Jay Leno vs. Conan O'Brien
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
dnarasimham — 15 years ago(January 09, 2011 05:15 AM)
I have been a loyal Jay Leno fan since my high school days in the late 90's; but I think his comedy is just not as funny as used to be for some odd reason. I used to love watching the Tonight Show; but he progressively started to become more mundane, predictable, and repetitive towards the end of his 1st run. He seems to be burnt out at this point and I would love to see Conan return. The rating have been sliding since Leno's return. The public can only tolerate corruption, greed, and politics to some extent, but Leno really was hitting below the belt. I still think Jay is a legend; however, he will pay the piper since every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
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GForce59 — 15 years ago(February 17, 2011 11:03 AM)
I still don't see what Leno did wrong. The only thing he could have done differently is have said "no" when NBC asked him to come back AFTER Conan decided to leave. Jay didn't want to have anything to do with Conan leaving. He was fine with his show getting cancelled and going back to 11:35 for just a 1/2 hour. (Actually, he wanted to leave NBC and they wouldn't out of his contract.) Quite frankly, I think Conan was a fool for not remaining The Tonight Show host and just move it back a 1/2 hour. Jay said he would only come back if Conan rejected NBC's idea. And like he said, when someone offers you The Tonight Show, how do you say no?
What puzzles me is nobody ever talked bad about Conan in 2004 when he demanded The Tonight Show in 2009, or he was leaving. He basically said, "kick Jay out in 2009 for me." Jay never did this to Conan. He said he would only come back if Conan didn't want to stay. So, the way I see it, Jay was the better man than Conan. -
a_l_i_e_n — 15 years ago(March 29, 2011 05:57 PM)
What puzzles me is nobody ever talked bad about Conan in 2004 when he demanded The Tonight Show in 2009, or he was leaving.
O'Brien's position in 2004 was similar to Leno's in the 90's in that, like Jay, Conan had turned down a firm offer to go to another network in exchange for getting
"The Tonight Show".
The major difference between their two deals is that while Jay's contract simply guaranteed him
"TTS"
when Johnny was ready to retire, Conan's deal forced Jay to step down by a set date. I don't know if in 2004 Conan fully realized what
NBC
did to Jay in order to guarantee Conan
"The Tonight Show"
, but he knows now and ought to atleast acknowledge that Jay also paid a heavy price. -
a_l_i_e_n — 14 years ago(November 06, 2011 08:54 AM)
NBC and Jay Leno forced Conan O' Brien out of The Tonight Show
So I think that Jay is not the better man.
NBC
forced Jay out of "The Tonight Show" to make room for Conan. Conan, however, wasn't forced out; he quit. Conan refused to be bumped 30 minutes later when he was losing to Letterman. So he left and went over to
TBS
where he bumped George Lopez 60 minutes later into the night. I see a lot of similarities between Conan and Jay actually. -
qlhologram — 13 years ago(May 12, 2012 09:38 AM)
That is true
However I should have said NBC and Jay Leno or just NBC forced Conan out of the 11:30/10:30 pm Central timeslot.
I believe that 11:30/10:30 pm Central is The Tonight Show timeslot time.
Jay Leno never asked Conan if he could take his timeslot.
Before Conan joined TBS he asked Lopez to see if he would take his current timeslot.
I am not sure how it would of worked The Tonight Show with Conan O' Brien would of been mondays to wednesdays and The Jay Leno Show on Thursdays at the same time The Tonight with Conan O' Brien was on.
Tosh.0 was airs 1 episode ever week
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tosh.0_episodes -
a_l_i_e_n — 13 years ago(May 12, 2012 09:28 PM)
However I should have said NBC and Jay Leno or just NBC forced Conan out of the 11:30/10:30 pm Central timeslot.
It was
NBC
who asked Jay to return to 11:35 in the hope of bringing the ratings back up to where they'd been before Conan took over that timeslot. However, Conan was still going to be the host of "The Tonight Show".
Jay Leno never asked Conan if he could take his timeslot.
The network owns "The Tonight Show", so they are in charge of decisions like that. NBC wanted Jay back at 11:35 because since Jay left, Conan's "TTS" had been losing to Letterman.
Conan agreed to NBC's "Tonight Show" offer without asking Jay how he'd feel about being fired to accommodate Conan.
Before Conan joined TBS he asked Lopez to see if he would take his current timeslot.
Yes, and a couple years later Lopez told Howard Stern that TBS had pressured him to do that because they wanted Conan so badly. Lopez also mentioned in that interview that his ratings were actually better than what Conan eventually got when he took over the "Lopez Tonight" time slot. Lopez was soon cancelled after Conan took over his time slot, too, so it seems clear that Conan O'Brien was not a good lead-in any more than Jay had been for Conan with the 10pm show.