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| TV Reviews | |
Letterman lite Conan O'Brien needs to add considerable heft Jun 2, 2009
That may not be enough. It was an underwhelming start, and it suggests O’Brien has some growing to do if he wants to keep “The Tonight Show” the 800-pound gorilla of late night. Letterman lite won’t do. Except for the notably larger studio, the show had much the same feel as O’Brien’s version of “Late Night,” which he began hosting as a virtual unknown back in 1993. The band is still led by Max Weinberg, and the announcer is O’Brien’s former sidekick, Andy Richter, who left “Late Night” in 2000. The premiere suggested that O’Brien, like David Letterman when he moved from 12:35 to 11:35, is going to try to maintain the stance of an outsider shooting spitballs at the powers that be. At first, Letterman was a breath of fresh air in the earlier time slot, but his gradual loss of talk-show-audience share suggests that the outsider stance is hard to maintain when your show makes you one of those powers. O’Brien last night entered to a predictable standing ovation. After he repeatedly asked the audience to stop (“It’s coming across as anger now”), he started a monologue that was mostly about his new duties and surroundings. As a new celebrity, he said, he would be attending Lakers games. A videotape panned from Jack Nicholson at courtside to O’Brien eating popcorn in the last row. The only topical joke was a bit in which Joe Biden was shown leaning in to talk to the new Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. A dubbed voice had him saying, “I really like chimichangas. And quesadillas. And tacos. Choco tacos. … Do you have swine flu?” Richter’s apparently improvised joke about a connection between swine flu and Choco tacos fell flat. Many commentators have noted that O’Brien’s predecessor, Jay Leno, surpassed Letterman in the ratings when he began to emphasize his opening monologue, which largely consisted of topical humor about politicians and celebrities. Leno’s everyman persona likely appealed to viewers who enjoy catching up on the day’s events but find Jon Stewart’s take a little too collegiate-snarky. If O’Brien is going to drop that ball, he risks losing those viewers to Stewart, to Letterman or, probably more likely, to sleep. Of course, since Leno will likely revive his topical monologue in his upcoming 10 p.m. show, premiering on NBC this fall, O’Brien may feel that he has to try a different approach. To judge by the premiere, O’Brien will continue to rely on remote segments, a signature element of “Late Night.” The first one Monday night showed O’Brien checking off a list of things to do before his first show and realizing he’d forgotten to move to Los Angeles. So he decided to run all the way there, getting chased by security as he sped across the grass in Wrigley Field in Chicago and stopping at a Victorian doll museum somewhere in middle America. During the monologue, O’Brien said that since the new “Tonight Show” set is on the Universal lot, he wanted to help out on the studio tour. He goofed on the scary moments—he panicked when the bridge broke and asked why the Norman Bates lookalike was hiding a body in broad daylight—then ended the tour by taking the tram out on the roads of L.A. and buying everyone a gift at a 99-cent store. The funniest remote segment, coming after the first commercial break, showed O’Brien trying to prove that his old 1992 Ford Taurus is cool enough for LA by driving it through town. This bit cleverly spoofed typical driving-montage clichés: After spotting the car, the model Fabio said, “Wow, I wish I could have a Ford Taurus,” and a young woman who made eye contact with O’Brien instantly became pregnant. O’Brien was relatively at ease bantering with the only guest to have couch time in this episode, Will Ferrell (who didn’t come on until 12:07). O’Brien laughed convincingly at the prepared bits: Ferrell made his entrance on a sedan chair carried by what looked like Egyptian slaves, then listed fun things for newcomers to do in L.A., like driving around on the LAX tarmac on Sundays. And O’Brien joined Ferrell in mocking the convention of setting up the clip from the guest’s upcoming movie. (That’s the kind of joke that works better when you’re hosting a little 12:35 show and not the biggest talk show in America.) At the end of the show, O’Brien said he was “thrilled and honored” to introduce Pearl Jam. Show business etiquette would require that the band perform one of its classics rather than the rather generic-sounding (if well-performed) cut from its upcoming album that we heard. As it was, the performance helped maintain the generally low energy level. After the first commercial break, O’Brien had taken time to praise Jay Leno for being “a true gentleman” during the transition, then added, “He’s going to be coming back on the air, I think in two days—three days maybe tops.” And Ferrell had joined in the joke by serenading O’Brien with “Never Can Say Goodbye.”
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