The Tonight Show..

The Tonight Show..

I can't say I've ever really been much of a fan of Jay Leno. His humor has always been something that appeals towards the early bird. The old couple who just stayed up slightly late or had an extra cup of coffee with dessert and can't fall asleep after the local news crowd.

I've even come across him a couple of times. Often at car shows or just driving around. He's a sucker for taking weekend drives and I've oddly enough pulled up next to him in one of his old cars and motorcycles very often. It's not a rare sight to see him around Burbank. He'd always pop up at the Bob's Big Boy on Friday nights to show off one of his many cars.



At a young age I stayed up late for no real reason, well past Leno's late night time slot, a time slot he beat out David Letterman for and caused an all out Late Night war over. The two didn't really do much for me. No, I liked my comedy a bit more amateurish. So that's why I would always watch Late night with Conan.

From the very start I picked up his very strange sense of humor. It was a lot better than the Chevy Chase show and even though Arsenio Hall had the future President playing sax, I stuck with the awkward duo of Conan and Andy.



Wait, You must be asking yourself why a young kid would be doing up so late. I never was one to go to sleep and the bed time in my household... well, let's just say I watched a lot of late night things and it wasn't a hands on parenting going on.

But with tonight being the last of Leno's role on the Tonight Show, I have to say, he does have one hell of a strong work ethic. Aside from doing his late night gig, he doesn't even touch the money he makes from doing The Tonight Show. He's been living off his paycheck from doing random comedy gigs on the side for some time now. Which is a bit surprising that even though he has this nightly job that he'd be doing the odd jobs for his bread and butter.



Tonight's guest on the show is none other than Conan himself. In a sense, this is the passing of the torch. While I'm not a regular viewer of Leno's old person type of humor, I will be tuning in tonight. Especially since Conan hasn't been on the televsion waves for a good couple of months.

All this time that Conan has been off the air, they've been making him a new set on the Universal Studios lot. So he'll be close to the actors on set. That should give him a leg up on the competition when it comes to booking a late night guest that needs to plug their project. His new studio is a change from Lenos in many ways. Mixing around where the band plays to where he comes out to a more Johnny Carson fashion.


The new Tonight Show set up.

Jokes have been mentioned about using the Jaws doll to do color commentary every now and then as a recurring gag. Which, I would say, would be a good use of that old attraction that hasn't had the spotlight put on it since Mallrats over a decade ago.

If you're a fan of Conan, you'd be inclined to give this a read through which details Conan's Move to Southern California.

Some of the highlights that I found were:

Above a shelf full of awards for writing hung a large cork bulletin board. The board, which was once devoted to blue index cards denoting guests and comedy bits scheduled for “Late Night,” had been colonized by a battalion of yellow index cards, on which were written ideas for “The Tonight Show.” The suggestions, most of them for remotes, offered glimpses of a new mentality:
“Conan as car valet,”
“Conan as Mexican-wrestling star,”
“Conan cleans pools,”
“Conan goes canoeing on the Los Angeles River.”

Most of the ideas utilized the notion of O’Brien as an outsider, alien to the ways of Hollywood. “Conan takes a cheerful spin on the ‘Psycho’ set,” read one card; “Conan tries to be a stunt man,” suggested another. “Conan has 2,318 dollars and tries to get in on the California bailout.”

Oh man, I would watch the hell out of all those. ideas



With the change I have to wonder what exactly I'm going to do late nights now. I mean, I have no reason to stay up past 12:30 since I hate Jimmy Fallon and think his run of Late night has been awfully unfunny so far.

Makes me wonder if I'm not getting old myself. Have my days of staying up late for no good reason come to an end? What's next? Will I settle down and start some family? Nah, not yet. I still have a lot of stupidity in me left to use. Though I'm sure I'll just piss away the 11:30-12:30 slot watching and laughing at Conan. That's when I'm not at a taping.