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Conan O’Brien’s Return to ‘The Tonight Show’ Was Melancholy, Powerful TV
Jimmy Fallon and Conan O'Brien had a heartfelt, sweet conversation about 'the best job in the world'
But he’d come a long way just to get to 30 Rockefeller Center in 2024, and the interview with current “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon functioned as a peace offering, or a marker of how much time has passed. (This is reminiscent of how Fallon rescinded the program’s ban on Joan Rivers, put in place after previous host Johnny Carson felt slighted by her. But then we wouldn’t have had the sweet, slightly melancholy moment of O’Brien, between old war stories from his long career, mentioning that traveling back to New York brought back what he called “flash memories.” He deflated the moment, slightly, noting that the memories are of absurdist pranks he did on the street, but the point remained: O’Brien had worked hard in his youth to create something, and long after the general public had moved on, it meant something to him, and to whomever else remembers.
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