Conan O'Brien Returns

Since comedian Conan O'Brien was ousted from NBC following the gross miscalculation that people would watch Jay Leno while they weren't tired to the point of lunacy, his return to television has been anticipated as if he is a form of talk show host messiah. With Monday night came the second coming, in the form of Conan, his new talk show on TBS.

When O'Brien was removed from The Tonight Show in January, and immediately after he became "the good guy" in the NBC Late Night War, as public (by that I mean Internet) opinion saw him as wrongfully tossed aside and Jay Leno as an old sleazeball who saw himself as the rightful owner of what was no longer his. It seemed everyone was on "Team Coco", but alas after Conan refused to move back to midnight he was thrown aside so that Jay Leno would get back what he gave up months ago because he wanted it back like REALLY bad. Never did he consider running to another network to show NBC what they'd be missing (it wouldn't be much, amirite?) but instead he didn't want to run away from home. It's HIS toy and no one else can play with it! It's obvious to me that Leno never traded Pokemon cards: no trade backs, Jay, My brother lost a Gengar that way.

The most impressive thing about the sudden ascension of "Team Coco" is, let's face it, most people didn't give a crap about The Jay Leno Show or The Tonight Show. Conan O'Brien's popularity hasn't taken a hit since the debacle, but instead it has skyrocketed. As a culture, we root for the underdogs and the rejects, for the most part. To America, Jay Leno looked like the big man swooping in and taking away the little guy's place. To them, that did not stand.

On the final episodes of O'Brien's Tonight Show, he was met with a cavalcade of celebrities supporting him, including Ed Helms, Robin Williams singing a particularly profane kiss-off to NBC, Pee-wee Herman, Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Will Ferrell, Beck (!), and members of ZZ Top. With a rendition of "Free Bird", O'Brien left NBC to fade into no-doubt obscurity.

Wrong. Instead he became a comedy superstar, due in no small part to his brilliant "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour", and I was lucky enough to attend one of the shows right here in Columbus, Ohio.

(Photo by The Lantern, OSU's student newspaper.)

What I anticipated was merely a comedy show of sorts, with O'Brien telling jokes, exchanging witty banter with sidekick and siamese twin Andy Richter and perhaps some music from his band. Well, I certainly got all that, but in a much more entertaining package than I could have imagined. He brought along pyrotechnics, lights, gigantic beach balls, and he performed several songs. He wasn't there just to keep himself busy, but to put on a show.

Watching the premiere of Conan on Monday night, I saw a man who no longer had anything to fear. Ever since he began The Tonight Show it is likely he felt as if a gun was to his head offstage even before the Leno controversy. He was given a shiny new car and he was told not to get any mud on it or any dents, and he drove it carefully for a few months before finally settling into a groove.Unlike NBC, TBS is willing to bend over backwards for O'Brien, for he creates a buzz that Seinfeld reruns don't.

For one reason or another people seemed to expect more from thew premiere of Conan, but let's face it, people. It's a talk show. Would I have liked him to try and do something new and exciting with the medium? Probably, but he had no interest in that. What the premiere of Conan did was it provided a fun hour of talk show television, full of energy that the networks just don't go for. You just have to keep it within that lens.

The first episode drew almost 4.2 million viewers, which is incredibly impressive considering the time slot. In its first night Conan beat The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, the Leno-riffic Tonight Show and David Letterman's Late Show. These numbers will drop significantly as time goes on, but even then Conan will be a hit for TBS, giving them viewers at 11:00 pm that they've never had before, and providing a lead-in for Lopez Tonight.

I am fully behind O'Brien's decision to move to TBS rather than another network channel, because now he can be free of any real pressure to compete with Leno, Letterman and the like. He now does a show completely on his own terms, and everyone around him will be grateful. Meanwhile, Jay Leno remains a slave to NBC and is getting the lowest ratings of his career. I'll leave it to you to decide who won, and these days it's almost never the one who sticks with NBC, a network that wouldn't know a good decision if it bit them in the nose. Conan O'Brien no longer looms in anyone's shadow, but now is free to cast them himself.