Word has it – and by “word” I mean the sorta-reliable people over at Fox News – that Jimmy Fallon will definitely replace Conan O’Brien when O’Brien moves over to host The Tonight Show in 2009. Jay Leno is being “forced” into retirement according to Fox, and a lot of gossip has been whispered over the past year or so regarding O’Brien’s replacement.

The word is out among the NBC brass: As rumored and bounced around for some time, Jimmy Fallon is set to take Conan O’Brien’s job as host of “Late Night” in 2009. It’s a done deal. Conan, of course, will be taking over for Jay Leno, who will leave the “Tonight” show in May 2009 as part of a forced retirement.

There’s much debate about letting Leno leave NBC etc., but right now let’s just concentrate on Jimmy. He’s the perfect successor to Conan and should have just as big an audience when he takes the reins. Fallon is one of those great underrated performers. This should be the right milieu for him. Fallon, who recently married producer Nancy Juvonen, is said to be thrilled and ready, if not a little scared, about taking Conan’s desk. He still has to pick a producer and a band, among other things.

[From Fox News]

NBC is expected to make the formal announcement in mid-May when they present their Fall schedule in New York. Though NBC is “forcing” Leno into retirement, it appears he’s just retiring from NBC. He may do a show on ABC that would replace Nightline and push Jimmy Kimmel’s show back a half hour, into the 12:30 slot. He also may go back to promoting Doritos, which is pretty much the only thing I knew about him before he started hosting the Tonight Show.

Jimmy Fallon is pretty funny, and does have a bit of a following. But he hasn’t really done much since he left Saturday Night Live in 2006. He was in an independent film called The Year of Getting to Know Us that was screened at Sundance to terrible reviews. Aside from that, it seems that he’s spent the last couple years… just… chilling. Makes you wonder why NBC decided to go with him – but either way, he’s pretty funny, and hopefully will thrive in his new job.

Here’s Jimmy Fallon in Beverly Hills on March 20th. Images thanks to WENN.

David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert will return to their respective talk shows this week. Letterman’s company has struck an agreement with the Writers Guild of America that allows him to use writers for “The Late Show.” Craig Ferguson’s “Late Late Show” is controlled by Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants, and also has the advantage of falling under the interim agreement and being able to use writers. Leno and the rest of the late night hosts will have to make due with whatever they can muster that doesn’t violate the WGA contract. That is expected to entail longer celebrity interviews and more off the cuff audience interaction. “On the street” segments are also anticipated.

The first celebrity guest booked on Letterman’s show is Robin Williams. Both Letterman and Ferguson have an added edge over their talkshow host competitors in that guests don’t have to cross picket lines to appear. Williams is one guest who certainly wouldn’t need a scripted Q&A to appear, however. He is particularly gifted in off the cuff absurdity which can sometimes be hard to follow.

Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart are expected to be scrambling to come up with material that’s not prepared. They rely on scripted segments for their shows and will be hard pressed to ad lib. Under the WGA contract they can’t even use ideas that are prepared ahead of time by writers. These two strike me as cleverer than most, so we’ll have to see how they deal with the situation. It will also be interesting to see if Letterman and O’Brien have shaved their “strike beards,” or if they’ll grace us with their unshaven faces at least for one night.

As for how the writer’s strike continues to affect television, I read an interesting article that compared the 1988 strike to the current strike and said that there’s evidence that television lost 10% of its viewership almost permanently after the five month strike from March to August. This current strike could result in a nearly 30% drop in television viewers and could go a long way toward strengthening the audience for online content and web-based shows. And we may have to make due with more open-ended interviews with lesser-known celebrities on the talk shows. Maybe that’s an added benefit to refusing to cross picket lines - celebrities don’t have to worry about sounding stupid if they can’t rehearse their answers ahead of time.

Here’s a link to a wikipedia article that has an updated list of how many episodes are available for specific shows.

Thanks to the NY Times and The Wall St. Journal for the details for this story.

Letterman is shown on 10/20/05 with a horse, but I swear to you this picture is captioned “Madonna Visits The Late Show with David Letterman” by the photo agency, PRPhotos.

The Huffington Post had screenshots of the celebrity Christmas cards shown on “Live with Regis and Kelly” on Friday morning, and some are quite inventive and well designed.

Paul Reubens better known as Pee Wee Herman’s card shows the fallen kid’s star with his trademark raised eyebrows expression looking like he’s about to throw a snowball.

Courteney Cox and David Arquette’s card is bright pink on the outside with a big picture of their daughter Coco smiling and the words “Joy to the World.” The inside features a full page photo of Coco lounging on a Saint Bernard and says “And a peaceful New Year, love David, Courteney and Coco”

Tony Bennett’s card is of a winter scene the singer painted himself

Conan O’Brien’s Card has a close view of a cute cartoonish ornament of the talk show host hanging on a tree with other ornaments of the same style

Katie Holmes designed this simple bow-adorned Christmas card for the Cruise family. She was said to have had differently designed cards for friends, family and business associates and to have “kept her staff busy doing the shopping.” It sounds like she kept her staff busy making the cards too. (image and description from US Weekly)

Paris Hilton posed in what would look like a parody of herself if we didn’t know better. She wore a red wrap dress, posed in front of a cone-shaped tree with giant red velveteen bows, and clutched one of her chihuahuas, which was dressed in a little red Santa hoodie. (image found at CelebWarship)

Last week we briefly mentioned that there was a possibility that the late night talk show hosts would return to work in the next few months. It’s looking like that will definitely happen, and all five of the hosts are trying to coordinate their return so they all come back on the same night. Their hope is to avoid some of the ire of the WGA and skirt the criticism that Ellen DeGeneres and Carson Daly received when they returned to work. Ellen hardly stopped work at all – a week at the most – and Carson returned a few weeks ago. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson are all talking with each other behind closed doors, trying to agree on a date when they’ll all go back to work.

If the late-night shows go back into production before the strike is settled, at least some members of the Writers Guild will understand - the late-night comedy writers themselves. “We will never be able to repay [Letterman] for what he did for us,” says “Late Show” writer Bill Sheft, who also serves as the show’s union rep for the Writers Guild. “Dave Letterman on the air without writers and pissed off about it would be as powerful as anything we [union members] can do. He will rail nightly at the greedy pinheads that put him in this position.

“He made the right decision, and when and if he decides to come back, it will be the right decision,” Sheft said. Letterman was the first late-night host who said he would continue to pay his staff out of his own pocket while the strike was on. The other late-show hosts soon followed when the networks began informing the idled late-night staffs that they would be laid off. “We understand the ‘Late Show,’ ” Sheft says. “The fact that other shows fell in line after him is enormous . . . We can march in a circle all day and blog all we want, but, to me, he’s been an off-air supporter. Maybe his greatest potential is as an on-air provocateur.”

“Believe me, all these guys are going crazy,” says one late-night talk show executive. “They’ve had to sit on the sidelines for the last six weeks and watch the world go by without having their soapboxes. It’s hard for them, and it’s getting harder “The fact is they’re talking, but no one wants to be first or the only one, for that matter,” says a knowledgeable network executive. “But I think their power will come in their solidarity. It’s a hot potato.”

[From the New York Post]

It actually does make a lot of sense that the late night hosts could be very vocal advocates for their writers if they choose to come back on the air. It seems like they’ve done the best job they could, and will have stayed off the air for several months in a show of support. A lot of crew and staff members lost their jobs, and most of the late night hosts covered their salaries themselves. If they’re on the air and able to plug their writers every night, that could actually be a good thing. And considering how supportive all the hosts have been so far, I think that’s a reasonable expectation.

In more lighthearted news, both Conan O’Brien and David Letterman have been showing off their “Strike Beards.” Conan even made a YouTube video plugging the strike beard. That’s really not fair, as a woman I can’t show my solidarity by growing a strike beard. I’m trying to figure out what I could do instead… strike hairy legs? Yeah, I’m going with that. “No I’m not lazy, I’m supporting writers!” I will be so extra-dateable now.

Jay Leno is one of many entertainers who is refusing to cross picket lines while the Writer’s Guild is on strike. NBC has essentially stated that if Leno doesn’t cross the lines and return to work, they will lay off the rest of the “Tonight Show” non-writing staff. NBC making it clear that they’re more than willing to save some money by firing long-time employees that have nothing to do with the strike. It also seems like they’re doing some really dirty dealing and putting completely unethical pressure on Leno to return to work to save his staff’s jobs. The other alternative is for the “Tonight Show” to use guest hosts – certainly there are entertainers out there that are willing to cross the lines. NBC has also said the same thing to Conan O’Brian’s staff.

NBC informed the nonwriting staff of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that it will be laid off at the end of next week in the wake of the show shutting down for the writers’ strike. And with Leno still refusing to cross the picket line, the show is looking at coming back on the air Nov. 19 with guest hosts so that it can save the jobs of the nonwriters. “All sorts of things are being discussed, including guest hosts,” Tonight Show executive producer Debbie Vickers said. “Our preference is that we return to production of The Tonight Show with Jay as host as soon as possible.”

But Vickers also wants to save the jobs of her nonwriting staffers. “We want to protect the staff, who have been loyal to this show for decades, in the same way that Johnny Carson reluctantly returned without his writers in 1988,” she said. Late-night shows have gone into repeats since the strike began Monday as the hosts walked out in solidarity with their writing staffs. With the shows shut down, networks can cut costs by laying off most of the rest of the staff.

And Leno’s chief writer doesn’t expect Leno back anytime soon. “I talk to Jay every day, and he will not be the first [late-night host] to cross the picket line,” said Tonight Show head writer Joe Medeiros, also a strike captain for the Writers Guild of America. “So they are looking at guest hosts as one possibility so all those people don’t have to lose their jobs.”

[From Broadcasting & Cable]

That is really low of NBC. CBS and FOX have both tried to put similar pressure on many of their employees, by telling people that are producers/writers that they still have to honor their producing contracts and go to work each day, despite the strike. Since most of those people started as writers, they have a lot of sympathy for them – and most of them are still members of the Writer’s Guild and can’t work during the strike. So they’re between a rock and a hard place.

I’ve heard a lot about all the things the writers are doing, all the talent that’s lining up behind them, and how long the strike will likely go on. What I haven’t heard much about are the entertainment execs that should be sweating bullets and giving in to their more than reasonable demands.

I’m pretty sure in Celebrity-land, having a stalker is a sign that you’ve arrived. Now of course you hope for one of your more benevolent varieties – the guy that carries around the telescope and night binoculars and somehow always manages to be in a window directly across from you. No one wants the guy who strangles you from behind – I mean yeah you’ve really made it, but your royalty checks will be going to your next of kin and that’s just not worth it. Conan O’Brian has finally made it. No he wasn’t actually successful before this, because only now does he have a stalker. And like the funny man that he is, Conan’s stalker is pretty funny too. Because he’s a priest. And not in some nutball offshoot cult. He works for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

A priest from Boston has been charged with stalking and harassing the talk show host Conan O’Brien, law enforcement officials said last night. The suspect, David Ajemian, was arrested on Friday when he tried to attend a taping of NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” program at Rockefeller Center, the police said. The priest is being held in jail for a court-ordered psychiatric examination, and is due back in court tomorrow. Court papers quote from menacing postcards and letters — at least some written on a parish letterhead — that Father Ajemian is alleged to have sent to Mr. O’Brien’s home and television studio for more than a year. The letters continued even after the priest was asked to stop, law enforcement officials said.

A Feb. 20 letter said: “I’m told by some of those officious little usher people that you’re overbooked. Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans? You owe me big-time, pal. I want a public confession before I even consider giving you absolution.” An April 26 letter, signed Padre, said, “I am not Seung Cho,” apparently alluding to the gunman at Virginia Tech. The letter continued: “Even if I did once look out on that dark and dreaded doorway on West 72 Street, remember Frank Costello once dodged a bullet in your building, and so can you.”

[From the New York Times]

Frank Costello was a gangster in the fifties. He was shot (but lived) in the lobby of the Majestic on West 72nd. It sounds like the New York Times only quoted part of the Ajemian’s sentence about absolution. Us Weekly reports that the entire sentence was, “I want a public confession before I ever consider giving you absolution - or a spot on your couch.” I don’t know much about stalkers – but this one seems really mad. I wonder what it is that Mr. Crazy wants a confession about? Not letting him into the theater? It seems doubtful that’s when the anger stalking. Ajemian says he has followed Conan’s career since the two attended Harvard. Creeeeeeeepy. He’s been put on leave by the Archdiocese, which seems like a pretty good idea. Do they have mental health screenings before you can become a priest? I know they’re kind of desperate these days, but come on! The guy has only been ordained since 2001. You’d think they would have started doing some mental health checks by then. Even though you don’t want to encourage a stalker, I really am curious what his beef is with Conan. And why he wants on his couch so badly.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Conan at the Stand Up For Heroes A Benefit For The Bob Woodruff Family Foundation in New York last night. Images thanks to PR Photos.

You are either a Leno fan or a Letterman fan, but everyone seems to love Conan. (At least in the land of Cara anyway.) Jay was rumored to be hesitant to hand over the reigns to a successor. However, NBC has made a statement regarding the host status of “The Tonight Show.”

“Conan O’Brien will take over `The Tonight Show’ in 2009,” NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker said Monday in New York at an event arranged by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Zucker said he’d like Leno to remain with the company and that “we are in those conversations now. I’m hopeful that Jay will be with us.”

[Associated Press]

Jay has been sitting in the host chair for 15 years. Conan O’Brien was set over 3 years ago to take over for Leno. He has also stated that he is perfectly ok with leaving, but as the clock ticks his attachment to the show keeps him wanting more. Johnny Carson was 74 when he stepped down and Leno will be 59 in his 2009 departure. The air of Jay being pushed out rather than bowing out was addressed in the LA Times and through other various media outlets.

“Apparently because O’Brien, 44, has a younger audience than Leno, 57. Younger is always better in television, although CBS is evidently not as concerned about the age of its late-night host. David Letterman, 60, has a deal with that network through 2010. Maybe the Peacock Network just wants someone with a longer-term future, so this is where you get off, Jay.”

Then the CNN rumor reared its head in the debate. Word on the street is that the news based network wants Leno to replace Larry King. Contractually speaking, Leno is to remain off the air for at least six months.

It’s all very reminiscent of the Johnny Carson replacement issues NBC had last time over the show. Either way, I wish the best for Jay. But I can’t wait for Conan to get his red head on “The Tonight Show.” That man is over 6 ’4” of walking funny in a suit.