Conan O'Brien picks TBS, not Fox, for his TV home

Apr 13 2010 9:13 AM EDT
Conan O'Brien's Move To TBS Embraced By George Lopez
'I am completely, 100 percent onboard with this move,' Lopez said on his TBS show.
By Gil Kaufman
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What a difference a few months and a basic cable outlet make. Unlike Conan O'Brien, who decided to walk when NBC asked him to push his show back to make room for the return of Jay Leno to "The Tonight Show," comedian George Lopez could not be more psyched that his TBS show "Lopez Tonight" will be bumped an hour to accommodate O'Brien's new talker in the fall.

"If you haven't heard by now, Conan O'Brien will be joining us on late night on TBS. Welcome! Welcome!," Lopez gushed at the beginning of Monday night's show. "I want to say that I am completely, 100 percent onboard with this move. I talked to Conan on Wednesday, and I talked to him last night, and I said, 'I welcome you into my deep loving embrace.' Then I said, 'Let's take the party and make it bigger and take it into the next generation of late-night TV.'

"Everybody's heard of 'I'm with CoCo,' but now everybody can 'Go LoCo,' " he added.

According to an account of the discussions leading up to the TBS deal, O'Brien's manager said it was a call from Lopez blessing the plan that made the late-night deal possible.

Later on in Monday night's show, Lopez chatted with Chris Rock, who said he was surprised by the latest late-night drama. "I think you're here on a good night ... with Conan coming to TBS," Lopez boasted.

Rock snapped back, "Conan's coming? Where are you going?"

"I'm staying," Lopez explained. "I'm going to midnight. He's coming at 11 o'clock, and I'm going to midnight."

The comedian feigned surprise and said, "Get the hell out of here! So, you're gonna move for the white man, huh? I hope he appreciates this. ... You don't gotta clean a park or nothing, right?"

"No and I get to go to work an hour later," Lopez responded. "That's a Latino dream come true!"

Lopez also did a segment later in the show where he "interviewed" O'Brien, using one of the carrot-topped talker's signature bits. With someone else supplying the voice of O'Brien on a video link-up, Lopez took some lighthearted shots at Jay Leno and joked, "No matter what happens, we will have the best hair in late-night TV."