From: lugnut@NOSPAMhotmail.com   
      
   Found this over at the Onion AV Club.  As good a piece on the show's   
   ending as I've seen -   
      
      
   By Nathan Rabin  February 21, 2009   
      
   I will never forget what Keith said when I asked him how he felt about   
   the news that Conan O’Brien said would be taking over The Tonight   
   Show. He said it reminded him of the scene in Goodfellas where Joe   
   Pesci thinks he’s becoming a made man only to get assassinated   
   gangland-style. It seemed too good to be true. Hot headed punks like   
   Pesci don’t get to be Made Men and eight-foot-tall hyperactive,   
   super-genius goofballs like Conan aren’t supposed to take over Johnny   
   Carson’s vacated throne.   
      
   Keith wasn’t saying Conan wasn’t good enough to take over the most   
   prestigious, high profile position in all of late-night comedy. He was   
   saying that Conan was, if anything, too good, too weird and too   
   brazenly original for The Tonight Show’s mass audience.   
      
   Watching Late Night With Conan O’Brien I’ve often had the feeling that   
   Conan was getting away with something. Let the world have Jay Leno.   
   Conan was and is for us; the comedy geeks, insomniacs, potheads,   
   oddballs and night owls. Conan seemed to inhabit the same crazy upside   
   down world as After Hours, a nighttime realm where the rules went out   
   the window and a cosmic and comic anarchy reigned.   
      
   With apologies to Hannah Arendt, Leno represents to me the evil of   
   banality, the tragedy of a gifted stand-up comedian dumbing down his   
   material for the lowest common denominator. In sharp contrast Conan   
   bravely if insanely seems to assume that his audience is every bit as   
   weird and smart and off-kilter as himself. He is a glorious anomaly, a   
   beautiful freak, a man who became a television institution without   
   compromising his fundamental weirdness.   
      
   You really have to like someone to welcome them into your home for an   
   hour five nights a week. We have an intense relationship with our late   
   night heroes. That’s why Johnny Carson’s final show became instantly   
   iconic, David Letterman is a comedy God and it seemed positively   
   perverse to give late-night shows to Chevy Chase and Jerry Lewis, men   
   infamous for having phenomenally shitty personalities. Seriously, say   
   what you will about my mother or my religion but disparage Conan,   
   Letterman, Colbert or Stewart and I’ll punch you right in your fucking   
   face. Christ, I even got choked up during the final episode of The   
   Larry Sanders Show. Even fictional talk show hosts have a funny way of   
   tugging at our heartstrings.   
      
   Like a lot of Late Night fans I worry that Conan will have to water   
   down the weirdness to appeal to The Tonight Show audience, that he’ll   
   have to appeal to Joe and Jane Whitebread as well as aficionados of   
   The Masturbating Bear or Brian Stack’s racist ghost of a forties   
   crooner.   
      
   So I was more emotionally invested in the final episode in the final   
   episode of Late Night With Conan O’Brien than I have been in most   
   Presidential elections. It was the climax of a week thick with   
   nostalgia as Conan brought back favorite guests and indulged in an   
   extended deluge of greatest hits.   
      
   Tonight was no exception. John Mayer contributed a brief yet catchy   
   ditty promising that Hollywood will eat Conan alive that contained the   
   indelible couplet, "I used to live in NYC/Now I’m as douchey as a man   
   can be" before Will Ferrell reprised his beloved George W. Bush   
   character and his even more beloved outsized leprechaun stripper   
   routine.   
      
   The final episode of Late Night With Conan O’Brien played it   
   relatively safe. Andy Richter came back for one last stroll down   
   memory lane and Jack and Meg White showed up looking and sounding like   
   a bizarro world version of Johnny and June Carter Cash to play a   
   spooky, spare bluesy number about friendship. When Conan stooped down   
   to tell Jack that the White Stripes appearance "meant the world" to   
   him it felt weirdly intimate instead of perfunctory.   
      
   But it was all just an extended run-up to a climactic final segment   
   where Conan, his voice shaking with emotion, eschewed smartassery and   
   joking and issued a very sincere, heartfelt thanks to everyone who has   
   made Late Night’s sixteen-year runpossible. I was particularly moved   
   by his tribute to David Letterman. His praise for Jay Leno felt rote   
   by comparison; he thanked Leno for his unstinting support and   
   friendship but said next to nothing about Leno’s Tonight Show itself.   
   It was a classy and emotional farewell from a man destined for bigger   
   if not necessarily better things.   
      
   Will success spoil our Conan? Christ, I hope not but I’m concerned   
   about the move to Los Angeles. As he acknowledged in his final   
   monologue, New York is in Late Night With Conan O’Brien’s DNA. It   
   embodies the city’s jazzy, manic, neurotic, oddball rhythms as   
   completely and eloquently as Sweet Smell of Success’ tart dialogue and   
   Notorious B.I.G’s liquid flow. I sincerely hope that Conan conquers   
   L.A instead of the other way around.   
      
   Thank you, Conan, for the last sixteen years. I am hopeful but   
   cautious and wary about what the future might hold for our Conan.   
      
   -lugnut   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)