The Baltimore Sun
After a surreal week of high emotion and comic abuse of NBC on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” the 46-year-old host is gone for good from the network’s airwaves after only seven months in Johnny Carson‘s old chair.
But the story of this misguided adventure in prime-time and late-night programming by NBC’s top brass is far from over. The narrative of O’Brien being pushed out of the job he prepared himself for over five years to make room for Jay Leno, who failed miserably in prime time, demands some discussion about what happens next to the redhead.
The interest is greatest, of course, among O’Brien fans, who will miss having him there Monday night after the late local news–and hope he will be back somewhere on TV after the no-compete portion of his severance agreement with NBC ends in September. But even casual observers of this incredible corporate crackup are surely curious about how the only character who remotely resembles a protagonist in this sorry tale might fare. More…