Conan Puts Triumph on a Shorter Leash

Last Friday night marked a reunion of old friends: Conan O'Brien and the usually rabid mutt, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. The Dog's crude humor has gotten a bit tired lately, with the same cruel jokes made at the expense of his unsuspecting interviewees. But Friday night's clip marked a departure from his familiar routine. And Conan's late night show was the better for it.

Triumph made his first appearance on the Tonight Show last Friday when he reported on the gathering of "pungent hippies" at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee. He was up to his old antics -- digging through compost bins to find copies of Black Eyed Peas albums and poking fun at dancing, stoned concert-goers. His jokes were delivered with their usual punch, but at the end of the day, he laughed along with the people he mocked.

Bonnaroo was the perfect place for Triumph to make his first appearance on Conan's new show. After all, who's going to judge you at a hippie festival where peace, love and happiness reign? Triumph ran loose around the campgrounds poking fun at every music icon and concert-goer he spotted. When all was said and done, they could sit down together, smoke a joint and call it a day. The Dog seemed at home amongst the hippies when he proclaimed, "I love the smell of weed mixed with Axe body spray."

He saved his more biting criticisms for celebrities like rapper and reality TV star Flava Flav. "Flava Flav is wearing a giant clock around his neck, so he'll always know how far back he set the Civil Rights Movement," Triumph reported upon spotting the rapper-turned-reality show star.

In the past, the Insult Dog's crude jokes have been guaranteed crowd-pleasers for Conan's late night audience. His cruel, over-the-top humor spares no one, and over the years he found a comfortable home insulting whomever he pleased on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

With the pressure of a new time slot and a new audience to please, Conan reeled his wildest features in, and that included putting a leash on the Insult Dog. The Tonight Show has seen a drop in ratings from this time last year when Jay Leno was hosting. Conan can't afford to alienate his viewers, but after Friday night's clip, it seems like Conan will be in the clear. Triumph's report from the grounds of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival stayed in one of the top spots on video sites over the weekend and may just have helped garner the buzz Conan needed to get his show up and running.

Best of all: the Dog seemed at home. For all those skeptics of Conan as The Tonight Show's host, Triumph's appearance may be the sign of the good TV that's yet to come.