The Return of COCO

After months of anticipation, Conan O’Brien returns to television. His new show, entitled Conan, aired its first episode on Monday. While not perfect, it definably seemed a promising start for this as always funny performer.

The best part was probably the beginning, which was a pre taped bit on his journey from The Tonight Show to TBS. Of course it was anything but serious, as he goes from being executed mob style at NBC, to working as a birthday party clown and an employee at Burger King, to being saved from suicide by Larry King. It perfectly showed his ability to see the humor in everything.

Once the show began the Conan we know emerged, zany and lively. While he seemed a bit nervous if anything it fueled his already considerable energy. He, along with co-host Andy Richter, took a few jabs at NBC and even TBS, but nothing that was vindictive or truly mean spirited. The meanest jokes were at Conan’s own expense, such as showcasing an actual Halloween mask of a crude likeness of him that was called “ex talk show host”.

The weakest part of the show oddly enough was the talk show part, where he interviewed Seth Rogen and Lea Michele. Not because Conan is a bad interviewer, because he’s not. It just seems his best quality is the zany bits he comes up with. It would serve him better to have one interview guest a night and devote more time to comedy sketches. Of the two I liked the Seth Rogen interview better simply for an amusing story Seth told about how he proposed to his girlfriend, though I also enjoyed the interview with Lea Michele.

The show did go out with a bang though, with Conan rocking out with Jack White from The White Stripes. How many other talk show hosts would be playing guitar during the musical segment?

Overall it was a good first show. As prior experience has shown Conan improves as he relaxes and a bit of time passes from the beginning of a new talk show start. And he was definitely better this time around then he was when he started The Late Show all those years ago. So it seems he has the beginnings of a successful talk show.