[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPGL427EoAc&hl=en&fs=1]
This past Friday, Conan O’Brien, hosted the last episode of his Late Night talk show. O’Brien is moving to Los Angeles to take over the reins of The Tonight Show from Jay Leno. Conan’s first show in LA will be June 1, 2009. After seventeen years, I will now have a good reason to tune into The Tonight Show.
When Conan started his show way back in 1993, he had some big shoes to fill. He was at the time, an unknown, caught up the in the late night talk show drama. He was almost an afterthought, with the controversy between David Letterman and Jay Leno dominating the talk show headlines. The first two years of Late Night weren’t the best and the rumours that he was nearly canned several times probably had some truth in it.
As the years passed, Conan and his staff found their own particular sense of comedic style and people responded. I will always love and appreciate Conan’s devastating self-deprecating wit and sense of humour. Throughout the 1990s, Conan became extremely popular with the college-age crowd, his goofy humour resonating with the coveted 18-24 year old set.
After sixteen years, O’Brien has more than earned his seat at The Tonight Show desk, where he will bring some fresh energy and new ideas to the show.
The segment you see above is from when Conan visited the FAO Schwarz store in NYC. While entertaining, Conan has stated his all-time favourite skit is from when attended a Civil-war era baseball re-enactment. Because of embedding restrictions, I can’t show it to you in this post but you may view it here. It is classic Conan at his best. Good luck Conan in LA!