Catch Conan O'Brien in the funny 12:35 a.m. hour while you still can

Conan O'Brien is approaching his impending new gig as "Tonight Show" host - as well as bumping "Host, 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien'" down a notch on his resume - with a combination of awe and dread. His run at 12:35 a.m. ends tomorrow with his 2,725th episode.

"I'll probably cry like a baby on Friday night," he tells the New York Times. Aw, c'mon, Conan - at least cry like a man.

The story recounts the rigmarole that went into NBC prematurely bouncing Jay Leno from the 11:35 p.m. timeslot and the last-second negotiations that'll put Jay in primetime, stripped across NBC's weeknight schedule at 10 p.m., which has been explicated at length here and elsewhere. It also points out that O'Brien's ratings have slipped of late - he's even started losing the hour to CBS's Craig Ferguson on a semi-regular basis.

"I feel a little sorry for Conan," one longtime late-night executive tells the Times in reference to Jay still preceding him on the schedule. "I think he's getting sandbagged."

But Conan insists he's OK with it: "Of all the alternatives in the universe, this one honestly does work best for me," he says. "I didn't want to suddenly be perceived as this person who forced someone into a bad position. I wouldn't be comfortable in that role." Or, no doubt, the role of personal ratings punching bag for Leno should he have turned up at the same time on another network.

What remains to be seen is how much Conan will alter or water down his act when he's on an hour earlier. The weirder stuff will no doubt get jettisoned - say farewell to the Masturbating Bear - but then, David Letterman polished his act a bit when he moved to CBS but remained enough of the weird old Dave that audiences continued to embrace him.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon - best known for laughing at his own jokes on "Saturday Night Live" (at least someone did) - takes over in the "Late Night" anchor's chair on March 2, and he's curiously chosen a couple of notoriously prickly interview subjects as the guests of his inaugural show: Robert De Niro and Van Morrison (way to chase that youth demographic, Jimmy!).

To be fair, De Niro's gotten a little better at the whole sitting-for-an-interview thing, but then, he's had 30 years to adjust to it. I remember sitting through a press conference with him for a movie - he couldn't bring himself to talk with journalists on a more personal level at the time - and it was excruciating; not a single full sentence emanated from his mouth. A few years later, I sat down with him for a one-on-one interview, and I actually managed to get some usable quotes, but it was still a pretty awkward experience. Morrison, on the other hand, will just perform a song or two and doubtless forego the small talk, which is best for all involved.

Plus, a fun new fact about NBC's ongoing cheapskate ways: The network won't pay music royalties, which means Fallon's house band the Roots will have to cook up a wealth of their own riffs and musical tags with which to accompany guest entrances and lead-ins out of commercials. As opposed to, say, when Paul Shaffer plays a pop chestnut that also serves as an inside joke about whatever guest is sauntering toward Dave's guest chair.

"We have to write 200 new songs, which will probably last about a year," ?uestlove tells Rolling Stone. "We've written about 55 so far." Well, quit gabbing about it and go back into your little den and get to work!