Burying the Hatchet

Friday night was Conan’s final episode of the Tonight Show and, after all the jokes that lead up to this point, Conan took a moment to express his gratitude to the network for giving him 20 amazing years.  And he took a moment to speak out against cynicism.

The internet, as you know, is broken down into 5% eBay and Amazon.com, 5% search engines, 50% porno and 40% cynicism.   Those last two actually have a lot of overlap.  That aside, bloggers, news sites, comedy sites, pretty much any site you read on a regular basis spreads cynicism like you’d spread butter on toast, it’s par for the course.  We’re no different.  Look back at all our articles on Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, pop culture, sports and, yes, the Conan O’Brien situation at NBC.  We’re guilty little bitches.

So let’s take this moment, in the spirit of Conan’s final inspiring words that were gracious, intelligent and should prove to all the naysayers that he is a professional, to express our own gratitude as would-be comedians…

I’ve been writing comedy for many years, and just coming up on three professionally.  But for about the last 13 years I have long held out the hope that one day, somehow, I would be a guest on the Conan O’Brien show.   His dream was to host the Tonight Show, mine was to meet one of my comedic inspirations as a result of achieving some measure of success in my own comedic endeavors.  That may never happen now.  But I too have to thank NBC for backing Conan when it seemed like he was a dead end.  Those early years were brutal, but they let him tough it out.  They let him go in directions no other late night host would dream.  Triumph the Insult Comic Dog?  The Masturbating Bear?  La Bamba?  No one was doing that stuff.  No one would.

To NBC, thank you for being risk takers, at least for a time.  Thank you for having faith in an odd ball comedian, who brought a lot to the entertainment stage and inspired many others.

To Conan O’ Brien, thanks for inspiring awkward, weird, pale kids everywhere whose most notable feature was their ability to make people laugh.  As soon as you can come back, do so.  As soon as the guys at FunnyCrave write the great American novel (or porno screenplay) we’ll be calling you up to beg for a guest spot on the show.

Comedy is about making people laugh.  That should always make you feel good at the end of the day.