CONAN RETURNS TO THE SCENE OF HIS …. CRIMES?

Conan O’Brien brought his Legally Prohibited to be Funny on TV tour to the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios, a stone’s throw away from the NBC studio where he taped The Tonight Show. During his Saturday performance, he told the crowd. “This is my first time back at Universal Studios since I lost my job.” O’Brien waited for the crowd reaction to die down, then remarked, “Don’t boo too loudly.” Then (pointing in the direction of NBC): “If you listen very carefully, you can hear bad ideas being greenlit.” A surprise onstage guest was Jim Carrey, dressed in a Superman costume, to sing a duet with O’Brien of Superman by Five for Fighting, which ended up on YouTube and O’Brien’s website. Meanwhile, to compound the irony that NBC Universal still earns money from O’Brien by providing the Universal Studios site for his tour was an unconfirmed report that O’Brien’s production company may lease his former NBC stage — built at a reported cost of $50 million — at the same site to tape his upcoming late-night show for TBS.