Conan

Am I the only person who thinks that Jay Leno is massively over-rated? (that's rhetorical by the way)  For my money, Conan O'Brien is the funniest, most entertaining, most engaging late night host I've personally watched.  I say this having never actually watched Jimmy Fallon's show.  I enjoy most of what he's done and love the fact that he treats video game releases and nerd website editors like other shows treat movie releases and reality TV stars.  (plus - THE ROOTS!!!)  I just can't bring myself to stay up until 12:30 when I have to get up early the next morning to go solve world hunger reset some guy's password. 

I'm sure Leno didn't have the massive following that he ended with when he first started.  (also known as people who fell asleep watching E.R. or their late local news)  Could any late night host be any farther from the legend Leno replaced?  But NBC stuck with him because they just completely screwed the guy who should have taken over (this guy, who, by the way, is way funnier than Leno).  Pulling the plug before he got a chance to carve out his place in late night would be premature and inappropriate. 

Flash forward (not FlashForward, that's ABC) 17 years and NBC is in a similar situation.  Except they've compounded the problem by hanging onto one guy too long, giving up on one guy too soon, and wanting to push a third guy even later into the morning.  Giving Leno a show at 11:35 and pushing Conan and Fallon back a half hour would be a terrible move.  What happens in five years when Leno wants to retire?  Does NBC replace him with some other half hour comedy and keep the new air-times?  Or do the revert back to the timeslots that were good enough for the show's first seven decades and try to pretend like they didn't completely screw everyone involved? (Yes, 2010 marks the beginning of the seventh decade to see the Tonight Show)

I'm sure I'm not the first person to suggest Comedy Central as a remedy to this corporate clusterfuck.  Apparently Stephen Colbert even offered Conan his timeslot last night.  I'm not sure whether he was serious or not (and honestly, sometimes it's hard to tell with Colbert) but I think it's a brilliant idea.  Move the Colbert Report to 10:30, keep the Daily Show at 11:00, and give Conan the 11:30 timeslot on a network that knows how to stick behind talent.  I would gladly watch this two hour block of comedy gold on a nightly basis.  (Okay, let's be honest.  I would probably fall asleep with my TV on that station.  But does it really matter to the network whether anyone is actually watching the TV that's tuned to their station?  I think not.  In fact, wouldn't they rather the person be asleep so that they wouldn't be temped to change the channel when a commercial comes on?  I think yes.)  With this late night block in place, Comedy Central would absolutely dominate that two hour block with the 18-35 demographic. 

I don't want to hear about it being a cable network.  Just look at the last several years' Emmy and Golden Globe nominees and winners.  Plenty of cable networks there. 

I just think this is the best way for NBC to get Leno back on the Tonight Show (everyone knows that's what they both want anyway).  And it's also a way for Conan to tell them to shove their new timeslot and go steal a ton of viewers in the process.  And did anyone see when these three appeared on each others shows?  It was a large portion of the afore mentioned Comedy Gold.

Conan, please accept this open letter as a formal request to prove, finally, that talented, charasmatic people can triumph in the face of safe, overly politically correct, corporate homogenization.