"Keep cool, my babies."
7.5
I specifically recall the first time I ever saw Late Night. It was September 1998, and there was a prime-time special commemorating Conan's 5th anniversary. I was only 14 years old and staying up past 11 o'clock was very alien for me; I had only heard of Conan but I was curious to see what he was all about. I found the one-hour clip show to be mildly amusing, and I made a mental note to watch him again at my next opportunity. Fast forward to 10 1/2 years later: after 2,725 shows Conan O'Brien bid a fond adieu to Late Night, packing up for Los Angeles as he prepares to take the reins of The Tonight Show from Jay Leno, and I was a full-fledged fan, watching and passively paying tribute to some of the best late night comedy I've ever seen.
There was always something oddly compelling about Conan's show. He wasn't just a nerdy ginger in a suit; he was a ringmaster, an intellectual comedian bringing a world of brainy zaniness to audience of college kids and fellow comedy geeks. O'Brien was the eye in that storm of wackiness, detached but self-aware and highly quirky in his own right. Nathan Rabin put it best when he said that Conan assumes that the audience is just as weird and smart and off-kilter as he is, and it's hard to disagree with that presumption. Conan was the anti-Leno; where Jay was a one-time above-average comedian who watered down his act for middle America, O'Brien refused to dilute the hyperactivity and individualism that made him so special.
Of course, Conan couldn't do it alone- I tip my hat to his writing staff, nominated for 13 Emmys but only winning once in 2007, and his crackerjack house band The Max Weinberg 7 for providing a soundtrack to the mayhem. It wasn't all perfect, either; sometimes his monologue was so cliched and hackneyed that I stepped out of the room or changed the channel, but Conan absolutely glowed in the Act 2 comedy piece and the interview segments. O'Brien selection of stand-up comedians and musical guests near the end of the show was probably just as eclectic as David Letterman during his stint at NBC, if not more obscure and venturesome; he was hip to the brink of being square.
There's no question that the end of "Late Night" is also the end of an era, and that O'Brien's show won't be quite the same on the left coast. Conan hit it on the head in his farewell speech that New York City was part of the show's DNA; you can't duplicate that jazzy rhythm and distinct sense of identity in that sterile wasteland of smog and traffic jams you and I call Los Angeles. Maybe there's an East Coast bias here (I'm from Chicago, by the way), but I find greater comedic gratification in shows produced in New York than in LA. Letterman, SNL, "30 Rock," you name it: the Big Apple was just as much a part of the show as the Masturbating Bear or Preperation-H Raymond.
The last two weeks of Late Night was mostly a collection of the same clips I saw ten years ago, but with a heavy emphasis on his peak years in the early-to-mid 2000s. Andy Richter, the portly improv actor who served as Conan's sidekick in the first seven years, dropped by as a special guest on the last show. There was precious little interviewing, just a reminder that for awhile Conan had an associate ringmaster, one that was in on the joke as well as butt of it. At first Richter left a big gap with his departure, but it only encouraged Conan's other supporting players shine: Weinberg, trombonist Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg, saxaphonist Mark Pender, writers like Brian Stack and Brian McCann, and of course, that balefire of bizarro, announcer Joel Godard. Conan was undoubtedly in peak form in early 2008, when a lengthy writers' strike forced him to improvize nearly every aspect of Late Night; sporting a full beard, "Raw Conan" was an precedented journey into a talk show host's psyche, similtaneously unbridled and introverted but a testament to O'Brien's perseverance.
There's no question that I'll watch Conan in LA, and I know it'll take time to find his footing in his new digs (probably not as long as his first year in NYC), but there was something so inherently special about Conan's first show that won't be equaled and cannot be compared. Late Night with Conan O'Brien was a treat, a delicious nightcap after a long day, and I sincerely hope that Jimmy Fallon is at least half as watchable as Conan was in his prime. Here's to you, Cone Bone.