Conan O'Brien - My Take

I'd like to elaborate on a comment I made on Amy Reynaldo's blog about Conan O'Brien.

There was a word in the NY Sun crossword today CRUNK. I was confusing it with "Krunk", the all-purpose stuff mentioned numerous times on the Conan O'Brien show, "back when it was good", I mentioned.

The truth is that Conan's show just ain't that good any more.

Case in point: about a year ago, one of Conan's newest little bits of business was showing random clips from episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger", which is a show that appears on a network that had been recently came into the NBC family, USA. He would push some sort of lever on his desk and there's Chuck Norris kicking the teeth out of someone under the thin guise of being a Texas Ranger. (Far as I know, in real life, Texas Rangers don't kick people.)

Since I had developed quite the aversion to "WTR" (which, by the way, was a show my wife just loved), I really didn't think that much of the bit, and that was about the time I decided I should really be in bed at 12:30 to be awake to teach the kiddies the next morning.

A few weeks ago, I chanced into the living room at about 12:50 a.m., and decided to keep it on NBC until such time that "Street Smarts" (which, unfortunately, has been cancelled after five seasons) started on GSN. There's Conan O'Brien, sitting at his desk... and he's got the lever... and he pushes the lever... and there's Chuck Norris kicking the teeth out of someone!

Jesus Christ! At least when Ernie Kovacs did seemingly repetitive things like "The Nairobi Trio", he gave them different little things to do every time. But this "Walker" bit hadn't changed ONE IOTA since Conan introduced it. And not only that but I hear that Conan still does his "In The Year 2000" bit... and it's 2005. (He's still got the great Labamba doing that falsetto bit, which is good because Labamba is a killer bone player.)

And Conan is taking over for Leno in 2009?

Hopefully there'll be someone better who hasn't come to the fore yet to take over for Dave on CBS when his time is up.

It's hard for me to say this, as back in the day, I used to be one of the happy recappers of Conan's show for a fansite, but... now, I'd have to drink rather heavily to appreciate his brand of "humor".