Re: Jimmy Fallon to get a job...Conan's

Lost in the Cone Zone

(...snip pretty much the whole thing...)

Recent episodes of Late Night suggest Conan may be trying to inch his
way toward a more plainly relevant style of comedy as 2009 draws near.
His monologue is longer, its jokes more pointed and more obviously
topical - sometimes even satirical in that banally partisan Daily Show
manner.  A recently recurring Late Night comedy piece has various
members of the cast saying stupid things, only to have the word "Ass,"
in large red letters, stamped onto the screen, covering their faces.
This is beneath the imaginative stuff Late Night fans have come to
expect.  Another tedious piece has an offstage announcer with a
heavy-metal voice shrieking the names of recent guests whose names
begin with the letter J.  Those two recent bits are dangerously like
the stinko gags that have polluted Letterman’s show since Rob Burnett
took over as executive producer, in 1996.  And Late Night’s usually
sublime 18-minute opening has lately been interrupted by a round of
commercials, which breaks the comic momentum.  Is Universal really so
hard up for cash that it needs to mess with its Tonight Show
host-to-be?

http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/blogs/daily/2008/05/jim-windolf-los.html