Conan's 60 Minutes Interview a Sad Mistake

Conan O’Brien insisted last night on 60 Minutes that he is fine—“doing great,” in fact. But everything else he said in the “awkward mishap” of an interview made him look more like a sad sack, writes Andrew Wallenstein. Not only did he discuss “his departure in the agonized terms of someone suffering a fatal illness,” O’Brien displayed “zero of the antic charm that makes him such a great comic in late night.”

Instead, he “wallowed in misery at a time when he should have been turning the page,” remaining openly envious of Jay Leno’s recaptured role on the Tonight Show while showing barely any excitement for his new TBS gig. “Poor Conan,” Wallenstein writes in the Hollywood Reporter. “He's rationalized a career failure into some kind of grand injustice that's been perpetrated onto him. In the process, he's becoming the very person he usually mocks, just another egocentric Hollywood type."