Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien

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Reports saying NBC will keep all of Conan's material(characters, skits, etc), so no more 'In The Year 3000', 'Conando', etc.

Apparently Triumph might be an exception, because some are saying that Triumph actually belongs to Robert Smigel and not NBC.
 
Reports saying NBC will keep all of Conan's material(characters, skits, etc), so no more 'In The Year 3000', 'Conando', etc.

Apparently Triumph might be an exception, because some are saying that Triumph actually belongs to Robert Smigel and not NBC.

I just hope they can recapture Abe Vigoda. NBC can't own him. At least I hope not :ohmy:
 
Reports saying NBC will keep all of Conan's material(characters, skits, etc), so no more 'In The Year 3000', 'Conando', etc.

Apparently Triumph might be an exception, because some are saying that Triumph actually belongs to Robert Smigel and not NBC.

Didn't Letterman get past that by changing things a bit? :hmm: For instance could Conan do In the Year 4000, and so on.
 
Reports saying NBC will keep all of Conan's material(characters, skits, etc), so no more 'In The Year 3000', 'Conando', etc.

Apparently Triumph might be an exception, because some are saying that Triumph actually belongs to Robert Smigel and not NBC.
I'll be disappointed if this includes "[Celebrity] Secrets," which is my personal favorite running skit from Conan.
 
Reports saying NBC will keep all of Conan's material(characters, skits, etc), so no more 'In The Year 3000', 'Conando', etc.

Apparently Triumph might be an exception, because some are saying that Triumph actually belongs to Robert Smigel and not NBC.

Nooooooo! :( asshats!
if this really is his last week of shows, I hope they bring back Pimpbot, Masturbating Bear, etc.
And the Walker Texas Ranger lever!!!!
 
This Conan movement has gotten huge. Adult Swim announced "We're with Conan" on one of their commercials. Also, Google "Expedia" and read the Sponsored Link in the yellow box.

Hopefully, our Coconite soldiers give 'em hell at the rallies today :bonodrum:


<--- I've had this avatar for years, btw :p Big fan.
 
Reports saying NBC will keep all of Conan's material(characters, skits, etc), so no more 'In The Year 3000', 'Conando', etc.

Apparently Triumph might be an exception, because some are saying that Triumph actually belongs to Robert Smigel and not NBC.

Does this mean the end of the masturbating bear?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
YouTube - Masturbating bear
 
I rarely watch late night television anymore, so I hadn't seen any of Conan on the Tonight show. With all the uproar, I went back and watched a few episodes. It's surprisingly unfunny. Doing his own thing is probably best for him.
 
Late Show Video - Jeff Zucker Top Ten - CBS.com

Homer-is-with-Coco-1.jpg
 
This is supposed to be his last week.

I think he will tone it down a bit.

To protect his 35 million dollar parting gift. (and the stipulations, therein)
 
^ Yeah, that announcement is very interesting to watch in light of all this shit going on. I'd like to give Jay the benefit of the doubt and believe him when he said all that stuff about friendships being ruined and how he doesn't want that to happen again. But it is easy to cast Jay as the villain in all this, even though that might not be entirely the case.

Has Jay made a public statement about this whole ordeal yet? Maybe it really is the just the higher ups at NBC that are putting the screws to Conan and Jay didn't want it to go down like this. I don't know.
 
He has made a few public statements on it. Essentially, he's trying to come off as a good guy who's just trying to do what the company wants him to do and that he hasn't done anything wrong.
 
I thought maybe I should address this. At least give you my view of what has been going on here at NBC. Oh, let’s start in 2004. 2004 I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him ‘The Tonight Show.’ I said, ‘well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’ They said, ‘we know that, but we don’t think you can sustain that.’ I said, ‘okay. How about until I fall to number two, then you fire me?’ ‘No, we made this decision.’ I said, ‘that’s fine.’ Don’t blame Conan O’Brien. Nice guy, good family guy, great guy. He and I have talked and not a problem since then. That’s what managers and people do, they try to get something for their clients. I said, ‘I’ll retire just to avoid what happened the last time.’ Okay.

So time goes by and we stay number one up until the day we leave. We hand - (applause)-No, no. Okay, but I’m leaving before my contract is out. About six to eight months early. So before I could go anywhere else, I would be at least a year or 18 months before I could go and do a show somewhere else. I said to NBC, ‘would you release me from my contract.’ They said, ‘we want to keep you here.’ Okay. What are your ideas? They said, ‘how about primetime?’ I said, ‘that will never work.’ No, no, we want to put you on at 10:00. We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10:00. Look at these studies showing Jay’s chin at 10:00. People will go crazy. Didn’t seem like a good idea at the time. I said, ‘alright, can I keep my staff?’ There are 175 people that work here. I said, ‘can I keep my staff?’ Yes, you can. Let’s try it. We guarantee you two years on the air, guaranteed.

Now for the first four or five months against original shows like “CSI” you’ll get killed, but in the spring and summer when the reruns come, that’s when you’ll pick up. Okay, great. I agree to that.

Four months go by, we don’t make it. Meanwhile, Conan’s show during the summer, we’re not on, was not doing well. The great hope was that we would help him. Well, we didn’t help him any, okay. They come and go, ‘this show isn’t working. We want to let you go.’ Can you let me out of my contract? No, you’re still a valuable asset to this company. How valuable can I be? You fired me twice. How valuable can I be? Okay. So then, the affiliates are not happy. The affiliates are the ones that own the TV stations. They’re the ones that sort of makes the decisions, they’re not happy with your performance and Conan is not doing well at 11:30. I said, ‘what’s your idea?’ They said, ‘well, look, how about you do a half hour show at 11:30?’ Now, where I come from, when your boss gives you a job and you don’t do it well, I think we did a good job here, but we didn’t’ get the ratings, so you get humbled. I said, ‘okay, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but okay. What do you want to do with Conan?’ We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps “The Tonight Show” does all that, he gets the whole hour. I said, okay. You think Conan will go for that? Yes, yes. (laughter) Almost guarantee you. I said okay. Shake hands, that’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal.

Next thing I see Conan has a story in the paper saying he doesn’t want to do that. They come back to me and they say if he decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back? I go, ‘yeah, I’ll take the show back. If that’s what he wants to do. This way, we keep our people working, fine.’ So that’s pretty much where we are. It looks like we might be back at 11:30, I’m not sure. I don’t know. (applause) I don’t know. But through all of this - through all of this, Conan O’Brien has been a gentleman. He’s a good guy. I have no animosity towards him. This is all business. If you don’t get the ratings, they take you off the air. I think you know this town, you can do almost anything. You get ratings they keep you. I wasn't getting the ratings. He wasn't getting the ratings. That was NBC’s solution. It didn’t work. So we might have an answer for you tomorrow. So, we’ll see. That’s basically where it is.

Leno's comments.
 
He also could have refused to take the Tonight Show back from Conan, couldn't he? I don't think he needs the money. But I do think that NBC execs are to blame.
 
He also could have refused to take the Tonight Show back from Conan, couldn't he? I don't think he needs the money. But I do think that NBC execs are to blame.
He originally claimed that he "wanted to go out on top." He could have, you know, just fucking retired when his reign with the Tonight Show ended.
 
Leno's version of the story sounds legitimate to me. If anyone was disingenuous through this thing, it appears to be NBC. Leno was willing to walk, but they wouldn't let him out of the contract. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

Just a fucked-up situation all around.
 
i can't help but think this whole ordeal will have a "Family Guy" type result for Conan.
 
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