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Conan’s ready for his ‘Tonight’ close-up
O’Brien says no way. “Since 1949, 1950, The Tonight Show has been on NBC at 11:30,” he says. “To me, that’s sacred territory.” Leno “doesn’t in any way affect the show I’m getting.” But won’t Leno’s mere presence diminish the new host’s stature, one critic asked? “I don’t need any help diminishing The Tonight Show; I’ve got that covered,” he jokes. Kidding aside, O’Brien says he doesn’t know exactly what’s in store for his last Late Night show, scheduled for Feb. 20, before he takes a three-month break, moves west and assumes the Tonight chair as its fifth host in a newly built studio at Universal June 1. “We’re going to look back (but) I don’t want to do a big salute to me. I’m departing for a brief period of time and then reappearing in this fantastic dream job. I want to make sure I don’t overdo it.” Won’t he have to revamp his repertoire, which includes a masturbating bear and the sometimes-vulgar Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, now that he’s appearing an hour earlier? “Triumph could easily appear at 11:30 at night,” O’Brien says, calling “archaic” the idea that the 12:30 and 11:30 standards are different. “I see things on MTV at 4:30 in the afternoon I would never want my children to see.” But he wants to change his game, too: “I’m not the 29-year-old kid that auditioned for this job in 1993. I’m 31 now.” He says the “creative core” of his writing staff and his band will make the move, but he doesn’t expect to tone down his material and can’t stop the gangly physicality of his comedy; it’s who he is. “I want to make sure my show isn’t too buttoned up. I will make changes day in and day out, tiny little changes I feel are appropriate. But I think the show just has to be funny. If I’m relaxed and the writers are hitting on all cylinders, it will be a good Tonight Show. It would be a big mistake to try to reinvent myself completely.” Is he’s wistful about leaving New York, where his show has survived and thrived after early struggles, when NBC had so little confidence it kept giving O’Brien short-term extensions? “I will cry like a baby when Late Show with Conan O’Brien ends,” its host says. “We will have done 2,725 shows there and we’ve been doing it for 16 seasons. Creatively there’s an old saying that you have to keep moving or die. Change isn’t comfortable, but to quote our president-elect, there will be false starts and there will be missteps and it may take longer than four years. But I believe this change – it’s time. I believe I need to take another challenge. “(And) I believe it will be rocket fuel. It’s time to go,” he says. “I’ll never have any regrets.” 
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Does NBC’s decision to keep Jay Leno in a new prime-time show hurt Conan O’Brien’s chances of standing on his own, now that he’s finally ready to inherit The Tonight Show?
