The White House Correspondents Dinner has lately become a bit of a round robin on late-night talk show hosts, and now Conan O’Brien has agreed to take his turn.
According to a tweet from the organization president, Ed Henry of Fox News (lately in the news himself for protesting that President Obama has not been transparent enough with the Washington press about things like going golfing with Tiger Woods), Mr. O’Brien has signed on to be this year’s entertainer. The event is April 27.
In past gigs outside his show, Mr. O’Brien has shined, especially as two-time host of the Emmy Awards. The dinner has been a mixed bag for late-night hosts. Jay Leno got a kind of indifferent reception; Stephen Colbert was brilliant but called rude for taking on President Bush; Seth Meyers of “Saturday Night Live†won a lot of praise; Jimmy Kimmel was able to raise his growing profile with last year’s appearance.
Mr. O’Brien has already had a successful turn at the dinner’s mike. He was a ht at the 1995 dinner, only a few years into his run at “Late Night†on NBC.
Mr. O’Brien has continued to enthuse his fans - who continue to be generally young - at TBS after his ill-fated brief tour as host of “Tonight†on NBC. His ratings are stable and solid enough for TBS to extend his contract last year.
It has been a bit harder to be noticed on that cable channel, though Mr. O’Brien may enjoy a little less notice than his ultimately unpleasant “Tonight†tenure.
But one thing he brought with him from the “Tonight†days is a longer, more pointed nightly monologue, with many more topical references than he used earlier in his career at “Late Night†for NBC. Those are the kind of jokes expected at the correspondents dinner.
