Tag: Conan O’Brien

Conan O’Brien: Now Legally Permitted to Be Funny on Television

COCO, COCO You’ve Come Back to Us!

Tonight brings the glorious return of the one-and-only, gangly, invisible-string dancing, ginger-hair-havin’ late-night talk show host and there’s high hopes that the hooplah surrounding Conan’s return won’t all be for naught. Really I’ve no doubt CoCo will deliver the goods, and the only things to truly speculate on are: will we get regular visits from old Late Night gags that were deemed too inappropriate for the Tonight Show timeslot (my own ridiculous favorite the masturbating bear) and will we see a tone that harkens back to Conan’s goofy roots?

Conan on TBS weeknights, 11/10c

This week’s full schedule from Team COCO:

Monday 11/08

FIRST SHOW POLL WINNER
You clicked and we listened! Who will be the poll winner: The Pope? The Sultan Of Brunei? Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Gerhard Ertl? WATCH AND FIND OUT!

SETH ROGEN Polls aside, our REAL first guest is a mega superstar who you know from such blockbusters as “Knocked Up,” “Superbad,” and “Funny People!” He helped us out on tour in his home town of Vancouver, BC; he’s the man who always brings the funny, SETH ROGEN!

LEA MICHELE (@MsLeaMichele)You can see this Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actress each week as Rachel Berry on the smash hit TV show, “Glee!”

MUSICAL GUEST: JACK WHITE Legend has it that Jack and Conan first met in a Detroit area bowling area in the 90’s. Since that meeting, Jack White has gone on to rock n roll stardom in The White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and Dead Weather! Conan and Jack cut a “45 record at Jack’s studio in Nashville, and when these two get together, you never know WHAT’S gonna happen! Ladies and gentlemen… JACK WHITE!

Tuesday 11/09

TOM HANKS (@TomHanks) Multi Academy Award winner, one of the greatest actors of our generation – and more importantly, the man who coined the nickname “Coco” – TOM HANKS is joining us tonight!

JACK MCBRAYER You know him from movies like “Talladega Nights” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” – and of course, as Kenneth the Page on “30 Rock.” WE know him as a dear friend who got his start playing bit parts on our show! Don’t miss the hilarious JACK MCBRAYER!

MUSICAL GUEST: SOUNDGARDEN (@Soundgarden | Myspace)
This legendary and highly influential Seattle-born multi-Grammy Award winning rock group is back to rock us all with a track off their new album “Telephantasm!”

Wednesday 11/10

JON HAMM This dashing Golden Globe winner can be seen on AMC’s “Mad Men” as the suave and sophisticated 60’s ad executive Don Draper and most recently in the Ben Affleck helmed crime caper, “The Town”… JON HAMM!

CHARLYNE YI This charming actress and comedian has appeared in such movies as Knocked Up, Semi-Pro, and Paper Heart! Her new movie is “Fast”… The lovely and talented CHARLYNE YI is on the show!

 FISTFUL OF MERCY (@fistfulofmercy | Facebook | YouTube | Myspace | Official Site ) This supercool rock n roll supergroup consists of Dhani Harrison, Joseph Arthur, and Ben Harper – who will be stopping by to rock us out with a slice of their new album “Fistful of Mercy”!

Thursday 11/11

MICHAEL CERA He’s starred on the hit show “Arrested Development” and in such films as “Superbad”, “Juno”, and “Scott Pilgrim vs The World”! The awesome and hilarious… MICHAEL CERA!!

JULIE BOWEN From her co-starring role on “Ed”, to her guest starring stint on “LOST”, to her current Emmy nominated turn on ABC’s breakout hit “Modern Family”, Julie Bowen continues to amaze and astound! “Modern Family” airs Wednesday nights at 9/8c on ABC!

JON DORE ( @TVsJonDore | Facebook | YouTube | Myspace ) Hey! It’s the hilarious comedy stylings of stand up comedian JON DORE! You’ve seen him on Comedy Central’s “Live at Gotham” and “Comedy Central Presents…”, “Held Up” on Crackle.com, and on “The Jon Dore Television Show” on IFC and The Comedy Network in Canada.

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Conan Doesn’t Need No Stinkin’ Talk Show

He’ll just take his funny on the road.

In a move that had been speculated for awhile, Conan O’Brian announced this week via Twitter (which he officially discovered and has since embraced like a fiend post-Tonight Show) that he will headline a two-month, 30-city tour beginning April 12. “It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house,” O’Brien shared in another post.

The tour, titled “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television,” after a clause in O’Brien’s exit contract with NBC that doesn’t allow him to appear on TV until September, will visit theaters in at least 20 states and two Canadian provinces.

In keeping with O’Brien’s knack for unorthodox choices, recently showcased in his decision to pick a regular Michigan woman as the only person he would follow on Twitter, O’Brien will kick off the tour in Eugene, Oregon.

Promising “a night of music, comedy, hugging and the occasional awkward silence,” O’Brien will be joined by longtime sidekick Andy Richter and the former “Tonight Show” band. Adds the man himself, “I’ll be doing all Liza Minnelli songs.”

Ah, CoCo we off-center masses have missed you in our homes every night. For tickets and more information visit the official website.

Repeat Doldrums, or How I Spent My Holiday Vacation Evaluating 2009 and Sizing Up 2010 – NBC

Hello again gentlereaders. No, I didn’t forget about you these past two months, please blame my absence on the most hectic (wonderful?) time of the year. Now that the holiday season has passed, including the glut of repeats that come with it, I am back and focused as ever to comment, critique and celebrate the best of what’s to come in 2010 television. The musings are too much so I must make this a multi-part post.

MAKE ‘EM LAUGH

I’ve made no secret of the insane amount of love I have for comedies, particularly the perfectly programmed 2-hour block on NBC’s Thursday night. While the Peacock appears to be making all the wrong moves in late night (the incomparable Conan in limbo and bland Leno is back, no words) they’ve at least made impeccable choices when it comes to scheduling the primetime funny this season.

Vets The Office and 30 Rock had some of their strongest episodes of their series’ histories – Jim & Pam’s wedding will go down in the annals of TV moments and “Dealbreakers Talk Show No. 0001″ not only gave us crazy Performer Liz who forgot how to wave like a person, we were treated to how HD alters the Rockers – Kenneth is a Muppet and Jack a young Alec Baldwin, classic.

Parks & Recreation became so enjoyable as its second season progressed that I found myself not just choosing it first among my DVR viewing selections the next day but actually watching it in real time! And even though newbie Community had some ups and downs, its ups (Senor Chang’s always quotable lines – “Hasta luego! Come on, hands 90% of spanish!”) far outweighed the downs.

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New episodes of all CNDR shows return this week, save for The Office (which is open for business again January 21st) but with an extra 30 Rock there’s no complaint from this Fey-natic, and we’ve got guest stars galore – Jack Black wandering around the Greendale campus on Community, Will Arnett romancing real-life wife Amy Poehler on P&R and James Franco stopping by as “himself” for an arranged celebrilationship with Jenna on 30 Rock.

Fall Premieres – Trivial Teens and Leno’s “Retirement”

Tonight brings offerings that pose little to no threat to my precious DVR space with the return of two more dry dramas from The CW and the beginning of a new form of “late” night on NBC.

The CWThe CW seems to have cornered the market on telling tales of teen trials and tribulations, and while it’s sensational enough for a lot of viewers I’ve yet to find much enjoyment from their line-up both past and present (the snappy snark of Veronica Mars being the only exception). First up is the people-still-watch-this seventh season of One Tree Hill. Limping into the year it will be without breakout star Chad Michael Murray, which makes me speculate this could be the swan song season of the series.

Gossip Girl ad campaign for its second season
Gossip Girl ad campaign for its second season

Still hot, with its trend-setting cast firmly at the center of the Young Hollywood set and getting constant media exposure, Gossip Girl begins its third season following the pampered prep school kids into their first year of college. Never a series to shy away from creating and embracing buzz (dig the ad campaign from last year) the big news going into this season is main moneyed douche Chuck Bass’s same-sex liplock by episode six. A truly less-than-scandalous story for anyone who finds the “shock” factor of a man-on-man kiss both parochial and passe – plus those who’ve read the GG books (or been conscious while watching any episode) knows the guy started out gay.

Passing The Tonight Show torchWith The Tonight Show torch now firmly in the able hands of Conan (CoCo!), Jay Leno takes up his new post weeknights at 10/9pm that seems eerily like his old one (though official reports state that fans of Tonight should expect “big” changes). While Leno will abandon the traditional late-night host’s desk and act as a kind of roving emcee, introducing the work of a team of comics who have gone out in the field to tape pieces, each show will still have a monologue at the top of each show, a guest – Jerry Seinfeld is scheduled for the premiere – and close with his famous “Jaywalking” or headline segments, which will lead directly into local news.

Leno’s show will no doubt be watched heavily during its initial inception, considering his is an experiment for a network that has traditionally seen this timeslot deliver acclaimed scripted hits over the years (ER, Law & Order, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law), defining it as the gold standard of sophisticated programming. However with the business rapidly changing from what was seen in the ’80s and ’90s, this new approach to primetime is going to be closely monitored by NBC and competitors alike to see if a viable model to future programming has been found.

Not On My DVR, But If You Have Space

  • 8/7c – One Tree Hill, The CW
  • 9/8c – Gossip Girl, The CW
  • 10/9c – The Jay Leno Show, NBC (series premiere)