CONAN O’BRIEN - is one step closer to a deal with Fox, with CEO Rupert Murdoch saying, “If the programming people can show us we can do it and make a profit, we would do it in a flash.” Conan is real popular with college students, so maybe one good way to make money would be to have Andy sell weed out behind the studio. (radar)
JAMES CAMERON - doesn’t think ‘Avatar’ will win the Oscar for best picture. “I believe it’s very unlikely that we will win because I made such a jackass out of myself last time.” He also says ‘The Hurt Locker’, directed by his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, is the biggest threat. Then he added, “It’s good if you don’t mind watching movies in 2D, like some kind of stoneage fag.” (imdb)
LOST - This flight may cost more, but I have a bad feeling about that Quantas one. I don’t wanna risk it. (college humor)
SARAH HARDING - is a member of the UK girl-group Girls Aloud, and she’s been in Barbados all week modeling different bikinis. None of them were that great. In hindsight I maybe could have hyped these up a little better. (splash)
BRAD PITT - now that he may be single again, Jennifer Aniston wants him to know she’ll take him back. But she won’t beg. Unless he wants her too, and then she’ll crawl across the floor on her hands and knees, groveling and pleading as if her very life depended on it. (star)
JAY LENO - told Oprah that he hasn’t spoken to Conan since all the Tonight Show drama began. “I haven’t talked to him through all this … it didn’t seem appropriate … I don’t know. I think it — let things cool down and maybe we’ll talk, you know.” He explained that a face-to-face talk went against his natural sneaky, back-stabbing instincts. Then, while he and Oprah talked, he gave the signal for someone to break into her car. (us.com)
CHARLIE SHEEN - His wife Brooke Mueller, the one he tried to murder on Christmas day, is in rehab for an alleged drug addiction. Let’s just hope her weakness won’t sully his good name. (radar)
SHANELLE - Is there some reason I can’t get hot girls to do this kind of thing for Tyler? If so that reason can suck it because it’s standing between me and my happiness. (foundry music)
LINDSAY LOHAN - The issue of Loaded magazine that she posed for essentially naked is now out (scans here). As much as I’d love to make fun of her, she’s skinny with red hair and huge breasts. Half my hard drive is devoted to those very things. If I act like I wouldn’t have sex with her, it sends a dangerous message to my penis. (loaded)
While most of the bits about Conan spending millions on new characters in his final days as ‘Tonight Show’ host were just a joke, one thing that was very real was the tab he was running up by playing famous songs as the intro music for guests. Those songs really do have incredibly high royalty fees and NBC really does have to pay them. First it was the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction” for Adam Sandler, then on Friday…
When Tom Hanks entered from behind a curtain to go to his seat, the band played The Beatles “Lovely Rita,” which costs NBC half a million dollars.
Questlove, who is the drummer for The Roots on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” almost instantly tweeted, “yo i hate spoiling but i will have you know that walk on song we just heard was half a milli. i know cause i got the list rate at nbc and tom’s walkon music on conan is on my “restricted” list—wow a $500,000 walkon song lol.”
This is why when I do talk shows I come out to ‘Ava Maria’. It’s in the public domain so no one has to pay any royalties. Also I think it would be nice if more people thought I was a messenger from God.
With just two shows left on his run as host of ‘the Tonight Show’, Conan O’Brien is introducing a few new characters to join beloved favorites like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, PimpBot 5000, and the Masturbating Bear.
This new character is a racehorse who rebroadcasts NFL games without the expressed written consent of the commissioner. Hopefully there will be more tonight. Another funny character would be someone in a diaper and big foam cowboy hat, and he throws red diamonds into the studio audience. And then he goes to New York and buys the condo right next door to NBC chairman Jeff Zucker and starts a prostitution ring.
MISCHA BARTON - Is being sued because she can’t pay the monthly $7000 rent on her New York apartment. George Clooney is just givin away new buildings, maybe she can get one of those. (huff post)
JAY LENO - will officially return as Tonight Show host on March 1. NBC says, “The program will continue to showcase many of the features that made Leno America’s late-night leader.” Wow. They really know how to hype someone up. I think I’ll watch it on my 13-inch black and white TV. Change is scary. NBC and I see no reason to rock the boat by trying anything new. (new york times)
HAYDEN PANETIERRE - dyed her hair red, making her 100 percent hotter, because girls with red hair are fuckin hot. Also her shirt says, “Fuck Cancer”. Oooo, whaaat?!? Oh No She Di-ent!!! Cancer is so owned! (inf daily)
Just seven months after he took the job as host of the Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien and NBC agreed early this morning on a buy-out for the remainder of his contract, which will allow NBC to replace Conan with Jay Leno. The New York Times says…
The deal is worth a reported $44 million.
Network spokeswoman Allison Gollust confirmed the deal early Thursday but did not offer any other details. Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that O’Brien will get $32 million and that the network agreed to pay his staff $12 million in severance.
And to make sure they pissed away as much money as possible, NBC caved on the “mitigation” clause. If that were still in place, and Conan had signed a deal with Fox paying him 25M a year for example, then NBC would only have been responsible for 7 of the 32M. Now he gets 32 no matter what.
So, to recap, Conan hosted a very successful and popular talk show on NBC for 16 years, but then his show moved 60 minutes earlier and NBC decided he forgot how to host a talk show. Then they freaked the fuck out and panicked like some kind of woman. By some accounts this will cost NBC $250 million, partially because of lost ad revenue but mostly between moving Conan, firing Conan, hiring Jimmy Fallon, and creating a show for Leno. It’s fiscal leadership like this that took NBC from a $1.8 billion profit 8 years ago to a $600 million loss this year. Horny 16-year-olds think about the consequences of their actions better than this. You could take Steve Jobs, chase him with a bear, and he still would have figured this all out better than NBC did.
