Sure, Jay Leno can laugh about it now.
"The very funny Chelsea Handler is here tonight," the outgoing prime-timer told his audience Tuesday. "Actually, she was just here interviewing for the 11:30 spot and thought she'd drop by. So I thought that was nice."
Actually, the Chelsea Lately host has not tipped her cap any which way yet.
"I don't want to make any public statements or anything until we know who's going to secure the Tonight Show position," Chelsea explained, "and then I'll start my ass-kissing then. I don't want to say anything off-color. You know, I don't want to take sides with Conan or you."
So instead she donned an Ellen cap, "just in case any lesbians get into the mix or anything."
Either way, there wasn't any reason for Chelsea to tread lightly, considering Conan O'Brien is 99.9 percent on his way out as host of The Tonight Show. Soon. As in Friday.
And according to David Letterman, here's what we can expect from the next incarnation of The Tonight Show:
"The phony handshakes, the guy with the guitar who laughs at everything, the bit [Leno] stole from Letterman's late-night show, the bit he stole from Howard Stern, the announcer he stole from Howard Stern, and me, I'm Ed Hall," ran The Late Show's very helpful promo.
Jay preempted Dave's latest shot, however, with this little dig, courtesy of his photo-search bit, where he pretends to enter search terms and a celebrity's picture pops up.
"Infidelity plus Viagra plus AARP," Leno typed. And up popped Letterman's picture.
But while this rekindled feud bodes well for both Tonight and The Late Show's writers, Conan is still the star of the show over on NBC.
"Hi, I'm Conan O'Brien, and I'm just three days away from the biggest drinking binge in history," said the longtime NBC personality, who's on the verge of ending his nearly 20-year relationship with the network on pretty heinous, albeit monetarily lucrative, terms.
His $40 million walk-away deal is reportedly being held up by last-minute haggling over his staff's severance pay.
"It's been a busy day for me today," Conan said. "I spent the afternoon at Universal Studios' amusement park, enjoying their brand-new ride, the Tunnel of Litigation."
"Some papers are reporting that I'm legally prohibited from saying anything bad about NBC," he continued. "But nobody said anything about speaking in Spanish: NBC esta manejado por hijos de cabras imbeciles que comen dinero y evacuan problemas," he said, as "NBC is run by brainless sons of goats who eat money and crap trouble" showed up in subtitles.
And while Conan has already run through a list of future career possibilities, tonight he filled us in on some of his more immediate goals:
"Introduce myself to my children. Connect all my freckles with a Sharpie. Play Beatles Rock Band until I reach 'Level Yoko.' Make a cameo appearance on Gossip Girl as Blaine Wilcox, a mysterious albino playboy. Legally change my name to 'No-Show Jones.' Finally make good on my plan to backpack through India with The Situation. Return La Bamba to the kindly old carpenter who made him. Have my 'TONIGHT SHOW FOREVER' tattoo changed to 'OH, SHOW OVER?'"
And finally: "Make a big move to Fox. Megan Fox."
Whichever Fox he moves onto, that leaves Jay Leno alone with NBC at 11:35 p.m., which is apparently where Jay believes he belongs.
"Nearly 17 million people watched the Golden Globes Sunday night on NBC," he said this evening. "As a result, today NBC announced it will begin airing repeats of the Golden Globes five nights a week at 10 o'clock."
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