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Last night I watched Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. As a disciple of late night talk, I used to watch all the time but until Monday’s show hadn’t seen it in years. There was a point in my life (lets call it 2002) when I would watch The Daily Show, The Late Show, and Late Night every time they were shown. The problem with doing this is the burn-out factor. Too much of a good thing is never positive, but late night talk shows seem to have a quick fuse – this is especially true if you aren’t in love with the personality behind the desk.

And therein is the problem: I don’t like Conan. No. I like Conan. I believe he is one of the most talented comedy writers working today. I don’t like Conan’s on-screen persona. It’s irritating and painfully repetitive. Granted, this coming from a huge fan of David Letterman – the man who made irritating and painfully repetitive into an entire career – seems at best like a homer call and at worst horribly short-sighted.

I’m not claiming to be a barometer for the television masses as a whole. God knows Conan is very popular and I’m the same person who thought Studio 60 was going to be a massive hit after watching the pilot episode. I would argue, however, that there is a growing contingent of former fans who are starting to feel the same way. More after the break…

We were all attracted to Conan in the early years because the comedy on his show was just so odd. Leno was too much of a centrist to be legitimately funny. Letterman was always good but worked mostly with “found comedy.” The Daily Show was (at the time) the television equivalent of grocery aisle gossip rags. Late Night was the one place you could find character-based comedy (or at least it appeared that way to the 17 year old version of myself).

In recent years things have changed. Late Night spends far too much of its comedy arsenal writing jokes about whatever celebrity happens to be in the news and the weirdness of years past seems to be getting second billing. Most significantly is what I see as a change in Conan himself. The larger his pompadour gets, the more grating his Conanisms seem to become: the eyebrow-slicking-hand-pistols; the magic hips on puppet strings; the “Wayne’s World” I’m not worthy bowing before notable guests or the audience; the self-depreciating humor to which you can set your watch; the endless camera mugging. It has all become so ordinary. I sometimes wonder if it was the presence of Andy Richter that reigned him in during those early years.

And now that he’s a few short years away from the big gig, The Tonight Show, it’s problematic to think about what he could be like if the pattern continues. Will he ultimately christen his new 11:35 show as an enormous red-haired cartoon character, complete with a thick black outline tracking around his body’s perimeter?

Last night’s episode did feature two songs by The White Stripes which is unquestionably cool — the show’s musical guests have always been far and away the best on television. But really, that just proves my point: the show is mostly good, but the problem has become Conan himself.

Remember a few years back when Craig Kilborn decided to leave The Late Late Show so he could focus more on producing (but instead ultimately fading into near nonexistence)? Who would have guessed that it might have been the wrong 12:30 host to give up a seat behind a desk for work behind the camera? Conan could be the Charlie Kaufman of television development (see: Andy Barker P.I. and Lookwell among others). It’s scary to think that someone of his talents could have gotten himself so engrained in the wrong perfession. Then again, look at the presidency.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Late Night, Personalities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.