Jay Leno's last "Tonight" is tonight

I read an article in the Chicago Tribune that the bear made the trip west - how it is used will be up to discussion. If they just had the bear running around with its hands tied running around it would be funny - or even better - the bear is such a stud in L.A. he becomes "the overly satiated bear." I'm just hoping Triumph the Dog makes it to the Playboy Mansion.

 

That would be inspired.

 

All I'm saying is people who thought the Dancing Itos and "Iron Jay" were a riot are going to be saying "Huh?" at Conan's stuff.

 

I just got around to watching Jay's last show on Hulu, as I'm part of that fragmented audience now. I probably wouldn't have sat through the entire monologue otherwise. Jaywalking has always seemed tedious. I'm bummed he didn't pull out a closing Headlines skit (always loved it, not sure if my fondness is a newspaper thing or not, as I loved it as a kid too).

That old clip with the first appearance Conan on television was a fine piece of vintage TV. Loved Conan's denim jeans and super-long bangs circa 1993. It looked like NBC pulled him out of his dorm room and made him put on a tie.

I'm really looking forward to Monday's show. Not sure what it'll be like. I know a lot of Conan's material isn't going to make to the earlier timeslot and the bigger audience, and that makes me a little sad. But I'm sure it'll still be funny. Conan's always been my favorite guy on late night, even over Stewart and Colbert these last few years. I'm really interested to see how they use the bear.

The only part of Leno's show that really got to me was when he brought out the children of his staff. It's been said many times before but, whether you care for his comedy or not, he seems like a highly decent guy and he's handled the blows he's taken in his career with more class than most people would. I have the feeling his prime time show will be an absolute clusterfuck for NBC, simply in terms of having three (four, if you count Carson Daley) late-night talk shows running pretty much back-to-back. But if nothing else it'll be interesting to see how it plays.

 

I didn't get the significance of having the staff members' kids there. It seemed like the kind of thing that should be meaningful, but what was it?

In any large workplace that employs people under the age of 40, you're going to have a certain number of births over 17 years.

What did Jay Leno have to do with any of that?

 

To me the point was that so much of his staff was still around to bring their kids on the finale.
And the fact that Leno and his wife have no kids of their own might be part of it as well.

 

Uh....still don't see what it means.

Between the show staff and the tech/studio crew, there are hundreds of people who work on that show and I'm sure there was a tremendous amount of turnover in 17 years. For one very visible thing, he changed band leaders and announcers over the run of the show.

 

Yeah, but a lot more non-turnover than you'd expect. And Eubanks was there for the whole ride and the bandleader for almost all of it. He never did very well in the announcer area, I don't think.

 

Hell, I wonder if they'll even let him use Triumph at 11:30.

 

He's quite the cocksman.

 

I liked the idea Conan mentioned in the NY Times Magazine piece -- since they're shooting at Universal, they would bring on Bruce the mechanical shark from Jaws, except he would sound like Paul Lynde and spend his time "dishing on all his co-stars."

The HBO movie from The Late Shift is pretty good, surprisingly enough.

 

Hahahahaha. Reminds me of that Simpsons where Barney talks about going to the sperm bank and all you see coming out of the hospital are ugly, belching babies.