I assume it's the backlash on Leno taking effect with the public. I know it's keeping me away from tuning into him, but I am also in the camp that find his show terrible to begin with.

I did tune into Conan though. I'll have to catch the online videos from Letterman and Kimmel later. I love the smell of bridge-burning in the morning!

I did turn on Leno last night, then tuned out after about 20 minutes. Mostly to see if he would say anything. I watched both Conan and Letterman for probably the second or third time in a year or so.

So they would pay out the rest of leno's contract?

The timing was likely a bit soon for him to backtrack and try something on last night's show, but he might have something to say in his monologue tonight after the thorough ribbing, tearing, and bashing. I sat kinda slack-jawed after Ferguson's quote about the "lying rat bastards".

Yup. I tuned into Leno just to see if he would say anything, but I gave up after 10 minutes.

Conan was fantastic last night. I've recorded him from the beginning, but really wanted to tune in last night.

Some people have mentioned that Conan's numbers are lower than Leno's when he had The Tonight Show. Putting aside the fact that Conan's only been host for 7 months, my question is, if Leno isn't providing a good lead-in to the local news, couldn't that also be affecting Conan?

Yes, that's been discussed. It's the strength of NBC's overall lineup that is screwing with numbers. NBC hasn't had a bona-fide hit in years. If they did, this wouldn't be much of an issue as it is now.

Stop using logic. These are television execs we're talking about here.

A lot of people (not so much here, but elsewhere on the net) are trying to defend Leno saying that the network executives are the only ones to blame.

Leno was the one who, back in 2004, agreed to leave in 2009. If he didn't want to do that, he never should have signed the contract.

Leno had 17 years as the host of the Tonight Show. Did he really think he would last for 30 years like Johnny?

The whole point of The Jay Leno Show was try try something different, do an experiment. Well, sometimes experiments fail. The 10pm slot didn't work, too freakin' bad for you.

Maybe Leno didn't start this mess, but he could put a stop to it anytime he wants.

Jeez, don't these people have and use their clicker? I sure as hell do.

I need to find out where I can find this and the "hope" one in poster size!

http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/13/conan-...n-the-facebook

Or Jay, since he looks really bad.

I really have a hard time believing this... why would he agree to leave when he was arguably at his prime, crushing Letterman in the ratings, and wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. I'm no Leno fan, but is there actual proof of this? Conan fans seem to continually bring this up as if it were a fact. Link?

I always thought that NBC picked Conan over Jay (in 2004) because his contract was up so he would stay at NBC and not leave for another network but they regretted the decision so they gave Jay the 10PM slot.

2004 report

You're seem to be right that Leno may not have agreed to leave, but his contract was set to expire in 2009. Leno certainly knew that. If he wanted to stay longer, why didn't he try to do something about it during that 5 year period?

The timeline I saw the other day is Leno signed a five year contract in 2004, and then NBC went and negotiated a new contract with Conan and that's when the Tonight Show came into the dealings.

So my guess is at the time he was signing his contract, Leno didn't realize it his retirement was coming into the picture. But things seem to have gotten worked out before the Conan deal was announced.

Conan had been stuck doing Late Night for 11 or 12 years at that point, right? Letterman had only done it for 11 years. Can you blame Conan for wanting more, or at least a commitment from NBC that they'd give him The Tonight Show?

So if he pressures NBC to give him some sort of guarantee, they would have had to go to Leno to work out an amicable deal. If all 3 parties agreed to 5 years, that was the deal. If NBC wanted Conan and Leno, someone would have to get shafted.

First it was Leno, but seemingly he agreed to it.

Then Leno and NBC announce this new PoS show at 10pm and everyone realized how big of a dick move it was to Conan. But they placated a lot of that with the guarantee that Conan and The Tonight Show would get first crack at all the big names in the area at any given time.

So NBC gets what they wanted, in theory. They get to keep Conan, they refresh The Tonight Show, they keep Leno, they lose 5 expensive hours of scripted shows a week. It was win-win-win for them.

Then everything went south because they were greedy and short-sighted. They're handling it like assholes and if I were Leno, I sure as shit wouldn't want to get the show back under these tainted circumstances.

Bottom line, though, Leno did most definitely agree in 2004 to leave. What changed between then and the creation of his new show, I don't know. Either he or NBC or both wanted him to stay.

Well, Leno's public statements at the time indicated he was on board with the idea and going along with it. If he wasn't, and still signed the contract and supported it publicly, that makes him kind of two-faced, doesn't it? If he didn't agree with the idea at the time, he should have said something then.

Actually if you were Leno you wouldn't care obviously.

Dick move Leno. Dick move.

Seriously, why can't he just move to a show on Speed talking about classic cars? Maybe help people restore old cars they're sentimentally attached to.

Call it Lenovate My Ride. They can have that, I want no royalties. I just want CoCo And the SlipNuts back.

everything that I've read indicates that Leno was on board with the 2009 retirement, but began to have second thoughts in 2007.

Anyone see Kimmel last night? I dont' normally watch him for more than a few minutes but he was made up like Leno doing his show like Leno. Pretty bizarre.


<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AWmgbKu3f7I&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AWmgbKu3f7I&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

Shirt ships Jan 25th, but I'm still thinking about getting one:

http://www.bustedtees.com/imwithcoco...ign=ImWithCoco

I might actually buy one of those shirts, too.