LATE NIGHT ROYAL RUMBLE

Everyone else on the Internet is talking about this, and since I'm on the Internet, I feel like adding my two cents.

Conan is getting screwed with The Tonight Show on NBC and everyone knows it. His numbers may be bad, but it's because Leno's horrible 9 pm show is killing any potential lead in he would have had. (*In Salt Lake, Leno is at 9, local news at 10 and Conan/Tonight Show at 10:35. Letterman is on at 10:35, too.*) If they'd put Law & Order reruns on five nights a week before the news, it would have done better.

The sad thing is, that NBC is basically going to force Conan to either dumb his show down so that the majority of old people that liked Jay Leno's kiss-ass attitude and easy jokes will stay tuned in after his new half-hour show that they're giving him. Either that, or Conan is going to leave altogether.

And you know who's going to offer him a truckload of money to host a late-night show? Fox. And that will be awful. Fox has no idea what to do with a late-night show as evidenced by Chevy Chase, Magic Johnson and Arsenio Hall. Plus, Conan will have to go head to head with both Leno and Letterman. And he can only lose to both of those guys for so long before Fox gets pissed and gives him the boot, too.

*And as of about 10 minutes ago, while I was writing this, news broke that Conan had contacted Fox.

I really like Conan. I always have. He wrote a couple of the best Simpson's episodes ever (Marge vs. The Monorail and Homer Goes to College) and his Saturday Night Live sketches were the best at a time when SNL was having a bit of an identity crisis and nothing was really funny. I think he's been doing great work with the Tonight Show, but he was definitely far removed from what Leno's normal audience was used to.

I think Bill Simmons mentioned this earlier, and so far, it's the best bet. Conan should go to Comedy Central with an hour long show right after The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Now that's two hours of television that I'd watch night in and night out.

Here's a clip of Patton Oswalt (who I really like and admire) talking about the whole shake-up. Everyone else is doing it, right?