I’m on Team Conan

Okay, so my blog title is a little facetious, because declaring you are “on Team ____” is cutesy, stupid language that dumbs down everybody who is exposed to it, and portrays the person who uses such language as an actual contributing member of whatever “team.” That’s complete bullshit. I’m on Team Cure Cancer, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing any fucking research. I think it originally started with The Hills or some other stupid shit. Oh, and to any of my friends who use that language, I didn’t mean you.

The News

To reiterate, for anyone in the distant future who is reading this blog when it is one of the few relics of a long dead civilization, Conan O’Brien told NBC to go eat some balls after they told him that they wanted him to move to the 12:05 time slot to give ole Jay Leno back his original 11:35 time, because, big surprise, The Jay Leno Show was an abject failure.

You Can’t Have the Tonight Show at 12:05

As Conan said in his “Go to Hell, NBC” letter, changing the format of a juggernaut like The Tonight Show is a stupid idea all around. In TV, when something works, you do it until it doesn’t work, and The Tonight Show was still working just fine. NBC is shooting itself in the foot by suggesting a change that will anger younger viewers and confuse older viewers. As Conan hinted at and was mentioned on SNL recently (I don’t watch that crap; somebody told me about it), if The Tonight Show is on after midnight, it’s The Tomorrow Show.

Conan Wasn’t Given Enough Time

Again, as Conan mentioned in his letter, NBC only gave Conan seven months to see if his show worked out. They gave Leno three goddamn years to win the ratings war over Letterman. Most shows, especially talk shows, need a little bit of padding early on to fall into the rhythm of their style, voice, and audience. Rarely will a show get worse after its first season. Once writers know what works and who’s listening, they can skew better material towards their base, which makes shows more powerful and brings in more people. Besides, Letterman, in my opinion, is the greatest late night host of all time (yes, including Carson–Carson didn’t have to do the first show after 9/11). So, it’s okay if you aren’t beating him in the ratings! After all, someone has to be #1. Just be happy that people are watching.

Jeff Gaspin is a Dumbass

Jeff Gaspin, the moron behind this mess, wanted to have Jay back, but not to hurt anyone’s feelings. He wanted to keep everybody! Just move Conan up, he won’t care! Well, Jeff, by making decisions like this you show inconsideration not just for Conan, but for Conan’s entire audience. And, if any of those audience members were Jay watchers previously, they won’t be anymore. In fact, your urge to have your cake and eat it too (an expression I have never understood) is going to end up with a lot of cake on the floor and very little in your tummy. Good job, jackass. Thanks for screwing it up for everybody. And good job, anybody who works with Jeff, for not telling him that he was making the dumbest decision in history.

Conan is an Investment

NBC and this Jeff guy can’t see the forest for the trees. Sure, the Tonight Show’s rating are in the hole now. Well, at least they are behind Letterman’s. However, Letterman has made it clear many times that one of the reasons he continues to host his show is to spite Jay Leno. He hates Jay Leno’s guts, and rightly so, I might add, after Leno stole the Tonight Show from him years ago. But, with Leno out of the picture and Conan, someone who Letterman likes very much, hosting the tonight show, it probably would only have been a couple years before Letterman himself retired in order to spend more time with his kid. Don’t you get that NBC? You would have been on top again! Ratings are capricious and NBC has enough underrated quality programming to know that. There is no magic bullet that will solve your ratings problem. Your ratings still sucked when Jay was hosting, idiots!

Now For the Controversy

This is the part that people talk about the least, because no one wants to come out and say it, but I will, because somebody needs to. Besides Jeff Gaspin, the fault of this entire disaster lies with selfish asshole, Jay Leno. Who knows who came to whom, but this all started when Jay’s contract was up in 2009. Now, whether or not Jay wanted to leave The Tonight Show is out of the scope of this argument. The fact of the matter is that he did leave–peacefully, and graciously (I assume–I’ve never watched Jay Leno’s show because of its awfulness).

Unnecessary Paragraph Break

So Jay moved to a 10pm time slot, right before the news and Conan. Many were upset with this move, citing NBC’s huge hard-on for Jay. They just couldn’t let go of him. It was such a strange move for NBC to make that its failure was pretty much guaranteed from the start. So, now that it did fail, they want to undo it. Here’s the controversial part: Leno agreed. Way to make yourself look like an adult, Jay. You were the “king” of late night for fifteen years and you can’t walk away from it without kicking and screaming? It’s so important for you to come back that you are willing to screw over the career of a man who you were supposedly friends with? Obviously Jay has no feelings for Conan. And that’s important. People notice things like that. Until now, I had thought that Jay was just an unfunny comedian and boring interviewer. Now I find out he’s a prick. You know what could have solved this whole thing and let Conan keep the Tonight Show? Jay saying “Thanks, NBC, but no thanks. Give Conan his shot. The kid’s got talent, and besides, he’s a friend of mine.” Instead, it was more along the lines of “Oh, NBC, me love you long time. Me give you good sucky sucky. Me give up dignity long time. You fuck dignity? Fifteen dolla.” Fuck you, Jay; you’re  a whore. You should be ashamed of yourself. Then you should be buried alive.

Unnecessary Paragraph Break Again

You should all be following my lead and pointing fingers at Leno. This isn’t so much NBC’s fault as it is his. NBC is a stupid corporation that is only concerned with ratings and money, but at least we all know that. Jay, on the other hand, is supposed to be this stand-up guy–charming, caring, and helpful. Well he’s not. He’s a selfish prick that didn’t know when to turn down a ridiculous offer. Go fuck yourself, Jay.

But, Evan, You’re Going to Burn Bridges!

You mean if I get so famous as to be on Jay Leno’s show and then he reads this and cancels my appearance? If that happens, which it won’t, let me just say this to my “buddy” Jay Leno. Jay, I am so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that. I was drunk or something. Someone else wrote it. I’m being framed. God, I’m so sorry. Please let me on your show! Please!

Update:

So since I wrote this, it is official that NBC has caved into their greed and is happy to have Conan leave, with assholes like Jeff Zucker clamoring for Conan to not be on television for three years and blah blah blah. It’s just so irritating.

Anyone who argues that Conan has no right to be defensive and should take all the responsibility for his ratings doesn’t understand television or logic, and should, for the good of humanity, be thrown in a vat of acid, along with Jay, Jeff, and the other Jeff.

However, what I said about blaming Jay seems to have caught on. Jimmy Kimmel did a complete show as Jay Leno and later went on Jay’s show and blasted that asshole for being such a stupid prick.

I hope not only that Jay’s reboot of the Tonight Show fails, but I hope he dies on-set from murder. Then I hope NBC asks for Conan back but he says no again, and NBC goes bankrupt and is replaced by a new Ted Turner station. TNBC or something.