Classic Roots Choice #24

In this installment of "Classic Roots Choice", Jimmy Fallon does all the explanation himself. Enjoy.

True Grit Trailer

The Coen Brothers have made another movie starring Jeff Bridges. Is it "The Big Lebowski 2"? No, not quite.

Here's the trailer:

Snap. I'm looking forward to it. It's a perfect trailer in that it gives you a sense of the movie but is completely vague in every respect. I felt the 30 commercial was even better but couldn't find that online. Apparently the movie is a remake of an old John Wayne film. Fortunately for me, I haven't seen that movie so I still don't know what to expect.

Who Cares Wins - Thanksgiving Edition

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, the folks at Video Vision were kind enough to make an instructional video 25 years ago to guide the weary viewer through this tricky holiday.

Tracy Morgan Explains Star Wars

I've seen the Star Wars Trilogy countless times but sometimes you just don't "get" something until someone comes along and articulates it so well....

"If you got a ghost telling you not to do it, don't do it, holmes. You ahead of the game!"

Book Review : The War for Late Night

Over the weekend I read the book "The War for Late Night : When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy" by Bill Carter. Bill Carter also wrote the definitive book about the original Late Night war (Leno vs. Letterman) over who would replace Johnny Carson, "The Late Shift" which I'm reading now.

The book obviously centers on the events which took the Tonight Show away from Leno to give it to Conan, the disaster known as "The Jay Leno Show", and then the events which took the Tonight Show back from Conan to give it to Leno. But it also thoroughly explores how the situation was set up by events and personalities years before as well as the conclusion of the battle where Conan goes to TBS. Every personality and event is covered step-by-step. It goes through all the Machiavellian machinations from the NBC executives, the affiliates, the lawyers, the press, mistakes made with the contracts and, of course, the thoughts and actions of the stars themselves. It also goes into some of the recent history and the reactions by the other talk show hosts, particularly Letterman, but also Kimmel, Kilborn, Fallon, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

The book is an extremely well done and extremely insightful fly-on-the-wall insight into all the executive whispers, back room deals, show business politics and just general chaos that transpired within NBC and out to the other networks as well. Reading the book, it quickly becomes apparent that the author either had incredible connections and interviews or simply likes to makes stuff up (but of course, his reputation and risk of lawsuit precludes the latter). Which is exactly what I wanted out of it - when Conan and his producer go in an office and shut the door, the trail doesn't stop there, you get the spoken dialog of the discussion. The tone is also extremely even-handed - Leno is not made out to be a demon, and Conan isn't made out to be a victim - the book presents the viewpoints and insights of a wide array of "show biz insiders" and allows the viewer to judge.

This isn't a life-changing book or one that will greatly expand your understanding of the universe; the rating or recommendation is simply a matter of interest in the subject matter. If you don't find the Late Night battle an interesting topic, there's no reason for you to read this book, but if you're like me, this is mandatory reading. But (chuckles) you don't have to take my word for it...

[DO DO DO]

High Pitched 8 Year Old: DO YOU LIKE BOOKS ABOUT PINHEAD NETWORK EXECUTIVES? IF SO, THEN "THE WAR FOR LATE NIGHT" IS FOR YOU! When the story begins, executives at NBC are stuck with a problem: how do you keep two of your stars happy if they both want the same show?!

[Illustration of a man peering into a cave with a flashlight]

They think they have a solution by moving one of them to primetime but it turns out to be a bad idea and it makes their affiliates mad!

[Illustration of a bear running away from a cloud of bees]

What can they DO? Could the answer be found in the small print of their contracts?!

[Illustration of a farmer hauling watermelon in a pickup truck]

I'M NOT GOING TO TELL WHAT HAPPENS NEXT BUT IF YOU LIKE STORIES ABOUT PR WARS AND THREATS OF LITIGATION, THEN GO TO YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY AND REQUEST A COPY OF "THE WAR FOR LATE NIGHT"! YOU'LL BE GLAD YOU DID!

[DO DO DO]

Web Redemption - Charmed

Usually "Web Redemption" is sole province of Tosh.0 but not in this case. In this episode, actor Rainn Wilson seeks redemption for his bad acting in an episode of "Charmed".

Conan Episode #2, Mr. Falcon!

Conan meets with the official censor of "Conan":

The Taiwanese Computer Animation of Conan's Return:

My favorite part of the show is when Conan and Andy belch gold vapor that turns into money. But that's just me. That's a regular feature, right?

Conan's Music - A Historical Perspective

One of the surprises of the new Conan is that he's cut a record. "Live at Third Man" is a collaboration with Jack White of the White Stripes and features a host of rockabilly tunes performed in Nashville, Tennessee.

Other blogs can tell you much more about what's on the record, I'm sure, but here's something the other tour guides won't tell you....

1) He's Done This Before

How many Twitter followers will remember that Conan cut a rockabilly record at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee in the early days of "Late Night"? Not many. It's funny how time has a way of turning things around because the first time he did it, it was the exact same style but it was clearly meant to be a big joke. Let's watch:

2) It's Hypocritical

Ouch! That's a little harsh. Well, it's not meant to be but so be it. In an interview with Carson Daley, Conan admitted that he did like to play the guitar but he's not gonna be the kind of celebrity that "inflict their hobby" on the audience. Let's watch:

Again, the power of time to change things is amazing. At 14, Conan sees Alan Thicke play the guitar on his first talk show, thinks, "What an ass!" and yet 27 years later he does the same thing.

The change of heart happened so gradually and so subtly. One of my favorite bits he ever did on Late Night was when he would invite one or two "random audience members" and ask them a few questions and write a song about them on the spot. It was pretty much the same idea as "Free Stylin' With The Roots" on the current show except the audience members were set up and the "improvised" songs were scripted for comedic purposes. You could kind of write the contradiction off because it was music only for the purposes of comedy. Then they did another skit where Conan would create and sing a lullaby as a public service to young parents who are up late with their newborns. This skit very well might be the turning point around which this whole story revolves - or it would, if any of this mattered - for, when they did this skit the first couple times, Conan was just singing solo but in later additions he started bringing out and playing his acoustic guitar. Once again, you could write it off as comedy (and funny comedy - the best kind). Then came the writer's strike and Conan played a rockabilly number with the band. This time, it was a little strange because it was in earnest and not meant for comedy but at the same time you could kinda write it off because it shows that they're in the middle of a strike and desperate to kill time. Then, you'll recall, on the last ever "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien", he performed "Free Bird" alongside an all-star lineup. But then, that was the last episode and self-indulgence was the entire point. Which brings us to today where Conan was the co-musical guest on his own show in order to promote his own record and it was a totally down-the-line musical performance - no comedy intended.

And there you have it - a tiny history of Conan's music. Please note that I don't have any problems whatsoever with Conan performing music and, as has been noted, some of his best comedy came that way. This blog only serves to point out the irony that one person who DOES have a problem with it (or would) is Conan's former self. Also, it killed time.

Conan - Episode #1

As you no doubt are already aware, the first episode of "Conan" aired last night. I was extremely impressed with how smooth and seamless it was. That's very rare for the first episode of a late night talk show (yes, even when the host is a seasoned veteran). The cold open was about 12 times better (approximate) than the cold open of the first "Tonight Show" episode (I think they may have learned from that one). Loved the Halloween mask, loved Ricky Gervais' piece and Andy Richter is in top form (as always).

Apparently it got higher ratings than Letterman/Chinbag which doesn't surprise me at all but it ought to be interesting where it comes in when the hubbub dies down. You've gotta weigh an 11 o'clock start vs. the basic cable factor. Plus, there's the question of fan loyalty. Will all those people who went to rallies, the tour, created petitions, clogged twitter, etc. watch faithfully or forget again? We shall see.

Here are my favorite highlights:

Cold open:

Ricky Gervais wishes Conan good luck:

Classic Roots Choice #23

That didn't take long, did it?

Elvis Costello was on Late Night on Friday. Here, The Roots have an entire life's work of songs to choose from, so what does one do? The walk-on music they chose for Elvis Costello was the theme song from the R. White's Lemonade commercials.

There might be thousands of people everywhere scratching their heads looking to my blog for the answer to the riddle (which I would know) except Elvis just couldn't leave it be and explained it himself in his interview (boooooo! I could have been the only one!).

Elvis' father was a jingle writer and wrote the R. White's Lemonade "Secret Lemonade Drinker" song. On top of it, Elvis' sang back up on the song when he was just a kid. In case you weren't living in Great Britain in the 70's (and I suspect that's the case) it looked like this:



It's always struck me as the height of weirdness. Is this a common problem? He's addicted to lemonade, isn't he? He's gotta do it secretly because he doesn't want his family to know he's got a serious lemonade problem and needs professional help? LOSE THE HABIT, MAN!

"Conan" Episodes To Be Available Online

Team Coco recently announced that full episodes of "Conan" will be available online (for free) the day after they air. It takes just one sentence to communicate that and yet its importance is monumental. This small nugget of information is the difference between me seeing every episode of his new show and seeing virtually none of it. I already watched every single episode of "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" so you know I'm good for it.

In other Conan News, in a magazine interview, Conan said he will not have Leno on as a guest (surprise?). But even more shocking is that there's going to be a rule that goes against decades of Talk Show Law in which no guest will be allowed to plug a project. I'm not so sure that's possible. Could it just be a joke? And even if it's real, it's going to become a giant elephant in the room in each episode. You'll have an actor never mention their show but wear a tshirt with the title and opening date on it or they'll take a sip from the guest mug and there'll be a movie poster on the bottom, etc. I guess we'll have to see what happens on the first show, airing this Monday.

Classic Roots Choice #22

Usually these posts are for obscure or clever choices of song for a particular guest's walk-on music. This one's a bit different. This is about kicking-to-commercial music.

The Roots covered "Everything in its Right Place" from Radiohead's epic "Kid A" album.

It looked and sounded like this:

"But wait a minute", you say incredulously, "It goes to commercial so you only get to see a few seconds of it". Your point being? Those two seconds were the most exciting two seconds of my terrible day.

Ed. Note: Relistening to the original now to verify the youtube link and, 10 years later, it still sends me back to the first time I heard it. That is a trip. The song is a trip in itself, but that's a trip on top of the original trip. That's what I call "Double Tripulature". There's also "Triple Tripulature" but people don't generally survive that. Don't forget to trip your waitress.

Conan : The Zeroeth Episode

Conan recently did a preview episode to showoff what his new show will be like. Much like "An Idiot Abroad", he's calling it the "Show Zero".

The new show is supposed to take "full advantage of the internet" (possibly not an actual quote) so hopefully that means putting the EPISODES on the internet. Please Please Please Please.