Image Credit: TBSOne of the more ironic nominations to come out this year’s Emmy race was the nod to Conan O’Brien and his eight-month stint on The Tonight Show, an abbreviated tenure that made more headlines for how it ended than for its content. O’Brien’s Tonight Show made the cut for the Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series category this year, an already highly-competitive match-up because of perennial favorites like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (last year’s winner) The Colbert Report and Saturday Night Live (Real Time with Bill Maher also earned a nod). O’Brien and his Tonight Show writing team also earned a nomination in the scribe category.
A clever print campaign (pictured) may have helped O’Brien earn the surprise nomination, though it wasn’t executed by NBC: TBS stepped up and bought ads in publications like Entertainment Weekly and Los Angeles Times in hopes that a win would help promote O’Brien’s new talk (debuting in November). Or maybe it was a few stand-out episodes from the time he hosted The Tonight Show that propelled TV Academy members to suggest his name for the ballot (though, I for one, think his funniest monologues and skits came during those final days before he left the show). But it seems more likely that O’Brien earned the nod because of the way he was treated by NBC in those final days. Even today, a rumor continues to swirl that O’Brien learned that the Peacock wanted to relegate him to 12:30 p.m. by reading it first on Deadline.com.
Would it be fair to reward O’Brien with an Emmy based on payback rather than his performance? The public has certainly been on his side (witness the I’m With Coco campaign that surfaced on the internet earlier this year). That’s why it seems unlikely that anyone at the Aug. 29 ceremony would begrudge O’Brien if he wins the statuette. We already know his comedy is worth its weight in gold; his team, after all, won the Emmy in 2007 for writing Late Night with Conan O’Brien. And voters will probably want to give O’Brien the final word on the whole sordid affair — and on NBC, no less, which is broadcasting the ceremony this year.
Does he deserve a payback Emmy? Are you freakin’ kidding me? No. Now…does he deserve it on his show’s merit? Hell no.
Yeah, some people aren’t smart enough to find Conan funny. These people watch “According to Jim” and laugh hysterically. So sorry they finally took it off the air. What are you going to do now?
He’s still got, you know, Leno.
Oh, don’t be a snob. Just because you may not like Conan’s particular brand of humor does not mean you’re an idiot – or you are an According To Jim fan.
@Steve T.
So if Leno still has it, why doesn’t he have any nominations for his show. Think on that one bub.
You’re all right. Conan deserves every award he can get — let’s give him an Oscar as well since he’s a drama queen.
And we can give you Douchebag of the Year, tommy.
I think someone’s helmet is on a little too tight……
Wait, Jay Leno? Is that you?
I think Conan O’Brien should have been winning awards for “Late Night”. He is an underappreciated talent. It’s not a bad thing if he wins an EMMY this year. Jon Stewart has more than he needs so why not give it to someone different for once? What I find so charming about Conan is his non-partisan humour. He’s just funny and you don’t have to belong to a special club to enjoy him.
Hes been notoriously nominated every year in a row since 1995m but only won like once. Hes not really an under-appreciated talent, but Jon Stewart is a horrendously overrated talent
Conan deserves to win an Emmy. Period. Not because of “payback”, but because he actually deserves it, and has deserved to win for YEARS. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed his Tonight Show, and those last 2-3 weeks especially were pure genius. So yeah, reward performance and give Conan an Emmy.
Agreed. He deserves it for putting on a great show, especially at the end.
He really does deserve it. His show was amazing and hilarious, and he and his team worked so hard and sacrificed so much. Leno and NBC or not, Conan deserves this.
Agreed. I watched every episode (huge fan) minus a few weeks in October (I just had to miss the episode where Ricky Gervais poured his water on Conan, didn’t I? I remember thinking I might see a rerun of it some day. Ha!), and I thought the first month of his run was great just because of the energy of starting something new. But by November, the show had really hit its stride. By the time Christmas rolled around, I thought every ep was great. Andy was on the couch more, things were good. Yeah, the last week was amazing, but contrary to what most people say things really started to gel during the holidays. Conan and his team deserve an Emmy on the merits, not just for sympathy.
Totalyy agree, those last two weeks of the show where the funniest ever! Can’t wait to see him back on my nightly TV viewing.
Yes he deserves to win because he is funny and his show was funny. I know the new show will be funny too. GO Conan!!!!
Awwww, give him an Emmy. When his TBS show tanks, at least he’ll have the metal lady to look at.
Jay, is that you?
I don’t get the Conan hate. Either you like him or you don’t really care enough to comment about him, right? Isn’t that how it works?
Hey, Leno, leave Conan O’Brien, the guy who held out for extra cash for his crew who lost their jobs because of Leno and put together a road show to keep them employed this summer, alone and get back to working on your $30million worth of cars and your snarky “humor”.
Just the nomination is payback enough. If he wins, that’s just the cherry on top. Plus, it would give more attention to the fact that Jay’s ratings are no better than Conan’s were so suck on that NBC.
The Tonight Show as great with Conan O’Brien and I hope that he wins the Emmy. Actually, that might give the Emmys some credibility. The Colbert Report, Jon Stewart, SNL, and PI were are all sub-par anyways, what with it not being an election year. I’m going to tune into the Emmys just to see it if O’Brien wins.
Unfortunately the rumor is that the Emmy/NBC people won’t air those categories during the broadcast.
That rumor is false. Those categories do appear on the primetime broadcast. Viva the Pompadour!
I think Colbert’s Iraq episodes were very deserving — in a non-election year.
I’m With Coco!
*12:30 AM*
John stewart deserves the emmy . As proof I submit the reponse to bernie goldberg episode.
if they just had Emmy categories for best episode alone, that one episode is nominated for sure.
agreed!
NO.
YES
He wasn’t very funny as host of the Tonight Show so I say a big fat NO to that. But they’ll give him the pity emmy and he can know that whenever he looks at it.
You’re sad and full of hate.
@ Abby – Sorta like you feel every time you look in the mirror, eh?
I don’t think he deserves a ‘payback’ Emmy. I just think he dserves an Emmy, period. It somehow shocks me that late night only got one Emmy it’s entire run. That show had some of the best writing.
Okay, enough is enough! We have 2 people. Mr. “J” has been in the job for a long time and making the company as much money as can be made. Mr. “C” works nights, has been on the job as long as Mr. “J” and is equally good at what he does. But, Mr. “C” wants Mr. “J”s job so he goes to his boss and threatens to quit if he doesn’t get it. Management decides they’d rather keep the younger guy so they fire Mr. “J” and tell him he has to leave once his contract is up in 4 years. Mr. “C” is satisfied with that and agrees to wait it out. Mr. “J” being the nice guy tells everybody he’s decided to “retire” in 4 years and is “happy” that Mr. “C” will be taking over for him. BULL! We all know people like this in the workplace…going behind your back to steal your job out from under you. THAT is what CONAN did to JAY. Conan got the job and he couldn’t handle it. The ratings went down the toilet and so the network flushed him like the piece of s**t he is! Emmy? For being the biggest RAT there is? Fine. But, for hosting a lousy show? No Way!
That’s not what happened actually. NBC were the ones who forced Jay out because Conan was fielding offers from rival networks. The whole fiasco is NBC’s fault and not Conan/Jay’s.
Um…no, that’s not “what CONAN did to JAY.” As Amy pointed out, Conan, who had a contract that was due to expire, was entertaining other offers for when that contract was up, as was his right. NBC, (allegedly) wanting to keep Conan, negotiated with him. Conan, after over a decade of strong work, wanted the “promotion” to the Tonight Show. Jay also had a contract, and both he and NBC lived up to the terms of that contract. So, everyone gets what they negotiated for. It’s called a fair market. Jay was free to go elsewhere after Conan took over, and was rumored to be headed to ABC. Instead, he chose to renew with NBC and get the prime time slot, in which he flopped. So now NBC is left with two guys and one slot and big penalties to either. They chose Jay. Conan is the least at fault here; he entered into a contract and lived up to its terms.
Pretty much, Amy said it all. Just FYI, Jay’s ratings are (compared to when Conan took over vs when Jay came back) at the same A18-49 ratings as Conan. So basically, the same number of people like Jay as like Conan.
Actually, if you do the week by week comparison, this summer vs. last summer, Leno & Conan tied 3 out of 6 weeks, and Leno *loses* by 0.1 in the 18-49 demo 3 out of 6 weeks. And Conan’s numbers started inching upward mid-August until mid-September, until the Jay Leno show premiered, and then they dropped down again (but still basically better than Leno did last week). It was just cheaper, in the short term, to get rid of Conan – $30 million. Jay’s contract buyout would have cost $140 million. It’s all just business in the end. Conan was hired as a long term strategy (who do you see doing better 10 years from now? who’s better staged for the YouTube/Facebook/Internet era?), but they panicked and went back to short term thinking.
Seriously, hasn’t this gone on long enough? Can’t you find something better to do than B@*chslap each other on an entertainment website.
Will the world end if Conan wins an Emmy or not. Geez … relax.
most people get nothing but a door in the behind when they get fired. conan got 30 million. i think thats more then enough consolation for his treatment.
Here’s the thing. Conan had a contract. Since he did nothing to violate the terms of said contract, he could not be fired. If you want to get technical, Coco was laid off. Now a lot of people that are laid off receive severance packages. If these same people earned their employer up to a million dollars for every 30 seconds that they aren’t doing their job then I suppose their severance package would be around $30 million dollars too