The Tonight Show

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What a fiasco!  One year ago Conan O’Brian left the Late Night with Conan O’Brian to take over the Tonight Show.  It became known as The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brian.  While Jimmy Fallan took over the Late Show and became known as The Late Show with Jimmy Fallan.  Jay Leno moved to prime time with the Jay Leno Show. 

As might be expected with all this change, the hosts were getting the feel of their new shows and time slots as the audience and fans adjusted to the changes.  I admit I didn’t watch Jay as much as I did previously because he competed with shows I’d been watching for years and with the internet I didn’t miss anything just logged in later and watched from my p.c.

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Then the NBC executives decided that The Jay Leno Show would have higher ratings if pushed back to the 11:30 hour (10:30 here in the Central Time Zone).  This, of course, would push The Tonight Show and The Late Show shows back thirty minutes.  Conan O’Brian fought back, saying that The Tonight Show had held that time slot for nearly sixty years and refused to make the change. 

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Today NBC announced a deal with Conan O’Brian to sever his contract and return Jay Leno to the Tonight Show.  Conan dug in and fought hard to hammer out a severance package for the show’s employees, most of whom moved from New York to Los Angeles to work on the Tonight Show.

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While I admire Conan for making a stand and sticking to his convictions, I feel he had a commitment to not only his employees, but, his fans as well.  Walking away from the show because of a schedule change seemed, to me, to be a bit drastic.  I think the change would have worked well, and I would have stayed a loyal fan to Conan.  Now I’m not sure.  Conan is bound by contract not to go to any other network until September.  He will never be able to assemble that cast and crew again.  They will move on to new horizons.  Conan, no matter what he does will never again have the same fame and loyalty of his fans (at least not this one).

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Goodbye, and good luck, Conan.  I, for one, hate to see you go, but, you do what you feel is right.  I’ve been watching The Tonight Show all my life.  When I was a kid, my parents would let me stay up during the summer months  to watch Jack Paar on The Tonight Show.  I’ve been a loyal fan ever since.