“My aversion to Conan O’Brien sounds like a generational rant, but it’s really not. The two Jimmys, Kimmel and Fallon, are both younger than Conan (Kimmel by 4 years, Fallon by 11), and though it’s undeniable that their shows are powered by plenty of free-floating delirium and rib-nudging post-Letterman detachment, both of these guys know how to relax – which, to me (sorry to be so uncool), is an essential part of the pleasure of watching television after midnight. They know how to lay down a comic groove that they don’t have to keep intruding upon. Both of them, in their ways (Kimmel with his mock-abrasive dead-eyed scowl, Fallon with his darting quickness and joy), give the masterly ease of Johnny Carson a 21st-century flow.
I personally think that Fallon, the rare comedian who can wield a skewer with joviality, is destined to be the future king of late night. When O’Brien, in the midst of his Tonight Showdebacle, was doing all his faux-rebel squawking, and the media was righteously cheering him along, as if he were the Beatles to Jay Leno’s Pat Boone, it was Jimmy Fallon, hosting the best late-night party around in Conan’s old time slot, who was the elephant in the room: too hip to be detached, delivering all the wit of Conan without the hidden sheetrock of self-aggrandizement. I’m glad that Conan O’Brien is still on the air — he deserves to be — but the cult of Conan represents an overly energized nightly tussle with “convention” that I can’t join, and never could. Conan O’Brien can’t stop trying too hard.”
-Entertainment Weekly
