Back in the 1980s, Coca-Cola came out with "New Coke"-- it tasted like Pepsi. I remember scouring the town for the last few bottles of real Coke. There was a civil war over which was better: new Coke vs. old Coke. Under much hoopla and pressure, Coca-Cola put New Coke on ice (so to speak) and Coke Classic came out in its place. The mega-corporation caved to the will of the people. More than that: the public fell for stunt. Fast forward to 2010. Conan O'Brien isn't everyone's cup of coffee. Johnny Carson was so hokey, his show was fun. Jay Leno was an update. Conan O'Brien ported over some of his audience and likely alienated some of the "Great Karnak" crowd. The rumblings came about a month or two ago: Conan sucks, let's boot him. Conan sucks, bump his time slot. Conan sucks, he's going to Fox (presumably because all their shows suck). Everyone is asking about the fate of Conan. They're demonizing NBC and Jay Leno. Last week, amid rumors that Conan was out "this" week, I watched the Friday night show-- after all, at the end of last week, you'd have the end of that week, right? Last night, I watched another new Tonight Show still with Conan O'Brien. Last year, there was lots of sadness as Chek 6 went off the air-- wait. What? Riiight. They hatched this scheme to get the employees to buy the station, but they did it too late to make it work with CRTC. Their last day came. They replaced their programming with a lot of self-congratulatory footage. The next day: they were still on the air. The end came and went and they stayed on the air. Is Conan pulling the "New Coke Stunt"? After all of this interest, and people watching with the car-wreck mindset, will NBC cave to the will of the people? Will Leno sign off and go into the sunset, making way for another five hours of Law & Order every week? Will a more popular Conan O'Brien emerge? Will we forget and, in July, faintly remember that there was a big uproar over the New Tonight Show.
