Fair Thee Well Coco

And so it was, on January 22nd, the year 2010 Conan O'Brien said his final goodnight...on NBC. The Late Night Wars Part Deux came to a close and it seems the only one coming out ahead is, well, probably David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel. I wrote on the Motivators Company Blog how strongly people fought to try to keep Conan on the air but in the end it was not enough for NBC. Unless you were living under a rock you should know by now the basic story. 5-6 years ago, NBC was afraid of losing Conan to another network (ironically) so they talked Jay Leno into retiring at the end of his contract to give Conan "The Tonight Show", those years came and went and Jay Leno went all Brett Favre on NBC and decided not to retire. So as not to upset the "Aaron Rodgers" of this situation (Brett Favre's backup who had been awaiting the starting QB job) NBC decided to let Jay Leno stay on TV but at 10 PM. NBC had told Jay to wait until the summer months and his ratings would soar. Jay's prime-time show failed, causing a ratings domino effect across NBC. So, Leno's show is cancelled and he is put back to "The Tonight Show" forcing out Conan. Trust me, that's the much longer story short. For the 2-3 weeks this controversy was going down there was sniping everywhere, Leno and Conan sniping NBC, Leno and Conan sniping each other, Letterman and Leno sniping each other, and the best part of the whole thing Jimmy Kimmel sniping Leno, both on and off Leno's show. Conan may have been the sharpest though, being able to laugh at the situation and make the best of it, his ratings doubled during the battle. At the end of it all though, in case you missed it, Conan O'Brien went out like the true professional he is. For his last show he made no negative comments towards his employers, he thanked them and told them he appreciated and loved the work they did together for 20 years. He had Tom Hanks on to support the Haiti telethon. For those that didn't see it he also had a heartfelt thank and goodbye to all his fans, clearly holding back tears. Whether you love him or hate him it was something everyone should watch on the Internet. He said:

"To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I'll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

Classy to the end.This is a blog, so I must put out one very specific opinion of my own here. I have heard many people say "Conan will be fine, he got his millions of dollars from NBC." Every one of us does a job and we do it with pride. Unlike most of us Conan does (or did) his job on a larger stage than any of us can fathom.  I have no reason not to believe Conan would have traded every last penny of that money for the chance to live out his dream job for more than the 7 months NBC gave him to work miracles. He would have traded that money to not be silenced for another 7 months and had every joke and character from his 15 years of late night hosting taken from never to be used again. If there is such thing as karma, Conan will land on Fox and crush Leno and Letterman.