I wonder if Jay knew what he was getting himself into. Go Jimmy!

"Listen Jay, Conan and I have children; all you have to take care of is cars. I mean we have lives to lead here; you've got $800 million, for god's sakes — leave our shows alone."

Oh my fucking goodness, this might just be THE most memorable (non-political) smackdown I've seen on late night. How Leno could go home and polish his 300 Ferraris after that without a debilitating sense of shame is beyond me.

That. was brilliant!

Jimmy's with Coco!

Does anyone have a short summary of what happened for us non-US citizens? did Leno steal back his original (tonight show) airtime from Conan?

That reminded me of Jon Stewart's smack-down of Tucker Carlson. Awesome stuff.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
Does anyone have a short summary of what happened for us non-US citizens? did Leno steal back his original (tonight show) airtime from Conan?


Here's gawker for you, hope it's not region blocked. Watch the second video, it's 95% the same thing, plus, they have some of the best quotes written down.

that's some high *quality smacktalk!

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by SlipperyPete.

I just fell in love with Jimmy Kimmel.

Beat. Down. Jimmy and Conan are handling this whole thing with a lot of snarky class...

all I can say is Brilliant!

Absolutely BRUTAL. Jay had NO COMEBACKS. AT ALL. How'd he let himself get walked all over like that? Not a very clever guy when put on the spot, geez. Then again, wtf can he really say in defense... hah ha that was great Jimmy!

Wow, that guy is quick as a fox

>> ^EDD:
"Listen Jay, Conan and I have children; all you have to take care of is cars. I mean we have lives to lead here; you've got $800 million, for God's sakes — leave our shows alone."
Oh my fucking goodness, this might just be THE most memorable (non-political) smackdown I've seen on late night. How Leno could go home and polish his 300 Ferraris after that without a debilitating sense of shame is beyond me.


As we need to be worried about Kimmel/Conan bank accounts.

There should be a *Pwned channel

>> ^EDD:
"Listen Jay, Conan and I have children; all you have to take care of is cars. I mean we have lives to lead here; you've got $800 million, for God's sakes — leave our shows alone."
Oh my fucking goodness, this might just be THE most memorable (non-political) smackdown I've seen on late night. How Leno could go home and polish his 300 Ferraris after that without a debilitating sense of shame is beyond me.


I'm sure he doesn't feel TOO bad, after all Kimmel and O'Brien are multi-millionaires too, it's not like their kids will ever go hungry.

I think my friend has it right.... it's all publicity, nothing's gonna change

Jay asked for it. The first few questions were definitely geared toward putting Kimmel on the spot.

I personally have nothing against Jay Leno but if I had to make a choice, I'd go with Conan. Jay had his turn at the Tonight Show; time to give up the reigns.

There's no way that Leno wasn't in on this, and there' no way Kimmel didn't get these question in advance. His jokes weren't ad-libbing, and Leno's questions were practially written to elicit these kinds of responses. I think NBC is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. They know this fracas is ratings gold, and they're trying to milk it.

That said, it was a good bit.

You can see where Kimmel decided to get nasty. Something changed in his eyes when Jay looked at his watch and said the 12@12 wouldn't work for him. That's when Kimmel unleashes the first burn, and there's no turning back. I. Love. it.

I was watching last nights or the night befores Conan, and he was just RIPPING Leno and NBC all over the place. I can't imagine they have that good of a sense of humor, he was nailing them every which way. So I want to believe that Leno wasn't in on it and that Jimmy was maybe supposed to rib him a bit and went hog wild.

>> ^EDD:
How Leno could go home and polish his 300 Ferraris after that without a debilitating sense of shame is beyond me.


He hasn't used any of his Tonight Show earnings on his cars. He hasn't spent it at all as I understand. It seems likely he'll use it for some charities or humanitarian causes in the future, when he's got free time to make sure it gets used correctly (ala Bill Gates). Kimmel is painting Leno as a self-indulgent maniacal millionaire and I don't think there's proof to back that up.

^ How exactly does anyone know (or care) who spent which on what? Is Leno's salary all going into a blind trust of some sort? Or did he stop collecting cars when he started the Tonight Show?

Personally, I don't have any problem with Leno getting rich and spending his money however he wants. He earned it. I don't even care if he wants his old show back. I would only call him stupid for going to ten o'clock in the first place, but all the other stuff... whatever. Nothing is ever guaranteed in television. It would be just as likely that Conan would simply get fired for not increasing ratings as expected (even if it wasn't expected). TV execs are complete dicks, and every entertainer should have about a dozen backup plans if the big score doesn't work out. Complaining about it just makes you look weak.

If you can get some good jokes out of it, fine. But don't whine.

I don't know why you think Conan is whining about it. All he has said (joking aside) is that no one should feel sorry for him and that he has decided that he is just not interested in going along with the changes proposed because he feels that it's a big mistake for "The Tonight Show" franchise and if that means NBC goes on without him then so be it.>> ^MaxWilder:

If you can get some good jokes out of it, fine. But don't whine.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
There's no way that Leno wasn't in on this, and there' no way Kimmel didn't get these question in advance. His jokes weren't ad-libbing, and Leno's questions were practially written to elicit these kinds of responses. I think NBC is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. They know this fracas is ratings gold, and they're trying to milk it.
That said, it was a good bit.


It's the Seventh Sign. Winstonfield has nailed it. I can't believe all you people taken in by this. Leno's new show is tanking, so they are generating a fake three-way feud to push up ratings. Just like that last Conan "feud".

*blocked over here, by the way.

This video has been flagged as having an embed that is Region Blocked to not function in certain geographical locations - declared blocked by demon_ix.

Here's one that's not blocked.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/jimmy_kimmel_represents_team_c.html

Ouch, Painful.

How do I delete my original comment? I think I just did.

*blocked

Invocations (blocked) cannot be called by Gabe_b because Gabe_b is not privileged - sorry.

>> ^BoneyD:
Here's one that's not blocked.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/jimmy_kimmel_repr
esents_team_c.html


Woohoo, thanks!

You can see the internal struggle in his face before he decides to go for it. That took some courage. Right on, Jimmy!

I'm not usually one of those "fake!" guys, but I think this was scripted.

I don't think this was scripted. However, I do believe Leno told him to just go for it.

The questions, especially towards the end, were too leading.

The spat is good for NBC, if you believe the rubric "any publicity is good publicity."

One thing that is missing from this whole spat is HOW Conan got the show to start with. He pushed out Leno by demanding the Tonight Show within five years of his last contract. That is a pretty low move. Carson was allowed to retire when he wanted.

So maybe some of this is payback by Leno.

The whole thing is stupid. Craig Ferguson taking the high road sums it up for me. He's a class act in my book, even with all his fart jokes.

Leno's hands aren't exactly clean. It was Leno's people that planted a story in the NY Times reporting that the NBC executives wanted Carson out and Leno in. Carson was humiliated by the story and took it very personal. As a result he announced his retirement earlier then expected instead of Oct 1992 which would have been Carson's 30th anniversary. Carson had made it publicly known before all this that he wanted to stick it out at least to his 30th anniversary. Leno not only denied knowing anything about it but denied that any of his people had anything to do with it. Even Carson and his people knew that the story came from Leno's people but Leno was still in denial.>> ^bareboards2:
One thing that is missing from this whole spat is HOW Conan got the show to start with. He pushed out Leno by demanding the Tonight Show within five years of his last contract. That is a pretty low move. Carson was allowed to retire when he wanted.
So maybe some of this is payback by Leno.
The whole thing is stupid. Craig Ferguson taking the high road sums it up for me. He's a class act in my book, even with all his fart jokes.

^Oh. I didn't know that!

So nobody has clean hands.

Jeesh. I knew show biz was cut throat. I hadn't realized how much

Yeah, it's all out there. I think they're in a 'make lemonade' kinda situation now.

For me, I'm amazed how much criticism of their own networks they can get away with. Here in Oz that would never happen.

Yay Late Night!