Conan is Back!!!

Conan is back!!!! What a long wait we’ve had to go through! (Most of it spent by getting into civil arguments with Leno fans) Since his rather messy departure from NBC, Conan finally made a return to late night TV. Passing the time before he could legally be on TV again, Conan had a successful “Legally prohibited from being funny on TV” tour,  kept us laughing with his twitter account postings, and in recent days had a free t-shirt giveaway which Lucidswirl and I had tried and unsuccessfully attempted to win some free swag (lucidswirl got closest though). Now that wait is over and Conan is back on the TV where he belongs and I couldn’t be any happier.

Opening with a Soap Opera meets “The Godfather” scene showing what happened “previously on Conan”, the start of Conan’s 3rd show began. Overall the show comes off as a Late Night meets Tonight Show type feel to it. For example, the studio is about the same size as the old Late Night set, Andy is still announcing like on The Tonight Show, Andy also joins Conan on the couch like on the Late Night show days, and the set kind of serves as a mashup of both of Conan’s prior shows, while at the same time offers something new (such as a remote control Moon!). I’m not too crazy about the new name of the band (The Basic Cable Band), and the set isn’t as great looking as his other shows. Speaking of the  band, Max was sadly MIA (who left due to medical reasons) and although we didn’t see too much of him in the Tonight Show run due to the Bruce Springsteen tour earlier this year, he was still missed (at least we still have La Bamba around).

The first show featured some of Conan’s usual bits and antics such as “The Masturbating Bear” and his “cheetah growl” to the ladies. His very first guest (a curator of a nutcracker museum)  won via internet poll,  and as far as celebrities go, Seth Rogen and Lea Michele (Glee) were the first on the couch and Ricky Gervais made a cameo video. The night ended with Jack White as a musical guest (with Conan joining in on guitar!).

As far as funny goes, I think when he did the Tonight Show’s debut, it was just little funnier than the first episode of “Conan” however, he only had a month or so between gigs that time, this time around it was 9 months between acts, so a little rustiness was to be expected and since we got Tom Hanks (a.k.a. the creator of the “Coco” nickname) tomorrow, I think it won’t take long at all before Conan is back in his usual form (Plus the guy has had a very tough year so he deserves a little slack). Despite the “Conalouge” being just a little off (mostly due to the “Previously on Conan” skit cutting most of the time and crowd interactions),  I don’t think it’ll be very long before we see jokes directed towards La Bamba, silly characters (hopefully the No Reason to Live guy, Triumph, Pimpbot, and the Evil Puppy), and all the stuff that makes Conan awesome make a triumphant return. Despite a little bit of rustiness,  the show was still rightfully on my TV at night and it was still very enjoyable (and still probably better than anything that Leno’s had to offer. ) I’m just pumped that late night TV is funny again! Welcome back Coco!