Jimmy Fallon to take over Conan O’Brien’s “Late Night”
With Conan O’Brien still set to take over Jay Leno’s seat at The Tonight Show, Variety is reporting that SNL’s Jimmy Fallon will officially be taking over the Late Night desk likely starting February 2009. The move will come before O’Brien takes a six month hiatus before he takes the reigns of NBC’s The Tonight Show.
As for Leno, he has standing offers from ABC and FOX to jump over to their networks if he’s not yet ready to say goodbye to his nightly TV spot. It looks like this move to SNL’s Weekend Update anchor might finally signal the end of the talk about Jon Stewart somehow figuring into the Peacock’s late night plans.
Conan has been loyal to NBC for years and it’d be a surprise to see anyone else take over the desk other than the gangly Irish one, but I think that I now have to see it to believe it with all the speculation.
But for now, we should just get used to hearing, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon because it’s happening.
