Alas, I have seen this shit before...
Man, that whole late night tv feud is getting messy and ugly, isn't it? Seems like only yesterday we were witnessing a big frufru over whether Jay Leno or David Letterman was supposed to take over the Tonight Show.
Here's Jay Leno giving his take on the situation, which I for one am willing to believe. Networks are so fucking neurotic it's unreal, and so paranoid about ratings that they'll shoot themselves in the foot out of sheer panic at the mere thought that a successful show might drop a point in the ratings at some vague point in the future. When I first heard that Leno was quitting the show, I remember thinking what a mistake it was; that both he and his version of the show had a lot of good years still left in them. Plus I thought it was a ratings hit, so wtf?? Turns out I was right on both counts, and that the 'retirement' was NBC's idea, not Leno's.
I can only guess they were trying to make The Tonight Show 'edgier' and more 'hip', when that's never what it was to begin with: it's always been the old workhorse, and folks like Conan and Letterman and Jimmy Fallon were the coltish young upstarts what the young kids today liked. The lesson here: if you've got a hit, let it be what it is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
On the other hand, Leno seems to have been at ground zero in both these ugly disputes, and the whole 'it's just business' excuse has been used before: namely, by MIchael Jackson trying to defend his indefensibly out-bidding Paul McCartney for the rights to McCartney's own damn back catalogue. Plus, it hardly needs to be said, but no one's totally innocent in show business. So I don't think Leno is 100% blameless here...but neither do I think he deserves the venom Jimmy Kimmell has been spewing at him over the past few days. Really, JK...even if he'd totally masterminded the whole thing? You don't act that way when you're a guest in someone else's house (or show). Way to make yourself look like a prickish ill-mannered little jerk (especially when the feud has absolutely noting to do with you or your show - you're on ABC, dude, wtf???).
Whoever was to blame, though, I feel bad for Conan O'Brien. He's the one who's really getting shafted here, and I hope he finds another network that won't treat him quite so much like a dispensable pawn in their ridiculous neurotic ratings game.
EDIT: Hee! Conan pimps himself out on Craigslist. Classic.
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