Cuckoo for Coco

Conan O’Brien’s exit deal is said to be worth $45M, in which NBC will pay Conan $32.5M with the rest being divided between nearly 200 staff members (that’s $62,500 each to those of you who don’t have a calculator handy). Conan’s last night as the “Tonight Show” host is Friday, January 22nd.  NBC also announced that Jay Leno will return to host “The Tonight Show” on March 1st.  Goodie.  I’ll go back to not watching that, just like I was doing seven months ago, before Conan took over as host. 

Conan can appear as host of another network’s talk show as soon as September 1st, but in the meantime he will be limited to appearing on other people’s shows.  There is also a non-disparagement clause in the deal which will limit the jokes Conan can make about the situation.  Yes, the fun police have cracked down.

You know, if someone paid me some ungodly sum of money like that I would go away too.  That amount of money just boggles my mind: I just can’t wrap my head around that number.  It’s true, I don’t make that much money.  Looking at numbers from my highest paid year, it would take me over 1477 years to make what NBC is paying him to walk away and it kinda upsets me.  Hell, I’d be happy with what his staff is getting as a severance.  We all know who is paying for this…  it trickles down to the consumer.  Who knows, maybe he’ll do something good with the money like donate it to the Red Cross for relief efforts in Haiti or help disadvantaged children. 

Conan said in his Tuesday monologue, “Hi, I’m Conan O’Brien and I’m just three days away from the biggest drinking binge in history.”  Hey, if he needs someone to hit the bars with, I’ll be ready at 8pm.  But let me tell you this – he’s buying.

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