Rest in peace, "Late Night"

It's 1:58 AM, and eighteen minutes ago, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" ended its sixteen season run. As a constant staple of my 'past my bedtime' viewing for the past decade, I can honestly say that it will be missed. Yes, Conan is just moving to "The Tonight Show" in June, but it just won't be the same as seeing Conan and the Max Weinberg Seven in that tiny New York studio each night after Jay Leno.

"The Tonight Show" is the big time - the one that people who don't want to stay up *too* late watch. So what will Conan have to leave behind? He already announced that the Masturbating Bear is being retired, which isn't a loss... but I somehow feel that the charm and spontaneity of "Late Night" is not going to make the trip to Burbank. "The Tonight Show" is too classy for its host to take a random audience member on a tour of the building, and steal snacks from the cafeteria for the rest of the audience. You won't see the host, during a writer's strike, take a cameraman through a crawlspace in the studio just to see what's in there, then let the audience dare him into eating a five year old sandwich. At least, I truly don't think you will.

I believe that, despite Conan being its second host, "Late Night" died tonight. Tuning in on March 2nd to see "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" is going to be like a longtime "Saturday Night Live" viewer watching the season premiere in November 1980. It's supposedly the same show that we know and love, but the familiar faces are gone, and the new ones are paltry replacements. Mark my words; everything that made "Late Night with Conan" a classic will be giggled and mugged away by Jimmy Fallon.

So until June, I'll be waiting anxiously for Conan to return to my TV screen, with hopes that he'll transplant everything that endeared his audience to him into "The Tonight Show"; but I can also assure that from now on, my TV will no longer be tuned to NBC at 12:35 AM. Without seeing a single episode of the new "Late Night," I already know it just won't be worth it.