Heeeeeere’s Conan!

I had kind of a surreal life moment last week, and it came about because of a TV show. Last Monday night Mo and I sat down to watch Conan O’Brien’s debut as host of the Tonight Show. Like pretty much everybody, I grew up watching the Tonight Show. When I was a young kid, it was always a treat to stay up late and watch Johnny Carson at my grandma and grandpa Oaks’ house. They always watched Johnny. He was their guy.

In time, I had a late night guy, too — Conan. I distinctly remember staying up on the weekends and in the summer time to watch Conan when he first came on the air in 1993. I was just entering high school. In the summers especially, when I would stay at my neighbor and best friend Brian’s place about 6 nights out of the week (seriously), we always made sure we tuned into Late Nite to watch Conan and Andy and laugh our asses off. If you read anything about the early days of Conan’s show, you can’t miss the fact that he was universally panned by critics and NBC kept him on 13-week contracts for several years before the show picked up steam and they signed him long-term.

It’s weird, but I don’t remember it like that. I dug Conan from the beginning. His weirdo, non-sequitor humor clicked with me. Turns out that’s pretty much how us late Gen X/Gen Y folks process humor. (Watch Adult Swim sometime. Chances are if you’re over 40 you’re going to be bewildered.)

In a lot of ways Conan represents us. He’s a complete dork, for one thing. Over the last few years, it’s become cool to be a geek. Gaming has gone mainstream. Comic book heroes, Tolkien and sci-fi rule the box office. Silicon Valley is driving American innovation. And we’ve got an articulate, cerebral thinker in the White House. For another thing, take a look at who Conan’s big musical guests have been: Radiohead was on the first show, the White Stripes closed out the last show. That pretty much says it all, right there. Irony ruled supreme on Conan’s show, too. Mr. T and Abe Vigoda were regular guests. Why? Well, why the hell not?

So there we were at home, watching Conan take over the venerable Tonight Show — an American tradition. I couldn’t help but think about how this is happening as we’re turning 30 — Mo this week, me in September. Will Ferrell was the guest. Pearl Jam was the musicial guest. Again, right on the mark for Gen X’ers (though I reeeeeally don’t like Will Ferrell much at all). As I turn 30, I feel like I’m coming into my own. A 6′6″ geek taking over a TV show may not seem like much, but from my vantage point on the couch, it felt like a generational shift happening right in sync with my own personal timeline. I have to say that as I stare down 30 I don’t feel old, but rather, right on time.