The last week has seen the continuation of the controversy surrounding the future of "The Tonight Show."
So what's actually changed? Not that much. Conan O'Brien will still be leaving "The Tonight Show," but presumably substantially richer after settlement talks are over. Meanwhile, NBC honcho Jeff Zucker has admitted that he made a "mistake," but quickly backtracked. After being seared by Jimmy Kimmel on his own show, Leno finally spoke up for himself, saying that he knew better than NBC and that the network was treating them both unfairly. While this likely did not change many minds among Team Conan or the I'm With Coco crowd, who came out in droves Monday at rallies across the country, it did serve to highlight the business aspect of the whole shebang.
Conan has ignored the possibility of legal complications, instead electing to use his "Tonight Show" pulpit to great effect. He also posted a satirical Craigslist ad for himself in the Casual Encounters section: "Can go a whole hour (with scheduled breaks every 7-10 minutes)."
According to TMZ, the intellectual property, including infamous characters such as the Masturbatin Bear and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, created by Conan and his staff over the years is still up for debate. Odds are that NBC will cede the rights to these characters in the course of negotiation. After all, the fans who love these characters would likely not appreciate their being recycled for other purposes any more than they have been obliging about the fiasco as a whole.
The steady stream of celebrities, comics, and what have you's "weighing in" has also continued unabated. Recent commentators include Howard Stern, Rosie O'Donnell, Steve Mariucci (wait, why?), Asian Leno VS Asian Conan, and um, whatever this is. SNL took two different approaches. Seth Meyer offered a convoluted analogy to express his distaste with NBC, while another sketch was more ambiguous, leading many to wonder where Lorne Michaels stands on the issue.
