It’s been 10 long years, but better late than never. This week, NBC announced that Conan O’Brien will assume hosting duties on The Tonight Show when Jay Leno retires. Unfortunately, the funniest and most talented personality in late-night television won’t receive this promotion until 2009.

Conan, the redheaded, nerdy high school class valedictorian, uses uncanny, self-deprecating humor as one of the main tenets of his comedic presentation. My translation: He is an icon to those of us who got little to no action in high school and stayed in on Friday nights to watch his show (Important side note: Since arriving at the University, I have become a total player and am no longer in need of Conan for self-esteem boosts).

While I’m grateful Conan will be on an hour earlier, I’m disappointed that this change won’t happen for another half-decade. Jay Leno brings nothing more to The Tonight Show than his gigantic chin and obvious, lowbrow jokes. The only part of his show that’s even remotely funny is the weekly “Headlines” segment. Here, people from around the country mail him clippings of poorly worded headlines and phrases from various newspapers (e.g. “Implant group may need a bigger room”). For Jay, this basically is the equivalent of a night off. After all, there’s nothing like having some farmer scour through the Cedar Rapids Gazette for your material.

Thankfully, I have David Letterman’s Late Show on CBS to keep me entertained before Late Night with Conan O’Brien begins. Letterman brings 22-and-a-half years of experience to the late-night talk circuit and started as Conan’s predecessor on Late Night in 1982. Unlike many other entertainers, Letterman has managed to stay fresh and witty despite hosting shows in three different decades. Two examples of his continued cleverness are the infamous “Top Ten” lists and newer skits like “Pat and Kenny read Oprah transcripts,” which features two “rough around the edges” stagehands smoking cigarettes while monotonously acting out dialogue from an Oprah episode.

But like many others my age, I relate more to the youthful exuberance Conan brings to his program night in and night out. It’s difficult to go wrong when you can interview President Bush, Sen. John Kerry, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jackson at the same time via “satellite” (well, at least mug shots of themselves with someone else’s lips doing the talking). Plus, it’s difficult not to love costumed characters like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the Masturbating Bear and my personal favorite, Pimpbot 5000, whose looks and mannerisms frighteningly resemble those of many engineers on this campus – minus the whole pimp persona, of course.

Nevertheless, various critics believe Conan is not the right man to take over The Tonight Show. They say his humor is too off-the-wall and risqu‚ to be appreciated by the older audiences that now watch Leno. I beg to differ. Conan’s humor is too crafty and sophisticated to be appreciated by the generally dumber audiences that now watch Leno. Anyone can walk around Santa Monica, Calif., with a microphone and camera asking people to pretend they don’t know where the Statue of Liberty is. Where’s the creativity in that, Jay? I’d gladly take a scenic “Desk Drive” with Conan than sit through that wasteland. However, it’s hard to blame Leno for dumbing down his show. After all, he does live in Los Angeles.

Conan has been on too late for too long. Since many TV viewers need to wake up early for work or school, they typically choose sleep over television and thus can’t experience his comedic genius on a nightly basis. Eventually, Leno is going to retreat to his 100-car garage and pray his chin doesn’t get caught under the Corvette while he gives it a routine oil change. When this happens, the pale-skinned, six-foot, five-inch behemoth that is Conan will take the reigns of The Tonight Show and return it to a Johnny Carson-like golden age. Let the five-year countdown begin.

Chris Kozak is a senior in LAS. His column runs Fridays. He can be reached at [email protected].