Late-night TV has always been filled with laughs, interviews, and drama. But one of the biggest behind-the-scenes showdowns happened between Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno. This is the story of how two comedy giants clashed over one of television’s most iconic shows: The Tonight Show. The Reign of Johnny Carson Before Conan and Leno ever stepped on the stage, there … Read More
Conan vs Leno: The Tonight Show Fight | Ep 279
Episode Transcription
00:00 Hey, real quick. I have tour dates and they're on jaronmyers.com slash shows. I would love to see it a live show. There's actually a lot of tilling fans who come to my live show so you can meet other till and listeners and all of those. All the information for those are at jaronmyers.com slash shows. Sorry you missed the church comedy tour, but there's highlight videos of that and hopefully we'll see you at one in the future. Hey man, happy to be here. What's up? 00:24 I'm just happy to what do you forget? decided to be here. You're to give me financial advice. What is that? That's better than I deserve. Is my new thing. I'm pretty sure I'm going for okay. Well, all right. Hey Jaren, how you doing today? I'm happy to be here. Good. Have you ever heard of actually? I'm going to show you a picture and you tell me if you can figure out who this guy is all right and and yeah, show the pictures. Tell me, tell me what you think. I'm already mad. 00:55 no you already ruined it by talking to hang out with his phone until you just happy to be here immediately on a don't roll it yet. 01:12 Wait, wait, okay. Now roll the theme song. 01:19 I'm mad. I guess I'm a bigot okay. I just was like oh that's going to be an out of context, but now I guess I'm a bigot. I guess I'm a bigot. All right. This is so far off the rails things I learned last night. 01:49 right. All right now that we're back so yeah. So you can figure out what this guy does for living. me a picture to him. 01:59 Do you know who that is? Yeah, are we doing a whole episode about Conan O'Brien? Yeah, he just want to a way. I want to make sure award. Okay, so this for those listening, he just pulled up a picture of early two thousands, right? Yeah, this is I mean, I would say this is mid two thousands. I would say I was so yeah, the wrinkles in his hands, but I mean to be fair, if you're going to age someone 02:24 looking at the hands. If you were like just at my hands, how well do think I am just looking at my hands? Yeah, but I like that you I got all the I like that you knew you were going to do this, so you you put lotion on before we started. I did not put lotion on this is this. This is my raw hands. These are raw. Okay, so he's put a picture of Conan O'Brien up yeah. Okay, do you know who this is? Oh, I know what we're doing here. Are we talking 02:53 about what J Leno did to Conan O'Brien. I don't know if we're talking about what J Leno did. We're talking about what J Leno did to Conan O'Brien. So this is a fun one because I know the topic and now don't have to rely on Tim and he's gonna lie a lot. I actually know this is what happened. I don't know if you know this, but let no killed a Co J Lino killed Conan O'Brien and they replaced it with a look of blood. 03:20 he killed him in two thousand six and they replaced him so like okay. So what year did this all go down? I don't remember well. We kind of have to we I've well yeah. Let's do this. Let's do this. Let's do okay. Did J Leno take it from like? What was the progression? There was J Leno right after Carson. Okay, yeah you want to we can we can take it from the top of the story. So yeah, I think we should start. Do you know who this guy is? Okay, so in your bits quit doing the bit just do the story now. 03:51 we'll do more bits later. Let's right. That's right. Jared doesn't want me to be fun. Sorry, sorry. Okay, this is a blurry picture of Johnny Carson in front of the Netflix. Yeah, whole animation, you know, saying 04:07 it's because my bits are better. Tim, do see how that's mid animation Netflix logo? I have a better picture of him here. Yeah, a really high quality. Yeah, I like the way the Johnny Carson kisses, you know, or he's looking off the side to be like yeah. Well, it's because he wasn't supposed to be doing that. It was was a kiss that lady. What a never mind. What a strange time where 04:36 you could just turn on late night TV. I mean see the host kissing a freaking Craig Ferguson, dude, Craig Ferguson, Craig Ferguson, right, the Irish guy yeah, who would sexually harass all of his guests. I have no idea what you're talking about. That's like I watch. I didn't think he was funny. I was just asked. Did you watch late night TV? No, no, no, no, but it was on late. it like every single night. I stayed so you don't remember 05:04 Craig Ferguson, didn't watch her. I didn't watch Craig Ferguson. I didn't watch Craig Ferguson. I didn't think it was every female guess. I'm not exaggerating my Ferguson is like well, you know we my nightly routine in high school and this wasn't every night, but at least play twice two or three times a week. Okay, it's kind like my workout routine, same same cadence yeah to the radic more when I feel guilty. Yeah, I would say I feel guilty tonight. I should watch J Lando and that's what I would do. I would watch 05:31 I mean, so it was the Bible in high school. It was the late or it was the late local news. It was the late local news and then I would watch Conan and then I would watch Leno okay and then that some point that turned from Leno to to Fallon, but I remember doing that well. It didn't turn no so high school. Okay, yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, you know, you know what I'm saying. Yes, so the story starts my night time routine 06:02 was I would around probably eight thirty nine o'clock. I would text a girl that was definitely just a friend and be like hey, I've had a crush on some one like I talked to you about it and she be like who she doesn't have a phone knower and and then I would get rejected about by nine oh two. It's later from texting some girl about another girl. No you're talking about the same girl you're takes here about her 06:33 said Yep. Oh, I did that, but you go or you go you go. Oh, I got a crush on somebody and then you go. I think you know her and then they'd be like. think is it me and then I thought pretty well. No, no, but if it was so I would do that every night and then about nine fifteen. I would I would fold my knees in prayer in my closet. I called it a war room 07:03 and I would pray that she would like me back and then I would also 07:19 I hate it was two thousand know it was just nine, so I would pray that girl would light me back and then I would also pray that the United States would catch Osama bin Laden and then I would I would pray that K love me met their play goal so they could go back to not having those ads during the thing. 07:45 and then I would turn the radio on and I would fall asleep to the sounds of Christian radio. Wow, Christian radio first true. My nightly routine was I would walk in the kitchen. I pour myself a bowl of ice and I've done my face in it as a twelve year old and I would have some girl who's not on camera. I just reach in and take the and take the tea, take the ice away, clean up after me, clean it all up yeah, but I was ripped 08:11 yeah. was you can make fun of me all you want. I had a I was so yoked that's about my ab workouts in high school. I know we're got people who are going to be. I here's more true. I would wait for my parents to go to sleep and then I would sneak down to the kitchen and eat a bowl of fruit loops, probably two and then try to and then go to bed and be like. Why can't I fall asleep? I can't fall asleep. Yeah, I was a fat kid in high school 08:40 Okay, so around that same time something else was going yeah elsewhere in the world. I know I was praying about it. 08:52 I would pray that the United States would catch Osama bin Laden. I would pray that Kayla Fletch drive would in yeah and then I would pray that Conan would take over the J Leno spot of the night show and then later Jay Leno would come back and take it from his cold dead hands. Yeah, after killing him in cold blood and replacing a replica. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I want to start this from the beginning of the story. I think it's a better place. I was going to start it. Yeah, I'll start here. Okay, so 1991 yeah Johnny Carson's hosting the tonight show he had hosted the 09:21 the tonight show a long time for basically ever yeah he he took over in hold on. Let me get the exact date sixty two sixty two yeah, but thirty years yeah, a long run, a long run on the show and when he left the show, it was one of those things where how long is Fallon had it? Fowlens had it for a minute. I think two thousand and eleven yeah yeah, so he's I mean he's had a run for sure pretty good decent run yeah Carson whenever he was 09:52 coming into his his like exit. It's an interesting thing. What the tonight show is because there's not a lot of franchises that hinge so much on one person like you have to nail that host okay and if you don't have a host that works then you yeah it doesn't work you know on that in that format in the format just like a podcast. 10:18 yeah. If you don't have a good host right, it doesn't work yeah, which is why this one works so well. 10:29 I don't read. Don't know. I see you region. I see you reach it. Don't reach for that. Don't reach for that. I don't okay, so Carson so Carson's coming up to his retirement right and there is the big question who's going to replace him and for the tonight show, there's a lot of other like late shows and things like are a couple other late shows. I should say out there not a lot and so the expectation is that whoever's going to take over as the host of the tonight show. That's the 10:58 Big one. That's the big dog in the industry. It's going to be someone with some experience, someone that everyone really likes. The most obvious person in line was 11:10 see if you know who this guy is. J Leno, oh no, David Letterman, give you a picture with both of them. Oh nice good throw off like that. That's right. They are eating five guys on said, but five guys, five guys, three, five men. So yeah. Okay. Which show did Letterman host at that point? Letterman, yeah, the late show 11:38 Okay, what was the structure? It was the late show with David Letterman. What do mean? What was the structure of of late night TV? Oh in this era, the struck in this era. I'm pretty confident that it was just NBC that was doing this yes, and it was the tonight show. The tonight show was on the earlier block and then there was the late show that was like midnight, so I think that tonight show was like. I don't know exactly the time. I don't remember like ten PM and then the I guess it depends where you were on the coast yeah and then the late show was midnight or eleven 12:08 yeah, depending on where you're at. So the whole reason SNL started was because they were rerunning on the weekends. They would rerun just Carson episodes. Oh interesting. I didn't know that person was like the or the network was like hey, we got to figure out something else for Saturday night. Interesting, the Saturday live format, interesting. I didn't know that yeah, so so that would that would be whatever that time slot is. So yeah, ten o'clock nine o'clock, whatever yeah, 12:36 I want to say it's ten o'clock eastern nine o'clock central and then the late show and then when do they that's what I'm saying. When do they add like the late late show with James Corden? You know, I think it was and when did Conan's block Conan was on TBS. Well, I was this early two thousands there. Honestly, I think it was this story we're going to tell that led because this early two thousands. There was Letterman, J Leno Conan, Craig Ferguson, Kimmel, Kimmel, yeah, 13:06 there's a lot yeah. There was a lot. There's more than that. There's more than that yeah yeah, but and those are just the white man we can think of. 13:17 late night host, predominantly white men. It's actually something that they've been working on. They were trying to change it then they actually gave Taylor Tomlinson her own show, but then they made it a week it away. Yep. And then they were they were like, right, well she, they focus, they made it. Kobe was, but he was a little daily thing. He was on, but anyway, they made it seem like it was going to be like a late night show and then it wasn't. I it was going to be a late night show. It was going to be, and then it turned into a game show for comedians. So anyway, yeah, I think the, I think it's interesting. Like the format TV just 13:47 I anyways we can so the reason the late night format still works like Fallon is that when Fallon has Harry Styles on Harry Styles fans watch the interview. Yes, yeah when Fallon had and I was actually thinking about this because it's it's it's like so you make a movie and you do the circuit of interviews whoops you do the circuit of interviews and then that is also like an adjacent level of content that 14:17 that permanently exists for that movie. So like I was, I saw a Paul Rudd interview yeah where he's talking about my idiot brother, whatever that movie was, you know, and it's like oh years later, I'm now seeing what was technically an advertisement for my idiot brother a hundred percent. You know that's what the whole show is. So that's what the whole show is is qbc for people yeah. 14:39 and it's like. Do you want to buy this? That's really interesting. Again, you know that's nineteen dollar tickets. That's expensive because it's the seventies. That's unheard of actually, but nine dollar tickets. You know, one day that's going to be the cheap seats and so anyway, no, I think, but I, but I do think like it's changed because back then it was so your guests knew exactly what was going to be asked. 15:09 they like it was a script. It was a script, I mean also back then for channels, so yeah like there was a lot of options in the two thousand true true saying that like yeah there were the reason that the show worked was that it had because now like I'm even thinking of her for my state of stuff. Obviously I would love to be on the tonight show. I would love to be on Kimo. I would look. Do you please have me on the spots? Let me do the stand up. Let me do the stuff right. It won't have the impact on my career that it 15:35 it had it would have had the nineties or two thousand, you know, a hundred percent and so which is like fine. That's how this works. Yeah, that's kind of how that sorry, the tonight show used to be the Rogan interview. Now you get the Rogan interview skyrocket. That's true. That's very accurate. Yeah. And I think anyways, yeah. So Carson is retiring. 16:00 They're trying to figure out who they're going to do. Everyone in the world thinks it's going to be letterman because he's had the late show block for years and he's followed it for ten years. He's been right after Carson. Yeah, so everyone just expected letterman to be the guy. Meanwhile, Leno has been a long running guest on Carson. He's at the time just a stand up and so he's traveling the country to and stand up. What have you ever seen stand up of Leno? 16:27 Yeah, you're a stand up, so I would assume you've seen it. Is it good reference? Yeah, I've only seen like his show, so like I've seen his monologue. His monologues are good, but I don't know if how it was that in a comedy club. Oh great. I mean like it's less like I mean I can't think of a single bit right now. Obviously, of course, but I've seen it's not like I mean it's like the same way when you watch like ninety Seinfeld stand up. 16:56 Yeah, it's like it was great for that time yeah, and it's not necessarily funny to us because we're here in this time yeah, but it was killed. It killed that yeah okay, so he he was a long running. He still does. He does a lot of weekly spots, the Comedy and Magic Club in L. A yeah, I'm trying to get in over there. Does he do magic? No, how funny would it be for J Leno to walk out and not 17:25 do a second of comedy. Just do Matt yeah and he's got that weird like bad that he runs. He a weird cult. I don't know if that's he really yeah and it's like this whole like you know thing. Oh that's Jared Leto. Oh 17:41 So but Lenos been was a long running guest. was constantly closing with the comedy and he was also guest as an actual guest on the show. Carson loved him and the relationship had grown with Leno and not specifically Carson, but the producers where he was consistently a stand in for Carson. If Carson wasn't available and that makes sense because Letterman had another show and so Letterman wouldn't be the standard. But what Leno did 18:10 in this early era that I think a lot of people don't think about when they think about like pursuing opportunity. Obviously he's talented. Obviously he like honed his craft and was like good at what he did. Sure. But I don't know a nice way to say this. Maybe I maybe here's a good way to say this. He did some recon on the people at NBC and he would just be around them and became their friends. Yeah. And he did that. He did the work he needed to do to be like 18:39 the best person every time he came in yeah, and so people loved having around. He was easy to work with people like them. He made a lot of friends letterman on the other hand was kind of a diva and a lot of people didn't like working with him. Yeah, he doesn't have the personality for like hey yeah, buddy, buddy yeah and and and he like I don't want to say he got too big for his britches because I think he is really good at what he did to 19:06 but he got he got a little cocky like he got kind of full of himself kind of expect. He was the one who was supposed to have that role and he would deal with NBC like he was like a gift to NBC like he was like he had the cards yeah and NBC was like we don't really want to deal with you like we don't want to deal with that and so when the opportunity came to replace Carson yeah, it was a bit of a scandal because everyone expected it to be letterman. 19:34 but the the network with with Leno who was kind of sort of an outsider yeah, and this was an interesting thing because Leno, Leno takes it and it was like it was an interesting thing where Letterman was super nice. There was a lot of publicity. A lot of people were saying that that was the wrong choice. They shouldn't have gone with them. A lot of people were acting like Letterman deserved it. Letterman was like. I mean what are you going to do, but Letterman was super professional about it. I still had his show well 20:04 in the wake of it letterman ended up leaving the network and going to CBS and getting his own show in CBS and the network did threaten to say hey. If your show looks anything like our show, your show here, we're going to sue you yeah, and then even use the same mayonnaise. Tell your story as I never told out here. I don't know. I use he the well. You can't say their name bleep it out. I used to work at a sandwich shop called. Oh yeah, I used to work at a shop called 20:33 every time I say the name bleep it. That's really no, it's not. That's really not very funny. Don't bleep it. I used to work at a say don't bleep up called Pickleman's now bleep other words. Don't bleep the name of the rest shot just bleep. Oh my God, don't do that. So I used to work in a sales shop called a commons and that same shop was. Do you guys understand how difficult this is to ex? 21:02 tell the story. I tell your story. I use for the bill like just a pickle shop called Sammich man's we can tell the story, but I so he's a work in a pickle. see on tan like you don't got to do that. You said that seven times it was across the street from a Jimmy John. No, no, no, no, no, no, was. mean it was, but that wasn't the store that I know 21:29 that's not a trying to help you put this together. It's also across the street from a tattoo parlor. It was also next door to a filly cheese take place. You're telling unnecessary details 21:46 So, okay, I use the regular sandwich. 21:56 bleep it out we can't let anyone know what the name 22:02 Okay, so at this sandwich up this sandwich shop was owned by one of the founders of Jimmy John's, him and Jimmy. They started the same with Pickle and Jimmy started the same which to get sandwich up Jimmy John's together and they had a falling out because Pickle wanted hot subs. Jimmy wanted only cold subs. So there's a big disagreement. They ended up having a falling out. Pickle went his own way and started Pickleman's. Jimmy John's obviously was a lot more successful. Pickleman's is growing. Pickleman's is doing decent now, but 22:31 there was a lawsuit better. Pickleman's is better, but there was a big lawsuit as a part of that exit and as a part of that exit. There's a lot of stuff that Pickleman's is not allowed to use, and so they actually like legally are not allowed to use the same mayonnaise source as Jimmy John's. has to be different, and so I don't know. Don't get in fights with your friends. You're not going to be able to use the same mayonnaise as Jimmy John's and I agree 23:00 that wasn't worth it. 23:03 I used to work at a savage. You sound like Bert Christ, the beginning is his Russia story. We're like when I was twenty two. I worked at a sandwich shop called Pickleman's. This is the story. Can we make a shirt? This is I used to work in a sandwich shop called Pickleman's. No, we probably can't make it sure. This is I used to work at a sandwich shop called called star star star star star star star. That's pretty funny. All right, 23:32 You design it. I'm mad. 23:41 so anyway, so Letterman goes to CBS as part of because he didn't get the thing. That was the whole thing he left yeah, so he went to CBS, got his own show. You're not going to late night yeah and so as a part of that NBC was like okay. Well, who took over the late show they yeah, that's exactly what happened. The NBC was like we got to find someone to replace letterman now and so we got we got lena. We got got a place letterman letterman went on at the same block as Leno 24:08 and this was actually a big big ordeal because there was two whole years where Leno couldn't keep up with letterman letterman was crushing him in the ratings, having him on a separate channel at the same block. What actually ended up propelling Leno? You know what made Leno successful when he killed that person on life? He said you guys are not going to believe what I'm going to do to hey. Welcome to the late, welcome to the late, the one of the night show 24:38 I'm Jay Leno, he does that weird low sp- and tonight we're gonna kill somebody. 24:45 tonight. I'm going to kill somebody with my chin. He's honestly, honestly, what propelled Jay not far off. It was August, nineteen ninety five. There was a star Hugh Grant and I'm sure you know him. He had recently been arrested for soliciting a sex worker and he was like, hey, that's the perfect person to have on. No one wanted to have him on the show. Why do we, why do celebrities get to do stuff? 25:14 and then we just forget that stuff happened. I'm saying I mean no one forgot at the time. Well yeah, but I mean like yeah and so no one, no one would touch him with a ten foot pole after this like I don't know. He was like he was blacklisted. He was canceled before Kino, Leno and one of his seventeen billion cars that Leno has pulls up next to Hugh Grant on the sidewalk, rolls the window down and goes hey, why you come on the tonight show? 25:41 he's like what is it? Yeah, you don't like it. Do you you don't like when I talked to you through my car window and be like hey, why aren't you going to the car? You know yeah, come on to the tonight show and Hugh Grant was like all right then yeah British yeah. What movie was Hugh Grant in it at the time? Oh gosh, I have no idea what his filmography was because him as the as the Oompa Loompa hadn't come out yet. 26:06 you see or weddings and a funeral was probably the most recent weddings in a funeral. Yeah, that was probably the most recent film he had at the time. So you know what the controversy with him being an oompa loompa right? No, he was then he was the oompa loompa in this timothy chalamet wanka thing okay and anyway. 26:29 the little people community was really really mad about that. Oh that they made him one. They were like they were like either do full CGI yeah do a fully CGI little person yeah or cast a little person interesting. Don't do as weird hybrid of Hugh Grant as a little person. They really mad about that interesting. I never would have thought about that. I guess I'm a bigot okay. Why you left? I know it's it's 27:00 that's going to be. I just was like oh, that's going to be an out of context quote now. I guess I'm a big it. guess I'm a big it all right anyway, so Hugh Grant comes on the show. He welcomes him on to the show. Yeah, he does that little walk up. He's met with a mixture of mostly booze and on some people who are like yeah. I like that guy who yeah people are not not hyped. He's got canceled. He got like nineties canceled heck yeah and so he says this is ninety five yeah ninety five. is I remind yeah 27:29 So it's a mixed mixed response when he comes on to the stage. He sits down. First thing Leno says is what were you thinking and the crowd lost their mind. They like applause and like that that moment like crystallize Leno and it was all over the news. Like everyone was replaying that little snippet and then everyone was watching one from that point on. Like that was the moment he overtook letterman and he stayed ahead of him from so we just need to get somebody who's been canceled. Yeah, 27:57 and then just make fun of them use their mishaps and terrible dark shadow of a season to go. You idiot, you're so da wow. Hey, what were you thinking? Huh? What was I thinking? Join us on page 28:23 in the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like a sign up for grammarly and use code till and and we got like fifteen cents and now we just do patreon. It's a much better way. It's better for us as creators. It's better for you as listeners and it's a much more fun way for us to interact. We do monthly hangouts like on zoom. We just hang out and play games online and and get to know each other. It's a really fun time so 28:50 but still use our code till in at grammerly dot com because I think it's still I might get like a couple cents from that, but join us on patreon because we're having a great time. Yeah, if you don't, we're going to have to start doing mobile game ads. 29:07 So yeah, so that pushes leno ahead okay letterman is his doing his show on the other side, but now there's this open spot for the late show and there's been the open slot because they can't find someone to take that spot for showing blues clues reruns and so they have been like here's the mail. It never fails. It makes me want to wag my tail when it comes. want to will. I am shocked that you can recall that whole thing. 29:33 why just from like implanted in my brain and a really formative season of my life. I mean I'm not going to lie. You started doing it and I could see it and I was like like you pulled me yeah out of my consciousness for a second there. There's a reason that we like him. There's a reason that songs stick with you yeah, but here's the thing it's it's the way you recalled it like once I heard it. I was like oh, I know that right, but the way you just like yeah that blew me away. I blow you away. That's how our brains work. It well blew me away is that you still like you could 30:02 because if I heard that somewhere like I did just now, I remember that I couldn't just sit here and be like oh blues clues. Here's the male song do the backpack song from Dora. Well, that's a little different because I was a little older when Dora was around okay blues clues. I was an infant. Can you sing the rubrass theme song? There's not a song. Oh, well, it's pulled out yeah, but I was older than 30:30 Okay. That was before I developed. didn't watch rock until I was 25. 30:40 Okay, so they were looking for someone to this spot. They had been auditioning a lot of people. 30:53 they have an audition really funny. No, here's the things I'll make a joke. The problem with this podcast, the reason this show is bad is that I make a joke that should just be a joke and then you go. What if we spend five minutes on that and I'm like now the joke's not funny anymore dude. Now it just seems like it seems like I'm not letting you tell the story really, but really it's you just sideline. I used to work in a say which I go 31:24 how he dude they've been auditioning people looking for people to fill the role like a American Idol style yeah, and they were also like you walk into a room. There's Letterman, Leno, yeah, Carson, 31:39 and a fat Kimmel. He used to be fat. don't know if you remember. do remember fat Kimmel sitting there and and you know, I don't know doc. I don't he's he's the I don't know dog. I just don't know if it's for you, you know. 31:59 and so and they were offering this to a lot of people. They offered Dana Carvey. He turned it down. They offered yeah. They offered a lot of like pretty big name SNL, medians, yeah, SNL, people's actors, actresses. This is what was it really interesting. I was looking at the list like a lot of people made a big deal. You just brought up a female host yeah, and there was a lot of people who got the offer in the. This was ninety three ninety ninety two ninety three don't rivers had a show. That's true. Yeah, 32:29 we forgot about Joan interesting Oprah had a show. We forgot it. Oh, I could have put Judge Judy on it ten o'clock. That would have crushed to get late night judge. You rush holy cow. What an idea. Wait a minute, wait a minute that please that idea. Pat, we got a pitch to somebody got a pitch. It's late night, so she's got a live band in the jury box 32:59 And... 33:02 we do like that. She's those like ladies and gentlemen, judge judith, because we can't yeah, you can't do the name. It's brand, so so judith comes out, which and the plate of the plate, the plate if is her height man and he's like he's like all rise, all rise, all rise, all rise, all rise, all rise, the band is like judy. The band's like ba ba to get down 33:32 sky guys to the ground. So she comes out and she just like she's like so today in court in the gown. Yeah, I do you guys see what he tweeted today? You know, like the whole thing she does like every guest, every guest gets taken away. Cuffs. Well, I mean honestly, it works because like you got the people in the in the you know plaintiff and and and the other person, whatever their call. 34:01 I don't know. I don't get in trouble. The law I don't get and she's like what were you thinking? What were you thinking? That's her catchphrase sky rockets, sky rockets heard of fame. She's not famous yet late night judge judy could could rip that could crash that could genuinely. So who do they offer it to? They offered it to a bunch of people and they couldn't get any any women. Do you have any names or you just have like they offered it? Does it say they they offered it to Dana Carvey, Will Ferrell, 34:30 chevy chase and a bunch of women. Is that what it says? No, I don't. I don't have the list in front of me. I do. I know this from a podcast. Are they listed a bunch of people? I don't remember who all the only name I can remember is Dana Carvey, okay, but anyways, so they're looking for people and meanwhile, Lorne Michaels at SNL is like you guys have to use one of my writers and and everyone's like. I don't know. We like just writer and he's like 34:57 used my rider and he's like the okay. Give him a call and so they they call him. It was Conan O'Brien right and they made an offer and Conan said no, I'm not interested, which is so interesting. It's so interesting to me how many people shot this opportunity down. Well, I mean think about what it is though. I mean it's the same thing of like if someone offered it to me right now, yeah is I would take it, but 35:24 I was talking to another friend about this. You're you're you're committing to five nights a week. Yeah, you're committed to five nights a week. Yeah, during the day you're committed to a day job. Yeah, it's and a lot of these people have bigger dreams. That's true. They want to be in movies. They want to show you know they want to tour doing stand up. They want to Conan probably wanted to be an SNL cast member, but what's the what's the risk of it though? Like because don't you especially in this era like if you could land the host gig 35:53 for five ten years. Yeah, after that it's a momentum game though for sure. That's true. That is true. Yeah, and I guess there had been a framework of people think about like doing the show. That's why I was a career show ended up winning after midnight. Yeah was that she was like well. mean like this is making it so much harder to tour. You know interesting, so they are there is some trade off. Yeah, some people do want the 36:23 structure and the because mean I honestly it's dream job. Go for it yeah. Some people want that yeah, but it's like I mean look up how much Fallon makes a year right. It's one of those things where it's like you know, forget my dreams, forget my dreams. Oh, this is this pulled up an average Fallon health care salary, oh because I just put Fallon salary thirty six. Yeah, I saw that I was like 36:51 excuse me. I was like why is he doing this? Yeah, he makes sixteen million a year and it's like you know I could probably figure it out. I could probably be fine with this and it's also you're right like they film these at eleven o'clock in the morning like, but the other side of it too is that late night is topical yeah and what changes, but it's the same that we talked about. Yeah, we talked about this before on the podcast about the 37:17 the social media pushers in this space were creatives because we have to post every day right. We to post every day. Yeah, the limits to the number of topics that we can talk about because I you know, I can't just I can't riff on everything all the time. Yeah, so that's why a lot of your favorite creators ended up in pipelines that are either sports and fitness because sports changes every day or politics because politics changes every day. 37:44 and those are current events that people can talk about non stop and do those and that's why that's why the majority of creators that you see on social media. That's the stuff they're talking about is because there's updates or changes and neck or I mean people, the faith community stuff like that. You can just make endless content out of these. Yeah, you need something you can farm content with. I mean that's why and you heard it all the time in the late night era was like people would be like they're just so political. 38:09 like they, I think that might be one of the issues too of like if I take on a late night host job, then I have to talk about topical things and then after I'm done, my stand up isn't going to be. mean, look, look what like Trevor Noah's out doing stand up and it's very political. Yeah, that's true, because that's now what he knows and that's yeah, I guess the brand. Yeah, that's true and then you have bits to Leno had honestly 38:34 Leno had like a lot of what we probably now would call reaction content. Like he had his headlines bit yeah like you did. They would do bits that were very low hanging fruit because you just needed yeah. I try to get as much yeah yeah yeah that's interesting that's interesting and so if you're like a purist about your form right then maybe you're like I would rather a lot of time working comedy writers are and release less. I Conan probably wanted to write movies yeah and like that you know so I think I think it's it's for sure I can see how 39:01 because I'm thinking of a couple of writers on the SNL team right now that if they went to and they were like hey, we want you to be a late night host. Obviously right now it's different because late night is dying yeah. It's like being like hey, you want to do a radio show yeah, you're like. think there's column podcast now, but yeah yeah, that's interesting. I mean that does make a lot of sense because Conan actually I'd watch some interviews of him talking about this whole event that we haven't even got to yet, but talk about this whole event and a phrase he used so often. 39:31 was my body of work. so just the fact that he uses that phrase, think you're onto something that's really interesting. Anyways, so he turns it down. Three months later, they keep working and they call him back again and they're like, hey, we really want you to come try this. And he's like, OK, I'll come do an audition. So they hold an audition. They do a fake show. And so there's actually footage of this online. You can see him interviewing someone for a fake late night show. 39:59 And honestly, it's exactly what his show is. Yeah. Like it was so natural that the first time he had ever done it, like it felt like every other time he's ever done it since then. And then afterwards, like there's actually it's a kind of it's very endearing Conan footage because he afterwards they had him do I don't know if they had him do this or if he just did it, but he's doing almost like a monologue. And at the end of it, he's standing up like back in the front of the set. 40:27 and he says he says well, that's my show. He says he says this was a lot of fun. If that's the only time I ever get to do this, I'm glad I got to do it, but thanks for considering me. You know, like it was just super like genuine and classic like honestly classic Conan, like very kind and the network was like yo yeah, this is our guy okay and so and the one of the main reasons they wanted him was obviously like he was he was kind of out of left field like he was an unknown person 40:56 he was a writer though for Saturday night live and the Simpsons and with his style of humor, they thought that they could capture what was at the time and I maybe still is honestly still is for sure. You're gonna hate it even more. I tell you what this is. I know you ate it what I just did a lot, but when I tell you what I what the fake is, you're gonna hate it even more. 41:25 they the networks, they really, really coveted the young male audience and and I did this like I'm a young man, still is still is. It's still the best. By the time this comes out, you're a dad and I just know that your kid is going to see your body of work one day 41:54 and I'm going to tell you right now that body is out of shape. I was real proud of my body of work so okay, so they thought he could appeal to a young male audience. Yeah, they thought oh he's their sense of humor. Okay, letter man's too old. Leno is too gray yeah true is too big for the young boys. Don't say it like that. Okay, and so 42:22 they put him on, but it did not go well for like two years. We hate this red head guy. That's pretty accurate. They the reviews were he's he seems awkward and uncomfortable and he had a lot of like twitches and quirks and stuff like that and he used to get interviewed a lot about it and they were like they're like you seem uncomfortable up there and he's like well, it's because I am and someone I hate this. Someone asked them they're like why don't you cut it out like why don't you have 42:50 your team cut out your quirks and stuff or like just tell him not to get that on camera and like because none of this is live like the latest show. They act like it's live, but none of it's live and so it's like you can cut all this stuff on the cutting room floor and he would reply and be like well, that's not real. He's like he's like. I don't want to put out like a man you could manicured fake version of myself. Could you actually cut him tripping over the word manicured 43:17 I wanna put like a real version of me forward. 43:22 it's so and so but people had a cured dub me over. He says manicured is like I don't want to put out like a manicured here, a fake version of myself. 43:38 I can fix it in post fix it about yeah, but that's the thing is like in that era. Everything was so polished, so produced right. It was like so over produced her and he was kind of rebelling against that and he was like he was like. I don't think we need to do that. He's like. I don't think anyone wants us to be perfect and so hey, but people did people really don't like his show because of how imperfect he was that that's a very twenty, twenty three mindset in the year two thousand. is ninety three 44:06 yeah. People demanded a lot. People expected a lot. You know before y two K everyone's brains were different. Yeah, why do you can change people? It was that of a warrant, a perfect happy relationship like Bill and Hillary had 44:25 and they don't want to settle for anything. don't want anything else. They don't want anything else and so so conan shows not going great for he has two rough years and then or no he has one really rough year and he was very close to getting cancelled at the end of ninety four. They put him on a three month contract and they said we're going to see how these three months go. They were wanting to replace them with a gregg kinier 44:54 I don't know if who that is. Do know him? 44:58 I recognize his face. I've seen him in some stuff, but I don't really know he's known for. I'll show you. I'll just show you a picture of him. Why? Why yeah? Why not? Here is Greg Kenny. 45:13 What's oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 45:40 straight. They're not like that line psycho dude, so it's so absurd. He's like what he was wrong with you. You know, it'd be really funny is if we get finnears for the next episode, finnears, I'm finna get some finnears. What do you think? Are you that was really poor of you to call them fun? Ears, I call them the years. I just had a little too much upper lip in it. There's a little too much upper lip in that sentence. 46:08 Did you watch that video? 46:27 I was the crazy thing. You know a freaking sucker fish you bottom feed her because I'm listening back on audio later. This is this is when I just put my whole mouth over the Celsius and just try to suck it straight up. Did you get any out of there? The tiniest bit not like enough that you have like half a flavor. You know yeah yeah yeah gosh that was so dumb. 46:55 you watch that grant card on video sent you last night. I don't know if it's obvious. We hate this guy. Honestly, I was impressed. I think I told you I think I told you I was like I was like I'm shocked. He posted this and I was like I mean I'm sure it was his team and he didn't really have anything to do with it, but I'm still shocked. They put it out because it was him great card. He put out a video. He was like on stage at some event with Kevin Hart. 47:25 and cardone saying his usual stuff about how if your poor, it's your fault yeah exactly try harder and exactly he was accused like he's like well, but the problem is he says poor people see scams everywhere, but the the wealthy they see opportunity yeah and Kevin Hart just frickin crushed him and was like no, it's because the poor people are getting scammed everywhere yeah, they and it's because the wealthy people like what you just said are taking advantage of poor people and 47:54 Gwinnett Cardone posted it. I was like wow, I'm really shocked to see Cardone post this where honestly Kevin Hart like really, really right in for Phil. Yeah, I was like shocked, but it was honestly one of the things that was really interesting though in the comments. There's a lot of people in the comments mad about their tea. Now there's a lot of people in the comments who I've never heard anybody say this before, but they were mad because they're like these two rich people are too comfortable calling other people poor. 48:24 I was like interesting. That's a poor person thing. That's a sack of crap thing to think. Oh, those rich people are really uncomfortable. Yeah, they earned the right to say you know we've worked hard, so maybe just shut up. No one cares. You seen that whole movement of people. No one cares work harder. Every every dude has a pickup truck and works a manual labor job has that in his Facebook bio 48:50 No one cares work harder. You wake up at three AM, dude and you go to bed at two drunk and so now we can say poor people because we used to be them. We can say poor people because every weekend were one of them. We are until our next pay day because we're bad at managing our money, more bad at money. 49:21 No, anyway, because we're because we're because we're like when it also again. I think I said this to there's a difference between like if you aren't even want to set a number to it. I guess like if there's regularly fly in a private jet, they yeah you're rich yeah right. That's your rich whatever yeah the rest of us. I'm when I say poor that window is pretty big. I'm not talking about like there is like there is a level of poverty that is pretty disgusting and we need to 49:50 get rid of those people. No, I'm saying no, I'm talking. I'm saying there's a level of poverty that needs to be addressed. It's a society problem. That's actually you know and there's people below the poverty line. There's so many more people in this country than there should be right, but also when I say poor, I'm also talking someone more people in the poverty line in this under the part. Yes, is that like you said there's too many people in America? Oh no, sorry, no, there's too many people under the poverty line in the current system, like the wealthiest country in the world. 50:19 in history. Yeah, that's absurd. Yeah, I'm saying that the word poor also includes so many because I don't think people realize the difference between this even all of a doctor who makes like you know, not even like a long term like a a thirty year doctor guy, guy that's like several years in makes two hundred and forty thousand a year, poor compared to what some of these psychos out here are doing. 50:48 Yeah, there are people who are making an absurd amount of money. So when we say poor, we mean that doc all of us, we all of us, so we can say that yeah we're yeah, but I would never talk about somebody in an actual desolate poverty situation and be like that's a poor person. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know yeah. I think I that's what people are critiquing in the comment yeah, yeah, where they're like oh that's crappy for grant cardone 51:17 Yeah to stand on a stage and be like those people are just lazy yeah, but I mean that's his brand too. That's his brand yeah and it's stupid. It's so he yeah acts like that anyways and also so no matter how true it is, it also sucks that he got there from scamming those people. Yeah, I just said yes. I mean there's no one who's making fifty grand a month is sitting down in their kitchen and be like I make fifty thousand dollars a month on tick tock and here's how you can do it. can do it. Nobody who may yeah 51:46 unless the way they make that money is by making that video, which is taking advantage of you, which is scamming you scams. Okay, so you know how I make my money 52:04 He doesn't know either in the comments. I'd love some ideas. 52:09 You know how I make my money? I, uh... 52:13 All right, my wife has a pretty good job and she twitch streams that brings in a couple bucks a month, a couple and this show brings it. I just spend all of that. I just spit on my wife's couple of bucks a month. Oh, my wife has been doing this thing though, because we have we have our we have our bills account and then we have like fun money right. Okay, and so which we so we each have our own checking account. How do you guys do your finances? 52:40 We just have your own in person, your personal leggings. We we did this thing where the second we got married, we set up joint accounts and then we never actually combined like our actual like direct deposits and everything. So we have a joint account okay, but we also have our own accounts that we are living in, which is weird and it's this thing where it's like we want to have everything in joint account. We just have never pulled the trigger on it. We've been talking that when 53:09 yeah, you're a baby to get a little more serious. Actually kind of we talk with the baby comes when we have a little bit, which is by the time you hear this happen yeah with the baby comes we're gonna I'm praying just so you know we're like right now we're like two weeks away, three weeks away. Yeah, it's three weeks from today right now to freak you out. Yeah, yeah, twenty days right, twenty days today. I'm praying that during this shoot it happens just so you all know 53:36 not this. We need to get a couple more episodes done today, but like if it happened today while I'm here, big fan of that, that's just as I last night, I got on my knees in my hotel and I prayed and I said thank you for catching Osama and Laden and also still say every night. Every night I say thank you for catching Osama and Laden. God did that and then I go and then I go 54:04 please make Brie have her kid tomorrow. Okay, but we've been so anyway put it together and then we have separate. We have a joint account that all of our direct positive going to that, then we also a bills account. That's all our bills grow. So all the money comes in the direct deposit account. Then it gets moved to the bills account or all the bills get paid and then we have like a spend account. That's where we do our groceries and gas and all this stuff and then we have personal accounts. We each get like fifty bucks yeah a week yeah goes into our and then 54:33 I don't have access to her personal account. She doesn't have access to my personal account. That's how we can buy gets our each other. That's exactly what that's always said. We wanted it. Yeah, I just get stuff like I buy drugs. I don't I don't yeah. I don't. This is an evergreen podcast and like bad Joe. 54:57 No, I'm saying that you know, so we have our money that goes to our personal accounts each week right. She's been doing she opened up the third account. Well, no, she's been doing tutoring after class yeah after school and she charges a decent amount for tutoring and these because she teaches at a pretty fancy rich school. His parents just pay it as cash under the table money. So all of a sudden her personal account she's making a whole extra paycheck a month and I'm like she's and she's keeping that as her fun money and I go 55:26 Hey yeah, yeah, I think we got to set some limits on the fun money. It's like we have other because there's other bills. We got there's other stuff going on here. You put that in the good. We could be making. I don't want I mean she's like yeah, I'll just tutor students now be my fun money. Yeah, you're not going to Europe on your fun money. What the heck you don't have it over that. That's what I say. I'm in a weird conundrum where I go. Do I 55:51 do I set my as the head of the household as the head of the house as you to take the lead. I saw as the king in this domain. I saw a sweet now your wife runs the money never mind. 56:08 you just assume that I just know it by his old or that's she is on the money. Sorry you can't say her name bleep that 56:29 you know you can say your name. You just can't say it three times. That's right. We love and Alex is married to be a juice. Alex is married to be a juice. Put that on the record. This is so far off the rails, so who runs the money in your do you guys just do a joint? It seems that you guys don't argue about anything and maybe don't talk about anything. Honest 56:57 I mean realistically more similar to where Tim's at. Okay, you guys just have your own separate things. You have a pool. Okay, okay, okay, yeah, which I don't recommend because because what we did like there, we've split all the bills, but what has happened over time is that has it's kind of like this is yours. This is mine and it's it's it's a changing year. Yeah, so the thing that cut my financial stress in half was automating our bills. Yeah, 57:27 Like having our direct deposit account where nothing else happens in this account, but the money comes in and then I transfer it out. I don't use that card for anything. And then I use chat to go through like here's all of my recurring payments that happen each month. So that's a set amount. So that's what comes out of the bills account. Anything that changes, I mean like our gas bill changes obviously and our electric changes, 57:56 but that's kind of small, small amounts, that small difference. So I take the highest average of that. And then that's like what I put into my recurring payment. So then the bills account is a set amount that comes out each month. So every week direct deposit comes in, there's a set transaction that transfers certain amount from the bills, from the direct deposit account into the bills account. That bills account never hits zero now because yeah, cause was out money comes in the rent is like, 58:23 I automated our rent, our car payments are automatic, all of our credit cards, all of the gambling debts that we owe all of the evergreen podcast network. No, but I'm saying like all that stuff's automated. Literally I never have to sit here and be like, my gosh, wait, did I pay rent or like, oh shoot, yes, it's the 19th. I got to pay the car payment like yeah, it's done. Yeah, that literally eliminated 58:49 half of my financial stress. Now the other half is crippling and we're so exhaustive. How much debt we're in but but it's your own fault because that's a scam. Yeah, I mean like freaking. I just see scams yeah, so in ninety three or in ninety four things are so bad and Conan O'Brien show that you that text from Alex that Alex just texted us and said my wife 59:18 told us to speed this up. My wife says you're moving my wife says I should shut up already. We haven't even got to the meat of the episode, the real story and this is entirely one hundred percent and I'm trying to pass the buck here. It's all Jaren's. is Tim's fault. Jaren's fault. Turn won't stop making a recently our episodes have been like an hour long and people have been like this is way more than usual. I agree yeah, me too. 59:48 I just we just can't get through this because this guy won't stop laughing. All right. So. 59:59 I hate that I can't stop. I hate so much that I have so little self-control. 01:00:17 Okay, so a 94. 01:00:27 So in 1994, they're threatening to get rid of us. 01:00:47 you 01:00:51 Oh my gosh, you all right? 01:01:06 Hey, thanks for listening to things alone last night. Just so you know, we got a new merch line coming out for this summer, so you've been working on that summer bod and you want to show off how ripped you are. You can get a small t shirt from us or if you've not been working on that summer, but once you check out our two X selection, so we do have some really cool designs. I'm actually really proud of them. We got like a honking and bonking shirt. We've got regular things. I last night. These are you listen. We don't make a ton of money from this show. This is literally to help cover our expenses, which you know 01:01:36 like microphones and Alex. so thanks for supporting our show. 01:01:45 they had such a hard time filling seats that they were having their interns fill all the seats in the audience because they had so many empty seats at Conan show. Yeah, Conan's late show and they were very, very close to getting rid of them, but steadily over time he started to win over a larger audience and I think what really we watched this year that year was they put someone who nobody knew in that spot. 01:02:14 And there was a lot of other people out there that people knew. so people weren't really willing to take it on somebody that they didn't know. I didn't even do anything. 01:02:32 are you looking at my crud? Yeah, it's a distraction. We blow it back up. We blurt out yeah blurt that you can concentrate. I don't let me see that, so he slowly gains an audience because he was an unknown guy. It takes time to build up a persona and also it took time for him to kind of get the hang of it yeah, but he starts to build up an audience and by the mid nineties he's crushing it. He's got a huge audience, a huge fan base 01:03:01 and he's he ends up bringing letterman on the show and letterman says a bunch of great things about him and conum looks back on that. It's like a major moment in his career okay, and so in two thousand one, some things start to happen. O brian is now a huge deal. He's been doing it for what is this? Is eight seven years, eight years yeah and 01:03:29 He's got a big name under under his belt. Len has also, meanwhile, been doing the Tonight Show for years for just as long and Len's contract is coming up to expire and NBC is looking at the growth and success of Conan specifically. Remember with the coveted young male audience? Yeah, and they say, what if we can push that earlier into a prime time slot? 01:03:58 where we can have that audience that we really want along with the prime time audience right, and so they think that that was going to be a huge success, but the contract renewal situation is basically they've got five years to wait, and so Conan is going to expire in two thousand and one Lenos isn't going to expire until two thousand five K or two thousand six, and so they say okay, Conan is 01:04:25 getting courted by every network. Every network is wanting to copy this template now have to give him a so we have to give him something. Yeah. And so they basically tell Conan, Conan, if you stay with us instead of going to TBS, TBS was the one that was the most aggressive at the time. And they say, if you stay with us instead of going to TBS, then we're going to give you the tonight show in five years. And they didn't they didn't tell Leno that. And so then they went back and told Leno that and Leno was like, I don't know if I like that idea. And he's like, he's like, I still want 01:04:55 like I want my job and so he's like I wasn't going plan on leaving in five years. He was like he's like I was still going to be here and so there's kind of an like this internal disagreement, but eventually they come to terms with that and for some reason the network went public with this decision. I feel like this is where this became such a bad idea. It's like hey in five years, Conan's going to take over yeah and I don't know why that happened. That's a bad PR move. That's a really bad PR like just do it yeah. 01:05:25 that's like telling your kids. Hey, when you guys graduate, we're getting divorced and you're like what then I just do it now. Like why are you still don't that actually save the whole idea is for me not to know that yeah until I graduate. Yeah, I think the idea, I think the idea was I think this, I think it was pretty public that people were trying to get Conan and so I think they basically had to be like 01:05:52 hey guys, we gave we've already got him yeah. We gave him an offer. In fact, our offer is really good. He's going to have the tonight show in five years. I think it was something like that. Yeah, so Jay Leno was like I'm a lame duck yeah. J Lennon's like I guess I got five years left and so J Leno was like. I mean they did this weird. They did this weird episode where they had a both of them on and they did like a hey yeah and five years. This looks Photoshop by the way. Why 01:06:19 because let me look at J Leno not looking at Conan and then look at Conan. This looks photoshopped as heck. I mean I don't I mean it could be. I don't looks photoshopped. It looks like because because the lighting on Conan is different. 01:06:35 yeah. This could be interesting. You might be right. Okay, here's another picture where they were on together. I'm sorry. Here's one, but that one's real because look, because look at J looking at him. This was in the nineties. This was Conan's looking at him like he does want to kiss. He's like what if we kissed on the tonight show? What if we kiss in the nation from this in New York, right? Yeah, well it the tonight show was Los Angeles. 01:07:04 I think Connans original show is my show was Los Angeles. Yeah, I'm like ninety percent sure that Jay Leno's tonight show was Los Angeles. Oh, Valens tonight show is New York. Yeah, okay, yeah. Where was Carson? I don't know where Carson I Carson Carson was Los Angeles. I'm pretty sure that tonight show has always been in New York. 01:07:27 is yeah, because that's where SNL is. mean, like that's where, yeah. 01:07:33 Conan is a is Los Angeles, but I think Conan only became Los Angeles when he left in BC, which spoilers for the rest of this episode, which I guess we'll get to in three hours from now. 01:07:47 I think it looks like it was yeah. It's moved yeah, so it was originally in New York City at Rockefeller Plaza, right Carson moved it to California, moved it to Burbank, Carson didn't Burbank the whole yeah. Carson did it in Burbank and I think and I think Lennon years yeah. I think Leno stayed there. I think Sal and I moved it back to New York. I would do it in L. then yeah, you give it to me. I'll film it in L. A 01:08:15 I don't want to live in New York. Too many pores. 01:08:22 So so the contracts expiring they they're very public with the fact that they're going to get. was going to make a joke and be like you should bleep me saying pores. It leaves it could be whatever could have been that could be interpreted. There's too many. Well, who knows what that is? It could be anything too many beeps yeah. Now we can't make that to me new Yorkers. That's crazy. I'm glad my brain stop that joke. 01:08:50 yeah, and then you ended up telling it anyway. telling that I was just saying like because here's what happens with the bleep it yeah, yeah, that we bleep it and then later I don't remember what we believed yeah yeah, so it sounds like we actually said an inappropriate. That's true. That's true. I've seen that happen. I'm just plenty of times on this. caught myself yeah, so anyway, so they do the whole thing. They do the show and they do five years 01:09:19 They do this dramatic passing of the torch situation where Leno hands it over to Conan and he tells him that any like he has a speech where he basically is like, hey, I have had this situation where this seat was passed to me and when it was passed to me, there was drama and it wasn't fun. And he said, I feel like a lot of relationships were hurt in that that had never gone better. Very clearly talking about him and Letterman. Right. And so like he's like, I don't want to do that. I want to pass this on like this is 01:09:48 This is never my thing. This is a this is a show that some people get to run for some time. They have their time and then it passes. Yeah, right, like was very clear to say all that and then did this pass off thing and then they went on with the rest of their five years doing their own thing, waiting for the day to come where it transitions over. Okay, and that day comes and then all of a sudden the vibe gets a little weird and I should say all of a sudden throughout the whole five years. 01:10:18 there were moments where things got brought up to Leno and Leno is basically like yeah. I mean I got fired like and he's like he's like they don't want me back and like he was a little bitter about it and you he describes it kind of like a break up. He's like he's like he's like I had a really good relationship with a lot of the producers and the people had MBC in the studio and they just kind of threw me to the side because there was this other guy and so he he definitely seems a little upset and he says a lot of stuff during these years in that window. I guess her 01:10:47 is what you could call it and then finally the five years comes by and then they give the show to Conan to Conan and so Conan becomes the tonight. It becomes the tonight show with Conan O'Brien and it has in six. It ends up the date that it ends up happening. It lags a little bit and so the tonight show with Conan O'Brien debuts June first two thousand nine. So it lag because there was there was just disputes 01:11:17 they end up saying okay, you can stay, you can and then so it drags on until two thousand nine and so coning gets the show. He finally gets the show. He gets his whole team. He moves his team. I think they moved to Los Angeles. I'm pretty sure he was in New York. He moved his whole team to Los Angeles to film in Los Angeles because that's where Leno was filming at the time and so they start launching. They start doing their show. Leno gets as a part of that whole dispute. Leno doesn't want to leave. Leno doesn't want to get rid of his show 01:11:46 So they end up giving Leno a new show after the the tonight show and it's called the J Leno show and so that released that premieres on September fourteenth, two thousand nine and it's the same show. So they just flipped yeah spots yeah exactly okay, and so he's now basically the late show, but they call it the J Leno show and so he continues hosting it and this was an interesting an interesting thing because 01:12:16 at this era, there is now this huge market of late night tv like when both of them came in in the early nineties, there was really only a couple players, but now there's a huge market and so you can't pull the same sort of audience that they expected. There's more options that they expect, especially early in the contract negotiations, and so I don't know if the contracts were different at this point because they kind of negotiated contracts back in like two thousand one right so ten years have a last because they kind of drug their feet with trying to 01:12:45 please both of these guys and please their audiences as well, and they couldn't do it. They were too public with all these internal negotiations. They couldn't please everyone, but they're trying really hard to please everyone. And so Conan ends up getting the job and Conan runs the job for nine months before the network decides this isn't working and they take it away from them and they put Leno back in the tonight show with J Lono and J Leno becomes the host of the time show and this was 01:13:14 a disaster. The the entertainment community like crucified Leno for this. They thought he was he was his ego was like ah yeah I need I want the I need it back yeah and he to be fair he was saying stuff like that a lot because he wanted it. 01:13:37 the entertainment industry was relentless trying to make him out to be this guy who is like I want the tonight show back. I'm the host of this night show. Anyway, here's a video of him saying exactly that 01:13:54 and can you believe the spin? It's the mainstream media that makes these guys look bad. You know not their own words and actions. 01:14:05 that's where it is. If you believe the mainstream media, you would think this guy wanted the tonight show back. Yeah, if you listen to his words, he's a good guy. Yeah, so is so what here? So what happened? Let me back up a little bit. What happened is they basically forced Conan out of it because they couldn't just 01:14:22 move them. They can just switch them. They could have just said to them. So what they did is they said okay. What if we put a lot of pickle men's in this? What if we put Jay? now usually we try to make this episode so you can listen to it on your way to work and then listen to the rest of on your way home. You started that Monday morning. Happy Thursday, so they said what if we put Jay little back in the tonight slow time slot yeah, so it's the 01:14:50 Jay Leno show Conan back and what have we put Conan to twelve o five and that's the tonight show and it's like, but that's you're putting it's the same show. You're just putting them at the third different time slots and changing it and so then there's a fateful day, January twelfth, thousand ten very quickly into his tenure as the tonight show host Conan O'Brien six months. Yeah Conan O'Brien does what he calls the people of earth speech has been dubbed the people of our speech and he says 01:15:20 For 60 years, The Tonight Show is aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying The Tonight Show to the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12 0 5 simply is not The Tonight Show. So it has come to this. I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment is. It is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. 01:15:49 but I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. And then he steps out of the show and that's his aunt, the end of his tenet tenure with the tonight show. And so that's when it gets passed back to Leno to host the tonight show. After that, Conan is given a severance and the severance there's terms of this deal. A big chunk of it goes personally to him, a bigger chunk. 01:16:15 goes to his staff because he's got a staff like a hundred and some people. They all relocated for this job, so they get relocation, but it's like a forty million dollar severance yeah and he the chunk of that goes to his team. He actually pays a larger chunk of that back to his team because he's like. I don't think you guys are giving them enough as a part of this deal, and so he gives a larger chunk to his team and the public reaction. It was really interesting his fans. I'm not exaggerating when I say 01:16:44 well, maybe this is a slight exaggeration, but when they were riding in the streets, they were like I'm not exaggerating when I say well, they were burning buildings down. They were protesting this outside of NBC studios. If Conan Ryan isn't allowed to do the tonight show, I'm going to storm the capital. 01:17:17 I'm not exaggerating. 01:17:20 your lord please catch a and give Conan O'Brien 01:17:30 please catch Osama bin Laden. Actually, this is how I would have prayed in thousand nine to catch a song of an laden. Don't let a ball and take credit for it. Yeah, Conan O Brian. It was my prayers concerned Osama Obama O Brian and then you give you pass or you're like here's the three os to prayer. Here's the three 01:17:54 ooh. I pray using the o method, so people were hanging these posters, people, these posters around New York and L. A and they were co co yeah and they were protesting this decision like literally with signs and picketing NBC and NBC Studios, both in New York and Los Angeles. 01:18:22 and this became this turned into like his brand yeah, they the cocoa yeah and so people, people showed a lot of support for him and people really heavily were criticizing Leno as a part of this. He played a role. He really did not want to be at the spot. He was he was pretty vocal about the fact that he didn't not want to be at the spot that he was and he was a vocal with the the network about that yeah and the network ended up 01:18:51 just bowing down to it and making the decision. I think that there was more to this decision. I think that the because then how soon after that did TBS pick him up? I don't know how let me let me see. It was pretty quick. I think there was, mean a matter of months. Let me see here. Let me see here because then Conan Conan was what the show was called. It was just called Conan. Yeah, launches on TBS, format, yep, probably same studio, yep, 01:19:20 but I don't think it was the same studio. I was in studio city. It ended up being the same like he hired the same. do know he hired pretty much this whole staff back for that when he got that offer moved him back to Los Angeles again after moving into Los Angeles, moving him back to New York, moving him back to Los Angeles. Yeah, yeah, so he signed the deal in April of that year, launched it in November of that year. Yeah, so very months later he signs the deal. Later that year he starts filming it. That's just in ten yeah. We saw him 01:19:49 in twenty March of twenty sixteen yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah to a cone and taping you actually can see us in that video. That's right. I remember to our word. I could not tell you anything about the episode. I what I can tell you is the seed. You can see us. There's a dude with ridiculously wide legs like long legs and there's a bit like they're not like he has big legs and we're making fun of a man spreading yeah he's and they are 01:20:18 six seats like six seats wide and we're like two seat two rows behind them. So I mean to our patrons, you guys are find it. I'm sure you will. I remember a lot. I remember yeah, it was March of two thousand sixteen because Shane Torres was the comedian on their guy Fieri bit right. Who was Shane Torres? He didn't do the guy Fieri, but on that one he did the I love hanging out with food courts and yeah, we're really narrowing it down. Yep. 01:20:47 So Shane Torres on the Conan, it was definitely it was definitely March twenty sixteen yeah for sure because we're there for spring March ninth. 01:20:56 I mean it's not going to be that hard now. Find it anyways, so the reason I can tell time is because I just go back and I go which girl had destroyed my life at that point. 01:21:10 we got to finish this freaking story. Okay, so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so we were on spring break. I had already dropped out of college right. Okay, let me finish this story. I finished the story. J Leno welcomes Kimmel onto the show from Kimmel's show. Look how fat Kimmel Kimmel telecommutes to the show wasn't fat. He was yeah. He's clearly done. O's in pick now yeah, so he welcomes Kimmel actually stirred the pot yeah Kimmel in this interview. 01:21:40 did not play around. Yeah, Len. Oh, let. Oh, pulls him on screw like is softballing questions to Kim. Oh, this was very clearly like a hey, let'll promote Kimmel show yeah like and so Kimmel comes on and Len is like is like hey, like you ever he's like you ever buy Jimmy you ever buy anything off TV like you ever order anything off the TV and Kimmel responds. Oh, you mean like NBC ordered your show off the TV 01:22:09 I love it and then let's see what else. What else does he say he asked about? He said he said listen, Jay, go and I have children. All you have to take care of is cars. I mean we have lives to lead here. You have got like eight hundred million dollars for God's sakes. Leave our shows alone and so he just like tore into him for like four minutes and it's really interesting because this is not a live tv show. 01:22:38 like they could have cut it and it's really interesting. I've seen a lot of interviews with Leno where they asked him about it and Leno is straight up just been like you know he's yeah. He goes you know I was my feelings were hurt and then I got in one of my eighteen cars. Well, I have one for each foot. I got my two cars and I drove them home. Well, let us has two things that I think are important here. First, he says you know he says Kimmel said some stuff 01:23:06 but at the end of the day he's like. I think I made a mistake there and I think he called it out and I don't think that there's any reason for me to not own that, which is very interesting and then he says also it was great television and I'm like yeah, I don't oh he gets. don't think that's the truth. Yeah, like I think I think you're just like oh, this is good content. That's what I think all the time though about especially like some of these political grifters and stuff at a certain point. It's kind of like oh this gets views doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. This gets views yeah and so 01:23:35 Leno and Conan had beef from that point on. Maybe that's why we haven't grown as much as we want to is because we just refuse to do yeah. We're just not doing beefy stuff. Yeah, we need to be for another show. The ninjas are butterflies guys. I don't think they shower. I have got good authority that they've never showered before live in Florida. I can smell them from here. 01:24:02 trying to start beef. We know them. We do know that we used to be friends yeah until yeah, the thing happened. I love leaving until they took our slot, our time slot yeah. So anyways, so Leno got his show a few years later, Leno retires and Jimmy Fallon takes over the show and that was a good hand off and Jimmy Fallon has had the show ever since. 01:24:29 Conan has had his shows Conan just one also took over that roller coaster at Disney. What the Aerosmith one isn't it now the Fallon right? Look at the Aerosmith roller coaster. Isn't it Fallon that what is what is the Fallon ride? Is that universal? Maybe I'm mixing them up. There's a Fallon roller coaster rock and roller is closed. Okay, what's the Fallon roller coaster? Is there a roller coaster? Yeah, I think there is yeah. There is a race through New York, starting Jimmy Fallon yeah 01:24:58 Yeah, you basically do his his theme song in the ride. It's one of those at universal yeah, it's a universal okay. It's like it's like it's just like all the universal rides where it's like come on, we're going to stop. We're going to kill the dragon, but it's a foul and he's like come on. We got to make it to the tonight show it time to interview our guests. Yeah, you did a good job. Yeah, you grant yeah. 01:25:23 anyways and just like just like any good late night tv show, we also close with a band fiddle off. She's do what was the time on that episode? 01:25:38 Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of things. I learned last night. If you liked it and you want more of it, check out our episode about Uri Geller, who was a what do call him a a psychic psychic? That's right, who claimed forever that this was legitimate and then he actually had psychic powers and then Carson did on him on and Carson was like trying to bully him on live TV and be like no, you don't and so check that episode out or if you want next week's episode, you can surprise subs. You can we can edit this 01:26:06 don't don't, but it could if we wanted to you can subscribe and take. can subscribe on Patreon where next week's episode is available right now. It's a way to get access to our discord where we hang out and you can hang out with a bunch of other till and listeners and then yeah, and this is an evergreen podcast network podcast. 01:26:27 see you next week. Leave a leave a comment below. If you liked this show until you messed up the word subscribe sure that's right. If that was the moment where you're like oh this show actually sucks. think okay, it's over now, so I'm glad I'm glad it's over but it's over sucks, but you don't already it's over now.