The Heavy - "How You Like Me Now" & Encore

This video is significant for only one reason: talk shows are an exercise in repetition and this completely violates the pattern.

In the almost 30 years the David Letterman has had a show, I don't think he's EVER told the guest to sing it again. As far as I know, this is a phenomenon completely unique to this episode. Although the entire encore performance was not broadcast on television, much of it was. The full thing is available as a web exclusive.

Late Night Wars - The Chinese Animation

A while ago you might recall seeing the Chinese news animation of the Tiger Woods scandal. If you haven't, see it here, now.

But the hard-hitting reporters of the Chinese media have a new late-breaking story to cover: the recent late-night talk show wars. Like the Tiger Woods video, this is an actual news broadcast - this is absolutely real.

I would love to have more insight into the Chinese culture to be able to explain why they supply Sims-style reenactment videos for their stories but I'm as dumbfounded as the next guy. Even if we all lived in a Sims game, do we really need people represented as comic book heroes in a battle royale?

I wonder if they made Conan "The Hulk" because he once turned into the Hulk for a classic comedy sketch or if it's just coincidence.

The New "Law & Order"

David Letterman premiers a promo for the new "Law & Order" series:

That Ice-T always finds a job.

The Last Tonight Show

Last night was the last "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" ever. You can still see it for a limited time here.

From June 1, 2009 to January 22, 2010, the show lasted 7 months, 21 days and aired 146 episodes totaling 150 Hours, 52 Minutes of programming (counting commercials). I watched every single show.

I found the last episode oddly emotional. I mean, Conan isn't retiring, he doesn't have a terminal illness, he's still making tons of money, it only lasted 7 months - there isn't that much loss to really "mourn" over but nevertheless, I did feel very sad and nostalgic throughout the entire hour. The montage of great moments was a particular mix of laughter and melancholy. Seeing Wax Tom Cruise and Wax Fonzie being shot out of a cannon, Conan pool cleaning, Conan and Andy boating, the motorized podium, smashing the pumpkin, and so on, was liking looking through a photo album (yes, even though it's only a show that lasted 7 months).

Tom Hanks was good, Neil Young was good, Steve Carrell was funny. Conan's goodbye speech was especially good even though he did just do one 7 months ago. I can't decide if Will Ferrell playing with Beck, Billy Gibbons, Ben Harper and Conan, himself, was epic or kind of a waste of time. Probably it was a little of both. I love the song, the musicians and the return of "more cowbell" but I couldn't help but wish that there was an amazing singer to match the amazing music. The "comedic" aspect of it just didn't seem worth it.

Given that the show runs past midnight, the last show ended January 23, 2010 - the 5 year anniversary of Johnny Carson's death to the day.

There's no telling where Conan will end up - though it looks to me like FOX - or when he'll start airing shows - though all reports speculate that it will be MONTHS - but I'll be watching.

A final note about NBC: I made a joke before about them running their network like "Kruger Industrial Smoothing" and I have to say that doesn't even feel like an exaggeration. When Johnny Carson was on the air NBC basically had 100% of the audience. The other networks didn't even pretend to think that they could compete. When he retired, NBC took the good fortune of having the agreed upon rightful heir to the throne, David Letterman. Faced with a slam dunk, NBC decided to screw everyone and send Letterman to another network. So now they have %50 (let's say) instead of 100%. That's a bad business model and a huge public blunder but they learned an important lesson and moved on. Oh, no, wait, because 20 years later with a new, young, innovative host, they decide to piss him off too and send him to another network and now they can have, at best, 33% of the audience and a major P.R. nightmare where people generally think they (and their "new" host) are evil. A ratings share cut into three, an old and soon to be retired host, an ageing demographic, increased competition, bad press, it all sounds like good, solid planning.

In a nutshell, NBC's decision was "these ratings aren't good enough, let's cut them in half." Until such point that 2+2=5, there's no way that can make business sense. And yet somehow it happened. The most legendary franchise, the home of Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny Carson is officially dead.

Epilogue: A lot happened in over the past week or so and there won't be any more Conan for a while so I'll probably post past clips from the show periodically.

Last Tonight Show Tonight

Tonight's the night. It's the last "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" ever. Not only will this particular show be gone forever but according to reports we won't see any Conan talk show until September. Ouch.

He's going out with style: tonight's guests are Tom Hanks and Will Ferrell with musical guest Neil Young.

Things are moving too fast at this point so I figure I'll save some stuff to post during the lull after it's gone. For now, here's the most expensive comedy character ever introduced on a talk show.

Edit: I just was watching the episode on hulu, just as Conan is about to introduce the new character, the video cuts to a commercial and when it comes back, the segment is over. Apparently they're not going to pay the money to make it available online.

Classic Roots Choice #15? You Decide!

Richard Belzer was on the show yesterday. For his intro, The Roots played "After these messages, we'll be right back!" a few times in a row. I immediately recognized this as ABC's Saturday Morning bumper theme:

I do realize that the phrase itself could be from anything, but the melody, as sung, IDs it exactly. Trust me. But that recognition (as proud as I am, and make no mistake, I am way too proud about something utterly trivial) is only half the story. What's the connection between Richard Belzer and ABC Saturday Morning/that phrase/that song? Do you know?

I have two theories:

1. Richard Belzer started his career as a crowd warmer for Saturday Night Live. So Saturday Night... Saturday Morning. This is unsatisfying as an answer because the link seems pretty tenuous - it's basically just a day of the week, and how many things in the world involve the word "Saturday"?
2. In the infamous Hulk Hogan "Sleeper Hold" episode, Richard Belzer was knocked out (supposedly) but regained consciousness in time to throw to a commercial. Possibly. Still, he doesn't use this phrase exactly and throwing to commercial is such a common thing.
3. If you look at the "Three Singer" bumpers, the man looks an awful lot like Richard Belzer. This would be a good link but it would be too good. Seems unlikely that anyone would consider song choices for Richard Belzer and recognize that he looks a lot like a claymation figure in a 10 second video from 20 years ago. If anyone DID do this, I truly would have to take my hat off to them... HAT off, not my head though.

What else could it be?