America's Bedtime Story

I'm glad Jay Leno is finally leaving The Tonight Show.

That was a long seventeen years. People talk about George W. Bush's eight years in office as being bad for the country; that's obvious. But no one really talks about Leno's seventeen years on the Tonight Show and its negative effects. Leno's Tonight Show (compared to Carson's) was a cultural lowest common denominator. The jokes were almost always bad, the level of discourse almost always low. Leno's a stand-up routine guy, not an interviewer. I can't think of one celebrity interview he did that was at all compelling. Not one.

If The Tonight Show is in fact "America's bedtime story" which I think you could make a compelling argument for (although probably now less than ever) you want someone highly qualified to fill the post. I mean, we're talking about viewing audiences of 10-15 million people a night. That's a far larger audience than most politicians ever get, let alone on a nightly basis. And if you think about those kinds of numbers over a 15-20 year period, it's not so crazy to suggest that the man chosen to be The Tonight Show host must inevitably, on some level (however small and/or subconscious) effect the mood of the general TV-watching American public. Which makes the pick of Letterman over Leno to replace Carson all the more baffling and unfortunate.

Leno had his farewell show with his final guest (and successor) Conan O' Brien this past Friday night:



After watching Leno's last show I had to youtube Carson's final show just to do a one-on-one comparison (not fair to Leno, I know, but...):



I still remember Johnny Carson's last show like it was yesterday. I cried. It's hard to believe that was 1992, hard to believe that Carson's Tonight Show overlapped with the '90s. He was the best.

Here's Carson's final T.V. appearance, a surprise guest appearance on Letterman's new CBS show (how cool is this?):



And for fun, take a look at this, one generation prior:



Rather than trying to recap Carson's career and legacy, here's his NYT obituary (incidentally, the longest obit I've ever seen - an obit that will, I believe, only be surpassed in length by Bob Dylan's, that is, assuming the NYT outlives Dylan which, as of today, is not at all a sure thing, but I digress...):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/arts/television/24john.html?pagewanted=all&position=

There was a really interesting piece on Conan in last week's NYT magazine http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24Conan-t.html that tries to explain the process by which a Tonight Show host is chosen. I can't say I understand it. It seems comparable to the electoral college: highly political, involving numerous trips to the midwest, lots of hand-shaking, hot dog-eating. The article suggests this is why Leno was chosen over Letterman as Carson's replacement: Leno was more amenable to playing ball re: Late night politics whereas Letterman preferred to stay at home (I'd say things worked out okay for Letterman).

(On side note: What's Craig Kilborn's story? Where did he come from and (more importantly) where did he go? What happened? I thought he was pretty funny in a highly contemptuous, tall-guy sort of way. I thought for a minute there that he was seriously in the late night mix...Anyone? What happened to Kilborn?)

Anyway, will Conan return The Tonight Show to its pan-American Carson-era glory days? Will Andy Richter rejoin the show? Are we preparing to enter a 30-year Conan O'Brien Era? Will I be 63 when Conan passes the torch to the next late night host? Will TV even exist in 30 years? Will anyone besides my girlfriend or mother read what I'm writing right now? I have no idea. But what I do know is that it should be interesting to see how Conan adjusts his game for the earlier, larger Tonight Show audience and how this effects the new Conan vs. Letterman scheduling match-up. Should be good.