These NBC Late Night wars have everyone stirred up. Tonight Conan let loose on NBC during his monologue, and David Letterman devoted a segment to “coalescing his thoughts on the NBC television debacle.”
Letterman is enjoying the NBC mess because he was once caught up in a similar late night war at NBC that ended up launching a thousand rumors, books, and even an HBO movie. Dave even had a nickname for the NBC rival who took “The Tonight Show” out from under him in 1993, a fella he likes to call “Big Jaw Jay.”
The scandalized talk show host’s rundown of the events is similar to what’s been swirling in gossip land, Conan is refusing to walk away from the show, which would require NBC to fire him and pay him a ton of money. Letterman and Conan have always seemed to have affection and respect for each other, as Conan took over David Letterman’s NBC show “Late Night” when Dave switched networks to CBS in the big shakeup of 1993. Letterman referred to Conan several times as a “smart kid” and noted that he was playing his hand well.
