I have no memory of Jon Stewart's show on MTV, how long was it on?

I still think of Conan and Leno as the "new guys" on late night TV.

I remember "Talk Show Jon" which was a doll, I think.

Atom Eyes, did you see Conan on "Inside The Actors Studio" recently? Very, very funny.

Do I remember O'Brien's first joke on Late Night right? I recall it was something along the lines of "My Mom said the day I get my own chat show will be the day there's peace in the Middle East". Sad that back then it really looked possible to the extent that jokes could safely be made about it.

I remember Jon Stewart's show; there was one episode where you heard Patsy Cline on the way to the first ad break, and he winked and said he had something great for us when he came back. Then after the ads, you heard the Patsy Cline again, and the stage curtain opened and this big guy came walking out, and it turned out it was this guy, all along, singing with the voice of Patsy Cline. The song ended, and Jon Stewart had a little back and forth with the guy, who had a correspondingly sweet speaking voice, and then Stewart had the guy demonstrate that he wasn't just lip-synching by singing "Crazy" a cappela. Tremendous.

Come to think of it, I didn't have cable for four or five years in the early nineties so I probably didn't get MTV when that show was on.

Maybe it was just that it was MTV and he was wearing a leather jacket, but I hated Jon Stewart's show. I was flabbergasted when Tom Snyder picked him as a guest host and then replacement, and even more when he turned out to be pretty good at the Tom Snyder stuff.

Atom Eyes, did you see Conan on "Inside The Actors Studio" recently? Very, very funny.

I didn't, and I'm kicking myself for that. Hopefully I'll catch it on repeat. Conan is my favorite type of comedy guy: a writer/comedian, with the emphasis on writer. I would put him in the ranks of people like Steve Martin, Larry David, Garry Shandling, Tina Fey, and George Meyer—smart folks who have thought an awful lot about the craft of comedy. They know its history, they have done their time in the galleys, and over time they have molded their experiences in the business, both successes and failures, into well-ordered personal philosophies of comedy. I can listen to that type of comedian talk about his craft for hours on end.