An Open Letter to Carson Daly

Carson, I’m sorry. Apparently you’ve been begging for scraps from Leno and Conan’s late night table for five years now. For all but about three weeks of those five years, I have considered you kind of a tool. It was in the last month or so that my insomnia kicked in and my bootleg cable limited my wee-morning viewing options to either your show or John Hagee’s “Fat-man Christian Variety and Repentance Hour.”

Expecting to see nothing but cheesy humor, average guests, and selections from Mariah Carey’s “party shuffle,” I was pleasantly surprised to see that your celebrity and musical guests were at least adequate, and sometimes very good. You also seem quite aware that you are not funny.

This is fine because your show doesn’t depend on you being funny. You only have 30 minutes to burn, so there’s no need for Conan-esque skits or Lenoian sidewalk trivia games. Perhaps this is why your guests are so entertaining. Or maybe I’m completely wrong and your guests only seem entertaining in contrast to you.

If this is the case, then any living, breathing person that owns a suit can do your job. I know that the same holds true for my job, but I don’t get paid millions and millions of dollars to be a jackass. I have to do it pro-bono.

Bitterness aside, you are most likely not the tool that I once thought you were. You are, at worst, terribly boring. At least you (or your producer) have decent taste in music and a knack for picking out relatively obscure but oddly interesting guests for your insomniac viewers to watch as they fade in and out of consciousness.

So Carson, I hope that we can put our past behind us. As long as you don’t start thinking that you’re funny and keep the good music coming, all will be well in the late night universe.

Rainbows and kittens,

T

P.S. We’re all convinced now that your ties are not clip-ons. You’re a grown up. It’s ok to wear your tie like an adult.