I have to admit, Katie Jo and I were more sympathetic to Conan O'Brien than Jay Leno in the recent "Tonight Show" controversy.  Maybe because we thought an innocent bystander (Conan) was getting hit by the bullets of an ego battle (Jay/NBC) and ended up losing the entire war alone.  But with over $40 million in veteran's benefits, we think Conan will be just fine. 

In the process of seeing it all go down, Katie wanted to find out more about NBC's side and found a detail I didn't hear much about during the sparring:  NBC Universal's President and CEO went to school with O'Brien.  According to his Wikipedia site, Jeffrey Zucker went to Harvard University and served as the head of their school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.  In that role he had a rivalry with the Harvard Lampoon, headed by none other than Conan O'Brien.

Now of course the first thing I thought was that the love-loss in Cambridge must have translated to Los Angeles! But then I realized since Zucker was promoted to his current position in 2007, he actually helped place Conan in the "Tonight Show" slot, and made the fateful decision to oust Leno from that seat.

Oh well.  So much for continuing the drama.  But I do find it interesting that two college kids from the East Coast over two decades ago are still entangled in competition today as part of, as the Los Angeles Times called it, "one of the biggest debacles in television history."  It pays never to burn your bridges.