The Tonight Show, and Lessons Unlearned

I am working on a more political post than this, but the drama unfolding in the world of late night comedy seems oddly more pressing at the moment. Because it seems oh so familiar somehow.

Johnny Carson aired his last episode of The Tonight Show on May 22nd 1992. The studio announced Jay Leno as his successor, who aired his first episode three days later on May 25th. As the story goes, Johnny Carson was not too happy about this pick, nor was his intended successor David Letterman. At the time, Letterman was on Late Night on NBC in the timeslot after Carson. The same show Conan O'Brien would inherit a year later and the same show the painfully unfunny Jimmy Fallon hosts today. Letterman, rightly furious with NBC, promptly jumped ship and signed a contract with CBS for a show to compete with Leno's Tonight Show, called Late Show with David Letterman.

And here's the kicker. Allegedly, Jay Leno and NBC were keen to avoid all this drama once his run on The Tonight Show ended. So in September of 2004, they announced what some might describe as a peaceful transfer of power, five years in advance of the actual event. A couple of highlights worth noting:

"But the silent treatment also is likely a maneuver to avoid any semblance of the contentious transfer of power that occurred when NBC last engineered its late-night transition 12 years ago. When Johnny Carson retired from "Tonight" in 1992, it set off a well-publicized struggle between Leno and David Letterman to become his replacement."

and

"But the most crucial aspect of O'Brien's new deal is a guarantee that he will inherit Leno's chair, an assurance Letterman did not secure when he was host of "Late Night" on NBC from 1982-93. After his failed bid to succeed Carson, Letterman switched to CBS, and O'Brien replaced him."

Clearly, these aspirations broke down somewhere along the line. Probably at that point where Leno decided that maybe he didn't want to give up his job anyway, so he cut a deal with NBC for a new show, quite similar to his old show, at a new 10:00 timeslot. Clearly, his feet were cold. He even mentioned in interviews his willingness to return to The Tonight Show if asked. And we all know what happened from there. Leno's new show, although cheap to produce, did not earn the ratings that local NBC affiliates were looking for. People changed the channel, and watched somebody else's 11:00 news instead. And then Conan O'Brien's new incarnation of The Tonight Show at 11:35 suffered without as many viewers watching the local news as a lead in. The affiliates revolted, and here we are.

This doesn't paint a particularly good picture of NBC in general or of Jay Leno in particular. As always, Conan O'Brien is a class act, seemingly more concerned about the integrity of the fifty-six year old institution of The Tonight Show than anything else.

Perhaps I am a bit biased, as I enjoy Conan O'Brien's show (although I am not a regular viewer), while I find Jay Leno's shtick bland and humorless. But if you take a fair look at the history of the situation, as I have attempted to here, it is difficult not to plant one's face firmly in one's palm. The last Tonight Show transition was painful enough, and it resulted in the exodus of one of NBC's most talented comedians to another network. It seems like history is on the verge of repeating itself. I hope at the last minute somebody at NBC sees reason, remembers that Conan's Tonight Show is still young, is still building an audience, and that its audience is not as close to death as Leno's. If Fox steps in, snags Conan, and puts him up at 11:35, the future of NBC's late night lineup looks pretty danged dim.