Conan Can't Stop, and I Don't Want Him To

Well, after a brief lay off due to the real world and a test I took Saturday that I had to study for, I’m back. So lets get down to business.

Ever since my 2^rd year in college, I’ve most frequently fallen asleep doing one of two things, watching tv, or watching something, either tv or a movie, on my computer. The latter can be dangerous because you could potentially roll over and destroy your computer so I don’t wholeheartedly recommend it.  This week I went to Netflix in the hope they might have updated their Watch Instantly programming with something I hadn’t seen before and was interested in watching, and they came through in a big way, with the documentary Conan Can’t Stop.



On my trip down to Dixie, I read a nice 300-400 page history of the fiasco that was recently NBC’s late night programming in which they moved Leno from 11:30 to 10, Conan took over The Tonight Show at 11:30 and Jimmy Fallon took over  Late Night from Conan.  Of these three actions, Conan would end up getting screwed the most when 7 months later he was let go in favor of keeping Jay Leno at NBC and again becoming the host of the Tonight Show.

This chaos, in which NBC likely lost millions of dollars of ad revenue due to poor ratings, and had to buyout Conan’s contract (paying him to leave), led to two things: two weeks of possibly the best hosting Conan has ever done (he relentlessly made fun of the network he was on knowing he was getting fired), and more interestingly, a 44 show comedy tour as a result of a clause in the buyout contract that prohibited him from being on television for an extended period of time.

Conan Can’t Stop is the documentary that followed him as he prepped for and then performed the tour.  While most documentaries are fascinating because they are “real” and result in a stronger connection with the main characters, I at times found this one to be uniquely particularly jarring to me.  The title is exceptionally appropriate, though I feel it was meant more as a play on the idea he was prohibited from doing comedy on tv, it works on a much greater level than that. Throughout the film we see a Conan who is in many ways manic, and full of energy.  Even when he is visibly tired from the travel and performances, he still has an intense fire that comes out in his words and frustration with some of the things that go around him.

The film shows two sides of Conan without particularly focusing or trying to reconcile them. Conan can both be intensely funny and in some ways cruel and mean spirited.  A moment of pure joy in the film is when he is with his children, but when we later see a tired and frustrated Conan backstage wishing someone would restrict who has access to him after a show we can tell that he has a polar opposite side to him that wouldn’t be seen without a film like this, a side that would never show through during a tv performance.

The movie really grounds his job in reality as well.  Even though he is an entertainer there are still all those moments when he is tired of his job in a way.  He has those moments we all do where he is just drained and doesn't want to do it any more, but can't stop himself, hence the "bonus" performances on his scheduled off days, even after he’d said he wanted to make sure they were real off days. 

Seeing this angrier, harder side of Conan got me extremely focused on the film and caused me to lose some precious hours of sleep.  As a result I highly recommend this film, even though it is slightly inconsistent, and devotes little screen time to anyone other than Conan. 

Matt Brickell is back from his leave of absence and looking forward to writing again.