Public Apology: We May Have Accidentally Killed Conan

Conan O'Brien

Los Angeles, CA - With public outrage over the possible end of Conan O’Brien’s time hosting The Tonight Show, we felt it would be wrong for us to conceal the disasterous role The Vitamin Press played in Conan’s Tonight Show late night demise.

Eight years ago, a younger Jay Leno approached Kip’s father (who was running the business back then) and I in hopes to someday obtain a position on our staff. Being familiar with his work, we started him off in the mail room, agreeing to keep his moonlighting (or, more accurately, daylighting) at The Vitamin Press a secret. After six years in the mail room, we felt his loyalty to our organization warranted a promotion to a desk job. We initially promoted him to archives, where he sold walk-in customers older editions of The Vitamin Press, but customers’ complaints about his chin scaring little children and vulnerable adults led us to transfer him to another position where we could keep him safely out of the public eye.

Leno’s next position was that of Errand Boy, where he catered to the whims of our writing, editorial, and janitorial staff. After nearly two years at this position, Leno looked in a mirror, noticed how old he was, and decided he needed to insist upon promotion to writer. Out of interest for our organization (and for the general public good), we obviously denied his request. Upon receiving our denial, he immediately dropped the Spice Pumpkin Latte he was carrying, started crying, and yelled, “I quit!”

Our lawyers have confirmed that, upon his resignation, he also terminated our verbal agreement not to divulge his secret position at The Vitamin Press. Therefore, before another news outlet discovered this story and scooped us, we felt it necessary to reveal the truth about these circumstances.

Once his Vitamin Press dreams came crashing down, Jay Leno needed an ego boost. He then sold two of his motorcycles (one of which was propelled by a solid rocket booster from the soon to be retired space shuttle), hired one of the best lawyers on the west coast, and contacted NBC demanding his old time slot back in an all-night drunken tirade.

With such an intimidating lawyer on his side, Leno was able to scare NBC into submission. The obvious consequence of this is the contention and controversy between Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, where it is very likely that Conan O’Brien may lose The Tonight Show to Jay Leno.

It was not our intention at The Vitamin Press to interfere with NBC’s late night schedule. We respect Conan O’Brien as an excellent comedian and satirist and have tried time and time again to hire him as a contributor, even if only on a part-time basis. With the possibility of unemployment on the horizon for Mr. O’Brien, we extend to him again this invitation and offer our most sincere apologies for our role in this situation.