Wednesday, June 2, 2010

NBC DOES NOT, HOWEVER, OWN THE SELF-PLEASURING PANDA: Conan O'Brien's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television" Tour show is fascinating enough in and of itself, but what I think is most interesting about it is what it may say about where his TBS show may go. Because Conan will no longer have a brand (Late Night or The Tonight Show), I think he can do some interesting things with the format, and tonight's show demonstrated he could do that--a little more than 2 hours of Conan-fronted show, without a single celebrity interview segment to weigh it down. (We did have cameos from Eli Manning and John Krasinski, with whom Conan informally chatted before they pulled the Walker lever, a comic interlude from Mr. Pee-Wee Herman, and some purported standup from a Conan writer who kind of reminded me of Columbus Short's character from Studio 60. (Note--this is not meant as a compliment.))

Rather than being tethered to a desk, Conan walked around the stage, enjoyed vodka and wine, did scripted comedy bits, shot the breeze with his guests and Andy, and played guitar and sang (no band joined him tonight, though Max Weinberg came out from backstage to play drums on "The Weight," the show's encore). Contrast with Jay Leno, who, if you had the unfortunate experience of viewing the earliest episodes of The Jay Leno Show, seemed utterly lost without a desk save for during the monologue. I'm wondering if Conan may try and discard things like the desk and the couch, which have been staples of talk shows for so long, and try something altogether different. I'll say that this show made me very interested to see what he has planned next. Will I watch Coco every night? No. Do I think he could do something very interesting and different with a show? Absolutely.

10 comments:

  1. I have tickets for Monday night. Really looking forward to it!

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  2. Jennifer J.12:56 AM

    Anyone know what date the TBS show starts?

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  3. I will note than when they brought out Max (sporting a goatee) I was wondering if that might be followed up with, "And Max has a friend he wants to introduce..." and march out Bruce.

    Another interesting thing is that there were many, many jokes about how the audience last night was almost exclusively white.  TBS's original programming anchors right now are Lopez Tonight and the two Tyler Perry sitcoms, and they are not exactly oriented to the same demographic.  As Alan and Dan talked about on their podcast yesterday, going to be interesting to see if the "urban" shows get kicked to the floor as TBS seeks a different audience, or if they try to make them coexist.

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  4. I was there last night but didn't see Matt -too many white people, I guess.

    The comedy was good and the Andy/Conan stuff was really good.  Too much music.  Not enough celebrities doing funny bits.  The second comedian wasn't that good.

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  5. Did you catch footage of the Jon Stewart/Colbert cameos? Find it on YouTube... "dance-off" may be in the title.  Great stuff.

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  6. I was there Tuesday night.  In addition to the aforementioned Colbert/Stewart dance-off, Vampire Weekend came out and played a song with Coco (Wolcott), and Bill Hader, John Krasinski, and Paul Rudd came out for the Walker lever.  And conan himself was great.  I'm really looking forward to TBS in the fall.

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  7. bella wilfer1:43 PM

    Interesting to hear who the guests are in various locales - I saw the show a few weeks ago in LA and they had Jim Carrey dressed as Superman, Jonah Hill, Aziz Ansari, Jack McBrayer, and Jon Hamm pulling the "Walker" lever.  Unfortunately, Conan did not enjoy any alcoholic beverages, though I got a kick out of the fact that Don Draper showed up for the curtain call toting the beer he was drinking backstage.  Art imitating life or life imitating art?

    Conan was fantastic and - though I've never been a major late-night talk show watcher - it definitely entertained me enough to tune in when he starts back on TBS.

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  8. Actually, it started as a joke last night--two people in the second row came in late and Conan said "the least you could do is give me the drink."  They did.  Repeated references by Conan that this was a "mistake," particularly since it was apparently vodka straight.

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  9. Matt -- we went to the show on Tuesday night, and it's interesting how different it seems the shows were. Conan had a band on Tuesday night, had walk-ons from krasinsi, paul rudd, stephen colbert, john stewart, and bill hader. Vampire Weekend played, too. Conan's singing/guitar playing with the band got old really quickly, and we really didn't need 5 or 6 songs. His stand-up bits were OK, but it was weird how dated the "NBC screwed me" stuff already felt after just a couple of months. Far and away, the best stuff was the produced/written bits with the guests and the opening video.

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