So turns out Conan O'Brien is all set to return the air, and in November already as opposed to January! Sweet dicks, right? The twist to this otherwise happy ending? Oh well...turns out he's NOT going to be on Fox like everyone in the WORLD thought. Nope, he's going to on TBS.
TBS, which some of you may or may not know, just recently broke into the "late night" scene by giving George Lopez his own late night talk show, which airs in the same 11:00 o'clock time slot as The Tonight Show and The Late Show (or whatever the FUCK Letterman's shit show is called). Anyway, turns out while Fox was busing dicking around with all its affiliates, trying to get everyone agree to move their shit around to let Coco have an 11:00 slot, TBS swooped in with a shit ton more money and no bickering affiliates to worry about! Hooray for basic cable!
The sweetest part of this story, I think, is the bit concerning George Lopez. Obviously, Conan was in no hurry to fuck someone over as royally as NBC had fucked him, so he insisted that no matter how much money TBS offered, he would not accept the offer unless Lopez was okay with getting bumped back an hour. Turns out, Lopez was totally okay with it and happily agreed to move back to 12.
Now, say what you want about George Lopez and his show (which believe me, I do often, because it SUCKS) but I just thought there was something quite heartwarming about how readily Lopez agreed to the whole thing. They officially announced the deal last night on Lopez's show, coupled with some teaser spots aired on TBS, and I have to say I watched the first few minutes of the show where George talked about it, and he seemed genuinely pleased and excited about the whole thing. He was very emphatic that he was totally on board with the new schedule and very happy to have Conan joining the TBS family, which I thought was nice of him. It's a shame his show still totally blows. Guy may be nice, but he's just not funny.
Anyway, I'm pretty stoked about this, obviously. I think it'll be a really good fit for Conan, what with being on basic cable allowing him some more....freedoms he may not otherwise have had on a regular broadcast channel. I think he would have fit well at Fox, too, don't get me wrong, but there are things you can get away with on cable you just can't manage at 11:00 on broadcast television.
Here's a little article on the deal, if you're interested in reading. Otherwise, that about sums it up!
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-15166-Comedy-Examiner~y2010m4d12-How-did-TBS-manage-to-snatch-Conan-OBrien-away-from-FOX-anyway
