It certainly puts Conan's $32 million payout into perspective, knowing that 165 television writers over the age of 40 will share a $70 million settlement after alleging that major networks, studios, and talent agencies did not hire or represent them due to an overt age bias. And they won't even receive shares -- they'll have to apply to a fund named the Fund for the Future in order to receive grants and loans for approved projects. Among the companies involved in the nearly decade-long lawsuit were ABC, CBS, NBC, Endeavor Agency, Gersh Agency and Spelling Television. Two-thirds of the $70 million will be covered by insurance carriers, if approved by the California State Court. [THR]
Pamela Ptak, Project Runway's eliminated castoff from last night's episode, accepts that she is not the most telegenic contestant. She's a teacher at heart, and therefore she's not so willing to trash other designers -- a Project Runway staple. Still, the 47-year-old professor at Philadelphia's Drexel University is game for defending her aesthetic, clearing up why she lost the potato-sack challenge instead of Ping or Jesus, and explaining what the show is missing without her.
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It doesn't seem fair that we have to say goodbye to Conan O'Brien tonight, unsure of whether we will ever see him with his rag-tag group of characters conceived at NBC again. (After last night's segment with Robin Williams, even Coco admitted that he wasn't sure who gets custody.) So let's put on a brave face, pray for some Triumph and Conando and soak up the last few, historical moments of the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.
Join us at 11:35 PM EST tonight to live-tweet Coco's final Tonight Show with Movieline's own Mark Lisanti! [Note: *We should have the east coast feed. If not, we'll do west coast at 11:30pm PST]
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Project Runway's tradition of forcing designers to work with unconventional materials (e.g. groceries, car parts, candy wrappers, bricks, historical documents, outdated Michael Kors faces, discarded Seal albums, an abandoned Zoe Glassner) took a fantastic turn this week. Heidi's prompt: "Make a "party-worthy look" out of a potato sack, because it's funny to me." The designers turn out some incredible frocks, the wrong people win and lose, and I get extra testy! It's a great day on the runway, world.
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This afternoon, during his final Tonight Show taping, Conan O'Brien will strap on a jet pack and blast through the ceiling of his $15 million studio in Universal City as Max Weinberg plays him out with a jazzy rendition of Billy Joel's "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," not to be seen again until September 1. Still, he won't go before delivering $6.3 million in pointless production costs to NBC -- the equivalent of staging two, ten-foot tall middle fingers covered in Swarovski Crystal on his stage. That's if you believe Conan; if, on the other hand, you thought it was completely implausible that the Tonight Show actually bought the world's most expensive car and the 2009 Kentucky Derby-winning horse (after all, who would keep them?), then you were correct in your suspicions.
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Realizing that it was his second-to-last Tonight Show ever (unless Jay Leno is fatally wounded in a suspicious antique automobile car crash), Conan O'Brien graciously admitted last night that although this is not his ideal goodbye, Coco would make his last Tonight Show as fun as possible, because you, Coco fans, are what matters. Meanwhile, somewhere in Burbank, Jay Leno stepped onstage, accepted pity-hugs from the first two rows of his audience and then bizarrely compared himself to a hero of one of the world's most tragic maritime disasters.
"NBC and Conan O'Brien made an announcement earlier today -- as many of you know -- Conan is leaving the network," said Leno. "His final show airs tomorrow night. I have chosen to stay on the Titanic. I don't believe the iceberg is that big, the biggest ship, this ship will never sink and Kev...when it does, Kev as it's sinking you will play [for] us."
Click through for that comically oversized moment of mock modesty, as well as the other highlights you missed last night, ranked from worst to best.
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Confused as we are about who said what/who gets what in the NBC late night fiasco? No problemo! The secret word is.... TOYS! (AHHHHHHHH!!!!) Pee-wee Herman, currently thrilling L.A. audiences with his live show downtown at Club Nokia, popped by the penultimate Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien to explain in basic, Playhouse puppetry exactly what went down. We'll never be able to look at Jeff Zucker again without thinking of him in an Avatar power suit, pointing at Leno's face and saying, "I'll get you back your chin. Your REAL chin." [THR]
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· It's been a victorious week for Jay Leno. Not only has he reclaimed the Tonight Show throne in spite of his own sinking 10 P.M. ratings but this morning, the White House Correspondents Association announced that they have invited Leno to headline the Correspondents Dinner in May. (In their defense, they extended the offer to Leno a few weeks ago, before ConanGate.) The historical event features a comedy routine from the president and a presentation of awards and scholarship money. This will be the fourth time Leno has hosted. [USA Today]
Imagine Television develops the next Star Trek, Steven Spielberg invades basic cable, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I was forced to write a network law drama. I'm serious. We'll always have them, even though The Practice, Law and Order, and now The Good Wife alone have covered what I suspect is 90% of possible plot complications. Add in Ally McBeal, a comedy, and there goes another significant fraction. Questions about the genre's durability remain salient, but ABC's new midseason replacement The Deep End doesn't seem to notice that it's cross-examining a mode of drama with little left to divulge.
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THR got NBC Universal TV entertainment chairman Jeff Gaspin on the horn to discuss what will happen when Jay Leno retakes The Tonight Show. Will he retain the minimal new bits he brought to The Jay Leno Show, like pointless car racing, or will he return to the familiar? Said Gaspin, "I would be surprised if they didn't bring back the desk and a couch, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a new desk and couch." This is why NBC is a titan of broadcasting, folks. [THR]
When will Rob Lowe learn? He left The West Wing because he didn't feel like his character was the lead, he turned down the actual lead of McDreamy in Grey's Anatomy, and then he joined the thousand-member cast of Brothers and Sisters as Calista Flockhart's husband. Now, you will not be surprised to find out, he is leaving that show too because he doesn't feel like he has enough to do. Also, they totally wouldn't change the title of the show to Brother-in-Law and Others. [Deadline]
The next two days are pivotal in late night history and if you're a self-respecting Coco fan, you will tune into his remaining (tear) Tonight Show episodes (or at least catch Movieline's highlights the morning after). So let's distract ourselves from the heartache by watching some of the hardest working guidos in Hollywood reminisce about their hot tub hookups, gel mishaps and boardwalk throwdowns. Salut!
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Look, everybody knows it's kind of a weird time for television. NBC is in ruin, reality TV is in a battle with scripted TV for the soul of drama, Oprah Winfrey is setting up her exit strategy... There's a lot to process as we consider how the medium can and will truly adapt for the 21st century. But one recent development marks a trend that can only be described as a new (low?) standard in celebrity narcissism, obsession and general ickiness. So please, networks: Enough, already, with all the celebrity DNA tests.
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In the orange glow of post-World War Conan fallout, no figure looms larger or more menacing than Jeff Zucker, the man whose finger initiated the launch sequence that would turn the late-night landscape into a wintry, chin-joke-strewn wasteland. The "Dick Cheney of television," as he was dubbed by Jon Stewart, can now proudly boast the title of Most Loathed Front-Office Entertainment Figure Since Michael Ovitz. Why the animosity? Why the persistent cries of upward-failing, or that he'd climbed up the NBC Universal ranks in a custom-fitted, solid-gold jetpack? It's the f*ck-ups, stupid. We examine now the highs and lows of Zucker's three-decade career at NBC, a legacy littered in dubious achievements.
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Orlando's Idol auditions outclassed Chicago's by -- and this is not an estimate -- over 200%. As a native Chicago suburbanite, I diplomatically suggest we all pass out face-down in the urinal troughs at Wrigley Field, because that's a Sosa's-new-face level of sad. The city that gave us everyone from Herbie Hancock to the Smashing Pumpkins looked like a beat-up gourd next to Orlando, the town that Lou Pearlman rebuilt using boy-band sorcery and pyramid schemes. But with guest-judge Kristin Chenoweth in tow, Idol gave us at least three notable moments that didn't have me texting Oprah for validation and a (geographically) teachable moment.
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