America’s late night talk show crisis is almost an end with Conan O’Brien set to get the sack from the Tonight Show at the end of this week for the sooky Jay Leno who has decided he wants his old job back, and apparenlty has some born right to host the Tonight Show.


The whole saga has been covered to the point of exhaustion in the US media, with Conan walking away with a cool $45 million and also likely to go to the FOX network for a brand new show. For his part David Letterman’s joy over NBC’s troubles has bubbled over in to outright self-indulgent schadenfreude in his opening monologues, largely because he was overlooked for the job himself more than a decade ago.

The upside is that someone as funny as Conan O’Brien, fresher and funnier than both Leno and Letterman for many years, has an entire week left to get back at the people giving him the sack. So what do you do? Spend all their money of course.

“For the rest of the week, we’re going to introduce new comedy bits that aren’t so much funny as they are crazy expensive,” Conan told the audience last night before unveiling a Bugatti Veyron in a mouse costume with the Rolling Stone’s “Satisfaction” playing in the background.

“Let me ask you a question. Is this appropriate music for a car that looks like a mouse? No! Does it add anything at all to this comedy bit? No, it doesn’t! Is it crazy expensive to play on the air — not to mention the rights to re-air this clip on the Internet?”

Yep, kinda like this.

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25 comments

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    • Albie says:

      11:55am | 22/01/10

      Haha nice Leo. Conan is way funnier than Leno - he wrote some of the best Simpsons episodes!!

      I hope Americans follow him to his new show. It’s all such a ridiculous situation.

    • H of SA says:

      12:14pm | 22/01/10

      When I saw the title I had hoped this article would contain a youtube clip where someone had editied in Conan the Barbarian lopping his boss’ head off during a performace planning meeting or some such…....you got me too excited Leo! (awesome name btw)

    • Steve Smith says:

      12:18pm | 22/01/10

      That skit didn’t make it to the NBC website, probably to save a few bucks. Still, Conan is going out with a bang!

      Now to find out why Foxtel showed a rerun of The Tonight Show last night instead of the episode with the Bugatti Veyron Mouse skit… not to mention, the return of the Masterbating bear!

    • Mike says:

      12:31pm | 22/01/10

      When he sets fire to $1.5m dollars in cash then I’ll find it funny. Otherwise all he’s done is spend a couple of hundred bucks on hiring a Veyron, buying some big mouse ears and attaching what look like broomsticks to the front of the car.

    • James says:

      12:31pm | 22/01/10

      As long as Conan keeps his show’s characters when he moves to Fox (The Masturbating Bear, The Fed-Ex Pope, Preparation H Raymond, etc..) I think all should be well.

    • Baswell says:

      12:59pm | 22/01/10

      Mike, the expensive bit would have been to license the Rolling Stones song for use on the show.

      And that license likely was only for 1 airing in the US, hence it’s not on the website nor in international versions.

    • ChrisD says:

      01:53pm | 22/01/10

      Best ever.

    • Mike. says:

      03:17pm | 22/01/10

      What a country!

    • Bill says:

      04:05pm | 22/01/10

      And if you believe that this isn’t a set up to get more publicity…

    • Chris says:

      04:30pm | 22/01/10

      What would be super mega awesome is if Mick Jagger said “Hey Conan, keep playing that song all week and we’ll send the cash straight to Haiti. Oh and ps - here’s Paul McCartney’s number, give him a call. He might have some old tracks lying around you could use.”

    • Unemployed says:

      05:36pm | 22/01/10

      When I was made redundant 2 weeks before X-mas, I asked if I could get a cabcharge to get myself and my box of personal gear home. With this I gave the taxi driver double the fee and might not have got the last laugh, but got a wry smile in any case.

    • Sean says:

      07:34pm | 22/01/10

      Clever marketing. It is Jay Leno’s car you fools! He loaned it for the skit idiots cheering as they believe it

    • S.L says:

      06:26pm | 23/01/10

      Please Please Please let me host the tonight show for nothing! As long as I’m booted after 12 months with $45,000,000 severence pay who gives a toss who takes over from me. Was this guy actually born with the name Conan? What were his parents thinking? I know nothing of Conan O’Brien but know Jay Leno is a self made man and did a reasonable job of replacing Johnny Carson for the 17 or so years he did. As a car buff I know more about Leno off camera than infront of it and know he has more money than he needs so why would he upset the applecart and push for his old job back? Does Conan have a new challenge up his sleeve and the network are kissing Leno’s backside because they can’t think of a replacement at such short notice? We’ll never know!

    • Coco says:

      12:36pm | 24/01/10

      Dear Internet,

      Why do people who confess to knowing nothing of Conan, complain about Conan?

    • Craig says:

      11:37pm | 23/01/10

      Are people now going to run to stores to buy a Bugatti Veyron?

    • S.L says:

      01:45pm | 24/01/10

      Dear Coco where am I complaining about Conan O’Brien? I made a comment on his name otherwise I’m writing about the the situation where no one knows for sure why it’s being reported Leno might be back in his old seat. Go back to sleep…........

    • AJ of Here says:

      07:51pm | 25/01/10

      The point is not the car, Sean. The point is the background music, which probably cost more than the car…

    • Rocket Surgeon says:

      09:32pm | 26/01/10

      When did American media become so followed in Australia?

    • Jimbo says:

      11:04am | 27/01/10

      about 1956

    • bob says:

      10:09am | 27/01/10

      Craig Ferguson from the Late Late Show is awesome

    • Jimbo says:

      10:57am | 27/01/10

      He has commented next day that idiots in the press who don’t understand humor actually believed he was spending that money and not performing a skit. Sounds like you fell for it too.

    • Joe says:

      03:56pm | 27/01/10

      Awesome….but….it would have been awesomer if Conan was actually going to be doing it tough after being dumped. It would have been a proper David and Goliath scenario then. But he is getting a 45 MILLION DOLLAR PAYOUT. Getting revenge because youre getting screwed into 45 million notes, is a little funny tasty. I’m already regretting this post. It was way cool.

    • Merryn says:

      05:32pm | 27/01/10

      S.L. - I am an Aussie living in America. Let me tell you about Conan O’Brien from my perspective. I’ve always preferred Jay Leno - until now. My husband always preferred Conan O’Brien.
      Jay Leno announced 2-3 years ago that he was intending to retire from The Tonight Show, and Conan O’Brien (who had been promised the hosting role on Leno’s retirement for YEARS) continued hosting his late night show until his promised role came available.
      Leno then decided that he still wanted to host a show, so they made “The Jay Leno Show”. Same format, different name, different time slot.

      Conan KILLED in the ratings as host of The Tonight Show. He was wiping the floor with everything else. But poor Jay Leno was failing in the different time slot. Same segments he used to use… just didn’t work later at night.

      So, rather than can the dude with the bad ratings, they can the guy with the fantastic ratings to replace him with the original host who had “retired”. The network went back on their word to someone who was doing a damn fine job.

      That’s the story with Conan.

    • Phillip Molly Malone says:

      11:12am | 28/01/10

      A) if you haven’t already, watch the movie “the late shift” about the Letterman/Leno wars over the tonight show when carsen left.
      b) I am sure everyone relises that this is just a skit and doesn’t cost that much
      c) I wonder if NBC were dumb enough to not rule out Internet Content in there settlements “not till September” clause. Wouldn’t it be great if Conan did an internet only show in that time!

 

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@mramsey37 I guess that's what everyone thought. I've been surveying MPs on it all week which is the only reason it clicked with me

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@mark_travers radical thinking!

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@mramsey37 Project was this week, only just found out about it. Amended it to say coming in the same week. Surprised no pick up til now

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