MTV Newsroom › NBC

Conan O'Brien Will Probably Cash A Big Check And Exit 'The Tonight Show' This Week

Posted 1/18/10 10:00 am EST by in Television


Over the weekend, while the Hollywood community was briefly distracted by the Golden Globes (where "Avatar" began its march toward award-winning immortality), the team of lawyers looking to extract Conan O'Brien from NBC were hard at work, and it looks like the deal is in its final stages. According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, O'Brien will make his exit from "The Tonight Show" to the tune of close to $40 million. The package includes walk-away money for Conan's longtime executive producer and the crew members of "The Tonight Show," many of whom uprooted their lives and followed O'Brien from New York to Los Angeles when he assumed the job seven months ago. Jay Leno will return to the time slot he never really wanted to leave in the first place: At 11:35, as the host of "The Tonight Show."

So we are suddenly thrust into Conan O'Brien's final week as the host of "The Tonight Show" after less than a year on the job (his final show will be this Friday, January 22). According to the report, O'Brien will not have a non-compete rider attached to his severance deal, which means that we could see Conan back on TV sooner rather than later. Or he could just take some time off to enjoy himself and plot his revenge on NBC execs and Leno.

Either way, he has to make this final week count. While there probably won't be much ballyhoo over his final show on Friday (especially considering the nature of his exit and how public it has been), there is still plenty of time to pull out all the stops. Conan should make sure all of his beloved characters — Masturbating Bear, Triumph and the like — get a place in the sun before the plug is pulled. And considering Leno had Conan on as his final guest on "The Tonight Show" as a way to hand off the late-night torch, Conan should really try to book Jay for his show on Friday and then just stare at him uncomfortably for an hour. The late-night wars have come to a close for now, but the next chapter is on the horizon, and we'll be there, sort of groggy and looking for laughs.

Tags , , , ,

Conan O'Brien Rips NBC During 'The Tonight Show' Monologue

Posted 1/12/10 8:30 am EST by in Television


With the news that Jay Leno would be returning to his old late-night slot after the Olympics, "The Tonight Show" host Conan O'Brien is being muscled out of his place after only a handful of months on the air. But the talk show veteran is not about to take it lying down. While he made sideways references to the situation at NBC on his show last Friday (January 8), his Monday night (January 11) monologue was devoted to shots at both the network and Leno.

"Good evening everybody. I'm Conan O'Brien, the new host of 'Last Call with Carson Daly,'" the comedian said as he opened his monologue last night, kicking off eight minutes of scathing commentary. O'Brien then busted out his Leno impression, joked that he was already stealing office supplies and took pleasure in the fact that NBC announced that they're going to lose $200 million on the Olympics.

In the evening's best moment, O'Brien ran down a series of alternatives for himself (he did not bring up any of the suggestions we had yesterday). Those alternatives included "Go to ABC and star in a male redhead version of 'Cougar Town' called 'Redwolf Village,'" "Convince NBC to let me keep this time slot if I can gain 10 pounds of chin" and "Leave television altogether and work in a classier business with better people, like hard core porn."

Even when the show moved on to other things, the time slot war remained an elephant in the room. In a really funny bit, Conan introduced his new Na'vi assistant (who he hired in order to capitalize on the success of "Avatar"). That upset his "Twlight"-themed assistant (a "sexy brooding vampire" named Cody), who thought that his job was being taken away from him. "He's not replacing you, he's just splitting up the job," Andy Richter told Cody.

"Yeah, you can even star a half hour later," O'Brien added. Check out O'Brien's full monologue below (it's eight minutes, but it's as solid a block of comedy as you can find right now). O'Brien is keeping his plan close to his chest, though we'll remind him that a certain singing show on Fox suddenly has an opening.

Tags , , , , ,

Kanye West's Singing On 'Saturday Night Live': What Did You Think?

Posted 12/15/08 12:15 pm EST by in Kanye West


There's the easy way, and there's Kanye's way.

Rather than staying in the platinum-dipped, award-winning lane he's already carved with his previous albums, Kanye West promised to swerve on 808s & Heartbreak, taking the bold step of trying to sing more than rap. We already know 50 Cent's not that crazy about it, and after 'Ye's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend, even more people are starting to ask if maybe Yeezy bit off more than he can croon.

Without the assistance of his near-omnipresent vocoder — which he employed more heavily during his VMA debut of "Love Lockdown" in September — to massage his vocals into a robotic smoothness, West's singing abilities were laid bare during the performance, and his vocals sometimes hit flat spots amid the spare musical accompaniment. That drew some harsh criticism from a number of Web outposts, like this and this. Gawker called it "like a quiet man doing bad karaoke" and headlined its review "Kanye West Disastrously Sings Without Digital Enhancement," but when TMZ caught up with 'Ye at the airport on Sunday, he deemed his performance "good" and he was not shy about posting the footage on his blog, where poster "neeomari" referred to the version of "Lockdown" as "hands down the greatest 'SNL' performance of all time."

So, what did you think of Kanye's singing on 'SNL'?

Tags , , ,

NBC And Jay Leno Kill The Prime-Time Network Drama -- Or At Least Critically Injure It

Posted 12/9/08 11:57 am EST by in Jay Leno, prime-time


Jay LenoBy Josh Horowitz

I'm not one for sweeping proclamations, but today, December 9, might mark the death knell for the prime-time network drama. In a matter of months, NBC will do away with their remaining 10 p.m. dramas (I hope you're sitting down, because, yes, Christian Slater's "My Own Worst Enemy" is going off the air) and replace them with a brand-new talk show hosted by Jay Leno. Yes, like a bad penny (or insufferable host) Leno will turn up once again all over the Peacock schedule. Terrified of losing the "Tonight Show" host to a competitor, NBC has convinced him to stay — not by elbowing out Conan O'Brien, who's set to take the reins of "Tonight" in May, but by bringing Leno into even more homes at an earlier hour, according to the New York Times.
Read More...

Tags , , ,

SPONSORS
AD:
©2012 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved. MTV and all related titles and logos are trademarks of Viacom International Inc.