Posted in: NBC, TV | Tagged: conan o'brien, jimmy fallon, The Tonight Show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

The Tonight Show Sets Conan O'Brien Return, 14 Years After Departing

Conan O'Brien is returning to The Tonight Show after 14 years - as a guest of Jimmy Fallon to promote his Max series Conan O'Brien Must Go.

While David Letterman returned to Late Night as a guest for his successor, Conan O'Brien, O'Brien is doing the same for The Tonight Show, 14 years later for current host Jimmy Fallon. Some would say it's miraculous that NBC hasn't completely scorched their goodwill with Letterman and O'Brien considering how both squeezed out of permanently hosting in favor of Jay Leno. While Letterman was completely passed over in 1992 despite guest hosting a few times for Johnny Carson, O'Brien was given a trial run that lasted six months from June 1, 2009 – January 22, 2010, before relinquishing the show to Leno with O'Brien's contract buyout. O'Brien will now be a guest of Fallon's on the April 9th show to promote his Max travelogue Conan O'Brien Must Go.

O'Brien's Long Journey Back to The Tonight Show

When Letterman left NBC for CBS to host The Late Show (now hosted by Stephen Colbert), O'Brien took over hosting Late Night in 1993, then known far more for his writing on Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons than his on-screen presence. O'Brien's contract stipulated some guarantee that he host The Tonight Show with Leno initially passing the torch in 2009 for his prime-time series while Fallon took over Late Night. Ratings suffered for both Leno and O'Brien as Leno's 10 p.m. series The Jay Leno Show lasted only 27 episodes before its cancellation in 2010. O'Brien's stint as The Tonight Show host spanned 144 episodes but regularly lost to Letterman's Late Show.

Before O'Brien got the series, Leno was regularly beating Letterman in the ratings. Then NBC executive Jeff Zucker attempted to give Leno back 11:30 p.m. in a half-hour program, pushing O'Brien to midnight, to which the latter balked. As Zucker's smarmy tactics became public, rivals from Letterman and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel eviscerated the exec, and especially Leno, for sitting on his hands as O'Brien was being pushed out. Kimmel, from his soundstage on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, was even invited to Leno's Tonight Show in a video conference to receive his roasting on NBC. With O'Brien's buyout, he took his talents to cable on TBS, hosting his self-titled program Conan from 2010-2021, taking occasional acting gigs, and like his predecessors, now focusing on original non-late night talk and variety series. Fallon took over The Tonight Show in 2014 and has remained host ever since. and even recruited O'Brien for a video appearance in a skit in 2018.

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