The lessons of the past year have been well taken: No one should be too big to fail. Not banks, not automakers, not insurance companies, and most of all, not comedians. And, thanks to one high-profile, strangely fortuitous career nosedive, no jester will ever bomb that big again. I speak, obviously, of Conan O'Brien, whose rise and fall as host of The Tonight Show probably launched the future of comedy. Conan died for Big Media's sins and then, Obi-Wan-like, rose up more powerful than NBC or anyone else could possibly have imagined.
OK, so that wasn't plan A. Conan wanted Tonight. After all, that's what a comedian in his lofty position was supposed to want. Comedy doesn't have too many temples — it's inherently anti-institutional. Still, for generations, whoever sat as comic-pontifex in Carson's old throne held ex officio sway over the tone and tenor of all chuckledom. The role of the Host had become a cross between Ma Bell and the pope, serving as the switchboard of mainstream irony, dispensing indulgences to lesser comedians, and occasionally taking confession from Hugh Grant.
So when ousted incumbent Jay Leno and his sure-thing comediocrity outflanked Conan and his risky cubist absurdism, the latter was expected to slink away with $40 million in sweaty-palmed Peacock offerings and accept his consolation prize on Fox, the way David Letterman accepted his on CBS back in 1993. Maybe, six months down the line, he'd reemerge with an air-clearing Vanity Fair cover. And that would be that.
But that wasn't that. Conan's crash was prolonged and arduous, but his rebirth was immediate and effortless. And therein lay the (sorry) triumph. Within a month, O'Brien went from Biggest Loser to the world's most celebrated comedy folk hero. "Three months ago, what would've looked to everybody like bad luck has become amazingly good luck," O'Brien told an adoring assemblage at Google. (The venue itself shows how his priorities have changed.) His recently established Twitter account quickly acquired almost a million followers. (For good reason: Each of his tweets is a winningly self-deprecating keeper. Contrast that with the awkward Twitter-pations of Jim Carrey, who has yet to embrace his own slow-motion tumble.) While still under a gag order from NBC, O'Brien parried, putting The Tonight Show on Craigslist ("4-SALE: BARELY USED LATE-NIGHT TALK SHOW") and selling out a cross-country comedy tour on the strength of a single tweet. In the meantime, he saw a net-roots "I'm with CoCo!" movement organized in his name.
Then, instead of leveraging all this webby goodwill into another traditional late-night berth on a rival network, Conan made a deal with the modest basic-cable network TBS. What just a few years ago might've been spun as an ignominious exile to the media hinterlands was hailed as a stoop-to-conquer masterstroke: O'Brien essentially traded a gas-guzzling 3-ton network Cadillac for a light and maneuverable hybrid that runs on viral clips, not raw, brutal Nielsens.
Conan's "crash" reminded us that he's a comedian — and a damn good one. He's no pope, no czar — he's a guerrilla, like all the greats. And with a toehold on cable and his head in the Cloud, Conan can maintain a permanent insurgency. Conan crashed so his successors won't have to. He's seen the future, and there are no Peacocks there — and no kings of comedy, either. Who'd even want to wear that crown? During his Q&A with Google (which was far more entertaining, illuminating, and Web-permeable than his 60 Minutes spot), O'Brien was informed that most Googlers don't even know what The Tonight Show is. He responded, "Oh, good. Who needs to know what a 'Tonight Show' is anymore?" Then he cackled like a Bond villain. Then he cried like a baby. Then the video went viral. Revenge, it seems, is a dish best served instantaneously.
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