Conan O’Brien Writer Goes Off On Fallon, Hardwick, Others in Twitter Rant

There are two schools of thought on a late-night host Jimmy Fallon. One side finds him adorable, and enjoys his brand of what I’ll call ‘gentle’ comedy. Then there’s the other side, which believes Fallon has no edge, relies too heavily on celebrities, and generally appeals to people who don’t want to be challenged. This second camp now has a five-star general, and his name is Andrés du Bouchet. Du Bouchet writes for Conan O’Brien on TBS’ Conan, and last Friday, he took to Twitter in what can only be called a brutal assault on everything the Fallons of the world stand for.

The tweets have largely been deleted, but after combing the Internet, we can (mostly) reconstruct the timeline. Here’s what Du Bouchet had to say, making reference to both Chris Hardwick’s “Hashtag Wars” feature, and Fallon’s famous Lip-Syncing contests. Be warned that the language is not safe for sensitive souls:

1. “For the cocksucking motherfucking asspunching shit fuck cock cunt fuck FUCK ever fuck fucking love of humanity how can I block hashtag wars”

2. “Comedy in 2015 needs a severe motherfucking shakeup. No celebrities, no parodies, no pranks, no mash-ups or hashtag wars. I’m fat.”

3. “and shove your lip-synching up your ass.”

4. “Prom King Comedy. That’s what I call all this shit. You’ve let the popular kids appropriate the very art form that helped you deal. Fuck.”

5. “None of the funniest stuff ever involved celebrity cameos.”

6. “That was satisfying. Sometimes just railing at the impenetrable nonsense of the retardverse is enough, despite my impotence to change it.”

7. “Once again I’m a bonehead for tweeting as a fan of comedy instead of as a guy who earns a living doing it.”

8. “@guybranum thanks but now comes the inevitable dressing down at work for criticizing other talk shows!”

9. “add games and lip synching and nostalgia and karaoke to this list.”

10. “Sorry for being a bloviating elitist windbag last night. I know tons of talented people are making the stuff I enjoy shitting all over.”

Conan O’Brien didn’t appreciate du Bouchet’s rant, and he wasn’t shy about broadcasting that fact:

I wish one of my writers would focus on making my show funnier instead of tweeting stupid things about the state of late night comedy.

— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) April 19, 2015

Du Bouchet’s rant has to be partly based on the fact that Fallon is cleaning up in the ratings, but there are valid points to be made. There are also some strong arguments against his perspective—Uproxx makes the point that without the populist shift, late-night television might already be dead.