From: nebusj-@-rpi-.edu   
      
           I didn't like going so many months without Conan on TV, of   
   course, for all that did to free up an hour of evening program-watching.   
   On the other hand, losing The Tonight Show did provoke Conan into first   
   reliably entertaining new ways of performing, small (the Twitter feeds)   
   and large (the live tour).  And he did have the benefit of going out in   
   a way that makes for show business legend and will be one of the two   
   Establishing Scenes for any serious biography that ever gets written   
   about Conan.  (The other would be his debut, either from September 1993   
   or on Letterman's Late Night that spring.)   
      
           And, of course, he got a new show, at the cost of walking away   
   from *all* his old comedy bits, even down to Clutch Cargo interviews   
   (which I don't think he'd taken to The Tonight Show anyway, but am ready   
   to be shown how I'm overlooking the obvious).  It's a loss to not get   
   new In The Year 2000 forecasts, but on the other hand, we're free from   
   new Celebrity Surveys either.  The clearing out of established bits has   
   allowed for a great blossoming.   
      
           Even though the new show has got reused bits, I believe ---   
   without doing a systematic survey --- that they reuse sketches less than   
   even The Tonight Show did.  _Conan_ feels like a much younger show than   
   his Tonight Show did, and *that* felt younger than the last years of   
   Late Night.   
      
           In total, I think losing The Tonight Show was creatively and   
   professionally a net positive, despite the loss of the Carson Legacy.   
      
           What do you think, sirs?   
      
   --   
                                                                   Joseph Nebus   
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)