Justification

Ah, to be productive with insomnia…

They say early to bed, early to rise.  I didn’t sleep much Sunday night, so I crashed early on Monday night (9pm), got my five hours of sleep, and was up promptly at two.  (Two???)  So what better time than to catch up on what’s on the DVR?

I recorded the last episode of Jay Leno hosting the Tonight Show, and the first episode of Conan O’Brien.  What better way to compare than to watch them back-to-back?

Jay Leno has been and always be a f-stick.  He has shat on the Tonight Show franchise for 17 years of suckitude.  He’s not funny.  I hate his phony greeting the audience, and his constant barrage of low-quality jokes that make up his “monologue”.  Then he goes out on the street (like he invented the bit) and gets stupid people to flub simple questions.  Wow, that’s a stretch.  That being said, this is still the end of an era, and I was thinking I’d see something historic, like when Bette Middler serenaded Johnny Carson.  Or Bill Murray spray painting Letterman’s desk on his first day at CBS.  Nope, not here. 

Now it should come as no shock that I’m a big Letterman fan.  Now while Paul Schaffer drives me nuts, Letterman is a comedic genius.  And his New York humor just strikes a chord with me.  I’ve always despised that snarky Southern California holier-than-thou attitude which Leno’s show just drips with.

I’ve always been a huge Conan fan, but now that I’m in my 30’s, I’m hardly staying up to see an 11:30 monologue, let alone a 12:30 monologue.  But Conan has been steadily flying under the radar and at this point is the quintessential successor to Leno. 

I still thought they should have moved the Tonight Show back to New York (where it was when Carson started), but I guess with the proximity to Hollywood, there is a dearth of potential guests out there.

But Conan has finally returned the Tonight Show franchise to it’s former glory.  The set is outstanding and imposing at the same time.  There are three distinct parts, band stage left, desk stage right, and the curtain in the middle for the monologue and musical guests.  The curtain is definately a throwback to the Carson era.  It’s such a simple and classy touch. 

But finally the quality of the comedy has been restored.  All Leno could do in his last show was a best-of (if you could call it that) of asking stoned Gen X-ers what country the Panama Canal is in.  But Conan’s genius came through with his opening skit highlighting his move from New York.  He checks his to-do list, build set, etc. and last on the list is move to LA.  The camrea pulls back, and you see the Chrysler Building in the background.  So he goes downstairs to hail a cab, and I thought he was going to ask the driver to go to LA (as was hinted the NY Times Magazine last week), but, as we all know, you can never hail a cab when you really need one.  So he just makes a run for it.  Mind you, he’s still in his suit.  Running across the GWB.  Across Wrigley Field.  Over the mountains and through the desert.  He gets to Universal, and he forgets his keys, which are still in New York.

As Conan hinted the people at Universal have been great, and I think he’s going to be like a kid in a candy store filming on the backlot.  It should be more of good things to come.

Now the big question comes what am I going to watch if I do make it up to 11:30?