Cock Zucker

I guess we can all shave off our strike-pompadours [you did grow yours right?] now that Conan has reached an agreement with NBC for an exit strategy. His final show is tonight and I urge you all to watch it live as it airs (no DVR’s) to make this the highest rated episode of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien ever. It’s hard to feel bad for a guy that’s going to pocket almost $34 million for NOT working (he must have got that book about free government money from the guy in the question mark suit), but it isn’t hard to see that he wanted the show and not the payout.

Conan has always been a comedy innovator, from his days as a Simpsons writer to SNL (when both of those shows were relevant and funny) to his incredibly weird first few seasons of Late Night. Conan has real enthusiasm for comedy and I respect that. He WANTS to make you laugh. Leno wants to get home at a reasonable hour so he can work on his fleet of classic cars.

Godspeed, CoCo, you fancy Irish bastard. We’ll be waiting for you on Sept. 1 when you announce your new show… or possibly announce that you’ve purchased a small island nation and encourage us all to “go get fucked.” After what you’ve been through in the last few weeks, either option would be acceptable.

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31 Comments

  3. Wait, I don't think I get it. He wanted intellectual property–but it seems like Conan ripped his wig off and threw it at him. Is the hair intellectual from a skit or something?

    • From what I've seen, in most cases "intellectual property rights," means something conceived of, developed or produced during the term of one's contract (can you tell I'm the son of a lawyer?). In some cases this gets really abused. I read something that urged humanities students to not start any sort of scholarly work while at Carnegie Mellon University as their intellectual property rights contract is so strict you can essentially have your personal intellectual ideas claimed by the University and be unable to sell them as you see fit. So by that token, Conan's hair, fingernails, and possibly children count as NBC's intellectual property.

      I wonder if they'll sue Milo Ventimiglia if he ever grows the Petrelli-style emo bangs again…

  5. Hairsplat: The new Sharksplode?
    In a side comment, i will sure be watching that episode in 2 weeks, when its subtitulated and released in argentina. Or hopefully someone will live or Ustream it. Maybe a special podcast?

  6. So when Conan gets a show again this fall, I have to watch Fox?

    How's this for a new tagline: NBC: we make Rupert Murdoch look classy!

  9. FYI, TV ratings (called the Nielsen ratings) are determined based on an opt-in system where select people report what they watch (either via "diary" or by a box connected to their TV). Since TVs are passive (they only receive information, they don't send any) it's impossible to determine what someone is watching without some other technology.

    • if you receive satellite television, that phone cable attached to the back, or not attached in my case, is mainly used to send viewership statistics. so not many nielson style boxes used anymore.

      • the networks actually dont factor in satellite numbers. DVR numbers are reported and calculated separately. The phone cable on sat boxes actually just dials in every 24 hours and tells your provider that it's still at the same location or what pay per views you've ordered. The reason is that you used to be able to activate one DirecTV account but share the programming package with almost an unlimited number of receivers in different locations. They would think you had 10 in the same house but you could actually have 10 friends sharing the same $60 program package. Its a major flaw in the tech (from their perspective). You also dont HAVE to connect a phone line any more since many households dont have land lines.

        [sorry, I worked in the sat industry for almost 10 years]

        • Interesting, My comment came from DirecTV's customer service/salesperson. I just work on broken electronics, so it seemed like a plausible idea. now I'm just a broke late twenties college student who enjoys his webcomics

          • Unless something has changed, I would assume my info is still correct. Its not uncommon for CSR's to make up fake reasons to keep the phone line plugged in. A lot of times they will tell people the receiver will stop working if not plugged in but they function perfectly without it.

  10. I just want Jimmy Fallon to SUCK IT! Is that so wrong? Is that so hard to do?!
    Why does he get to keep his job – that he's crappy at – while the rest of us have to lose Conan – at least until someone else pays him millions of dollars?!

    Suck it, Jimmy Fallon! I hope you rot! You better be blowing Conan EVERY NIGHT that you're on the air.

    BTW, I really hope this means Conan can be a guest on the Daily Show…

  12. Hey, Joel, long time reader.

    Knowing your issues with FOX's executive decisions, what are your thoughts of CoCo possibly heading on over there. Do you trust them to be patient and let Conan be, or are we in for this yet again one year later? And if he does confirm heading to FOX: please, please, pretty please write/draw a strip involving the evil FOX executive. He's by far my favorite character of yours. (just love to hate him!)

    • Conan isn't a scifi or Joss Whedon show, so he should be quite safe. Also, Conan has gotten SO MUCH good press from this quagmire that he will probably bring in major ratings wherever he goes. FOX would be foolish not to make him a reasonable offer considering they have no late night talk show programming whatsoever.

  13. Ok, it took me two weeks, but I have finally read all of your comics. Dude, you are the man. This is the smartest, funniest comic I've ever read. My hat is off to you sir.

  15. I think Conan could and should do a daily (nightly) UNCENSORED show on HBO! That would be amazing… at least it has the potential to be so. Let's start some sort of internet campaign to get that rolling. How do we do that?

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