Conan O’Brien Returns to the Late-Night World with TBS Show “CONAN”… Finally!

After leaving NBC ‘s The Tonight Show and being banned from the airwaves for the past 9 months, late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien finally returned tonight with his brand new show on TBS, called, simply, CONAN.

For die-hard fans of  “Coco” like myself, this day couldn’t have come fast enough. The anticipation of what the new show would bring has been building for awhile now, and, overall, the premiere did not disappoint.

CONAN was filled with a mix of  the familiar (Andy Richter, the infamous string-dance, the return of “The Masturbating Bear”), and the not-so-familar (the once named “Max Weinberg and the Weinberg 7″ Band is now the “Jimmy Levino and the Basic Cable” Band, and the new set features a moon that moves via remote control, along with an oceanview atmosphere).

The most hilarious part of the show was the pre-taped cold open, which was a wonderful send-up of The Godfather, starting with Conan on the phone refusing to move his old show to 12:05am, asking “What can they do to me?” Cut to Conan pulling up at NBC’s lot in his car, only to be met with massive gunfire and end up in the hospital. The rest of the open shows him interviewing for a job working for Mad Men’s Don Draper, working in a Burger King, as a clown at a child’s birthday party, and, finally, attempting to kill himself by jumping off of a bridge. Enter Larry King as a guardian angel, who suggests to O’Brien that he go to “basic cable” – and the new TBS show is born.

The opening monologue, although not stellar, had some funny moments and a few pokes at NBC, including this line: “People asked me why I named the show CONAN. I did it so I’d be harder to replace.”

It was great to see O’Brian and the immensely talented Andy Richter back at it again, with their always sharp timing and chemistry, which was most apparent when they talked about a “low point” over the past 9 months – an actual Halloween mask of O’Brien that was sold in stores, with the name ”Ex-Late Night Talk Show Host.” After the two put on the masks, which were totally creepy looking, Richter had the line of the night when he pointed out the accuracy of the masks, explaining that ”inside, it smells like tears.”

The first guest on the new show was actor Seth Rogan (The Green Hornet), who talked openly about planning his wedding, being engaged, and his feelings on Proposition 19 (medical marijuana), which were quite humerous.

The next guest was Glee‘s Lea Michele, who mainly discussed her various controversial magazine covers. Although Michele’s visit was pleasant enough, I was really hoping for a Conan/Rachel Glee style duet or sketch, and was disappointed when it never came.

The last guest on the show was Jack White (The White Stripes). Other than the cold open, this was my favorite part of the entire hour. Conan chose to end his first new show the same way that he ended his last Tonight Show – by jamming out a tune on guitar. Last time it was Freebird – this time, it was a rockin, all out jam session to a song that the men co-wrote together during the Conan Summer Tour. During these last few minutes, as he was rocking out on that guitar, this is where Conan looked most comfortable and most at home. Clearly, he loves music, and he was in his element here at the show’s end.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say the premiere deserves about a 7. It was absolutely above average, and there were many wonderful moments in this first episode. However, I do hope that future episodes of CONAN bring a lot of new characters, pre-written sketches, and other original “bits.” This is where O’Brien is at his strongest – and there wasn’t nearly enough of those things to delight in tonight. But I have hope, and I cannot wait to see what Conan has in store for this newest adventure.

CONAN airs weeknights at 11pm on TBS.

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Photographs courtesy of TBS and IMDbPro.