My mother shares a birthday with Jay Leno. When the bartender announced this during her birthday celebration at the Nitty Gritty last week, I flew into an instant rage, forgetting the occasion and proclaiming, ""I wish he were dead!"" to the entire restaurant. Mom was a tad unsettled by how quickly I could jump to murder, but frankly, I'm on Team Coco 'til the end.
Since tickets to his touring show sold out in a time span too fast to be measured by science, Conan O'Brien's return to TV this past Sunday for an interview on ""60 Minutes"" was my first chance since his exodus to see Conan go for the jugular. After all, even under the gag order in his final week on ""The Tonight Show,"" Conan cranked out a metric ton of barbed jokes and thinly veiled hatred toward the NBC execs. Imagine how hilarious his unrestrained fury would be?
The actual interview was less hilarious, and more akin to staring at that picture of the crying clown for 20 minutes.
Now granted, Conan is still under a non-disparagement agreement as part of his exit deal, so neither the interview nor the clips from his stage act could include any real digs at NBC. Despite what their producers thought the interview would yield, Conan really only gave up one key fact—he's still bitter, and he won't be forgiving Jay or Jeff Zucker any time soon.
But away from his audience, Conan's quips to the silent camera and interviewer fell on deaf ears, and without that laughter he seems addicted to, he seemed drained and defeated. The interview wasn't his platform for a call to arms in his fans–hopefully, it was his not-so-subtle hint that he's sick of talking about the whole painful affair in the public eye, apart from the occasional joke.
We all got to enjoy a lot of laughs out of the whole Tonight Show shakedown, and we all miss Conan, but this wasn't truly our tragedy. It was the tragedy of a man who was burned by a bad deal and is struggling to maintain his faith in the business he loves. While Conan will always be a showman through and through, we the audience don't really need to have our noses in his bruised feelings and ego.
So I'll ease up on my Leno death threats, because they aren't mine to make. Now that the faux hatred is growing tired, it's time to start mocking Leno for being unfunny instead.
Yes, Mark is sad that this is his last TV column too. He hoped to deliver at least one more annoyingly fanboyish ""Lost"" column before the end, but such is life. Send your parting wishes to mriechers@wisc.edu, or follow him on Twitter (@MarkOnFire) to stay up-to-date on his future ramblings.
