Hey, remember I said that I thought Conan O'Brien would eventually have some weak ratings that would cause reporters to write stories that suggested NBC had made a huge mistake displacing Jay Leno? Well, it look like we'll be seeing those articles a lot sooner than I expected. Like maybe in the next week or so.
I have to say I'm not enjoying his shows all that much and that my TiVo's fast forward button is being employed a lot. One of the problems, I think, is that Topic #1 seems to be the fact that Conan O'Brien is hosting The Tonight Show and Conan doesn't seem to have much more to talk about beyond that.
Last night, I was chatting with Hank Bradford, who was Johnny Carson's head writer for many of Mr. Carson's golden years. Hank knows as much about that kind of comedy as anyone alive and he made an interesting point. He said, approximately, "All these guys [Conan, Dave, Jay, etc.] all go on and on about how much they admired Johnny and follow in his footsteps…but they all think they can do that kind of a show without an Ed McMahon. Johnny knew how much it adds to have someone to talk to, someone who can function as a good straight man. He would never have done his show without Ed."
Conan has Andy Richter over at the podium doing a small part of Ed's old job. Come on…let's get him over to the couch. He's already on the payroll.