Conan

I'll have to open with a simple statement, Conan is the King of Late Night. This is a man who's been on the air for more than two decades, with a career spanning from writing for The Simpsons to hosting the Emmys, twice. The show follows of course the historical talk show format, but that's about the only conventional thing about it.

On TBS I feel Conan's much more free to experiment and to express himself, not always to critical acclaim, but certainly to great amusement, showcasing ridiculous gags and segments that often involve cheap costumes, fake infomercials, and props.

Guests are varied, and unlike The Tonight Show, it's not the usual A-listers with boring stories about their dog or diet. While Conan's historical reputation still attracts movie stars to TBS, guests are usually the more interesting middle tier of actors with stronger followings but less popularity.

While on most talk shows people tune in for the guest, Conan is one of the few programs where I tune in for the host. Many times I won't even know who the person being interviewed is, but Conan's effortless humor makes it worth my while to stick around.

His signature style is foolish and self deprecating, but no part of it is dumb. Conan is silly comedy for non silly people, fighting the American standard of Roasts and fake laughter (Cough, Jimmy) with original, heartfelt jokes that aren't shy of hitting back at the jokester.

One overarching reason I'd give to watch this show, beyond the host's intelligence and humor, is that Conan is a class act. Throughout the years I've seen him pay tribute and homage to many comedians, actors and celebrities, and every single time I believed him. If he mourned the death of a colleague, it was because he cared about it, not because it would bring ratings to the network, and that's especially clear in many instances where he paid tribute to comedy greats who the major talk show hosts couldn't care less about like Sid Caesar or Garry Shandling. When Letterman played his last show, Conan told his viewers to switch to his channel and record his slot for later. He's a man of character, which is very hard to come by in Hollywood.

If I could boil down three reasons to watch this show they'd be its wit, its humor and the lovable Andy Richter.

I have been a huge Conan fan going on ten years now. Ever since I was in high school and I started watching Late Night. He pretty much had me in stitches every night. The only time I'd check out the competition was if Conan was a repeat, yet I never felt the others really matched up to him.

When Leno announced that he would be giving the Tonight Show to Conan to avoid any confusion as to who was going to succeed Leno, I had a lot of respect for him doing that. (and I could never stand Leno) So then Conan gets the Tonight show and Leno precedes him with a poorly thought out prime time show. We all know what happened next so I won't bore you with the details. I like most people, completely sided with Conan and felt awful that my favourite TV personality was getting a raw deal.

But now Conan is back and it has been close to a year since his new show started airing. I have to admit the first two weeks seemed a bit shaky. Almost like all that was going through Conan's mind was "I don't feel like I should be back on the air. What's going to happen this time?" and I'd say a good chunk of the monologue jokes for the first two weeks were taking jabs at NBC and so on. It was expected of course but it got very tedious and sounded much more like bitterness and complaining and by the end of the first week I was getting sick of hearing it. I kept watching however, remaining hopeful and sure enough, once they got over the initial jitters things started improving greatly, Conan seemed comfortable in his new digs and was back to his old self, almost with a new found confidence that he doesn't have to worry about pleasing anybody but without the arrogance that would lead to laziness. Andy is also much funnier too. I have to admit that I didn't really like him on The Tonight Show (I started watching Conan after Andy had been gone for a while) so my only impressions of him were from Tonight Show and he wasn't really allowed to do much except pipe in with a stupid joke from his podium. Just seemed forced and annoying. Yet now that he's back to his co-hosting duties, I can see why Conan and him are best friends. They have great chemistry and Andy is just as funny as Conan.

While it sucks that Conan had to get screwed over, and that the two-faced, giant-jawed Leno is still allowed to keep the Tonight Show; I must say I like Conan's new show much better than the Tonight Show. While Conan vowed he would not change his style of gags and skits on Tonight show, it was clear he was forced to tone it down and now on TBS Conan seems to have free reign to do the show how he wants and I will continue to watch!

I've been watching Conan O'Brien for a very long time. I've seen his Late Night show on NBC and even seen a bit of his tenure on The Tonight Show. However, it's his show on TBS where the bulk of my fandom comes from. Conan, even after all these years and during quarantine, still continues to bring the laughs, the heart, and the energy that Late Night should have. At first, I was skeptical when the show moved to a half hour, but it really works.

Conan has that special spark that very few Late Night show hosts have. James Cordon isn't really my thing, Jimmy Fallon is fine, Stephen Colbert is entertaining enough, and I adore John Oliver and Seth Meyers. But it's Conan who keeps me entertained for hours on end. Even in small snippets on YouTube, it's always a guaranteed good time. When it comes to famous talk show hosts, Conan sits comfortably next to David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Johnny Carson, and Regis Philbin as one of the all time greats.

If you haven't seen his show, go to the Team Coco YouTube Channel and check it out next time you flip through the channels.

All hail Conan O'Brien, the king of Late Night.

I love conan... He is hilarious.. Much much much much better than every other "talk show" hosts

"Conan" has been on the air now for almost nine months and 100+ shows, so I think a relatively accurate picture can be painted of the future of Conan O'Brien's new venture. As a fan, that picture is regrettably not the masterpiece I was hoping for.

When it was announced that he would be moving to TBS, I had hopes that Conan would do something radically different; re-invent the genre as it were. I was, therefore, sadly disappointed when the first few episodes felt not just like retreads of his "Tonight Show" (which I felt had been lackluster), but lacked the freshness and spontaneity one might expect from being freed of the shackles of broadcast TV. I watched fairly religiously as time progressed, in large part because any Conan is better than no Conan at all. But after a while my viewing tapered off and now I watch it irregularly.

The fundamental problem is that the once wholly original beast of Conan has become the well-oiled machine of Conan. While creativity is still apparent, the surreal nature of his early years where guests would perform in regular skits and odd, strange things happened throughout the entire show have been replaced by "sanctioned" times of zaniness. The show follows such a rigid structure that it feels like a conveyor belt of hilarity where pieces are assembled according to order and design.

And that design is what, in my opinion, inhibits this show from reaching the heights of genius that the old "Late Night" program had. There is a lack of energy and commitment to the sketches that are detrimental to the fun. Add to that that the sketches and characters have become half-baked retreads of old gems (Minty the Candy-cane and Ted Turner excluded) and a seeming desire NOT to break new ground and what you have is a third-generation copy of a once great show.

The technical elements are decent but obviously cheaper. The new theme is catchy but unremarkable. Honestly, the two best ideas have been to make Andy more active and put the desk in the center of the stage. Aside from that, this Conan fan is disappointed. It's not a train wreck of network mandated mainstream mush like his "Tonight Show" was, but it simply cannot reach the heights of it's original predecessor.

The sad reality is that after almost 20 years of this, I doubt Conan would want to change his well-oiled (but less original) machine. And given that he's now on TBS and capable of doing basically whatever he wants, the desire not to embrace change is the most disappointing fact of his new show.