WHY WE’RE WITH COCO

Posted by: Craig Detweiler (PurpleStateofMind.com)

How strange to see the battle over a comedy show devolve into tragedy. Yet the Leno versus Conan debate reflects an underexplored generation gap. One more baby boomer refusing to retire, blocking the path to a patient (but ultimately frustrated) Gen Xer.

NBC’s late night talk show drama has echoes of royal succession plans (with all the accompanying skullduggery). Only five hosts have occupied The Tonight Show throne. When Johnny Carson was tapped to replace Jack Paar, he was under contract with ABC. It took a couple of months to make room for Carson, who reigned in late night for thirty years.

When Carson retired in 1992, Jay Leno and David Letterman battled over the right to replace him. Letterman had paid his dues, serving NBC for over a decade with The Late Show. But on Carson’s frequent nights off, Leno had served as a dutiful designated sub. The Tonight Show seat went to Leno, Letterman bolted to CBS and a rival late night show was born.

Conan O’Brien took over NBC’s late night in 1993. After a decade of creative comedy, O’Brien signed a contract in 2004 to replace Leno by 2009. Leno embraced the situation with civility as this video clip attests. After all, the network had FIVE YEARS to work out a smooth transition. Only one problem. Leno clearly didn’t want to retire. And NBC was still benefiting from his ratings supremacy over Letterman. So rather than showing Leno the door, NBC president Jeff Zucker ushered him into primetime. It was a risky, cost cutting strategy rooted in an untested theory. After fifty years of American television history, would late night viewers change their habits, following Leno to 10pm? The experiment failed miserably.

Leno could have bowed out quietly, driving away in his classic auto collection. But NBC (and surely he) wanted him back in late night. All O’Brien needed to do was move to 12:05. After a half century as the most reliable profit center in the network engine, The Tonight Show would suddenly be more like the tomorrow show. Not on Coco’s watch.

All kinds of barbs have been tossed toward Zucker and the NBC brass. Leno, Letterman, and O’Brien directed taunts toward each other. Jimmy Kimmel offered up a savage parody of Leno, complete with an outrageous, elongated chin. Leno fired back, painting himself as just a pawn in NBC’s game: “They made me do it.” O’Brien has tried to take the high road, defending The Tonight Show franchise from further encroachment. His fans have rallied under the viral, “I’m with Coco” campaign.

Why are we with Coco? Because his frustrating situation parallels our own life experience. We have been watching and listening to baby boomers for our entire lifespans. We’ve suffered through how many celebrations of the Sixties? We’ve endured the annual rehearsals of Woodstock, of 1969, of Easy Rider. We’ve grinned and borne it, knowing that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones would cede the stage to our generational reps, U2 and Pearl Jam. It happened in the movies, with boomers like Tom Hanks (born 1956) seeing his box office supremacy replaced by Tom Cruise (born 1962) and then Will Smith (born 1968). Politics proved the last bastion to fall, with boomers born in 1946 like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush swept from the stage by an upstart, fifteen years younger, Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, the passing of the generational torch stopped in late night. Letterman (born 1947) and Leno (born 1950) have had their time, they’ve made their millions. They entertained two or three generations of television viewers. O’Brien (born 1963) took the absurdist tendencies of Letterman to another level. He tossed off random comments about a horny manatee that prompted his network to buy a website. Ten million hits later, a quirky joke had become an Internet institution. He popularized Clutch Cargo, “In the Year 2000”, and gave regular air time to “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.” He paid his dues, bided his time, waited five years for his contract to kick in. He and his staff made the costly move to California.

I’ve seen the same leadership logjam muck up the church. I went to seminary with all kinds of passionate and gifted young leaders. When we graduated, they started serving as associate pastors for Presbyterian and Methodist churches across America. The emergent church arose from Gen Xers who were ordained in traditional denominations that never made room for their gifts and callings. They waited for their senior pastors to retire (or at least cede an occasional Sunday). They were well-trained and ready to assume responsibility. But like O’Brien versus Leno, the waiting game never paid off. They had to leave the established church to follow their calling. Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll (both born in 1970) represent different forms of this newer spiritual expression. Their own ‘shows’ have thrived.

The worst offender in NBC’s sorry situation is Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal. He rose to power on The Today Show, named executive producer at age 26. His fellow Harvard alum, Conan O’Brien, was hosting The Late Show at age 30. Both wunderkinds should have aged and risen together. But Zucker appears to have chosen Leno over O’Brien, displaying no loyalty to his generation or to a contract. After a spectacular run with the “Friends” era on NBC, Zucker has now presided over a shocking decline in long established brands.

Could Zucker’s foolishness stem from an old college rivalry between The Harvard Crimson and The Harvard Lampoon? As editor of the Crimson, Zucker was already an establishment guy. O’Brien led the biting, outsider Lampoon. Perhaps they are still working out the same roles on a much larger, high stakes stage. (Here is Conan sticking it to “The Man” to the tune of $1.5 million in clearance fees). Of course, it is hard to consider any Harvard grad as an outsider. And such juvenilia may not be worthy of such time or attention. Leave it to Asian TV to capture the absurdity of the situation. But who can respect a Gen Xer who betrays his roots to become a boomer enabler?

Bye bye, Coco. We’ll miss you and The Tonight Show. But we look forward to even stranger days on another network…