Conan O'Brien's parent company NBC Universal has just been sued over a Clay Aiken gay joke. (Is specifying "gay" joke a waste of typing?) The catch: the suit hasn't been filed by Mr. Aiken. This one comes straight from bodybuilder Dennis "The Menace" James, the Idol also-ran's punchline lust-object:
· They aren't done administering the defibrillator to the dead-eyed corpse of late-night TV just yet: Some are buzzing that "several hosts" plan on returning to the air by January 7, making life a little less egg-pelty for Ellen DeGeneres and Carson Daly. [Variety]
· After next week, however, every scripted TV series shooting in LA will have officially gone dark, explaining the eerie, silent calm throughout the city, and the longer, sadder lines at the Coffee Bean. [Variety]
· A new ceremony from The Academy of TV Arts & Sciences "will highlight and demonstrate the good things that TV does." The first lifetime achievement award goes to Fox Alternative Programming guru Mike Darnell, for his "tireless efforts in furthering the cause of people being hooked up to a lie detector and forced to answer whether or not they are still attracted to their spouse on national TV." [Variety]
Perhaps wounded that some disgruntled, newly laid-off Tonight Show staffers anonymously griped that their early-bonus-proferring boss had failed to equal the generosity of peers like eventual successor Conan O'Brien, who'd previously pledged to financially support every last self-abusing bear and incontinent, bolt-excreting robot on his payroll during the writers strike, host Jay Leno has decided to join the compassionate ranks of late night TV saviors by covering his employees' salaries on a week-to-week basis. Christmas is saved!
Though they did last a little longer than the mid-November date initially threatened by NBC, about 120 staffers at The Tonight Show were laid off today. On the bright side, the freshly pinkslipped employees were handed early Christmas bonus checks courtesy of Jay Leno; still, at least one disappointed now-former employee found themselves wishing they worked for Conan Claus instead: "We haven't heard from him since the second or third day of the strike. He called on speakerphone while we were in our daily meeting and said, 'Don't look for other jobs, no one's going to lose their house, we'll get though this.' Two weeks ago, we got the heads up that we had two more weeks (of pay) and that's it. Everyone wondered, 'Is Jay going to come through?' And nothing happened. Conan makes less and he said, 'I'm going to pay for my people.' " [Scribe Vibe/Photo: Franklin Ave]
· Sports-specialist writer/director Ron "Bull Durham/Tin Cup/Cobb" Shelton will helm a movie about steroid-enhanced home run king Barry Bonds based on the book Game of Shadows for HBO Films, a cinematic journey through Bond's clear-and-cream-lubricated pursuit of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron that Shelton and his writing partner plan to undertake after the conclusion of the writers strike. [Variety]
· The heads of some media conglomerates are trying not to ruin their relationships with the writers they'll one day have to collaborate with by biting their tongues during the strike, resisting the tantalizing impulse to publicly brand them as "greedy residual monkeys" whenever contacted for comment about the ongoing labor dispute. [THR]
David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien could be back on TV before Hollywood writers end their strike, Variety reports. Writers are striking over how much they should be compensated for content distributed over the Internet and on DVDs, but producers for the three late night shows are in secret talks to bring back their own scribes before the strike ends. That could be a serious blow to the writers' cause. So far, late-night reruns are the only sign for most television viewers that anything's going on at all. Producers won't run out of sitcom and drama scripts until January.
The Celebslam blog has photos of a cocktail party meeting between Conan O'Brien and his "stalker priest" taking place last year, in which the Conan-obsessed cleric bent space and time to share a martini with the object of his schizophrenia-enhanced affection. Given that the two men once enjoyed an apparently congenial face-to-face meeting, the Padre's later correspondence about his failure to receive VIP treatment from a Late Night usher when he sought to reconnect with his new best friend seems somewhat less unreasonable—though, in fairness, we must admit that the angle of the photo prevents us from determining if O'Brien's eyes reveal any discomfort about being pitched an idea that the Masturbating Bear character would be much funnier if he wore a priest's collar.
The creepy Conan-stalking priest was a frequent poster to NBC's Late Night message boards, natch. One old gem from "Padre 009": "I'm a LIAR OK??? Imagine that— a priest who LIES AND LIES AND LIES. Doesn't that thrill all of you, really and strengthen your grip on sanity?? It should....?" [Bostonist]
Completing a rite of passage that all late-night talk show hosts must eventually endure as their careers progress—something about the combination of a darkened room, the midnight hour, and a flickering TV screen seem to create unhealthy comedian/schizophrenic attachments—Conan O'Brien has earned the stalky affections of a Catholic priest from Boston, who was arrested in NY last Friday after sending unhinged letters on parish letterhead, threatening O'Brien's parents, and trying to crash a taping of his favorite show:
The saddest part of the on-going WGA strike just might be that it'll prevent Catholic priest David Ajemian from successfully stalking Conan O'Brien. The priest, 46, was arrested last week after sending O'Brien weird letters, harassing his parents and finally showing up at Late Night's studio. "I want a public confession before I ever consider giving you absolution—or a spot on your couch," Ajemain wrote in one of his stalky letters. The Boston Globe points out that Ajemain went to Harvard, just like Conan, so maybe they totally know each other because how big could Harvard be? The Church has placed Ajemain "on leave." We are not sure what being "on leave" from being a Priest involves but maybe now he's allowed to take "spots" on people's couches. [Boston.com, TSG]
Perhaps hoping to avert an ugly incident in which obsolescent Tonight Show host Jay Leno makes a last-ditch effort to save his job by chaining himself to his desk while wrecking balls emblazoned with a cheerful peacock logo demolish his beloved Burbank studio, NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker reasserted yesterday that the show will be handed over to Conan O'Brien as planned, recent intimations that Leno isn't quite ready for early retirement notwithstanding:
· James Lipton: actor, writer, academic, talk show host, raconteur, French pimp. Excuse us: American pimp living in France. Truly, there is nothing this man cannot do. [NBC.com]
· If this is how the reunited Van Halen is going to sound, we may not bankrupt ourselves buying scalped tickets to the Staples Center show after all.
· The Birds star Tippi Hedren decries Hollywood's inability to generate new ideas.
· There are dozens of dogs in this insane Halloween slideshow, yet not a single one is wearing a Lindsay Lohan costume. Amateurs, the lot of them!
· Tripadvisor can help you plan your stay at the number one beet-related agrotourism destination in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Curbed LA directs us to the official web presence introducing NBC Universal's planned Metro Studio@Lankershim in Universal City, the facility to which the company hopes to relocate its local network news operations, its West Coast news headquarters, and, perhaps most excitingly, Access Hollywood—as you can see from the handsome rendering of the space, the studio's windows will provide an exhilarating, Today Show-style view of NBC employees waving "WE LOVE YOU BILLY BUSH!" signs as the wildly popular host recaps Eva Longoria's latest trip to Robertson Blvd.
With Friday finally here, your booze-infused weekend a mere nine call-rolling hours away, we thought we'd celebrate with a Triumph the Insult Comic Dog segment aired on Late Night with Conan O'Brien last night, in which 80's-hair-rock-titan turned middle-aged-lesbian Jon Bon Jovi revisited his encounter with the horny and vicious Rottweiler. We won't give away some of Triumph's best lines, except to say there's one involving Richie Sambora and a potentially damaging use of a curling iron that made our day.
Last night, some wily publicist (or someone) got a mention of Radar magazine into the "Conan O'Brien" opening monologue. Conan explains the cover of their new issue, which features a naked Photoshop of Hillary Clinton and a partially nude Rudy Giuliani. He has a prediction for how well that will do on newsstands.
Last night megadouche pick up artist "Mystery" was a guest on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," where we learned that some of his most interesting lines come from the inside of a Snapple bottlecap. We also learned that we can barely stand to look at his ridiculous face anymore. One more episode of that show and we're DONE, please God. It's going to be so hard!
According to Hollywood Today, NBC Universal has tossed Desperate Housewives from its primary soundstage on the Universal lot, which they plan to convert into a new theater and office building that may or may not eventually house The Tonight Show. Apparently, anointed Jay Leno successor Conan O'Brien was touring the potential facilities yesterday, trying to ignore the anguished wailing of Teri Hatcher, whom the Housewives had "mistakenly" left behind after she handcuffed herself to a catwalk in protest of the unwelcome move. Reports HT on the shuffle:
Now, the movie's producers are mulling their legal options, claiming NBC used the footage without their permission. We're hopeful both parties might find a workable solution, however, as the impressive work of the Feed The Bears players certainly deserves to be seen by a wider audience, and sits comfortably along such other Late Night niche fetish material as HornyManatee.com's "man-on-manatee" sex.
