RSS
Home | Television | The Tonight Show with Conan OBrien
|
|
|
Many members of the Late Night cast and crew made the transition to The Tonight Show. The Max Weinberg 7, the house band from O'Brien's Late Night, served as the house band under the new name, Max Weinberg and The Tonight Show Band. Andy Richter returned to the show as announcer, and also began resuming his role as sidekick, shortly before the show's conclusion. The opening and closing theme song from Late Night was also carried over to Tonight, in a slightly altered form. In January 2010, after the show had been on the air for seven months, it was announced that NBC was intending to move Jay Leno from primetime back to his original timeslot at 11:35 p.m., with O'Brien's show starting shortly after midnight. In response to the announcement, O'Brien released a press statement saying that he would not continue as host of The Tonight Show if it was bumped to the next day to accommodate The Jay Leno Show. He feared it would ruin the long and rich tradition of The Tonight Show. It had been at that time slot for most of its history. After two weeks of negotiations, NBC announced that they had paid $45 million to buy out O'Brien's contract, ending his tenure as host and his relationship with NBC. Conan O'Brien's final Tonight Show was broadcast on January 22, 2010, with Jay Leno officially resuming his role as host on March 1, 2010, immediately following the conclusion of the 2010 Winter Olympics. To date, it is the shortest running version of The Tonight Show. It later received four Primetime Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series, the first time The Tonight Show has received a nomination for this particular award since 2003. |
