Is it a good thing when the best one-liner of a new late-night chat show is the very first one?

This was how Conan O'Brien started his reign on NBC's The Tonight Show: "I think I've timed this move perfectly. I'm on a last-place network, I moved to a state that's bankrupt and The Tonight Show is sponsored by General Motors."

It was very O'Brien, self-deprecating, a little bit risky (biting the NBC hand that feeds him) and timely. The audience howled with laughter.

But the audience was always going to howl on this big night for the star who has moved to an earlier evening slot, broadcasting from a new, glitzy set at Universal Studios in Hollywood. O'Brien spent 17 years as host of NBC's Late Night in New York, and the move has been in the works for five years.

It did not matter that it was O'Brien's best line of the night — that is not really his thing. Jay Leno, who is moving to a prime time "lead-in" slot for O'Brien in September, was the king of the monologue and O'Brien showed that he was not going to try to emulate his predecessor.

Instead O'Brien stuck to his sketch-show style and filled his opening before bringing on his star interviewee, Will Ferrell, with a series of filmed comedy skits. The opening conceit involved O'Brien running across America from his New York home for his first night appearance — something you cannot imagine the portly Leno doing in a month of Sundays. The sight of the long-legged comic sprinting across the Midwest, his red hair flapping, was funny and impressive at the same time.

There were some slightly rocky moments. In another sketch, O'Brien commandeered a tram filled with tourists on a Universal Studios lot tour and took them for a ride through Los Angeles. It reminded me a bit of Game for a Laugh, which is not a good thing. It felt a very long way from Johnny Carson, the man who gave The Tonight Show its iconic status.

O'Brien's longstanding sidekick Andy Richter performed the traditional cheerleader role, standing at a podium to the side of the stage and loudly laughing at his boss's jokes — an anachronism I could have done without.

But for all the minor faults, O'Brien put his stamp on the show and, happily, he promised that the jokes would be newsier from now on.

Actually there was one better gag from O'Brien than his opening gambit. This was it: "I remember watching Johnny Carson when I was a kid and thinking: That's what I want to be when I grow up. I'm sure right now in America there is likely a kid watching me, thinking: 'What is wrong with that man's hair?'"

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