The Late Shift Part Two
The 1996 movie the Late Shift chronicles the behind the scenes struggle to determine who would take over the Tonight Show after Johnny Carson retired. I have not seen the movie since it first came out nor do I remember all of the details, but it was a nasty battle. Obviously Leno ended up as host of the Tonight Show with Letterman moving to CBS. They have gone head to head ever since. Initially Letterman’s show had better ratings, but Leno took the lead basically for good on the night Hugh Grant came on his show after getting caught with a prostitute. I guess people were fascinated that someone who was dating Elizabeth Hurley would risk losing the beautiful Hurley. Also I’m sure his publicist was not thrilled by the possible hit to his squeaky clean image. This was not an Eliot Spitzer situation where he was paying for a high class smoking escort. There were photos of her in every tabloid. The point of the story is that the heated rivalry between Leno and Letterman was decided because people were intrigued by seeing how a famous actor cum disgraced John would explain his transgression.
That may be an oversimplification, but that was the turning point when Leno took over the ratings and he never looked back. Once people became entrenched in one camp or the other things pretty much stayed the same as far as the ratings go. The biggest shakeup came when NBC announced that in order to avoid a debacle, like the one which occurred when Carson retired, they were naming Conan O’Brien to take over for Leno in five years. The problem is that Leno like Letterman and other late night hosts is a creature of habit. He does the show he works on cars eats the same thing for dinner every night. He is a little like Rain Man in a way. He enjoys doing comedy and doing his talk show, but would be lost retiring at this point.
Conan was initially awkward when first taking over for Letterman. Conan was previously the head writer for the Simpsons and Saturday Night Live so there was no question when it came to his comedic credentials, but it was one thing to write for a successful comedy and another entirely to host your own talk show every night. Almost everyone assumed the show would be cancelled, but NBC had patience with Conan and eventually he found his groove. He gained a rabid following among college students and was a particularly big hit with stoners. I used to watch Conan all the time, but admit for whatever reason I have not watched him as much in recent years. If I am up when he is on and he has a guest that interests me I will watch him, but I do not go out of my way to do so. It seems he faces some tough decisions. Does he try to hard and change his style to satisfy the audience that was used to Leno or does he just try to be himself? My guess is he will initially have trouble balancing trying to entertain a different audience while not losing what made him effective in the first place.
Other than the problem of how to adjust to the new time slot, the biggest problem is that now there is much more competition in the late night ratings battle. Conan will not have the chance to settle into the show and find his niche like he did with his old show. Leno has what Conan desperately needs in order to succeed a large following. It won’t be enough to be fairly successful NBC will want the Tonight Show to continue to dominate the ratings. It is just about the only ratings success they have these days.It is not just the Tonight Show against the Late Show. The first half hour of the show has to compete with the Colbert Report. Much of Conan’s current audience likely watches the Colbert Report as well. Of course many of these younger viewers probably have dual tuner dvrs or are willing to get Colbert online or watch a repeat of Colbert’s show when it replays later that night or the next day. Conan will continue to face competition from Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC although now it will be the second half of his show going up against the first half of Kimmel’s show. Kimmel’s ratings may not match Conan’s or Leno’s old ratings, but if you take into account Cobert, Kimmel and of course the Internet and video games. The other wild card in the equation is Leno’s new show on NBC which airs five nights a week at 10:00 PM. If Leno’s old viewers watch him at 10:00 are they going to stay up to watch Conan later that night.It is not a guarantee that the Tonight Show will continue winning the late night ratings battle sans Leno.
Conan will take over as host of the Tonight Show on June 1st. Conan brings more to the table than Leno at this point Leno’s most popular segments are Headlines and Jaywalking. One involves him reading newspaper headlines. Usually his jokes about the headlines are not as funny as the actual article headlines he is reading. Jaywalking is a segment where he makes fun of people who are not that bright by asking them easy questions about history or current events. Again the star here is the airheads he finds walking the streets of Los Angeles and not Leno or his comedy. There are many people who are used to Leno though. He is a regular part of their routine. They fall asleep to him every night. He is comfortable and familiar. They probably went to bed before Conan came on so all they know him from is the brief promos NBC runs for his shows. This giant redheaded man has to start all over in trying to prove himself to a new audience. Those of us who have seen him do it before will not bet against him, but it is certainly going to be a tough road ahead. A good example of the sort of skits that made Conan popular are Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear. Let’s hope that Triumph does not have to get neutered before appearing on the Tonight Show and that the Bear is not forced to go to a sex addicts twelve step program. Although if they chose to make those skits to make light of the tricky transition it would likely be hilarious and make the old fans happy, but how will this sort of thing go over with Leno’s audience. Will they enjoy Conan’s brand of humor or will they instead switch to Letterman, Colbert or Kimmel? Or will they heed the words of our great and former President George W. Bush and turn the off switch on?
Conan talks about his new transition here including how the masturbating bear will not be going to California with him. I wrote this post and later found that interview. Apparently I have watched Conan less than I thought I had in recent years.
Stay tuned: Dickness will continue to keep you updated on the Late Night battle as it unfolds. It will be interesting to see if eventually we learn more about the behind the scenes fallout from the decision to replace Leno with Conan. My guess is that since Leno and NBC eventually worked out a deal to keep Leno in house that we will not get an accurate report of what transpired for many years. One of the interesting side effects of this decision is Conan’s replacement Jimmy Fallon who will take over on March 2nd. He will have to go up against Craig Ferguson and the second half of Jimmy Kimmel Live. I am not sure what to expect from Fallon. He was occasionally funny on SNL, but more often he was not. Kimmel is good and will likely hold off Fallon fairly easily. My guess is that Ferguson will continue to grow in popularity. He is a natural at the talk show format. His monologue is really funny because he is a comedian by trade and he has the ability to laugh at himself. Somehow it does not detract from the show when he laughs at something he has said as it is more like when Kevin Eubanks used to laugh at some cheesy joke Leno told only he is laughing at himself for making an obvious and cheesy joke so you find yourself laughing with him. Fallon’s constant laughing during Saturday Night Live skits had the ability to take any skit and grind whatever momentum it may have had to a complete halt. Ferguson does not take himself too seriously and he would be a good choice as the eventual successor to Letterman when he steps down someday. Letterman recently did an interview with Rolling Stone an excerpt of which I found on ABC.com.
"The way I feel now, I would like to go beyond 2010, not much beyond, but you know, enough to go beyond. You always like to be able to excuse yourself on your own terms," Letterman said in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine.
"If the network is happy with that, great. If they wanna make a change in 2010, you know, I’m fine with that, too," Letterman said.
There were rumors that Letterman was going to step down and Jon Stewart would take over. Stewart would be great of course, but it would be a shame if he left the Daily Show and an even bigger shame if the great David Letterman was forced to retire before he was ready. Ideally when Letterman decides to leave Ferguson will take over and they will hire Joel McHale of E’s the Soup to take over for Ferguson. I understand if you are skeptical of me recommending someone from the E Network to get their own late night talk show on CBS, but if you have ever seen that show you know why I think he would be a good choice. He is great on that show and it would be tough to replace him, but eventually he will snap if he is forced to talk about nothing except reality television all the time. He is the host who watches it all for you and really he should be rewarded for being forced to watch all of those terrible reality shows for us. Sure they are ripe for parody, but I know I appreciate the efforts of Joel and the rest of the folks at the Soup. I have no interest in reality shows at all, but I watch the Soup every Friday at 10:00 PM. Wait…I meant to say I record it on my dvr because of course I have an active social life and am usually in some club in an exotic locale dancing with tons of beautiful women at that time it normally airs. When I eventually make it home from my wild Friday night I always enjoy a healthy dose of the Soup. It is a great cure for a hangover. It is even meatier than Kim Kardashian’s thigh, and while I have yet to be able to keep up with Kim or any of the other members of the Kardashian family, I make it a point to keep up with the Soup. Ultimately though I suspect Letterman will be given the chance to leave on his own terms unlike Leno who was booted from NBC before eventually agreeing to stay in a new time slot. Unlike NBC, CBS actually has great ratings, particularly in the 10:00PM time slot, so it is highly unlikely that Letterman if replaced at the Late Show would get his own show ala Leno in the 10:00PM time slot, unless he wants to move back home to Indiana and star in CSI: Hoosiers.
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