The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the fifth installment of The Tonight Show, hosted by Conan O'Brien. It aired from June 1, 2009, to January 22, 2010, succeeding The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and ended when Leno returned to the role of Tonight Show host.
Many members of the Late Night cast and crew made the transition to The Tonight Show. The Max Weinberg 7, the house band from O'Brien's Late Night, served as the house band under the new name, Max Weinberg and The Tonight Show Band. Andy Richter returned to the show as announcer, and also began resuming his role as sidekick, after having left Late Night in 2000.
In January 2010, after the show had been on the air for seven months, it was announced that NBC was intending to move Jay Leno from primetime back to his original timeslot at 11:35 pm, with O'Brien's show starting shortly after midnight. In response to the announcement, O'Brien released a press statement saying that he would not continue as host of The Tonight Show if it was moved to any time after midnight to accommodate The Jay Leno Show. He feared it would ruin the long and rich tradition of The Tonight Show, which had been on after the late local newscasts from the beginning. After two weeks of negotiations, NBC announced that they had paid $45 million to buy out O'Brien's contract, ending both his tenure as host as well as his relationship with NBC after 22 years.
Conan O'Brien's final Tonight Show was broadcast on January 22, 2010, with Jay Leno officially resuming his role as host on March 1, 2010, immediately following the conclusion of the 2010 Winter Olympics. It later received four Primetime Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series, the first time The Tonight Show received a nomination for this particular award after 2003.
At only 146 episodes (145 aired) over the course of seven months and three weeks, it is the shortest-running iteration in the sixty-year history of The Tonight Show.
Format The show followed the established six-piece format used by previous hosts Jay Leno and Johnny Carson, as well as elements established by O'Brien during his tenure on Late Night. The first segment included a monologue by O'Brien, sometimes accompanied by altered news clips, or several brief comedy sketches. Most episodes also included a second segment, immediately after the monologue, with a full comedy sketch. An interview with either one or two guests followed, as well as a musical or comedy performance.
After the last performance segment, O'Brien walked on camera to thank the performers, bid farewell to the audience, and recommend watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. For the first six shows, the credits ran in the right half of a split screen, a former NBC standard that Late Night continued to use long after the network abandoned it. After episode seven, NBC's current practice of running credits at the bottom third of the screen was employed. The Conaco and Universal Media Studios production tags were then shown in full-screen.
Sketches and comedy bits
New sketches included O'Brien posing for the paparazzi, known as "Conan's Tabloid Moment", and "Twitter Tracker", where an excited announcer reads mundane "tweets" by celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Miley Cyrus, and Dennis Haysbert. Sketches from Late Night reintroduced include "In the Year 2000" as "In the Year 3000", with Richter once again assisting Conan on the sketch, and "Celebrity Surveys". Late Night character Triumph the Insult Comic Dog appeared on Tonight for the first time on June 19, 2009, serving as correspondent for the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. Another favorite character from Conan's old show, the Masturbating Bear, was also reintroduced on January 20, 2010, on Conan's third-to-last show.Conan O'Brien bringing familiar tricks to 'Tonight Show' gig , New York Daily News, May 27, 2009. O'Brien originally retired the Masturbating Bear at the end of his Late Night run due to concerns about its inappropriateness in the 11:30 time slot.THE MASTURBATING BEAR IS COMING BACK!!! from warmingglow.uproxx.com Late Night character The Interrupter made his first appearance on The Tonight Show on September 3, 2009.
Musical/comedy guests As is the format on other late night talk shows, the last segment typically featured a performance by either a musical guest or a stand-up comedian, preceding the closing credits to the show. An avid guitar player, O'Brien has been given many guitars as gifts from several musical guests and on occasion, featured himself on acoustic guitar in a comedy sketch. He also played electric guitar during the final episode's cover performance of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird".
Production The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien originated from Stage 1 at Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, California, a stage that was specifically built and constructed for O'Brien's version of The Tonight Show.Program information from the NBC Universal Media Village website The set was designed in art deco style with multi-colored art deco murals along the top of the set. The studio was previously used for Jack Benny's television show. This was the first time since before May 1972, when Johnny Carson served as host, that the show was not shot in Burbank, California.
As with a majority of television shows produced and broadcast by NBC Universal, the show was shot in 16:9 aspect ratio, with a 4:3 center-cut, and broadcast in 1080i high definition. O'Brien's entire tenure on the show was the first version of The Tonight Show to be recorded, taped, and broadcast exclusively in high definition.
The show was shot with 9 cameras and 8 camera operators, using several Sony HDC-1500 cameras with added two Canon DigiSuper 27XS and one Canon DigiSuper 72XS (for guest close-ups) box lenses.
Unlike Leno's Tonight Show, the studio audience was several feet removed from the stage, in a similar fashion to Carson's original set. Leno retained Carson's original configuration (and set design) until he changed studios in 1995.
The stage layout was opposite of the structure used on Late Night. Where Studio 6A was arranged with the house band on the far left, followed by the performance area and then the interview set, the house band was moved to the right of the performance stage on Tonight, with the interview set now on the far left.
From 2012 until 2014, Stage 1 was the home of Chelsea Lately, which aired on E!, a channel owned by NBCUniversal.
History
In a high-profile announcement by NBC on September 27, 2004, it was officially declared that Conan O'Brien would take over as host of The Tonight Show in 2009, replacing Jay Leno, ending a seventeen-year run by Leno. This was accompanied by reports that Jay Leno had told Jeff Zucker, the President of NBC Entertainment, News & Cable Group, of his plans to retire that same year. Leno immediately explained on his show the following night that in having Conan take over the show, and announcing it years before the transition would take place, that he wanted to avoid the hardship that he had experienced in the dispute over retiring Johnny Carson's hosting duties between him and David Letterman in 1992. Further commenting about the announcement, Leno made it clear that Conan was "certainly the most deserving person for the job." However, in 2008, while Leno was beginning to bring his show to a close, it was announced that Leno had changed his mind about retiring and would instead host a new prime-time variety show on NBC. The Jay Leno Show aired weeknights at 10:00 pm from September 14, 2009, until the show's cancellation on February 9, 2010.
The first show The guests for Conan O'Brien's first week as host were announced on May 22, 2009, with the first episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien including actor and comedian Will Ferrell, in addition to a musical performance of the song "Got Some" by guest Pearl Jam.
The show's opening began with a nod to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, beginning with the classic "Laramie Peacock" logo used during the 1960s and 1970s, and the announcement that "the following program is brought to you in living color, on NBC", a slogan that would be readopted by NBC soon after.
In the cold open, O'Brien was shown preparing to host his first episode of The Tonight Show, going over a list of things that needed to be done, but realizing he was still in New York and had forgotten to move to Los Angeles. After trying, and failing, to catch a taxi cab, Conan ran across the country through such places as Amish Country, Wrigley Field in Chicago, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the Teton Range, Las Vegas and the deserts of Arizona before arriving at Universal Studios Hollywood to host the show.
Upon arrival, Conan realized he left the keys to the new studio in New York and then drove a bulldozer through the door and wall of the studio to get in. The Cheap Trick song "Surrender" was played over this sketch.
Other filmed sketches in the first episode included a trip through the streets of Los Angeles on the Universal Studios tram, a ride through Hollywood with Conan behind the wheel of his 1992 Ford Taurus SHO, and a short gag showing Conan in the back row of a Los Angeles Lakers playoff game at Staples Center.
Other notable episodes On June 23, 2009, the show's first segment ended with a tribute to former Tonight Show announcer and sidekick Ed McMahon, who had died earlier in the day. Memorable clips from McMahon's tenure as Johnny Carson's sidekick were shown, with O'Brien and Andy Richter also paying tribute to McMahon, and bidding him a final farewell.
On September 23, 2009, during his opening monologue, O'Brien told a very brief joke about Newark, and a supposed health care program for the city's citizens that would involve Newark giving them a bus ticket out of the city. Newark mayor Cory Booker responded in a satirical YouTube video calling for O'Brien to apologize, and that Conan would be banned from ever entering Newark Liberty International Airport until doing so. Conan responded by further making fun of Newark, however, saying the only way he could get to Newark now would be like everyone else, "through a series of poor decisions." He also called out Cory Booker to come on the show to air out their grievances, deciding to then ban Booker from Burbank airport, adding later that he had absolutely no power to do so. Booker subsequently banned Conan from the state of New Jersey as well as all the sister cities of Newark. In response, O'Brien read a letter on air from Elizabeth, New Jersey mayor Chris Bollwage, declaring that he will temporarily rename Terminal A of Newark Liberty (which lies in Elizabeth) the Conan O'Brien Terminal. Conan continued, saying he had created a "geographic toilet seat" around Newark. The mayors of Bayonne, East Orange, Kearny, Jersey City, and Elizabeth have publicly sided with Conan O'Brien. He ended this by saying, "Your move, Mayor Booker." The feud was unofficially ended when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for it to end during a prepared comedy bit, telling Booker to "chalk it up" to Conan.Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien, October 5–9, 2009, NBC The following week Conan announced that Cory Booker would be a guest on the October 16, 2009, show to mend the feud. That night, O'Brien and his wife donated $50,000 to the Newark Now Organization, and NBC Universal matched Conan's donation to total a $100,000 gift. Booker also admitted that he is a big Conan fan and often tapes shows to watch the next day or watches them on the website Hulu.