As Conan O'Brien winds down his successful run hosting Late Night for NBC (and prepares to Step Up To Big Pay), radio superstar Paul Harris recalls how outta-left-field the whole selection was. I remember that, too. When Letterman fled the time slot after The Tonight Show, we had rumors that it would go to Garry Shandling or Dana Carvey or Paul Provenza or Paula Poundstone or one of a dozen other folks, known quantities all. The notion that the gig would go to someone 99%+ of America had never heard of before was unthinkable.
As things turned out, it's hard to imagine anyone being more successful than Conan has been, though it didn't seem that way at first. To the credit of all involved, when things got off to a rocky start, they didn't panic and start wildly revamping the show and trying different things. They just kept doing the same show and did it better and better until finally it was good enough for enough of America to watch. Actually, I never thought it was as weak as some did but it did substantially improve.
Paul Harris was, as he notes, the first broadcaster to announce anywhere that this person named Conan O'Brien was getting the job. In the post I just linked you to, he explains that he got the information from me and suggests I blog about how I knew it before the rest of the world outside NBC. Alas, there's no tale there of brilliant detective work on my part. A friend of mine who was writing for Mr. Leno's Tonight Show just called me up and told me.
Like Paul, I'm a little skeptical about how Mr. O'Brien will fare at 11:35. Frankly, the last 3-4 years, I haven't liked any of the late night shows as much as I once did and I don't think it's just me. I think they've all settled into a too-comfortable groove of repeated bits and catch phrases and general déjà vu. Maybe this shake-up will do them all a world of good. In any case, it's a good idea to remember how wrong folks were to underestimate Conan O'Brien…and Jay Leno, as well.