Why do I suddenly feel like an adult? A case could be made that while I still rely quite heavily on my extremely gracious parents, I have plenty of reasons to feel like one.
I voted in a presidential election last year, I'm a little over a month away from being able to buy alcohol, and I'm not too far off from graduating.
But adulthood, or at least a conscious awareness of it, didn't click for me until Monday night when I saw Conan O'Brien become the host of "The Tonight Show."
My sense of humor, the things myself and many more in my generation find funny, just got kicked a little closer to the mainstream.
Jokes that might require a little bit of discomfort or silliness might no longer be relegated to cable or late-night hours, after my parents have gone to bed.
This is my "Tonight Show."
The absence of Conan between his last "Late Night" episode in February and his return to television on Monday made me realize how under-represented my comedic sensibilities were when it came to nightly talk shows and how glad I am to have him back.
An odd feeling came with watching Conan's first episode the other night. I was a big fan of his previous show's humor and its ability to play with the bizarre and sometimes dark.
Watching that episode, I found myself thinking of all the people who were tuning in to see what this new guy was all about, and it reminded me of bringing friends over to my house when I was in high school.
I already thought they were hilarious, but my parents were meeting them for the first time, and while watching them interact all I could do was sit there and say to myself, "Please, like them."
Except now it's, "Even if you don't like him, try and fall asleep with the TV on so that he'll get good ratings and be able to stay on."
According to a press release sent out Tuesday by NBC Conan's premiere numbers were great, capturing the largest audience "The Tonight Show" has had on a Monday in four years.
I'm not going to be a jerk and speak negatively about Jay Leno, because that's tired and he always seemed nice enough, but I do feel like once things get settled Conan's show is going to be a 100 percent improvement from a comedic standpoint, which is what I care about.
My interest in hearing Angelina Jolie's from when she was filming a movie is nil, and I'm not interested in having said movie aggressively sold to me. But can you make her make me laugh?
Conan probably can.
The Web site where I read that press release had comments enabled under the article, and one of them struck me as odd.
"He is not a good interviewer," the commenter said. "He really seems more suited to a comedy show."
I don't have an issue with the commenter's evaluation of Conan's interviewing skills, but did people forget "The Tonight Show" was supposed to be funny?
Maybe CoCo can help them remember.
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