You bet your sweet ass and half-a-titty.
But all the WDR support in the world wasn't enough to keep Conan on as host of the Tonight Show. Sure, Conan got the ol' Oklahoma Screwjob from Jeffrey Zucker, Dick Ebersol, and the rest of the nitwits from NBC, but we have to admit, wasn't it strange for Conan to be the host in the first place? His best humor always had a weird absurdist bent to it, and I'm not entirely sure that plays that well to Maude from Des Moines.
We have to face it, the odds weren't good for Conan to succeed. His biggest weakness has always been his monologue, and at 12:35 we could wait the 7 minutes before he got to one of his great skits. At the earlier hour though, people are tuning in specifically for that monologue, and if it isn't hitting, Letterman's just a few channels away. And then it's tough to play catch-up. It also didn't help that he had the Human Jinx Andy Richter sign on to play the Ed McMahon role (and I say this as a huge fan of both Controls the Universe and Andy Barker, P.I.).
And so it was never meant to be. And while Conan was justifiably angry about the whole situation, and while it was quite funny to see a man lash out at his incompetent bosses, part of me felt some sadness that Conan didn't take the high road. However, in his last episode, he did just that. His speech about the emptiness of cynicism will be remembered for some time, and it was good to see Conan show his class. And that segued into one of the greatest random performances of Lynyrd Skynyrd ever:
Yes, I watched the final episode the day after it aired and am aware of the irony, but it's only because I don't have a TV. But I'm but one example of many in his audience that surely did the same thing. Conan was doomed to fail, but at least he got his moment.
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