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Conan’s Final Nights on The Tonight Show
Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of Paul Drinkwater, NBC AP
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Written by Zach Ellman, Online Entertainment Editor
On Friday night, more than seven million people turned on their televisions to watch the sudden and final episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. The final airing of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien was the result of an NBC decision to push back The Jay Leno Show to 11:35 and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien to 12:05. Conan refused to do the show with the change. After a $45 million settlement with NBC to pay off his contract, he would end his reign as the host of The Tonight Show just seven months after being handed over the show by Jay Leno.
Within the final weeks of The Tonight Show, Conan tried to make it the best week that The Tonight Show has had in years. With guests such as Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Ed Helms, Pee-Wee Herman, and directors Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, Conan significantly boosted up the shows ratings last week, thus dominating the late night television ratings.
During his last week, Conan brought up a lot of recurring gags on the show. For example, he put up The Tonight Show on sale at Craigslist, where many funny and wild offers were made, such as how one lady offered her cat with makeup on it.
In addition, Conan tried doing gags by spending as much of NBC’s money as he could. In his last three episodes, Conan got a Bugatti Veyron and dressed it up as a mouse while playing The Rolling Stones hit “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”, he got the 2009 Kentucky Derby Winner Horse, Mine That Bird, and dressed it in a Snuggie while watching restricted NFL Super Bowl footage, and he got a fossil skeleton of a Pre-historic sloth spraying Beluga caviar on an original Pablo Picasso painting. However, Conan later admitted that the whole stunt was just a joke. If it wasn’t fake, then all of the three skits would have cost NBC more than $70 million.
In his final episode, Conan had Steve Carell guest star as an “NBC employee” who was sent to the studio to conduct a final evaluation, jokingly impersonating George Clooney’s role in Up In The Air. He also had Academy Award Winning actor Tom Hanks come out in sunglasses with two glasses of “scotch,” which were later revealed to be cream soda. Hanks was actually the creator of the pseudonym “Coco” for which Conan is also known throughout his reign of hosting The Tonight Show and throughout all of the protests that have been occurring in support of him outside of Universal Studios in California.
In his final moments, Conan gave a very emotional speech to his viewers saying, “Between my time at Saturday Night Live, the Late Night show, and my brief run here on The Tonight Show, I’ve worked with NBC for over twenty years. Yes, we have our differences right now, yes, we’re going our separate ways, but this company has been my home for most of my adult life. I am enormously proud of the work we have done together, and I want to thank NBC for making it all possible.” Conan also thanked the viewers for their enormous support for watching the show and to rallying at Universal Studios.
For his last gig, Conan took the stage with Tonight Show and Bruce Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg, Beck, Elvis Costello, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Ben Harper, and Will Ferrell, on the cowbell, and performed the Lynyrd Skynyrd hit “Free Bird.”
“Walking away from The Tonight Show is the hardest thing I have ever had to do,” stated Conan. As a part of his settlement with NBC, he cannot host a late night show for seven months. Rumors have been said that Conan has been in talks with HBO, Comedy Central and FOX to start a late night talk show of his own in the near future. Until then, The Tonight Show will be airing repeats of Conan hosting until Jay Leno is back on the show in March.
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