Some time ago, the rightful heir for Johnny Carson's “Tonight Show” throne, David Letterman, was screwed over by NBC and Jay Leno.
Of course, he was screwed over after NBC had already been screwing Johnny by trying to force him to retire early.
If NBC had just let Johnny leave on his own terms instead of pushing him out, things could've gone smoothly. They could've had Dave AND Jay AND Conan, and they could've eased them all into comfortable spots and everyone could've been happy and made a lot of money.
But that's not how they wanted to play it.
Nope, they forced out Carson to accommodate Leno, and shoved away Letterman, again to accommodate Leno, and now the curse of Carson, the karma of those decisions, is finally biting them in the ass.
Back in the day, after Johnny retired, Letterman, wounded, went on to success at CBS, but “The Tonight Show,” despite good ratings, was never the same.
NBC would've been much better off realizing that, after letting Johnny go out on his own terms, hiring Dave to take over Johnny's chair, and giving Leno the hour after Dave. They would've had an unbeatable combo. Especially if they'd added Conan after Jay for the late-late night shift.
Instead, they went with Jay.
Ratings were good, but most critics agreed Leno had really toned down the edge that made him hilarious as a guest on Letterman, and pretty much everyone agreed that nobody really could replace Johnny.
So here comes Conan O'Brien.
He gets the “Tonight” gig, Leno gets pushed out for really no good reason other than NBC making a bad decision (reminiscent of the Letterman screw-up), and now, now that NBC is trying to switch them back in yet another boneheaded move, Conan is saying he's gonna jet NBC, leaving the Peacock eating a crap sandwich.
Leno will go back to “Tonight” wounded, Conan will go to Fox. Best case scenario for NBC is that the MOR comes back to Leno and Conan ends up a fringe player.
But regardless, NBC is severely wounded by this. It's a PR nightmare, it makes them look insensitive to their talent, and it gives their ratings and revenue and hit and essentially makes their execs look like a bunch of boobs. Which is what they are for making the bad moves that led to this mess.
And in the meantime, Letterman gets to laugh his butt off at karma finally kicking the peacock in the butt.
And all this could've been avoided if NBC had just shown due respect to hierarchy. Dave was the heir apparent to Johnny.
Everyone respected Johnny. Whatever Johnny said should've had a huge bearing on how things went down.
And if Johnny tabbed Dave to take over, with Jay and Conan falling in behind, the three comedians would've tipped their cap to Johnny. If NBC would've let that happen. Which they should've.
Instead, ego took over. NBC thought it was they, rather than Johnny Carson, who made “The Tonight Show.”
Well, now they've made it a mess.
And somewhere, Johnny is having the last laugh.
BYLINE:
Sean Leary's recent and current projects include the alt-rock "Spinal Tap" comedy film "Your Favorite Band" (www.yourfavoritebandthefilm.com), the award-winning short story collection "Every Number Is Lucky To Someone" (available in bookstores nationwide and on Amazon.com) and his website: www.getyourgoodnews.com.
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