Conan O'Brien Debuts on Tonight Show

Conan O'Brien has officially made his long awaited debut on The Tonight Show, taking over for longtime host Jay Leno, who held the position for 17 years. He is only the fifth host in the show's long and storied late night history.

A surprise to some was that former Conan partner Andy Richter is back, now as the studio announcer for the show. Max Weinberg made the haul to the premier time slot as well, although the Max Weinberg 7 has been renamed the Tonight Show Band.

The show opened with a skit with Conan in preparation for his first show. He only forgot one thing- that he needed to move to Los Angeles. After failing to hail a taxi cab, Conan begins to literally run and swim across country to make it in time to host his first show.

After a brief monologue there were two more opening video skits. One showed Conan helping to lead the famous tour of Universal Studios, where his Tonight Show studio is now located. Another video clip, replete with cheesy late 80s action/comedy movie music, showed Conan impressing women in Los Angeles as he cruised around in his 1992 Ford Taurus.

The first guest for Conan O'Brien's debut on The Tonight Show was Will Ferrell. Ferrell came out onto the set being carried on a throne by four Egyptian slave clad men. He joked how great it was to see Conan as the host, since nobody, nobody at all, thought he could do it.

After reciting a collection of tips to help get Conan adjusted to Los Angeles - such as checking out this great burger joint called Burger King - he then sang a special goodbye song to Conan, saying he was pulling for Conan to make it, but that it was a crapshoot at best.

The opening band for Conan O'Brien's first Tonight Show ever was Pearl Jam. They played a song from their new album Backspacer, which seemed to have some of the energetic edge from albums long past.

With some question marks about how Conan would work in The Tonight Show time slot which plays to a different audience, the show was vintage Conan and he didn't seem to change much if anything about his approach, which is surely refreshing to the abundant crew of die hard Conan enthusiasts.

Conan O'Brien was named as the successor for Jay Leno in September of 2004, so this transition has been long in the making. However, Jay Leno is not leaving late night television altogether. He is coming back in the fall to host The Jay Leno Show, which will air before The Tonight Show.