Conan was a talented comedy writer yet came from relative obscurity so he had a lot to prove and big shoes to fill in replacing David Letterman. Fallon was one member of the SNL ensemble cast, but was never able to gain audience appeal as a single act even though he was given several chances so it will be interesting to see if he can hit the right note this time.
I always found Leno's program to be low-brow humor that connected to a mainstream college crowd sort of audience. It worked the same way that McDonald's is popular. It requires little investment and blandly serves a wider palette than Letterman's more specific cerebral and goofy antics.
Conan fell on his face for the first couple of years before he became comfortable enough to go for broke and let his freak flag fly. Fallon seems like the class cut-up to me. The one that tries to hard and is uncomfortable for me watch.
Talk shows have been in prime time before. Leno's isn't the first. I do wonder what his format will be and what that entire block of NBC will be like. Leno, Conan, Fallon and then Daly? That's four hours of talk right? They'll be competing for guests within their own network. The perk for Conan being bumped up to the Tonight Show is about the wider choice of guests and increased viewers. It was Leno's decision to relinquish his post and he picked Conan. Now he's stealing his thunder. Old habits are hard to break, I suppose. This all has a familiar feeling of worming the Tonight Show away from Dave.
I just don't know what to think.