Coco’s legendary speech at Harvard:
[quote]skaz05 wrote:
Looks like wherever Conan winds up, he won’t be able to bring along Triumph, the Masturbating Bear, et. al…
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3id3e0b71b5f1a6df4b2df779fa18f5e5e
And all the Conan haters need to drink a big glass of STFU. Conan rules![/quote]
That’s awful. Although I have a feeling a Fox show would allow him to use bit’s that are similar. He seemed a bit restricted on his 11:30 slot at NBC.
[quote]Amiright wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
[quote]Amiright wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Conan is hands down the wittiest and most intelligent talk show host in tv history. The guy graduated magna cum laude from fucking HARVARD, and comes up with incredibly funny shit off the top of his head. If you don’t like Conan O’brien, you’re un-American, and possibly gay.[/quote]
Not to take anything away from his accomplishment in anyway, but he majored in History and Literature… I think Conan is a great guy but I’ve never found him particularly funny. He’ll do fine at fox, doubt much will change. [/quote]
The point was he did it at Harvard, one of -if not the - most prestigious institutions in our country. I don’t care if he majored in VCR maintenance and minored in finger painting: a lost artform, he did it at HARVARD. He also [as someone else pointed out] wrote for the Simpsons during its heyday. How you can not find the writer and producer of ‘Marge vs the monorail’ funny is beyond me.[/quote]
I just never really liked his skits etc… he targets a certain audience like any comedian. Maybe I’ll give him another shot and see what happens
[/quote]
That’s one of the more mature attitudes ever displayed on this site. DO IT. You won’t regret it.
Last nights show was epic. He gave a sad but inspiring speech and I know that hes going to greener pastures after this. Long live Conan!
http://freedomtodiffer.com/conan-obriens-emotional-goodbye-speech
theres the speech
edit:Continued to the end… will ferrell etc…
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/2fbfa7e2e5/conan-says-goodbye-with-will-ferrell-freebird
What NBC didn’t seem to have reckoned was just how much its desire to play with the cool kids would cost them – not in terms of ratings at 10 where it knew Leno would be swamped, but in the weak lead-ins to the local news that sparked an affiliate revolt and in sagging ratings for “The Tonight Show” itself. O’Brien’s supporters may think he is the neatest kid in class and that he is therefore entitled to occupy the host’s chair, but he is pulling half the ratings Leno got and recently is even down from Leno in the coveted demo. And O’Brien isn’t doing any better than Letterman.
In his defense, O’Brien claimed he needed time to build his audience, though detractors could parry that he had 17 years to build an audience. Put less charitably, O’Brien may have been modish, but he wasn’t funny.
But this was never about funny – if it was, neither O’Brien nor Leno would have inherited “The Tonight Show.” This was about image. In the great high school of life, NBC opted to follow the siren call of cool. And now, for what may be the first time since 18 to 49 became the American grail, the system has blown up, so much so that NBC was willing to pay O’Brien tens of millions of dollars just to get rid of him and restore Leno to “Tonight.”
And that is the real significance of the Leno/O’Brien smackdown. Say what you will about Leno, his return is a cultural milestone.
As O’Brien faded into the evening last night with bundles of cash and newfound martyrdom, the baby boomers have finally gotten some small measure of revenge, however old and dorky and undesirable they may be.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
What NBC didn’t seem to have reckoned was just how much its desire to play with the cool kids would cost them – not in terms of ratings at 10 where it knew Leno would be swamped, but in the weak lead-ins to the local news that sparked an affiliate revolt and in sagging ratings for “The Tonight Show” itself. O’Brien’s supporters may think he is the neatest kid in class and that he is therefore entitled to occupy the host’s chair, but he is pulling half the ratings Leno got and recently is even down from Leno in the coveted demo. And O’Brien isn’t doing any better than Letterman.
In his defense, O’Brien claimed he needed time to build his audience, though detractors could parry that he had 17 years to build an audience. Put less charitably, O’Brien may have been modish, but he wasn’t funny.
But this was never about funny – if it was, neither O’Brien nor Leno would have inherited “The Tonight Show.” This was about image. In the great high school of life, NBC opted to follow the siren call of cool. And now, for what may be the first time since 18 to 49 became the American grail, the system has blown up, so much so that NBC was willing to pay O’Brien tens of millions of dollars just to get rid of him and restore Leno to “Tonight.”
And that is the real significance of the Leno/O’Brien smackdown. Say what you will about Leno, his return is a cultural milestone.
As O’Brien faded into the evening last night with bundles of cash and newfound martyrdom, the baby boomers have finally gotten some small measure of revenge, however old and dorky and undesirable they may be.[/quote]
Tony Romo sucks balls
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
What NBC didn’t seem to have reckoned was just how much its desire to play with the cool kids would cost them – not in terms of ratings at 10 where it knew Leno would be swamped, but in the weak lead-ins to the local news that sparked an affiliate revolt and in sagging ratings for “The Tonight Show” itself. O’Brien’s supporters may think he is the neatest kid in class and that he is therefore entitled to occupy the host’s chair, but he is pulling half the ratings Leno got and recently is even down from Leno in the coveted demo. And O’Brien isn’t doing any better than Letterman.
In his defense, O’Brien claimed he needed time to build his audience, though detractors could parry that he had 17 years to build an audience. Put less charitably, O’Brien may have been modish, but he wasn’t funny.
But this was never about funny – if it was, neither O’Brien nor Leno would have inherited “The Tonight Show.” This was about image. In the great high school of life, NBC opted to follow the siren call of cool. And now, for what may be the first time since 18 to 49 became the American grail, the system has blown up, so much so that NBC was willing to pay O’Brien tens of millions of dollars just to get rid of him and restore Leno to “Tonight.”
And that is the real significance of the Leno/O’Brien smackdown. Say what you will about Leno, his return is a cultural milestone.
As O’Brien faded into the evening last night with bundles of cash and newfound martyrdom, the baby boomers have finally gotten some small measure of revenge, however old and dorky and undesirable they may be.[/quote]
Tony Romo sucks balls [/quote]
Eli Manning has Down’s and Sanchez was gifted into the playoffs.
One thing you need to keep in mind is that Leno’s audience consists of the older generations- those who watch nightly TV. Conan’s followers, on the other hand, are younger and more tech savvy. I’m a Conan fan, but I hardly watched his shows when they were being shown on TV (I mostly relied on Hulu). Couldn’t this explain why Conan’s Tonight Show ratings appeared to be worse than Leno’s ratings before he moved up to the 10 o’clock slot?
Just some food for thought.
[quote]jo3 wrote:
One thing you need to keep in mind is that Leno’s audience consists of the older generations- those who watch nightly TV. Conan’s followers, on the other hand, are younger and more tech savvy. I’m a Conan fan, but I hardly watched his shows when they were being shown on TV (I mostly relied on Hulu). Couldn’t this explain why Conan’s Tonight Show ratings appeared to be worse than Leno’s ratings before he moved up to the 10 o’clock slot?
Just some food for thought.[/quote]
Almost definitely.
Conan’s fans are of the internet (just read that new article at Cracked) age.
I haven’t watched his show on TV for almost two years; haven’t missed a single second of his comedy in that time, though.
Dear Internet,
Regarding Conan’s Finale speech and, in particular, his least favorite trait.
Cynicism has probably been with me longer than most other emotions, anger and frustration aside. Rarely have I had cause to question it’s wisdom in my dealings with the world. When I have, though, in the life, love, guidance and death of my grandfather; the sacrifices of friends for my well-being; and too many others to name, cynicism has shown itself to be a disease. The one, I believe, which turns us into crabs, pulling the ascending few down to be with the failing many.
Conan’s request for us to never be cynical, no matter how easy it would seem to be, was powerful. I have been moved by the personalities I’ve seen in my entertainment before. This, however, combined with many other instances in my life of late, hit me. I don’t know if i could call it eye-opening, but it was certainly powerful. A man, denied his dreams, praising his recent opponents for his “unbelievable fortune,” and asking the new generation to be better.
A simple thing, and maybe I’m overplaying it.
But it was a good thing.
Thank You Internet, and Thank You Conan.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
What NBC didn’t seem to have reckoned was just how much its desire to play with the cool kids would cost them – not in terms of ratings at 10 where it knew Leno would be swamped, but in the weak lead-ins to the local news that sparked an affiliate revolt and in sagging ratings for “The Tonight Show” itself. O’Brien’s supporters may think he is the neatest kid in class and that he is therefore entitled to occupy the host’s chair, but he is pulling half the ratings Leno got and recently is even down from Leno in the coveted demo. And O’Brien isn’t doing any better than Letterman.
…
But this was never about funny – if it was, neither O’Brien nor Leno would have inherited “The Tonight Show.” This was about image. In the great high school of life, NBC opted to follow the siren call of cool. And now, for what may be the first time since 18 to 49 became the American grail, the system has blown up, so much so that NBC was willing to pay O’Brien tens of millions of dollars just to get rid of him and restore Leno to “Tonight.”
[/quote]
It wasn’t them trying to keep the the cooler host, it was them trying to keep both hosts. As stupid as NBC is, I’m pretty sure even they knew that if Conan left and did another network at 11:35 he’d be fighting for the same audience as Dave’s and not Leno’s, as far as TV viewers of the show go. This wasn’t about them thinking cooler would get higher ratings.
Jay decided he’d just retire after his contract was up in 2009 after NBC said they wanted to give it to Conan, then when that time came up he started dissing NBC in his monologue and hinting at doing a show at ABC [which would have fucked Jimmy Kimmel over, by the way]. Instead of just letting him go and giving Conan some actual lead in programming [well, the news before him some lead in], they decided they needed to keep both hosts.
What also helped was that NBC has had some shitty programming at 10:00 anyway, and decided they could get higher profits despite less revenue by having Leno so a cheaper show in at 10, especially since NBC was losing GE’s money like it had a coke addiction.
I know this is only tangentially relevant to your point but it’s worth mentioning what their real intent was. I hope they [NBC] knew Conan wasn’t going get Leno’s numbers, or even beat Letterman.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
In his defense, O’Brien claimed he needed time to build his audience, though detractors could parry that he had 17 years to build an audience.
[/quote]
He did need time to build his audience. Letterman was beating Leno in the ratings for some time before a host of factors not related to Leno’s own abilities, as well as Leno stealing bits from Letterman and Howard Stern [the latter of whom, hasn’t stopped yelling about it, lol]. Leno had far longer than 7 months, although to be fair, NBC tried to sack him too.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
And that is the real significance of the Leno/O’Brien smackdown. Say what you will about Leno, his return is a cultural milestone.
As O’Brien faded into the evening last night with bundles of cash and newfound martyrdom, the baby boomers have finally gotten some small measure of revenge, however old and dorky and undesirable they may be.[/quote]
No, it’s not a cultural milestone. Nothing involving Jay Leno is or ever will be cultural milestone.
Jay’s not even the type of host to even have a strong enough following to really label his return as a level of revenge. I highly doubt most of his viewers watch his show to see him. But that’s just my opinion.
[quote]jo3 wrote:
One thing you need to keep in mind is that Leno’s audience consists of the older generations- those who watch nightly TV. Conan’s followers, on the other hand, are younger and more tech savvy. I’m a Conan fan, but I hardly watched his shows when they were being shown on TV (I mostly relied on Hulu). Couldn’t this explain why Conan’s Tonight Show ratings appeared to be worse than Leno’s ratings before he moved up to the 10 o’clock slot?
Just some food for thought.[/quote]
Good point, and yes. Late night talk show viewers are diminishing because face it, the kind of comedy that late night talk shows provide [light, topical, and not requiring long attention spans or remembering a long plot like a primetime comedy series] is done way better and more effieciently on the internet. Hell, you can get Conan online too. NBC has most of his stuff up on their site.
[quote]Vash wrote:
Dear Internet,
Regarding Conan’s Finale speech and, in particular, his least favorite trait.
Cynicism has probably been with me longer than most other emotions, anger and frustration aside. Rarely have I had cause to question it’s wisdom in my dealings with the world. When I have, though, in the life, love, guidance and death of my grandfather; the sacrifices of friends for my well-being; and too many others to name, cynicism has shown itself to be a disease. The one, I believe, which turns us into crabs, pulling the ascending few down to be with the failing many.
Conan’s request for us to never be cynical, no matter how easy it would seem to be, was powerful. I have been moved by the personalities I’ve seen in my entertainment before. This, however, combined with many other instances in my life of late, hit me. I don’t know if i could call it eye-opening, but it was certainly powerful. A man, denied his dreams, praising his recent opponents for his “unbelievable fortune,” and asking the new generation to be better.
A simple thing, and maybe I’m overplaying it.
But it was a good thing.
Thank You Internet, and Thank You Conan.[/quote]
I enjoyed his speech, too. And he was classy enough to thank NBC as well.
And LOL at “Dear Internet”, I had a good laugh when he and Andy were joking about that.
And just a little more [I know, lol] on Leno and why he’s being portrayed as the bad guy in all this.
Jay Leno was one of the best stand up comedians of the 80s. David Letterman used to have him on Late Night all the time because of this. When Johnny Carson announced he was going to retire from the Tonight Show, both Jay Leno and David Letterman said they would like to be considered for the job. Jay was a frequent guest host for the Tonight Show, and Dave hosted Late Night right after the Tonight Show.
Most people wanted Letterman to get the job. Johnny Carson wanted David Letterman to get the job. Jay Leno and his former manager did a lot of campaigning behind the scenes in order to get the job. Letterman didn’t want to do any campaigning because he respected Johnny and didn’t want to do something like that behind his back.
When Jay got the gig, Letterman left and started the Late Show at CBS that would compete with the Tonight Show. Jay Leno on the Tonight Show was not nearly as edgy as he used to be, nor as edgy as Letterman and was losing in the ratings for some time. This is probably where he lost the respect of comedians, since he watered down his personality way more than Letterman ever did, all in the hopes of keeping Carson’s audience [which didn’t really work well]. I can’t remember who said it, but I’ll paraphrase: “Jay Leno is one of the few comedians who plays to an audience that is older than him”. I know Johnny Carson wasn’t really edgy, but he’d been hosting the show for three decades. Jay Leno started the show not being edgy at all.
Leno also has a history of stealing bits from other shows. Most famously, Howard Stern says Jaywalking [Leno’s most famous bit] was stolen from one of his bits, I think the one where they ask homeless people trivia questions. Leno also stole Headlines [his second most famous bit] from of all people, his direct competition, David Letterman [Small Town News]. So now he’s respected even less, and people won’t even respect that he’s beating Letterman at this point.
Now fast foreword to the recent turmoil in late night. Jay Leno first threatened to go to ABC, which would have pushed Jimmy Kimmel to 1:05 in the morning. Then Jay took another gig at NBC which was almost identical to his old show, which had a lot of people thinking he was waiting in the wings for Conan to fail [because he has that reputation, and guess what, it happened]. So now Jimmy Kimmel knows that Jay has no worries about derailing his career. [See the video of Jimmy on Jay’s show in this thread to see what I mean] And Jay has backed out of retiring like he promised he would back in 04, to avoid a conflict as he said.
And then Jay agreed to have his new gig pushed to 11:35 for a half hour, with Conan starting at 12:05. This doesn’t work for one thing because now Conan’s monologue has to compete with whichever celebrity is on Letterman 30 minuted into his show, and he WONT win. And also, Conan respects the Tonight Show enough to not want it to be on a half hour later, and thus have it not really be a “Tonight” Show. This doesn’t work, Conan is out, and Jay’s back in.
So Jay Leno and NBC kind of screwed Conan.
And as a bonus, here the part that’ll show you why Letterman really wants to go after Jay right now. When Leno was losing to Letterman in the ratings early on, NBC offered Letterman the Tonight Show gig after Leno’s contract ran out. Letterman said NO. That should tell you how different the two hosts are.
The final episode brought me to tears, I’m not going to lie. Between Neil Young’s “Long may you run” and his final speech and plea to avoid cynicism, it was a truly emotional send off.
Conan O’Brien is one of my heroes. Through a brief act of kindness, he personally helped and encouraged me to create something which I never thought I’d be able to. He is one of the truest and most genuine personalities in entertainment today, and his quirky yet hilarious brand of humour is becoming scarcer and scarcer on TV.
We’ll be seeing him again in September, without a doubt, hopefully alongside Triumph, the Masturbating Bear, and of course Pimpbot 5000.
I’M WITH COCO!
I’m a huge Conan fan, but I didn’t watch his show as much as I should’ve. I did catch most of the first episode and all [including dvr’ing it] of the last one. I was expecting Will Ferrel to play on his 1st night appearance when he told Conan “he wouldn’t last long.” Anyway, from being the funniest talk show host of all time and one of the brightest minds on television, he proved himself to be a class act on the level of few others. When he gave that last speech and derided cynicism and thanked NBC for everything despite them basically fucking him over I was truly moved and impressed. Wherever he ends up I’ll definitely be watching more.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
I’m a huge Conan fan, but I didn’t watch his show as much as I should’ve. I did catch most of the first episode and all [including dvr’ing it] of the last one. I was expecting Will Ferrel to play on his 1st night appearance when he told Conan “he wouldn’t last long.” Anyway, from being the funniest talk show host of all time and one of the brightest minds on television, he proved himself to be a class act on the level of few others. When he gave that last speech and derided cynicism and thanked NBC for everything despite them basically fucking him over I was truly moved and impressed. Wherever he ends up I’ll definitely be watching more.[/quote]
Holy shit, we agree on something!
Probably my favourite Conan O’Brien interview of all time is one with Norm MacDonald. Conan’s just laughing his ass off because he has no idea where Norm is going with his jokes/stories. And part 3 with some girl from Melrose Place is the best this I’ve ever seen on a talk show. Seriously. Here it is [and trust me it’s worth it]:
Two of the funniest guys around.
And here’s Howard Stern on Late Night with Coco, predicting the future:
[quote]WolBarret wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
I’m a huge Conan fan, but I didn’t watch his show as much as I should’ve. I did catch most of the first episode and all [including dvr’ing it] of the last one. I was expecting Will Ferrel to play on his 1st night appearance when he told Conan “he wouldn’t last long.” Anyway, from being the funniest talk show host of all time and one of the brightest minds on television, he proved himself to be a class act on the level of few others. When he gave that last speech and derided cynicism and thanked NBC for everything despite them basically fucking him over I was truly moved and impressed. Wherever he ends up I’ll definitely be watching more.[/quote]
Holy shit, we agree on something![/quote]
Family Guy sucks.