was the lead in for Letterman on the same channel and Letterman's ratings were generally higher, even in the later time slot. But once they went head to head, Dave couldn't compete. Conan's ratings have rarely beaten the Tonight show. And Leno's goodbye on Friday received higher ratings than Conan's debut on Monday.

Letterman really was a pioneer.

Another thing unrelated to comedy that he introduced was the whole "CAM" thing where they would have cameras attached to anything and do crazy things with them. Often at the end of the top ten, they would send a camera around the studio.

I really don't remember that being done anywhere else. I remember Arsenio Hall doing some POV (point of view) Camera thing copying him, but without much success.

It seems like the show would have been a fun place for an engineer to work.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I already addressed this. When Letterman was on NBC, his ratings were higher than Leno's. Conan moved into Letterman's time slot and never achieved the same success.

Letterman really kicked Leno's ass for the first year or two Letterman was on CBS and then Leno gradually started catching up and then overtook Letterman permenantly.

What this means is that Leno's ratings at the beginning weren't fantastic but they gradually became better and Leno maintained the lead probably for the last 13-14 years or so.

Given Leno's lower ratings in the beginning and stronger ratings as his stint on the Late Show wore on, it shouldn't be a surprise that he consistently beat O'Brien while Letterman achieved higher ratings in the same slot when Leno was first starting out.

I think O'Brien will beat Letterman handily. Letterman's skits and interviews aren't particularly great at this point in his career and IMO O'Brien is significantly better at both. NBC's idea was to prevent a proven commodity in O'Brien from defecting to ABC and they figured they could get 15 years out of O'Brien while they wouldn't be able to get another 15 years out of Leno. As an added bonus for NBC, Leno is going to start doing a 10 PM show which I think will be successful and cheap to produce.

[MartyFunkhouser]

David Letterman was hilarious on Late Night with David Letterman. The first 2 or 3 years of Late Night were very funny but after that Letterman started losing in the rankings and stopped taking chances. Letterman was funny in the Late Night era because he would take a ton of chances. Sometimes his skits would be absolutely awful even painful to watch, but he hit more than he missed. Conan is really cut from the same mold and just improved on the Letterman formula. After Leno started beating Letterman in the ratings, Letterman went conservative and stopped taking chances. Letterman is completely unwatchable now. He isn't funny at all. I'm not sure I have watched a minute of his show in the past 5 years and I never intend to turn it on again.

Conan will likely suffer the same fate.

[MartyFunkhouser]

I watched the first part of the Tonight Show last night and it was the Conan O'Brien that I remembered and enjoyed. I also think it was a great example of Conan having something fail miserably, but willing to take the chance to fail. The twitter sketch was just plain bad, but that happens at times with him. You take the twitter sketches with the Rodeo Road sketches. His monologue is still not funny and I wish he would can it.

One thing that I really enjoyed when Kimmell started out was that he didn't do a monologue. Unfortunately, that didn't last because for some odd reason people seem to demand a monologue.

[DU Ute]

Letterman is completely unwatchable now. He isn't funny at all. I'm not sure I have watched a minute of his show in the past 5 years and I never intend to turn it on again.

Conan will likely suffer the same fate.

How could you know Letterman is completely unwatchable if you haven't watched a minute of the show for the last 5 years? I think you mean that Letterman is completely unwatched (by mpfunk). As far as Conan suffering the same fate, I'm sure he won't lose sleep over you not watching.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

David Letterman was hilarious on Late Night with David Letterman. The first 2 or 3 years of Late Night were very funny but after that Letterman started losing in the rankings and stopped taking chances. Letterman was funny in the Late Night era because he would take a ton of chances. Sometimes his skits would be absolutely awful even painful to watch, but he hit more than he missed. Conan is really cut from the same mold and just improved on the Letterman formula. After Leno started beating Letterman in the ratings, Letterman went conservative and stopped taking chances. Letterman is completely unwatchable now. He isn't funny at all. I'm not sure I have watched a minute of his show in the past 5 years and I never intend to turn it on again.

Conan will likely suffer the same fate.

The first 2-3 years of Late Show was funny. I still remember Letterman manning the McDonalds drive thru, and filling his convertable with tacos and throwing them out to people while he was driving. Hilarious. He stopped doing that and that's why his show consistently got beat by Jay Leno.

[MartyFunkhouser]

How could you know Letterman is completely unwatchable if you haven't watched a minute of the show for the last 5 years? I think you mean that Letterman is completely unwatched (by mpfunk). As far as Conan suffering the same fate, I'm sure he won't lose sleep over you not watching.

Unless the quality has improved substantially since the last time I watched the show, it is still unwatchable. I loved the old David Letterman.

I hope that Conan doesn't suffer the same fate as Letterman. I hope that he continues to take chances and do the things that make his show funny. I'm just skeptical that he can survive in the earlier time slot unless he changes his show to a more Leno/current Letterman format.

[beelzebabette]

David Letterman was hilarious on Late Night with David Letterman. The first 2 or 3 years of Late Night were very funny but after that Letterman started losing in the rankings and stopped taking chances. Letterman was funny in the Late Night era because he would take a ton of chances.

Letterman's hit or miss for me. I think his monologue's funny when there's something he genuinely likes to mock, but too forced when he's just checking the box for the day. Recently, I loved the "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" particularly for the random images they'd mix into the background for the intro. I always liked his interviews more though (after the switch from Late Show to Late Night--the Late Show sketches were my favorite part of that show). The Madonna interview, as painful as it turned out to be, was part of his funny era. I don't remember much of what she said, but I do remember him repeatedly apologizing to a middle-aged couple in the audience throughout her "performance." If Richard Simmons was coming on, I made sure I watched. It seemed like things went downhill after he got pilloried for his treatment of Simmons--I hope some exec didn't try to get him to pander to focus groups. One of my favorite interviews was with Julia Roberts after he had dental work, and she asked for what he was on to level the playing field. Letterman's definitely at his best when he's just being himself.

Anybody remember what the bit was with the guy who would throw peas on (edit) Late Night? I have a vague memory but can't remember what he was called.

[beelzebabette]

The first 2-3 years of Late Show was funny. I still remember Letterman manning the McDonalds drive thru, and filling his convertable with tacos and throwing them out to people while he was driving. Hilarious. He stopped doing that and that's why his show consistently got beat by Jay Leno.

I thought it was Taco Bell.

[Coach McGuirk]

I wonder if Joel McHale would want a shot at late night. His delivery is near perfection, but I have not seen him interview really before. Could be good for someone to catch him now.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I thought it was Taco Bell.

Two different sketches. He manned a McDonald's drive thru and just totally pissed people off by telling them they were out of Big Macs or out of onions or just repeatedly telling them the wrong order in return.

The filling up the convertable with tacos was done with Taco Bell tacos, but it was part of a larger sketch where he did other things such as glue a bag of groceries to the top of his trunk and start driving around. He also rigged up a dipstick in his car engine that went into container filled with chocolate syrup. He pulled off to the side of the road or into parking lot and lifted up the hood and acted like the car had problems. When a couple people were looking under the hood, he pulls out the dipstick and licks it off. Really funny.

[MarkGrace]

Letterman seems to do a lot better with music than Leno. That's all I really care about.

[falafel]

I wonder if Joel McHale would want a shot at late night. His delivery is near perfection, but I have not seen him interview really before. Could be good for someone to catch him now.

Joel doesn't do nearly as well in "live" situations, I think. Watch him trying to be funny when he's interviewed on the red carpet or something. Not that great. But I'll bet his monologues could be good. I'm just saying his interviews would likely suck. But so did Jay's.