When Conan O’Brien was essentially bumped from The Tonight Show, it ignited a public whine-and-dine, with the soon-to-be-ex host whining about being double-crossed and mistreated, while the TV public dined on the juicy morsels of controversy. O’Brien, in his own subtle way, attempted to start a riot – a fittingly subtle one – by asking his fans to take action by writing to NBC. At least that’s how it seemed. Certainly, to be handed the greatest job in comedy and then have it yanked out from under you is a situation custom-built for acrimony. But this is TV. It plays by its own rules, except when it wants to break them.
Before catching his own break, Conan, who had previously been a writer, wasn’t above having to audition for jobs just like everybody else. Actually, he was already ahead of the pack by virtue of coming through the Harvard- National Lampoon pipeline. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say he auditioned for many, many jobs at an earlier time in his life. When he wasn’t hired, do you think he felt duped? Or rather, like most reasonable aspirants, did he understand that it’s a tough business and that rejection has always been the mainstream currency of the show-business bank? But things change. Once a real job comes along – particularly a coveted position that primes and primps a person’s ego on a daily basis – a sense of entitlement begins to creep in. Suddenly, even the smallest step backward becomes a token of lost ground. I recall once hearing Susan Sarandon bemoan the dearth of roles for middle-aged women. I think she has a point. But I wonder if she’d care so much if she didn’t see these nonexistent jobs as lost income, rather than make such an observation completely on principle. After all, isn’t an actor lucky (as a matter of speaking) to get any job? What about all the talented people who never had the chance to work even a fraction as much as Sarandon? The struggling actor knows that it’s a matter of the person fitting the role, not the role fitting the person. They have no sense of entitlement because they know that the business never changes; only actors and their attitudes do.
So then, let’s switch back to talk-shows. When you figure that millions of Americans have been laid off in the last several years –and without being offered a 30 million dollar severance deal – O’Brien’s public display of bitterness seems particularly unbecoming. Of course he wanted to host The Tonight Show, and of course he probably expected to hold on to the position for many years to come. But the ratings weren’t there. And, as with every other program on television, an insufficient audience is ultimately a catalyst for, if not cancellation, at least a radical revamping. Whatever personal offense O’Brien took at NBC’s admittedly ramshackle rejiggling, he is obviously not immune to, nor above, the mood swings of the industry. If his fans wished there’d been a different outcome and really wanted to help save O’Brien’s job, they should have done something ironic, which, on the surface, might have felt like switching sides. They should have tuned into Leno’s 9 p.m. debacle in droves. If Leno had sufficient ratings, his oddly timed show might have persevered. That would have left O’Brien intact. But who can think ahead like that? Certainly not his fans, and apparently not his lawyer – who reportedly failed to include a provision that might have made The Tonight Show inflexible.
It initially struck me as odd that David Letterman – a very old acquaintance and one-time friend of Leno – took sides, making tacky jokes about him that helped to vilify a proven comedy powerhouse. Letterman seemed to eagerly take the reins of the let’s-knock-Leno bandwagon. Perhaps, I figured, he was just sticking up for O’Brien, the underdog. But then my cynicism came out of the green room. I suddenly realized that, naturally, Letterman would rather compete against O’Brien than Leno, who had consistently bettered him in the ratings. Letterman’s actions were at least partially, then, based on self-interest and the vicissitudes of the business; and this was at the same time he was taking Leno to task for doing the same thing.
And how did the Jay-Man take it all? On the chin, of course. He refused to get down in the mud with everybody else, and, quite likely, felt some empathy for the unhappy O’Brien. It’s important to remember that this showdown was NBC’s doing, not Leno’s. He had veto power – in this case that would mean the ability to turn down his old job – but he explicitly didn’t orchestrate the Conan ambush. I suppose one could fault him – and, again, his bosses at the network – for actually believing that people would watch a talk-show during the frenetic prime-time hours. People watch talk-shows while they’re in bed, for gosh sake. That said, the earlier show didn’t sound that bad on paper; and, frankly, I applaud any risk taken by an industry known not only for playing it perfectly safe but being brashly imitative. The bottom line, aside from the dollars, is that O’Brien was never the best choice for The Tonight Show. With all the funny people in the world, how did this former writer – whose funniest feature is his hair – advance so far? O’Brien is talented, and he has a self-deprecating sense of humor that makes his proud-nerd approach more tolerable – but that was never enough. And when he makes one of those creepy, teeth-exposed faces while flexing his hands into claws – well, that has about as much to do with comedy as the Hillside Strangler. Despite O’Brien’s sense of entitlement, and his publicly aired belief that he’s qualified for the most important job in comedy, he’s simply not on a par with, well, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen and the acerbic Letterman, all of whom know (or knew) how to adorn a singular comedic vision with a touch of class. And he’s quantifiably not as good as Leno – which is ultimately why things turned out the way they have. The angels may have smiled down on O’Brien – at least for a while – but they apparently didn’t laugh.
Jordan Oakes is a local journalist who has written for publications such as St. Louis Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor. He has strong opinions that begin to atrophy if he doesn't exercise his right to express them. Tune in every Wednesday for another installment of Mediatribe - and if you missed last week's post, click here.
