NBC Drops Peacock During Conan O’Brien’s Opening Monologue

It has not yet been decided whether Jay Leno will return to The Tonight Show in Conan O’Brien’s stead but, if ongoing reports are anything close to accurate, this is where things seem to be heading. In the meantime, O’Brien continues as host of the show, bashing NBC each chance he gets in his opening monologue – but the network will not stand for this for that much longer, TMZ says.

During Monday’s opening bit, when O’Brien called NBC “incompetent morons,” something very strange happened to the peacock “bug” that usually appears in the lower part of the screen: it disappeared. The sign reappeared later on the show, as well as next day, which can only mean that the network is taking a stand in O’Brien’s bashing of the way it handled the Leno situation, it is being said in the media. Whether that truly be the case, we will probably never know, but this might be too big a coincidence to be just that, a coincidence, it is further being said.

“NBC has done something subtle in its war with Conan O’Brien – the network quietly took its bug out of Conan’s Tonight Show, NBC-bashing monologue Monday night.
Take a look at a screen grab from Monday’s monologue (left). Notice in the lower left portion of the screen the NBC peacock is missing. Now look at the screen grab of Conan interviewing Martin Scorsese (right). The bug appears,” TMZ writes.

Indeed, the two pictures show clearly that, during the monologue, the peacock had gone, only to come on again later, after O’Brien was done with the bashing. “So it seems... NBC wanted as little association with Conan as possible while he skewered Jeff Zucker and the network. Subtle, but telling. UPDATE: The bug was on the screen for Tuesday night’s monologue,” the same media outlet goes on to say.

We were also telling you the other day that negotiations are currently underway to get O’Brien off the air and put Jay Leno in his place on The Tonight Show. NBC and O’Brien are talking about a possible payoff of $32.5 million, on the condition that he takes no other offer until fall and that all subsequent deals he might close for the duration of his contract with NBC will offset said amount.