Kevin Eubanks will be leaving The Tonight Show on May 28, 2010. It will be interesting to see who fills in for the week and a half in between or if the show will be on reruns. I am also curious is this means there is a new theme song for The Tonight Show in the works. Only time will tell, but not a lot of time. Next week is already the end of Eubanks run on The Tonight Show.

It's official, Kevin Eubanks is leaving The Tonight Show. Tonight Kevin Eubanks announced on The Tonight Show that after 18 years with Jay he will be moving on after May 28, 2010. 

“After 18 years, I just need a change of pace and see what else is going on,” Mr. Eubanks said. “But it’s a really difficult decision because this has become my second home, as it has been for the band.” Eubanks said on monday's The Tonight Show. Leno invited Eubanks to sit with him during the announcement and said how working with him was "a pleasure." He also mentioned how they worked together saying, "You've been a great friend and really supportive. When those jokes die, I got to look to you, man."

Eubanks said that some of the highlights of working on The Tonight Show have included, "just meeting B.B. King, Willie Nelson, all these wonderful musicians that I've grown to be friends with." In fact, Eubanks has become close enough friends with B.B. King that when he told him he was leaving The Tonight Show, "you could see the pride in his face. ... He felt pride, like he had something to do with it. It felt good that I was part of the lineage." 

Kevin Eubanks has been with Leno for 18 years including his brief foray into prime time for The Jay Leno Show last year before returning to The Tonight Show. When asked if all the shake ups at NBC late night influenced his decision to leave Eubanks denied it. "Nah," he said. "We have a job to do and we do it." 

Who will replace Kevin Eubanks is anyone's guess at this point. Will the band leave as well? Who knows. Personally, I'd like to see the band built up a bit more with a little more jazz band/big band feel to it. I also hope that whoever replaces Kevin also will have personality and the chemistry with Jay Leno. I don't know if anyone will match the friendship and camaraderie that is so clearly evident between the two. I do with Kevin Eubanks the best though in his musical writing career! Good luck Kev!

The New York Times has the details about how Conan O'Brien and TBS became partners as Conan returns to late night. Here is what they had to say: 

Conan O’Brien’s manager, Gavin Polone, said that a whirlwind negotiation of only about 10 days led the late-night star to leave network television and jump to the cable network, TBS.

“They called us about a week and a half ago,” Mr. Polone said, in outlining how the negotiations began.

The Turner Entertainment president, Steve Koonin, laid out the network’s offer to give Mr. O’Brien a show at 11 p.m. weeknights, but Mr. Polone said that the Conan side had an immediate reaction: “You guys already have an 11 p.m. show.”

He was referring to the current 11 p.m. late-night show on TBS, hosted by comedian George Lopez. Mr. Polone said that Mr. Koonin told him everything had been worked out and that Mr. Lopez had agreed to slide his show back to midnight to make room for Mr. O’Brien.

But that script was awfully familiar to the Conan O’Brien side. “That sounded very similar to Jeff Gaspin coming to Conan and asking him to move back to midnight to make room for Jay,” Mr. Polone said.

In the turbulent early weeks of January, NBC’s entertainment chief, Mr. Gaspin, went to Mr. O’Brien to ask him to move the “Tonight Show” to 12:05 a.m. to free up the preceding half hour for Jay Leno to move back to late-night (in a 30-minute show) after the quick failure of his 10 p.m. comedy hour.

Mr. O’Brien of course refused and negotiated his exit from NBC. In the months since, his representatives were known to be speaking mainly to Fox Broadcasting about a new show for that network.

Mr. Polone said he went to Mr. O’Brien to inform him of the TBS offer. “Conan said, ‘We’re not putting ourselves in the position of shoving somebody out of his show.’ ” That blocked the potential deal for a brief time.

But that position changed after another phone call. Mr. Polone said that Mr. Lopez himself called Mr. O’Brien personally. “George called Conan to sell Conan on this idea. He was all for it. It really was George who made this happen.”

With Mr. Lopez on board, talks became serious very quickly with TBS, Mr. Polone said. TBS emphasized how young their audience was, a match with Mr. O’Brien’s core viewers. “The lead-ins would be shows like ‘Family Guy’ and ‘The Office,’ which is great for Conan,” Mr. Polone said. Mr. Lopez has the youngest audience in late night with a median age of 33.

The negotiations moved rapidly because, Mr. Polone said, TBS agreed quickly to almost every request. “We’d come back with complex details and they’d apologize and say they might not be able to get back to us for two hours.”

TBS also promised “the biggest promotional campaign in television history” for Mr. O’Brien, using some of TBS’s most popular properties like the NBA playoffs this spring and the Major League Baseball playoffs next fall.

Mr. O’Brien will continue to produce his show in Los Angeles, Mr. Polone said.

He declined to comment on what happened with the negotiations with the Fox network, except to say that they had been ongoing. But several executives who have been familiar with that process said that complications had made those negotiations difficult to conclude.

Mainly Fox’s affiliated stations have deals in place for syndicated programs — mostly repeats of shows like “The Simpsons” and the same two comedies that play on TBS, “The Office” and “Family Guy.” The stations have already paid for those shows and sold advertising for them.

The stations have also been through a financially crippling year because of the national recession and many were resistant to giving up the profits they would experience with the syndicated repeats. (Fox and the affiliates were also facing contentious negotiations over retransmission rights to cable networks, a source of income the two entities will battle over in terms of who gets how much.)

Mr. O’Brien was likely to reach only about 60 per cent of the country with a first broadcast at 11 p.m. The rest of the country would be reached at later hours, diminishing his chances to hit a big rating – at least initially. Fox was promising to expand the coverage to full clearance at 11 p.m. in about three years, several parties to the talks said.

But with TBS, Mr. O’Brien will reach almost  every home in the nation immediately. That made the deal more attractive.

Stepping away from a broadcast network may mean that he will not get a full chance to face off with Mr. Leno and NBC, a prospect he might have liked given the circumstances of his departure.

But what it does set up is a new kind of heavyweight match in late night. Now Mr. O’Brien will be face to face with the two big stars of late-night in cable, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central.

All three men are close friends; now they will be measured directly against each other in the ratings.

 I'm really curious to see how this all plays out. I'm glad that it seems like this transition was completely positive and a win-win scenario for everyone involved! Best wishes Conan and George Lopez in November!

When he returns on Monday night, surprisingly enough Billy Crystal will not be there, although perhaps he just hasn’t been announced. Instead, he will be welcoming former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the cast of MTV’s Jersey Shore, American Idol judge Simon Cowell, and Olympians Apollo Anton Ohno, Lindsey Vonn, and Shaun White. Musical guests will include Brad Paisley, Avril Lavigne, and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

Thanks to NBC, Jay Leno’s reputation and ratings took quite a hit because of his move to the 10:00 slot. Let’s hope that he can make a strong return to late night and people can move past the NBC fiasco and not old NBC’s transgressions against Jay Leno. Best wishes Jay Leno!

When The Tonight Show With Jay Leno returns on March 1^st, Kevin Eubanks will more than likely be at Jay’s side. However, this most likely will be a temporary thing. Today NBC confirmed that Eubanks wants to leave The Tonight Show to try other things. According to NBC, “Kevin has expressed interest in pursuing personal touring and recording opportunities; however, he will be with the show when it returns.” It seems there isn’t a specific reason for leaving other than what a colleague said, “It’s been more than 17 years and he just said he wanted a break.”

Eubanks will stay on with Jay Leno and The Tonight Show during an interim period and an exact departure date hasn’t been set. A colleague from Leno’s staff has said, “Kevin is talking it over with Jay and Debbie,” referring to Debbie Vickers the Executive Producer. “He would never leave them in the lurch,” said the colleague who asked to not be identified as NBC hadn’t released their statement yet.

Kevin Eubanks joined The Tonight Show band in 1992 and became its leader in 1995. He has been a steady presence on stage with Jay Leno ever since on both The Tonight Show and also The Jay Leno Show. He is frequently featured in skits with Jay and often can be heard chuckling at Jay’s jokes during the monologue…occasionally offering his own barbs.

It is hard to believe that this will be welcome news at NBC or The Tonight Show. After the whole late night Conan fiasco, NBC is looking to rebuild its late night lineup behind Jay Leno. This is clearly one more hurdle they will have to jump. Let’s hope Leno can find a new band leader and the transition can go quickly and smoothly.

In other Tonight Show news, it appears that the new Tonight Show will be filmed at Jay Leno’s home studio in Burbank. This is where Jay Leno’s old Tonight Show was filmed along with The Jay Leno Show. The set is currently being reworked to be new and fresh for the return of The Tonight Show. It isn’t known for sure what will be done to Conan’s Tonight Show set. There are talks of it being used for one of the new sitcoms that NBC has in the works.

With all that said, I’m done typing for today! Hope everyone has had a terrific Tuesday! It was a beautiful day to be in the park and it was great seeing some of you DAPs Magic members! Have a great week everyone!

Soon enough all the folks over at NBC will be able to heave a big sigh of relief and know that the NBC civil war of late night is over. Of course, it'll just be the beginning of the war between networks for the top ratings during late night but that is another story. Tomorrow night will mark the last episode of The Jay Leno Show. What was hoped would be a cheaper alternative to those really expensive dramas turned out prove the old adage true: "you get what you pay for."

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock the last few months has seen NBC practically self implode over the ratings they hoped Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno would bring to their new time slots. It hasn't happened and it is all over as of Tuesday night at 11:00 PM. 

Next comes The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and what NBC hopes will be a return to the top of the late night ratings battle.  I'd tend to guess that this will indeed come to pass. Some people won't watch in protest at first but Jay Leno is a good guy with a friendly face and a sense of class and honor. He will win people back; if with nothing else a lot of good old fashioned hard work. I wish Jay Leno well and I do hope to someday be in the seats watching him tape the show live! 

So now with all of that over with, let's turn the page and move forward. Heck, it seems as if Letterman and Leno are... they even filmed a commercial together! 

After the break, Conan plugged hopeforhaitinow.org to try and help with the recovery mission in Haiti after the earthquake. Following which he had his exit interview with Steve Carell. This was hilarious and nonsensical. It almost could have been Michael Scott conducting the interview. Perhaps the best moment is when Steve Carell shredded Conan’s I.D. and as he laughed Conan said, “They’re booing Steve Carell!”

Tom Hanks was the first guest. He brought with him crème soda and offered the use of his living room to Conan to host a private version of The Tonight Show for Hanks and his wife nightly. The second segment with Hanks went into memories the two had of each other. It was wonderfully positive. A future Tom Hanks project was talked about along with his involvement in the charity telethon for Haiti on Friday night.

Conan O’Brien’s last musical guest as the host of The Tonight Show was Neil Young who sang Long May You Run. He sang it with just the accompaniment of his own guitar and harmonica and it was absolutely beautiful.

After a picture of The Tonight Show staff and crew Conan made a few comments. During this he admitted that NBC allowed him to say whatever he wanted. While acknowledging their differences and problems now, he offered a big thank you to NBC for their 20 year history and for all the opportunities he has had there.

“This is the best job in the world, I absolutely love doing it. And I have the best staff and crew in the history of the medium, I would fight anybody who says I don’t… but no-one would. But despite this sense of loss, I really feel this should be a happy moment. Every comedian, every comedian dreams of hosting The Tonight Show. And for seven months I got to do it, and I did it my way with people I love. I do not regret one second of anything we’ve done here. And… yea… and…I hope, I encounter people while I walk on the street now who uhhh uhh…give me a sad look. I have had more good fortune than anybody I know. And if our next gig is doing a show in a 7-11 parking lot, we will find a way to make it fun. We really will. I have no problems. And, I don’t want to do it in a 7-11 parking lot…but whatever. But finally. I have something to say to our fans. This massive outpouring of support and passion from so many people has been overwhelming for me. The rallys, the signs, all this goofy outrageous creativity on the internet. The fact that people have travelled long distances and camped out all night in the pouring rain… it’s pouring! It’s been pouring for days! And they’re camping out… to be in our audience! Really! You, here’s what all of you have done. You’ve made a sad situation joyous and inspirational. So to all the people watching, I can never ever thank you enough for the kindness to me, I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. And all I ask is for one thing, and this is, and I’m asking this particularly of young people that watch. Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you are kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, it’s just true. As proof, lets make something amazing happen right now. Here to close out our show are a few good friends led by Mr. Will Farrell.”

He did choke up during this speech and it was a wonderful way to say goodbye to The Tonight Show. It showed the class and heart that Conan puts into people and into his work. Will Ferrell performed "Free Bird" with Conan O’Brien (on guitar), Ferrell's wife Viveca Paulin (A Night At The Roxbury), Beck, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, former E Street Band member and house band leader Max Weinberg, Ben Harper along with other members of The Tonight Show Band in front of a giant American flag. Everyone was having a blast and it fit the objective of the night. Conan left NBC and The Tonight Show doing what he has always done, having fun. He passes the torch back to Jay Leno with grace and honor. I have to admit, it was perhaps his best episode of The Tonight Show. This whole debacle is just a temporary hurdle for Conan O’Brien. He has, and will continue to, run the race well. Thank you for a great run so far Conan, we look forward to seeing you on television in September!

Here is what the Associated Press has to say about Conan O'Brien's departure from NBC. It wraps everything up so I thought I'd share. Hope you enjoy!

- Mr. DAPs

Conan’s manager Gavin Polone commented on the deal saying, "In the end, Conan was appreciative of the steps NBC made to take care of his staff and crew, and decided to supplement the severance they were getting out of his own pocket." This is consistent with previous actions Conan has made. During the writer’s strike he paid his staff out of his own pocket. Polone also added, "Now he just wants to get back on the air as quickly as possible."

As for Jay Leno, "We're pleased that Jay is returning to host the franchise that he helmed brilliantly and successfully for many years," chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment Jeff Gaspin said. "He is an enormous talent, a consummate professional and one of the hardest-working performers on television."

I’m sure at this point NBC is hoping that this is the end of this saga and things can move forward.  I really doubt that anyone feels sorry for NBC as they really reaped what they sowed in this mess. They were unfair to Conan O’Brien and unfair to Jay Leno.

Earlier this week Jay Leno commented on the situation on The Jay Leno Show at some length. The gist of what he said is that five years ago NBC came to him and said they were going to replace him on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Jay Leno went along with this and asked to be released from his contract and NBC said no and offered him The Jay Leno Show instead with full assurances that it would bomb for four months and they’d back him because in the spring and summer it’d recover. However this didn’t happen and they pulled the plug on the show. Jay Leno again asked to be released from his contract and NBC said no. This time they had the grand idea for a half hour Jay Leno show at 11:35 PM. Jay Leno agreed but questioned whether Conan O’Brien would be ok with it. NBC was sure that Conan would be. Of course when this proposal was brought to Conan O’Brien, that didn’t happen. Instead Conan fired off a very public letter of protest which led to the last week and a half’s negotiations for him to leave The Tonight Show. This also has led to jokes by just about every comedian (on and off the air it seems) about NBC.

I wish both Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno the very best as they begin the next phase of life. I think it will be very interesting to see what happens in this new phase. I’m curious as to where The Tonight Show will be filmed and what the set will look like. After spending all that money to make the set for Conan, are they just going to have Leno use it? Will Leno stay in Burbank or move to Universal Studios? Will Conan indeed end up at Fox?

That last question is really the one that I think should be bothering NBC right now. Because they have so royally screwed up their late night (and everything else) programming, they have really tarnished both the name of The Tonight Show and also unfairly Jay Leno to an extent. It seems to me that while The Tonight Show battle is over for NBC, the late night battle has really begun.  Conan gained an incredible amount of support through this all and one has to wonder if his new backers will follow him to FOX or if it is all hype. If they do follow him, the battle for the late night king has begun. Will Leno be able to retake his throne? Only time will tell.

A sign of Conan O'Brien potentially moving to FOX came in the form of a domain name. 20th Century Fox purchased the domain name www.conanonfox.com , according to the registration page on godaddy.com. There hasn't been an official release about Conan's departure from NBC or Leno returning to The Tonight Show. It is only a matter of time though. As this interests me, I will be reporting on it as I get more details. 

-Mr. DAPs