Copious Notes

Conan O'Brien at the Tonight Show desk, Monday. Photo by Paul Drinkwater | NBC.

In a way, Dave won.

Sort of.

Back in 1992, Johnny Carson was leaving The Tonight Show desk, and the battle was between genial comedian Jay Leno and scrappy David Letterman, whose Late Night followed Tonight, to take over the hosting gig. NBC opted for the relatively safe choice of Leno, who had his own-shtick, but didn’t really divert Tonight from it’s easygoing, mid-American tone — none of that Letterman goofiness, like dropping watermelons off buildings.

David Letterman on The Late Show in 2008, sporting his "strike beard," to show solidarity with the writers' strike. Photo by John Paul Filo | CBS.

Meanwhile, Letterman bolted NBC to launch an 11:30 talker on CBS that, though it still trails Tonight in the ratings, is the only late night talk show to successfully directly compete with Tonight.

Replacing him on Late Night was Conan O’Brien, who continued that late, late goofball aesthetic with the non sequiturs, idiosyncratic skits and off-beat stars and musical guests. So, with Conan making the move to Tonight, would he be Conan-lite, for the earlier hour, or bring the after-midnight vibe to 11:30.

The answer started coming pretty quick on his debut, Monday night. The show opened with O’Brien sitting in a New York office going over a check list of things he needed to do before his new show got started. When he hit the last item, “Move to L.A.,” it started a montage of O’Brien running across the country, making stops at Wrigley Field and — first non sequitur — dropping by a doll shop for a detailed discussion of doll hair.

When O’Brien arrived at the studio , we saw that he had forgotten his keys back in the Big Apple, so he knocked down the door with a tractor.

The introductions brought a flurry of familiar faces for Late Night with Conan O’Brien fans, including original Late Night sidekick Andy Richter as the Tonight Show announcer and Max Weinberg now heading up the Tonight Show Orchestra, which plays a variation on O’Brien’s Late Night theme.

O’Brien started the show with a reliably funny monologue, saying he figured he had timed things perfectly by staying with a last-place network, moving to a bankrupt state to host a show sponsored by General Motors. Quite a bit of humor focused on Conan moving from New York to Los Angeles for The Tonight Show, and then he launched another video segment that showed while this production may have a little more SoCal cool than Late Night, it is very much Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show.

In the bit, he commandeered a tour tram at Universal Studios, where his Tonight Show is taped. The ride included driving the tram in circles with the passengers chanting, “Circle! Circle!” and Conan directing the tram out onto the streets where he, among other things, stopped at a dollar store to get something for everyone.

When he came out of the segment and the studio audience was chanting “Circle! Circle!,” Conan was clearly in his comfort zone.

If O’Brien stays on this course, it will signal the biggest stylistic shift for The Tonight Show in 47 years, save for dropping from 90 to 60 minutes. It sort of feels like a generational change for those of us that liked and appreciated The Tonight Show, but viewed Late Night as our own.

On Late Night with David Letterman, Dave used Tonight’s basic format, but injected it with a hip, irreverent and frequently abrasive humor all his own. When O’Brien took over for Letterman, he kept that vibe going, and in some ways perfected it.

Now that O’Brien has made to the Late Night-to-Tonight move many anticipated for Letterman nearly two decades ago, and has done it staying true to himself, that Letterman aesthetic truly dominates after-hours chatter.

With O’Brien’s ascension, Letterman probably has lost any hope of ever hosting the flagship late-night talk show. But as he looks across the dial at Conan’s Tonight Show, he can take some satisfaction in knowing he changed the genre.