Great article about Conan O’Brien’s inheritance of The Tonight Show back in 2005 in The New York Times. One thing that stood out is how serious all these comics are about their work, how unforgiving they are with their criticism (Carson was notorious for this), and how work ethic, again, wins the game. It makes me wonder about the possibility of making it without being singular-minded about your vision.

This is an excerpt from the article, and also touches on something I was unaware of – there’s some tension (or at least was, back in 2005) between Conan and Jon Stewart. Later in the article, Conan’s executive producer refers to The Daily Show as being “under the radar,” which I thought was an effective, if poorly veiled, slight.

In four years, O’Brien will no longer enjoy the pathology of 12:30—“Do you love me? Well, I don’t care if you don’t, because I’m on at 12:30.” In one of the great anticlimaxes in recent late-show history, certainly as compared with the epic saga of the Mike Ovitz–negotiating, Warren Littlefield–bumbling, and Jay Leno–closet–eavesdropping of the Leno-Letterman tussle over the Tonight Show chair in the early nineties, it was announced one year ago that O’Brien would succeed Leno in 2009. With about a year left on his contract, O’Brien was receiving overtures from ABC, and signaled in the press that he was ready to move on. After that, NBC moved quickly. (O’Brien had previously ignored feelers from CBS when Letterman’s contract was renegotiated in 2002, and turned down a reported $25 million offer from Fox at the same time.)

O’Brien made his decision without waiting for what will most probably be a search for David Letterman’s replacement around the same time Leno steps down. And Jon Stewart is the most obvious candidate for that seat. By the way, if you want to get on O’Brien’s good side, do not bring up Jon Stewart (who failed at his own late-night show in 1994), as it makes him bristle at the unfairness of Stewart’s comedic hegemony—he won two Emmys last week—for a far less complex, toilsome, and popular show, at 1.4 million viewers per night. Stewart’s contract is up in 2008 (though Viacom could conceivably move him from Comedy Central to CBS whenever the need arose), setting the stage for a potentially sensational grudge match.

Related posts:
From Vanity Fair: Behind the scenes of Leno vs Conan
Jon Dore on Conan
The King of Comedy – Louis CK on the Tonight Show
God bless the writers at The Daily Show
Conan O’Brien spoof of Grand Theft Auto IV