Conan O'Brien's after-party details: Irish wake for his final 'Tonight Show'

Looks like the Sundance Film Festival can't take all the celeb glory this weekend -- I've just learned that Conan O'Brien threw an epic after-party on Friday night for his final turn at hosting "The Tonight Show." So epic, in fact, the theme was a traditional Irish wake.

Jameson Irish whiskey and ginger ale flowed for hours on L.A.'s Universal City set, where O'Brien toasted loud and long with cohorts Andy Richter, musical director Max Weinberg and the show's band, including  trombonist Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg, as well as more than 200 crew wearing "Team Conan" and "I'm with Coco" shirts.   

"We didn't rehearse today because we don't care. We've all been drinking," O'Brien joked during the show ...  

Will Ferrell and "30 Rock" funnyman Jack McBrayer joined the departing staff for the bash, posing for photos and taking in an acoustic guitar performance Conan gave the studio audience after cameras stopped rolling.

O'Brien thanked the bleachers for "being the best audience in the world," and also for camping out in the rain that plagued L.A. on Friday.

Steve Carrell made a surprise appearance during taping, and guest Tom Hanks called the host's run a "noble experiment." (Check out O'Brien's ideas for his defunct set in the video clip above!) 

"In our house, you will always be the host of 'The Tonight Show,'" Hanks imparted to O'Brien.

Get more on Conan's last hurrah from Company Town, and tell me -- is the departure too soon? Would you throw back a Jameson and ginger with him? Do you think Jay Leno can really come home again? Leave it in comments.

[For the record: A previous version of this post incorrectly applied Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg's name to the entire band, instead of keeping it where it belonged, firmly attached to the trombonist. Thanks to commenter Steve for the catch.]

-- Matt Donnelly

Photo: Conan O'Brien appears on the final episode of "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien" on Jan. 22, 2010 in Universal City. Credit: Paul Drinkwater / NBC via Getty Images.

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Comments

[Tim]

Matt, I hope that no one at Conan's wake actually combined the Jameson and ginger ale as you suggested in the last paragraph of your piece. Buried Irishmen everywhere should be spinning in their graves at that thought!

[Huzzah]

I would be very happy if Leno walked off into the sunset. Assuming the sunset was beyond a very sheer cliff face.

[J Sanderson]

Why all of the whining about Conan, the long-time unfunny host? HE chose to quit the Tonite Show, and throw his 150 staff out of work. Leno essentially got fired twice- to give him a shot, and Conan still tanked badly. Leno still held his audience, but didn't improve it. Funny how the $33M works out to $150k or so for each staffer, but that is not how it went. Conan got $33M and the staff splits the additonal $10M-$12M, which averages out to $7333 per person. Conan is NOT the hero, and Leno the chump. BTW, Rosie O'Mouth should engage her head, before putting her mouth in gear, but that has never been her strong suit. Go read the entire explanation by Leno on how this went down if you don't believe me. Leno has always been a decent guy and a class act, evident by the quality of people that consider them friends. Apparently, Conan has such a high opinion of himself, that he threw his entire staff and career overboard, to prop up his ego, in a business that doesn't care about egos- only money. The past 2 weeks have been the best of his 7 months- but were still not 100% by any stretch. His smarmy, and often ignorant take on things, was a lame attempt to be funny, and was usually never edgy or clever, and more often juvenille. Nowhere near the intelligence of Letterman, but he has been so often not funny, for years. This only proved that all of the 24 - 54 YO viewers, have more intelligence than O'Brian ever gave them credit for.

[Steve]

The band is the Tonight Show Band, the trombone player's name is LaBamba.

[Mrs_H]

I have never been a big Conan O'Brien fan, but his last show was a class act, especially his no jokes statement about having been at NBC for 20+ years. I'll continue to TiVo Jay Leno (as I did on his last stint at Tonight, and during his 10 p.m. gig), and I'll be interested to see what Conan does next. If the first few "Tonight Shows with Conan O'Brien" had been as good as the last, I'd have tuned in sooner.

[Sanderson is an idiot]

Hey Sanderson,

So, the staff splits the additonal $10M-$12M, which averages out to $7333 per person. Nice math, might want to check that again and add a zero next time.

[Tahoeview]

Something’s wrong here- I like Conan, but 35 million because he can’t have his show?? We are spending hundreds of millions bailing out the Banks, Wall st, Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti- People in our country are hungry, out of work and what’s worse- This is all “Our Money”. Come on people, let's get some perspective.

[Spyder121]

I think it was a mistake to get Conan off the air. After all, when he was brought on, NBC had to know his style of humor would take a while for older audience members to take to. It was never going to be an overnight thing. The affiliates were complaining about Jay's show not giving them a good lead-in, not Conan. So it stands to reason Jay's show should've been the one to be axed and replaced by scripted material. And I don't say this because I dislike Jay. I happen to enjoy him as well. But it's not fair to give a guy something and then take it back simply because your plan didn't work out exactly like you wanted. I truly believe it would've gotten there, but they needed a bit more time.

As far as whether Jay will regain his previous ratings, I'm sure he will... eventually. But many people consider him the bad guy now and it's going to take a little time. I suppose we'll have to see what happens after 7 months.

And speaking of ratings, it's so silly to me that networks still base programming off such an anticuated system. Given all the cable stations, the ability to record multiple shows while watching one, etc., etc., there's no way Nielsen ratings are representative of what the majority of people are watching. And it's not a huge portion of the population that has Nielsen boxes on their sets. I personally don't like decisions being made on my behalf by people who really don't represent me. After all, these people aren't politicians. I didn't vote for them. And I'm willing to bet our entertainment tastes are very different.

[Jeff]

Try your math again. Average of $60,000 of severance per staff member. And Conan is supplementing that out of his own pocket to the tune of seven figures.

[Jessica]

J. Sanderson, aside from your ignorant comments on the so-called 'facts' regarding the situation, you might want to check your math. $12 million divided by 150 staffers averages $80,000 per person, not $7,333. And that "class act" Leno, who doesn't know when to leave the party was given several years to climb out from under Letterman to the #1 spot on the Tonight Show. And he also "tanked" as you put it in his new time slot. If he was such a class act he would have stepped down when he was fired from the Tonight Show instead of threatening to move to another network. Of course, if NBC wasn't run by idiots they would've let him go and tank somewhere else.

[Primobabe]

Here are my predictions for the aftermath of this debacle:

Jay Leno will bring his tired, stale routine back to "The Tonight Show." Few people will care. As with his 10:00 pm show, Jay's ratings will flounder without the strong NBC lead-in programming that he enjoyed for so many years.

Conan O'Brien, one of TV's brightest and funniest stars, will be grabbed up by another network -- maybe Fox, maybe a cable channel (Comedy Central?) -- and succeed.

NBC, in shocked stupidity, will regret having let all of its homegrown talent slip away (Dave to CBS, Conan to wherever). NBC will need to choose among keeping irrelevant Jay on the air, wooing talent away from a competing network, or cancelling the venerable "Tonight Show." Jimmy Fallon needs to spend another 10 years at 12:35 before he'll be ready for the big time, and Conan is now alienated forever.

If you remember back to 5 years ago, when NBC announced that Jay would retire and Conan would take over "The Tonight Show" during 2009, the goal was to keep Conan from leaving the network. Someone at NBC had the brains to know that Conan's a valuable asset.

[intheemail]

I've never watch Leno. Ever. Guess I'll go back to "Click" to Letterman. Hang in there, Conan. YOU'LL BE BACK.

[Juliet Nyholt]

What a freaking mistake...Leno is a has been, he's never been as funny as Conan...Conan is so much more like Johnny Carson, unpredictable, spontaneous, I will miss him...& prob. not watch Leno, I'm mad at him for not retiring, what's wrong with that?...he's got plenty of money..Come back Conan....

[Rasten]

@ j sanderson........ Conan had bad ratings because JAY LENO'S show TANKED.....It's called a domino effect! Jay should have realized that this was all his fault and walked away. I think you would be pissed if someone at your work was crappy at doing his job which in turn was cuasing your work performance to suffer and then your employer replaces you with the screw up....think about it......btw Jay has never been funny he is as corny as they come! He has a cookie cutter style no orginality at all! If you believe what he said about him being fired you're even dumber than I thought....Do you really think he is gonna come out and tell the truth and look bad? NO! It would ruin any chance of his show doing good.

[Juge]

I will follow Conan whereever he goes. I think the way NBC handeled this was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen to say the least. Such an incredible talent, not given enough time, blamed as the scapegoat. In particular Zucker and Embersol both should have been fired. NO, I don't think Leno can come back home. He should have walked away into the sunset and not looked back.

[CDZ from the Ministry]

Hey all -- Christie D'Zurilla here from the Ministry with a reminder that the Ministry of Gossip has a zero-tolerance policy on profanity. Not harsh, not mild, not in acronym form, not with aster*sks in it, not even if you're using it to beat J Sanderson over the head with a stick because of his/her bad math -- which, incidentally, is a topic I think we have settled by now, yes?

If your comment isn't published, it's probably because you cussed in some way or I just grew weary of the J Sanderson pile on.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

//cdz

[Nancy S]

J Sanderson - you're probably old. If you even obectively looked at the audiences for each show, you'd realize that Conan has the younger base and Leno's audience will be dead in a few years. And that's not figurative.

NBC committed a grave mistake. They will regret it. And 7 months is not enough time to readjust your show to the 1135 audience. Plus, it was following the loser Leno anyway.

And about the severance for staffers, Conan supplemented it from his own package. That says a lot.
Conan proved last night that he is a class act and Leno will have to fight that image forever. And lose.

[Tae]

Jay is a bully. I will NEVER watch his show again. I only wish he had HALF the dignity that Carson did.

But this is TWICE now he's done this.

We're done Jay.

Coco, as always you handled the situation with class and grace.

[Marcus]

Sanderson makes good points, but the little Conan mob is just that. A little mob of torch bearing crazed profane villagers. Don't let the door ...

[Chicago Joe]

Conan's only choice was to keep The Tonight Show at 11:35 instead of 12:05 or to give it up. By making the choice to keep the Tonight Show at 11:35 he knew he would lose The Tonight Show. He did not quit he was replaced. Conan cared more about The Tonight Show and the show's that would follow it then he did his own career. He showed a lot of class making that decision. While NBC gave Jay Leno two years to build up his audience on The Tonight Show Conan only had 7 months to try and reach his market. If Jay Leno was only given 7 months back when he took over the show he would have been long gone. David Letterman beat Jay night after night for almost the first two years. Jay Leno's prime time show was a flop and the local affiliates wants the show cancelled because they where losing money and viewers. NBC was afraid that Leno would move to another Network. This is the same reason they offered Conan The Tonight Show five years ago. So NBC wanted to offered Jay a half hour in late-night starting at 11:35 which would have shifted The Tonight Show and Late Night back and killed Carson Daily’s show completely. Conan again showed a lot of Class last night by Thank NBC for all the years they had worked together. I think the settlement reached between NBC and Conan was the right thing to do Conan got what he would have earned if NBC allowed him to run out his contract. It was NBC’s decision to move Conan to The Tonight Show and offer Jay Leno his own prime time show not Conan’s or Jay’s. I don’t find Jay leno’s brand of humor funny so I don’t watch but I don’t wish him any ill will.

[Steve]

Conan went out with incredible class. Will Ferrell sucked- his stuff is getting pretty stale, but the rest of the show's guests were great (Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Neil Young - excellent). Conan's final comments - classic, classy and extremely gracious. I won't watch Leno at all anymore after this. The guy was never that funny and regardless of his rep as a great person off camera, he's been the one who should have walked and didn't over all this. If NBC was firing him for O'Brien in the first place, he should have just left. If he was that great, he wouldn't have had a problem at another network. I am hoping Conan is back at 11:30 and kicks Leno's tail. Zucker at NBC - this guy shouldn't be allowed to run a hot dog stand, let alone a network. Ebesol is always a donkey when he opens his mouth and he proved that with his comments on this whole embarassing fiasco. This is the true crime - they should be sacking the execs behind this mess. NBC and Leno have zero class, Conan has gone out the champ.

[hamishdad]

I won't be watching the Tonight Show with Leno. Seeing him yak it up with Eubanks would make me puke.

[Carnac the Magnificent]

Conan chose to quit out of ego and selfishness. Read an analysis of why his statement of protecting the brand is nonsense at the Hollywood Reporter. He made nice to nbc after weeks bashing them because supposedly he still has a production company with them. He got his staff severance because he was getting ripped in the media and his staff was upset with him. Conan had 17 years on the air. He had a built in audience and a solid running start. Jay Leno was starting from scratch and following a legend, not to mention he got beat up in the press back then too. Conan has been coddled and cheered all the way. All these tortured excuses don't change the fact that if people liked Conan he wouldn't have stunk in the ratings. High ratings during controversy don't last and sometimes people end up with even lower ratings such as Letterman.

[Jeff]

Leno is NOT funny, just lame. Conan is hilarious! He will be back at some point and in fine form. I used to watch Coco all the time and hadn't since the Tonight Show era so, despite all the acrimony, I'm glad all of this reminded me how much I love Conan and his humor. If only it was all a ruse- I'd watch every night if he was still on.

[Dylan Riley]

If you divide $10,000,000 by 150 you get a scary number. The mark of the beast, to be exact.