Conan's Tonight Show Debut, & More - June 4, 2009

Conan O’Brien kicked off his start on The Tonight Show on Monday night. I really enjoyed the first show and found myself laughing a lot. Same Conan just at a different hour and that is a good thing. The opening montage was great stuff!! I’m talking about the montage where he runs from New York to Los Angeles. That was shot so well. Perfect finish with him getting locked out and then driving the bulldozer through the wall. Just a really fun way to start the show off and a good song to go along with it!! I also liked the tram segment with him traveling around with the tourists. I laughed quite a bit at that as well. Tonight Show tradition held up with him taking shots at the LA Clippers. That must be a requirement as a Tonight Show host. I was really looking hard at the set to see what the changes would be. A lot of the look of it is a real throwback to the Johnny Carson days. Only thing that I wasn’t crazy about was where they have Andy Richter positioned. They have him behind a podium beside the audience. It just seems kind of uncomfortable having him standing there through the show. Melendez had a chair when he was out there and it looked much more comfortable. Great to see Conan and Andy back together. Overall, big thumbs up from me on Conan’s first show!!

Viewers tuned in big to see Conan’s Tonight Show debut getting a 7.1 rating which was the best number for a Monday night episode of The Tonight Show in four years. It was the seventh highest Monday rating since 1992 when Leno took over The Tonight Show.

NBC has announced the start date for Leno’s show in the fall. The show will start on Monday, September 14 at 9pm central time.

Gloriana has announced when their album will be released. August 4 is the date so Gloriana fans need to mark the date on their calendar. I know I will be.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Up - $68.1 million. 2. Night At The Museum - $24.3 million. 3. Terminator Salvation - $16.4 million. 4. Drag Me To H*** - $15.8 million. 5. Star Trek - $12.6 million. 6. Angels & Demons - $11.3 million. 7. Dance Flick - $4.7 million. 8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - $3.8 million. 9. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - $1.9 million. 10. Obsessed - $657,001.

Microsoft made news this week at E3 unveiling Project Natal. What is that? Well, you basically take the Nintendo Wii and take away the controller. No controller necessary. It is very impressive looking!! If you haven’t heard about it or seen it, here is the trailer that Microsoft has released about it. Definitley check it out. http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/DA33AEC8-03F0-442C-BA95-257CB5B761F5/0/vidProjectNatalAnnounceHi.asx

My normal thing to do during the summer is to find a new TV series to watch on DVD. Since there is a definite lack of things to talk about when it comes to TV, I thought I could spend some time recommending some various shows over the next few weeks. Current and also shows from the past. Maybe I’ll be able to get you hooked on a new TV show. Shocker, shocker. I’m starting with Veronica Mars. This is a show that I loved!! Written by Rob Thomas and starring Kristen Bell, this show was one of the smartest written shows that I have seen in a long time. Kristen Bell plays Veronica Mars who works with her dad who is a private investigator. Her personal life has taken a major hit when her best friend, Lily, was found murdered. She was dating Lily’s brother, Duncan. However, Veronica’s dad, Keith who used to be sheriff, named Lily and Duncan’s father as the main suspect in Lily’s murder. Their father is one of the rich families in Neptune so there was a big backlash over Keith naming him as a suspect. With the backlash, the popular crowd at Neptune High that Veronica had been hanging out with turns their backs on her. Veronica must now adjust to life including her trying to solve the mystery of what happened to her best friend. Kristen Bell is GOLD in this show. She is incredible and throws out witty one liners that I’ve seen few deliver so well. Lots of mystery in the show obviously with the private eye story but there is a great mix of comedy and romance to go along with it. Great show and I miss it very much!! If you want to see season one, it is available for free viewing on The WB.com until June 29. After that, they will be putting up season two. Check it out here: http://www.thewb.com/shows/veronica-mars/

Finally, there is news on the talked about Transformers DVD box set. Shout! Factory has released the details on the box set which will include all 98 episodes of the original cartoon series. They are restored which will make the anti-Rhino set people very happy. Rhino did a lot of messing with the episodes which got to be really annoying. Shout! is really working to put the episodes back in their original form. The box set will be sixteen discs and will run $140. The box set looks like the matrix of leadership which looks really cool. There will also be some new extras on the box set as well. For more info on the set including how to preorder it, head over to: http://www.transformerscollectorsset.com/

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, June 9. The Cleaner (Season One), Danny Phantom (Season Three), Father Knows Best (Season Three), Get Smart (Season Three), Perry Mason (Season Four – Volume One), Reaper (Season Two), The Shield (Season Seven), Survivorman (Season Three), Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Best Of).

Twitter Update Of The Week: @taylorswift13 "I just impulsively bought my cat a shirt that says "Hottie". I have no idea why. Maybe I shouldn't have days off."

Video of the Week: Conan travels from New York to LA.


Wishing all of you a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!