The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [49]
Conan had a guy come on as “the Lenny Bruce of China,” a beat comic who told jokes in Chinese accompanied by a translator. Conan was given advice in a “Devil-Bear” sketch, which placed the devil on one shoulder and a bear (for no good reason) on the other, giving him useless opinions. Fulfilling another of his early promises to Ohlmeyer was “Polly, the NBC Peacock,” a puppet version of the NBC logo, who came on and trashed shows on the other networks in especially vituperative terms. And Conan found increasingly offbeat ways to involve just barely not-obscure showbiz vets like Nipsey Russell and Abe Vigoda.
A hint of favorable buzz began in mid-1995, but NBC wasn’t listening to the buzzing. Conan stayed in place, but he was still rolling over the absurd thirteen-week renewals.
And then, suddenly, it rained.
On June 18, 1996, Tom Shales officially recanted. With a headline that read, “So I Was Wrong,” Shales switched sides with a vengeance. Acknowledging that “some critics, present company included, were excessively mean,” Shales declared that OʹBrien had gone through “one of the most amazing transformations in television history.” He quoted Letterman’s recently fired executive producer, Robert Morton, saying that Conan was doing “the most innovative comedy in television,” and cited numerous recent O’Brien bits that had scored. In perhaps the most startling turnaround, Shales even revised his “nitwit sidekick” appraisal of Andy Richter, saying Andy now was a “key to the success of the show.”
The conclusion of Shales’s reassessment could not have resonated more plangently in the heart of a lifelong Dave worshipper. “Conan OʹBrien is more than just an adequate Letterman substitute,” he wrote. “He’s his own secret ingredient, and his show an inspired absurdist romp.”
Forever after, Conan would cite that piece as the moment that heralded the turnaround. By September he was on the cover of Rolling Stone, and then the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Ratings were climbing, to Ohlmeyer’s designated level and then well past. Among the young-adult audiences he began to soar, doubling the ratings Snyder was attracting in that group. Multiyear pickups—with actual raises for Conan and his staff—were on the way.
Warren Littlefield called and impressed Ross with how manfully he stepped up. “Guys, I want to apologize,” Warren told them. “I was wrong.”
The lesson seemed clear to Conan and his support group: When the network and the rest of the outside world step in to push you around, tell them what is best for them to hear, but don’t flinch. Just shut them out. They don’t get it, they never really would, and they don’t belong with those who do get it.
As Jeff Ross worked it out, “We learned at that point: You just ignore everybody and do your own show. Do the polite thing—and then you ignore them.”
CHAPTER FOUR
LANDSCAPE AT LATE NIGHT
In the days after Jay Leno’s September 27, 2004, announcement that he would be leaving The Tonight Show in five years’ time, Debbie Vickers knew the most important part of her job would be to calm her star down. Jay’s mood, always so unruffled by almost any real-life development, was darker than she could ever remember seeing it. She understood. NBC’s decision to designate Conan OʹBrien the official future of The Tonight Show had left Jay incredulous—and reeling. Within days of his announcement—on the air, no less—Jay was overcome with what one colleague labeled “postpurchase anxiety.”
One NBC executive, only slightly an acquaintance of Leno’s, passed him in the hall just three days after the official word