Bill Carter's book on the Leno/Conan mess

Also said Conan was offered at one point $28 million a year to go to Fox before he got The Tonight Show. If he's stupid enough to turn that down, he deserves what he got.

 

His perspective was obviously different when he was the heir-apparent to "The Tonight Show" (and supposedly the offers he was getting from Fox were one of the factors that pushed NBC to promise him the show when he did in the first place). In hindsight, though, I agree.

I'm now even more curious what the book has to say about Letterman.

While NBC's had some dogs in its prime-time 10 PM slot, even the worst drama had to have been seen as a better performer long-term than "The Jay Leno Show," or the affiliates wouldn't have revolted against "The Jay Leno Show" like they did. But I agree the "shitty lead-in" argument ultimately doesn't hold water for Conan. The late local news absolutely was murdered by "The Jay Leno Show," but I don't think it was a huge contributor to Conan's "Tonight Show" ratings.

 

How does one not lead to the other?

If CBS is showing CSI, which typically gets about 15 million viewers and NBC is showing Leno's abortion of a show that gets 5 million viewers, even with local news in between, wouldn't you assume that Letterman would do better than Conan at 11:30?

 

A $45 million buyout?

 

Which is $30 million to him and $15 million to his staff. I'm not crying for the guy. I actually really like Conan and can't wait to see his new show, but I will never understand why he would turn down that kind of offer to stay in a holding pattern for five years and then replace Jay.

 

Really enjoyed the excerpt. I guess it softened my opinion that Leno orchestrated the whole affair. I disagree strongly with the line of thinking that goes "Why should Conan care about damaging the Tonight Show brand?" and the blogger's statement about "If he cared so much, why would he hand the show back to the guy he thought was doing a shitty show?"

I think that comedy writing is a little bit like sports writing. At least the way I grew up wanting to be a sports writer. The best sports writers I know didn't want to write about sports for a living because they really liked sports, but because the people writing for Sports Illustrated (and other magazines) were virtual Gods to them. The institution was sacred. I still feel that way about SI, even though it's a shadow of what it once was. The institution will forever remain sacred, as uncool and outdated as that may seem. I feel like Conan feels the same way about the Tonight Show. Yes, the reality is that Conan can be just as funny -- if not way funnier -- somewhere else, and that none of his most loyal viewers care about the institution that is The Tonight Show. But the Tonight Show will always be what made him want to be a comic in the first place. It's like your first love. Though it may be impractical and irrational, even totally unrealistic and naive, the first time you fall in love, you fall HARD and you never forget what it feels like. I like dreamers like that. Maybe it's stupid that Conan supposedly turned down $28 million a year from Fox for a chance to host The Tonight Show, but that's part of what makes him admirable. The dream still mattered a little more than money. The paragraph about Conan suffering from self doubt much of his life, always knowing there would be a moment when he would have to summon his Irish backbone and stand up for himself, really resonated with me. Conan was willing to play ball with NBC to a point, but in the end, he had to do what he felt was right. And after that, the decision of what NBC did with the Tonight Show was out of his hands.

Leno was put in an unfair spot too, to be honest. His brand of comedy doesn't resonate with me, but he shouldn't have been forced out of the Tonight Show. NBC just compounded stupid decision after stupid decision.

In 2004, when ABC was in the tank and in real trouble, they turned to their creative team and came up with Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal and LOST. Fox came up with House the same year. CBS came up with NCIS in 2003. Any one of those shows would have been a major financial boon to the network. Instead, when faced with similar problems, NBC decided to double down on five nights of Jay Leno.

Conan's final speech on the Tonight Show remains one of my favorite moments in television. You can snark about it if you like, but it's true. Cynicism is a natural emotion, one I'm very capable of, and one that is never going away. But it's also a little bit of an empty emotion. It's harder to create something than tear it down, even if there is an art to tearing stuff down and doing it can be fun. Comics today will hopefully look at Jon Stewart and Conan the way Conan and Letterman once looked at Carson. As someone who cared very much about the traditions of comedy, about creating a small piece art in a commercial context.

Nobody in life does get exactly what they thought they were going to get, but hard work and kindness does lead to amazing things. Maybe that's cheesy, but I think he said that from the heart, and for that reason alone, I'll be watching tonight.

 

There should be people who want to be sportswriters because of reading Double Down's posts

 

I would hope they'd have more sensible inspirations than that. But thank you.

 

And to think all I had was Reilly's Bryant Gumbel story.

 

And I had that story from the guy at a state university in the Midwest who never thought something like that would ever happen to him

 

Regarding the idea of "The Tonight Show" as an institution....

I really think that ended with Carson, and it would have met the same fate if Letterman rather than Leno had been chosen. There are a variety of reasons, including the 100-channel world, time shifting with DVRs, and all the holes Letterman poked in the concept with his 12:30 show. But one of the biggest is that Carson was part of a different generation. Leno and Letterman are more like our peers. Johnny was the icon who had represented show biz for us from the time we were old enough to stay up until 11:30. So we dug it when Johnny and his pals would crack each other up with inside jokes that we really didn't get.

Johnny was a lousy husband, but we laughed along at his alimony jokes. Johnny smoked like a chimney, but it looked cool when he did it. Johnny had no affection for rock, so we tried to like the out-of-date lounge singers that he would book.

Fuzzy memories forget that Johnny had entire years where he mailed it in -- excessive vacation time, four-day week, cutting back to one hour from 90 minutes, same lame jokes over and over (wasn't every Art Fern sketch from the same template?) We put up with it because it was Johnny.

As long as he lasted, Johnny still probably got off the stage before he was embarrassing himself. Then he disappeared, and that enhanced the legend. He wasn't Bob Hope, reading badly from billboard-sized cue cards. His legend is secure, partly because we're more likely to find fault with people of our generation.

 

Let's not forget Bombastic Buskin and The Tea Time Movie with Carol Wayne ("you go to the Slawson Cutoff, cut off your slawson....")