Unfortunately for viewers, end is near for bloody late-night cage match

PASADENA -- Somewhere on the shattered late-night-TV landscape, agents and executives were trying to negotiate the final strokes of agreements that would leave everyone Thanking God It was Friday.

After a week in which the disputes between NBC and its two Tonight-Show-hungry hosts, Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno seemed to spiral faster and deeper downward with each passing hour, reports started surfacing late in the week that an end might finally be near.

The Hollywood-gossip website TMZ first reported early Thursday afternoon that NBC had reached a deal that would put Leno back into the 10:35 p.m. (Winnipeg time) slot, beginning after the Winter Olympics, and that O'Brien's last night on The Tonight Show would be Jan. 22.

Immediate denials and counter-rumours followed, but by day's end well-informed showbiz blogger Nikki Finke (www.deadline.com/hollywood) was reporting that a deal was close and that Leno would, indeed be getting The Tonight Show while O'Brien would be getting a big pile of severance cash and freedom from the network that gave him Tonight and then took it away seven months later.

Early Friday morning, Deadline/Hollywood was reporting that all parties hoped a deal could be done by end of the business day, but that was only likely to happen if NBC buckled to pretty much all of O'Brien's demands -- including retracting any threats issued by top NBC/Universal boss Jeff Zucker -- who's emerging as the Darth Vader in this war of late-night stars -- to enforce contract penalties that could keep Conan from taking his act to another TV network for three years or more.

The betting here in Hollywood seems to be that O'Brien will get everything he wants, except, of course, what he wanted the most -- to be host of The Tonight Show at 10:35 p.m. on NBC.

With that in mind, O'Brien used his Thursday-night monologue to announce that he has put his Tonight Show up for sale on Craigslist -- "4 SALE -- BARELY USED LATE NIGHT SHOW -- MAKE ME AN OFFER", including such details as "Designed for 11:35 (EST) but can be easily moved" and "Buyer must honor Barry Manilow booking next Thursday."

Meanwhile, the most noteworthy moments on Thursday in the ongoing monologue war came on Leno's show, when Kimmel made an appearance and unexpectedly lambasted Leno.

Leno had invited Kimmel to do his 10 @ 10 question-and-answer segment, and introduced him with "Let's welcome the very funny Jimmy Kimmel," but could not have been all that amused by what followed.

The first few questions got pretty generic answers from Kimmel, but when Leno asked his late-night competitor to describe the best prank he's ever pulled, he said, "I told a guy that, 'Five years from now, I'm gonna give you my show,' and then when the five years came, I gave it to him, and then took it back almost instantly."

When Leno asked if Kimmel ever orders anything off the TV, Kimmel quipped, "Like NBC ordered your show off the TV?", and when Jay asked Las-Vegas-raised Jimmy what his record is for the number of lap-dances received in one night, the answer was, "Strippers, I don't like in general, because you have this phony relationship with them for money, similar to that of when you and Conan were together on The Tonight Show, passing the torch."

The Q&A was savage, ending with Kimmel imploring Leno, "Listen, Jay, Conan and I have children; all you have to take care of is cars. I mean, we've got lives to lead here. You've got $800 million -- for God's sake, leave our shows alone."

Here on the TV press tour, the sentiments ran decidedly pro-O'Brien, as well. Rosie O'Donnell sided with Conan and said Jay should have exited the late-night landscape gracefully:

"(The Tonight Show) is a franchise that has been 60 years with NBC, and if you're privileged enough to be asked to drive the bus, you should say 'Thank you,' and drive it to the best of your ability, and then when it's time for them to hire a new driver, you should say, 'Thank you for allowing me to drive this for as long as I did,' and pass the keys to the new guy with the red hair and not try to flatten his tires before he even gets going."

Later, during the same set of HBO-focused interviews, Ricky Gervais -- who guested on O'Brien's Tonight Show earlier this week, heaped praise on the embattled host.

"I thought Conan was amazing," said Gervais. "I thought the monologue he did, under the circumstances, was one of the funniest, most biting monologues I've seen on a chat show for years."

Stay tuned.

For more TV-press-tour fun, visit my blog, CouchBoy Chronicles, at www.winnipegfreepress.com .

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 16, 2010 C2