MADness—the Blog

Conan O’Brien:

I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show.

Nicely put, Conan.  NBC, you’ve got a problem:

The Internet has voted, and it’s supporting Conan O’Brien in his struggle against NBC.

The Tonight Show debacle of 2010 is getting more interesting than the battle between Leno and Letterman to succeed Johnny Carson.  I was lucky to grow up with Carson at the desk.  No one has come close to replacing him.  I don’t have strong feelings about O’Brien vs. Leno (I tend to watch Letterman if I’m up at that hour), but it’s sad to see what NBC is doing to the Tonight Show.  They couldn’t have screwed this up more royally.

One personal note:  I made a Tonight Show-themed crossword puzzle that ran in the N.Y. Times last June 1, Conan’s first day, with all five hosts’ names in the grid.  Back in April 2006, I had a puzzle called “The 600 Club” published in the N.Y. Sun.  It had a baseball theme and included the names of all four sluggers (at the time) who had 600 or more home runs (Ruth, Mays, Aaron, and Bonds).  (It also had a diagonal 28-letter theme answer that followed the shape of a baseball diamond.  That felt like a novel idea at the time, though we seem to get one of those every year now.)  The Sun puzzle was out of date 14 months later, after Sammy Sosa returned from his year off and hit number 600.  (Ken Griffey joined the club a year later.  A-Rod is due next.)  It appears that my Tonight Show puzzle will set a new personal record for shortest shelf life.  I can’t say I saw that one coming.