The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [110]
After a collage of the best of “Jaywalking” segments drew some big laughs, Jay brought out Conan, to another thunderous ovation. Conan looked cool and professional in his dark suit and royal blue shirt—a stark contrast to the gawky kid in blazer over jeans who first visited Leno in 1993. (Jay showed a clip of that visit.)
Conan teased his incipient Tonight Show run with a snippet from an upcoming remote segment: Conan in disguise leading a focus group analyzing the prospects of . . . Conan OʹBrien.
As he handed off the symbolic baton, Jay declared, “I couldn’t be happier” with the selection of his successor. “You were the only choice; you were the perfect choice. You are an absolute gentleman . . .”
Someone in the audience shouted out, “Conan rocks!”
“I agree: Conan rocks,” Jay said. “Good luck, my friend.”
Conan shook his hand, saying, “Jay, thank you for everything.”
At his close Jay offered thank-yous to Debbie Vickers, of course, whom he identified as his executive producer “from day one.” (Actually Helen Kushnick had been the original top executive producer for Jay.) He singled out Warren Littlefield, the former NBC Entertainment chief who fought to keep Jay in the chair. He thanked his longtime head writer Joe Medeiros and NBC’s top late-night executive, Rick Ludwin, for being steadfast “when we were getting our ass kicked.” Jeff Zucker got a mention, too, with thanks for “giving us another opportunity.” And then, of course, an affectionate shout-out to Mavis. “I’m leaving this dance with the same girl I came in with,” Jay said.
A cold open had worked well in 1993; why not try it again in 2009?
In what dedicated fans surely recognized as a thematic reference to his introduction to American television, Conan O’Brien burst onto the screen in his first moments as Tonight Show host on another symbolic journey, this time not through Manhattan, but all the way across the country.
Fast, arresting, funny, and oddly patriotic at the same time, the run from New York to LA included shots of Conan going full tilt everywhere from the Amish country to across the Wrigley Field outfield in mid-inning—all real, no green screen—backed by the pounding and utterly unconnected theme music, “Surrender,” by Cheap Trick. The opening carried an electrical charge unlike anything seen on the Jay Leno version of Tonight. This show was going to be 100 percent Conan, right off the bat.
The voice of Andy Richter, back as sidekick/announcer—and sounding a little less than fully committed—rose up behind the wailing theme song: “Here’s your host, Conan OʹBriiii-en!” The first audience, the early LA adapters, already whipped into a frenzy, erupted as Conan strode out, looking leaner, certainly more mature, hewing to the lesson he’d learned from Jack Paar: classic dark suit, light blue shirt, striped tie. As the squeals went on and on, the more mature Conan almost had to give them a little taste, even if he hadn’t planned to, even if it wasn’t really broad-based and middle American—just a few moves from the string dance.
Tall as he was, Conan looked somewhat dwarfed by the capacious new set. When the camera pulled back to show a glimpse of the adoring fans, the space looked deep and cavernous. The next day Tom Shales in The Washington Post would call it a “Circus Maximus,” and indeed this frenzied crowd might well have fit in there, rooting on the chariots. After letting them go on a bit too long, Conan finally started the monologue, the first joke about his great timing, coming to California just as it was going bankrupt and being sponsored by the equally bankrupt General Motors. He tossed out a few others, but this was not a night to try a string of hot topical jokes. That wasn’t what he and his guys had worked on all these months; that wasn’t going to be the signature of the Conan Tonight Show. The opening—that had the Conan touch, and he had more.
He introduced another taped segment, clearly one he and the staff saw as a high card they wanted to play right at the start. It would also stamp the new location in which they had landed: