O’Brien lived it up in the final week of his modestly rated show, smoking a blunt with Seth Rogen, messing around with Jack Black and being congratulated by a slew of celebrities wishing him well.
Not helping matters was the fact that Leno refused to leave despite NBC having established its transition play a full five years before it happened.
Less remarked upon were the protests staged in O’Brien’s name which, at the time, were as diversionary as they were puzzling.
Certainly NBC’s treatment of O’Brien was terrible, and Leno was and remains lousy.
That cohort graduated into an unstable economy and watched the nine-to-five workday be erased in front of their eyes.
Until the New York Times Britney Spears documentary “Framing Britney Spears” aired on FX and Hulu in February, most Americans hadn’t a clue of the extent to which Spears’ life was not her own.
But those of us who remember the smart-stupid Great Coco Uprising of 2010 should minimally understand that the furor isn’t entirely about Spears.
“Conan,” in comparison, was a calm landing and a mostly apolitical refuge, which in these hyper-partisan times did it no favors.
O’Brien was never in the “SNL” troupe or part of the Comedy Central club, and in the end I think that makes his transition from the linear TV grind to the next chapter of his career smoother.
That makes him less of an avatar for a dominant sentiment than perhaps a participant in a burgeoning societal movement dubbed The Great Resignation, albeit one retiring joyfully and with a large platform.
In his final moments of “Conan” he speaks to our shared 2021 notion of finding meaning in what we do one more time.
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