Time for Coco to relax and have some fun

It was an awkward fit from the beginning, turning the man who brought you Pimpbot 5000 and The Masturbating Bear loose on earnest Midwesterners accustomed to being lulled to sleep by viewer-submitted newspaper typos.

But if Conan O'Brien wanted "The Tonight Show," I wanted him to have it. After all, he'd passed up a lucrative Fox deal and waited five years for Jay Leno to fulfill his contract and step down.

And it was O'Brien's childhood dream. But like most childhood dreams -- mine was to be adopted by the cast of "Charlie's Angels" -- it probably was best left unfulfilled. A toned-down "Tonight Show" O'Brien turned out to be too little Coco for his fans -- and far too much big-haired-dancin'-guy for Leno's.

Now, though, the ginger-haired folk hero can relax, be himself and have some fun with the first show that's ever truly been his: "Conan" (11 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, TBS).

It doesn't seem possible, but O'Brien has been gone from "The Tonight Show" longer than he was there. And "Conan" arrives just as the dust had largely settled on " 'The Tonight Show' War II: Electric Boogaloo."

But "Conan" -- cheekily billed as "the most anticipated television event since television's last most anticipated television event" -- isn't the only newcomer opening up old wounds. Bill Carter's "The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy," released last week, offers an exhaustive, eye-opening, how-could-he-possibly-know-that look at the late-night feud that ultimately was a muddled victory for Leno: He won back "The Tonight Show," but his ratings have fallen below O'Brien's.

The worst part of all that animosity was that O'Brien and Leno were fighting tooth-and-nail for what had become, at best, a booby prize. The "Tonight Show" O'Brien dreamed of hosting died at least 15 years ago when the last of Johnny Carson's residual luster wore off. The whole brouhaha was like watching Popeye and Bluto battling over Olive Oyl, when any rational person would have said, "You know what? You take her."

At their core, late-night talk shows don't even make sense. In exchange for roughly 15 minutes of comedy, viewers are saddled with an equal amount of commercials, plus a half-hour of millionaires begging you to see their movies, watch their shows or buy their CDs.

And they've never been less relevant, at least as a whole. Fueled by the Jimmys -- late-night upstarts Kimmel and Fallon -- talk shows are increasingly becoming a game of elaborate bits and viral videos.

Kimmel got the ball rolling with his and then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman's epic music videos revealing their carnal relations with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. And he's made smaller moments, like zip-lining across Hollywood Boulevard with Tom Cruise, a recurring part of his show.

But Fallon has turned the practice into an art form, with regular buzz-worthy moments -- take his recent history-of-hip-hop medley with Justin Timberlake -- and extended, spot-on, multiepisode parodies of "Lost," "Glee," "The Hills" and "The Real Housewives."

Not only is the additional content a boon for regular viewers, but the networks make pristine digital versions of those bits available online the next morning for anyone who didn't tune in. Sure, those second-day fans lose the immediacy of seeing them as they air, but they also don't have to sit through random reality show castoffs and the fourth lead from "Gossip Girl" discussing her recent cleanse. And, really, asking people to stay up till midnight or after on a weekday? Who do the networks think we are, Charlie Sheen?

Luckily for O'Brien, he excels in the new currency of sketches and pre-taped bits that his young followers -- 1.8 million and counting on Twitter, compared to Leno's 94,000 -- can digest via cell phones, iPads and whatever social networking fad comes next. Even his "Conan" promos have gone viral -- the one in which he "drives" a '69 Dodge Dart packed with plastic explosives, gasoline, fireworks and unpopped popcorn off a cliff has nearly a million views on YouTube.

With his new show, O'Brien seems to be sticking to a fairly traditional format: two interview guests and a musical/comedy performance. But since he's creating "Conan" from scratch, I'd rather see him abandon the middle guest and take a more free-wheeling, variety-show approach.

Maybe rely on the mad musical chops he showcased during his The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.

Anything to once again make a talk show worth watching from beginning to end.

But, until then, bring on The Masturbating Bear!

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.