It’s been rumored for days and days now, but today it was made official: NBC and Conan O’Brien have officially finalized a settlement that pays him a large monetary sum and effectively removes him from The Tonight Show so that former host Jay Leno can take it back over and try and regain the ratings they once had.

Details of the agreement state that NBC will actually have to shell out about $50 million to make all of this disappear. One of the big issues was that Conan not only wanted a large sum for himself, but he felt that his entire staff deserved to be compensated as well, especially considering that many of them moved to L.A. with him when his seven-month stint on The Tonight Show began. All-in-all, it looks like O’Brien will take down about $33 million for himself, with the rest going toward the 190 staff members. It also appears that O’Brien offered a chunk of his own payoff to go toward his team members, so he may have been initially in the $40 million range.

Though this wasn’t final until today, everyone was well aware that this was the last week for O’Brien. And while it appears that the settlement will allow Conan to seek a job at competitive networks as early as September, who knows how long it will be before fans get to see him again, and that’s a depressing thought.

Continue reading for more, and to see a video of how Conan O’Brien is currently going out with a bang on NBC’s dime.

By now you’re all aware of the anarchy taking place with NBC’s painfully slow implosion and severe mishandling of their popular late night talk show lineup. If not, catch up now: (Read: Late Night Chaos: Jay Leno Jokes About Cancellation Rumor But Will NBC Move Him Back To Old Time Slot?) (Read: That Escalated Quickly: Conan O’Brien Says He Won’t Do 12:05 “˜Tonight Show’)

At the moment it does appear as though Jay Leno will be re-acquiring The Tonight Show (though not confirmed) from Conan O’Brien, who — after a lifetime dream and nearly two decades of service — was given the honor of taking over the long-running show from Leno and seven whole months to make it a booming success. At the same time, NBC is left figuring out how to try and stop the bleeding while not making themselves look as unfathomably incompetent as they have very much looked as of late.

Even with all the drama, these guys are still all about comedy, and both The Jay Leno Show (which has been officially canceled) and The Tonight Show continued to turn the coal into diamonds with new bits. On Leno’s show, rival late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel appeared to answer some questions. In the majority of the questions, Kimmel took major jabs at Leno and NBC for the handling of the situation. On Conan’s show, he just decided to cut his losses and see what he could get for The Tonight Show on Craigslist.

Click over to the other side to check out both of these videos!

If you’re on the internet, then you’ve surely heard about the drama going down at NBC right now. The studio had a major freak-out about their dwindling ratings after Conan O’Brien took over the legendary hosting duties of The Tonight Show from Jay Leno, who came back with his new gig The Jay Leno Show. In an effort to make all of the boo-boos go away as quickly as possible, NBC made the panic-induced decision to bump Leno’s new show up to 11:35PM (the long-time slot of The Tonight Show), effectively pushing Conan back to 12:05AM.

After all of this, rumors began tearing across the stratosphere, claiming word of O’Brien’s possible departure, and how FOX had supposedly put out big offers to both Leno and Conan (FOX making a smart move? Interesting). So would Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno just go along with NBC plans and hope that it all worked out, or would they both take offense and walk away?

It looks like Leno is a-okay with doing his show at 11:35 again, but now comes word via an open letter to the New York Times from Conan O’Brien himself that he will simply not stand for this. In his letter, he goes over the situation and explains why he can’t be a part of the changes — all reasons that make all the sense in the world.

Continue reading to check out the full letter from Mr. O’Brien.

When Jay Leno officially ended his stint as the host of The Tonight Show and Conan O’Brien took over, it never really felt right. Since Leno’s new earlier show debuted and since Conan took over, ratings have been sadly mediocre, which has been growing more and more apparent as of late. With the lackluster numbers coming in, the whispers around town began growing into wide-spread rumors and unofficial reports that Leno’s show would be canceled. Amidst all of the drama that is likely flying around behind the scenes of this situation, Leno didn’t miss a beat and made sure to joke about the rumors on his show.

Though it is doubtful that Leno will be canceled, things just became a little bit more interesting: The New York Times is reporting that there may still be a plan in the works to stop the bleeding. The report claims that NBC will wait until after the upcoming Winter Olympics break, and that they would then move The Jay Leno Show back to the host’s old time slot of 11:35PM. The catch of this move is that Leno’s show would be cut to 30 minutes in length, and that would see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien being pushed back to a 12:05AM start time, and then Jimmy Fallon at 1:05AM.

Continue on over to watch the video of Jay Leno joking about his cancellation!

Okay so on my daily trolling around ebay, I came across this odd auction from The Tonight Show

Now, Jay Leno has not been funny since…well forever but on occasion he has some really great guests and while Scarlett Johansson is not “great,” she is hot and that does it for me and about 85 percent of the male population. During her interview with Jay on The Tonight Show, she claimed she got a cold from her Spirit co-star Samuel L. Jackson and then proceeded to blow her nose on a tissue. Well, now Leno, the thinker that he is, is auctioning the tissue on eBay for U.S. Harvest, a charity of ms. Johansson’s choosing.

Said tissue is now up to $4,000, which brings me to two conclusions …