After months of being prohibited from appearing on television, Conan O’Brien is back, and Sunday, May 2, he made his first appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Steve Kroft sat down to talk with O’Brien about his North American comedy tour, the NBC debacle, his beard and the fact that Jay Leno hasn’t reached out to him since O’Brien’s decision to walk away from NBC.
I was interested to hear O’Brien’s answer when Kroft asked him if he believed Leno acted honorably during the entire mess. “I don’t think I can answer that,” he said, after releasing a heavy sigh. “I can just tell you how maybe I would have handled it, and I would do it differently.”
O’Brien also talked about his disappointment with NBC, where he spent the majority of his adult life employed. NBC’s Jeff Zucker, who was one of O’Brien’s classmates at Harvard, was quoted as saying that after the results came in, the people were responsible for the failure of Conan’s Tonight Show takeover. Really, NBC?
Listening to O’Brien talk about the basis of contractual agreement, and the motivation of money behind NBC’s decision, made me sad. It put me back a couple months ago, when we all talked about network’s quickly pulling the plug on new shows before they’ve had much of a chance to resonate with audiences.
I still feel like NBC didn’t give Conan O’Brien a fair chance. After years of Leno, the shift to appeal to a new generation of Tonight Show viewers needed more time.
Regardless, I’ll be tuning in to watch O’Brien on TBS when his new show kicks off, and I know you will too. Team Coco, unite!
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