Conan Explains Why He Didn't Leave NBC in 2004 on Charlie Rose
And the old clips portending doom continue to emerge. Conan sits down with Charlie Rose and some water in 2006 to discuss the arc of his career thus far. Turns out Conan wanted his legacy to be with NBC...badly.
Conan tells Rose when his contract at NBC expired in 2004, Fox essentially pulled a dump truck of money up to his house to get him to sign with them. Conan refused, citing that he is and forever will be an NBC company man (Ha!). He poured his heart and soul (and bone marrow) into Late Night, so he wanted to stay with NBC and build a lucrative career with them as opposed to being just a blip on the radar screen. Little did he know that he would get a dump truck of money from NBC to not do The Tonight Show, as well as a dump truck of money from another (yet to be named) network to do another show! That's a lot of dump trucks!
Rose goes on to ask if The Tonight Show was the dream for Conan. Conan and his humble Irish roots prevent him from jumping out of the chair and shouting "You're damn right it's the dream!" Instead he says it can't be the dream because it's like being anointed Pope: you have to wait for the current pope to die. Not that he wishes Jay Leno to die a horrible fiery death or anything, but it seems that's the only thing to keep Leno from doing a late night talk show.
