NEW YORK — Conan O’Brien relaunched his TV career on Monday night with a stylishly back-to-basics hour that radiated hard-won lessons from his brief stay hosting “The Tonight Show.” With his new TBS show titled simply “Conan,” O’Brien seemed appealingly stoked yet comfortable in his new late-night home on basic-cable channel TBS.
There were very few surprises — well, how could there have been after the incessant online hype and all the press attention showered on his much-anticipated return? O’Brien was back with his longtime sidekick, Andy Richter, and most of his trusty house band members, now led by Jimmy Vivino (and renamed the Basic Cable Band).
But the show lived up to its promises. It was looser, quirkier, more like “Late Night,” where O’Brien thrived for nearly 17 years, than “The Tonight Show,” where he didn’t.
“Conan” opened with a funny look back at his tumultuous year after he refused NBC’s bid to move “Tonight” to 12:05 a.m.
He was mowed down by machine-gun-toting NBC hit men at a security booth, a la Sonny Corleone in “The Godfather.” He applied for a job in advertising and was turned down by Don Draper (“Mad Men” star Jon Hamm), who brusquely reminded him, “It’s 1965 — and you’re 2 years old.” From behind the counter at a Burger King, he reminisced to an impatient customer about his talk-show past.
Likewise, his monologue mined laughs from recent history, which found him leaving “Tonight” in January after just eight months, with Jay Leno reclaiming the host chair.
O’Brien welcomed viewers to his “second-annual first show” and explained why he named the new show “Conan”: “So I’d be harder to replace.”
