Jimmy Fallon and Jay Leno. (NBC)

Wednesday's official announcement from NBC that Jimmy Fallon will be replacing Jay Leno on The Tonight Show was the culmination of months worth of speculation, rumors and gossip. When the media learned that Mr. Fallon was not only moving the show back to New York, but would be hosting the program from Johnny Carson's old studio, the comparisons between this latest drama and the bitter NBC late-night feuds in the past--Conan vs. Leno, Leno vs. Letterman--were inevitable, despite the network trying to play off the move as amicable. Hell, trying for the 11:30 (or now, technically, 11:35) slot on NBC is more of a political bloodsport than Game of Thrones, with at least twice as much backstabbing and allegiance shifting. (Though less decapitation ... that we know of.)

Here are the five best rumors about the new Tonight Show, along with any responses from NBC or its players.

1. Rumor: NBC was so pissed at Leno for mocking its ratings that it pushed the 22-year veteran out.
Last month, The New York Times ran a piece about the fallout from a joke that Mr. Leno made on Tonight about NBC sliding into fifth place in the ratings. The article cited three sources that claimed that NBC's top entertainment executive, Robert Greenblatt, and Mr. Leno engaged in a flame war after the episode. As Bill Carter wrote:

This moment of conflict between Mr. Leno and NBC’s management preceded recent reports — denied categorically by NBC executives — that the network was preparing to make a change, moving out Mr. Leno and bringing in Jimmy Fallon, the star of its 12:35 program “Late Night.”

Damage Control: NBC staged a dinner for Mr. Greenblatt and Mr. Leno, though of course that only fueled the fires to speculation that this was a "last meal" kind of scenario.

2. Rumor: Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon must hate each other.
It's happened with Jay Leno and literally every other contender for Tonight (including Carson, who wasn't a huge fan of his successor), or anyone who shares the time slot on a different station, so why should the brazen Mr. Fallon be any different?

Damage Control: On April 1, the two hosts got together and sang a parody duet of West Side Story's "Tonight."

Then again, it was April Fool's Day, so who knows how much stock to put in this bonhomie. However, Mr. Fallon does have a history of being, if anything, overly gracious to the cranky Mr. Leno.

3. Rumor: Fallon is already becoming the biggest late-night diva of them all.

Amid all these other swirling rumors was one that only applied to Mr. Fallon: that he had fired his longtime manager Eric Kranzler right before signing his Tonight deal.

Damage Control: Well, besides his former manager, everyone else seems to love Mr. Fallon.

4. Rumor: Jimmy Fallon rode in a sidecar of Jay Leno's motorcycle.

Thanks for this, New York Post:

Damage Control: The image turned out to be a fake, though without any sort of disclosure, you could be excused for thinking it was real.

5. That Seth Meyers will host in Fallon's former time-slot.

Every time a host moves up, it's an opportunity for some fresh blood to move into the recently vacated space. Right now, the biggest name being tossed around is Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers, which would be great ... Weekend Update every weeknight!

Damage Control: None, quite yet.

Ellen DeGeneres, The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003-present): Jennifer Aniston

Jimmy Fallon, Late Night (2009): Robert DeNiro

• Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show (2009-2010): Will Ferrell 
• Jay Leno, The Jay Leno Show (2009-2010): Jerry Seinfeld
• Jay Leno, The Tonight Show (2010-present): Lindsey Vonn
• Nate Berkus, The Nate Berkus Show (2010-2012): Dolly Parton
• Conan O'Brien, Conan (2010-present): Arlene Wagner [curator, Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum]
• Anderson Cooper, Anderson (2011-present): the family of Amy Winehouse
• Bethenny Frankel, Bethenny (2012-present): Vanessa L. Williams
• Jeff Probst, The Jeff Probst Show (2012-present): Kelly Pozzoli, schoolteacher with cervical cancer
• Katie Couric, Katie (2012-present): Jessica Simpson

Late night has been a perpetual trouble spot for NBC, even as it continues to lead in the ratings; the inflated budget for Mr. Leno's show was a remnant of the show's move to 10pm to make room for Conan O'Brien, a swiftly rectified mistake that resulted in Mr. O'Brien's departure for the network and a new vulnerability for the venerable Tonight Show. Jimmy Kimmel's move to 11:35pm on ABC (displacing Nightline) will only intensify competition in an area that NBC once dominated (shades of the early-morning news wars!).

NBC has lost ground in the morning recently to ABC; their slipping in late-night may leave them without a single one of their areas of traditional dominance intact.

Michelle Obama vs. Jimmy Fallon (NBC)

If you're a fan of talk shows where famous people talk to other famous people so that the second famous person can promote their latest whatever, then you might have noticed an odd trend: First Lady Michelle Obama has been making the rounds lately: first on Ellen, then Jay Leno, and now Jimmy Fallon, all in an effort to raise awareness for the Let's Move! health initiative. Or is it?

Michelle Obama gets a visit from Jimmy Fallon last night:
Mrs. Obama on The Tonight Show last week, talking about her husband's singing and nutrition:

Michelle Obama challenging Ellen to a push-up contest:

Now, these three clips all have one thing in common, and it's not just that all three shows appear on NBC, which is the conspiracy theory put forward by Nikki Finke. Two of those segments featured the First Lady going head-to-head with the host in some kind of physical endurance challenge, while the Leno clip had some doctored footage of Mrs. Obama getting into fistacuffs with Al Roker.

While one could claim this is all part of the Let's Move! Initiative, it also shows that Mrs. Obama has a sense of humor about herself. After all, it wasn't so long ago that she was being called an angry black woman and every major network was speculating on her strong-arming tactics with White House policy advisers.

This the call-out to any anchor, writer, or media commenter who wants to take on Michelle "The Rock" Obama. She'll make you gasp for air before she even breaks out a sweat. She's not going to meekly hide behind a nutrition campaign because her physical strength is associated with some negative stereotypes. The message is clear: Don't mess with the First Lady.

Elder statesman David Letterman (Getty Images)

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of David Letterman's first foray into wee-hours broadcasting--NBC's Late Night With David Letterman premiered on this date in 1982. What a thirty years it's been--marked by guest misbehavior (Madonna, Drew--we're looking at you), tricks both pet and human, and ever-pricklier interviews with starlets who keep failing to learn from history that they'll have a tough time with Dave.

Mr. Letterman's marking the occasion by hosting favored guest Howard Stern on tonight's show. Mr. Letterman's time on late night is marked by a significant shift--he left NBC for CBS in 1992 at the culmination of the war over Johnny Carson's seat that landed Jay Leno at The Tonight Show. Heaven only knows which of the two will retire first--Mr. Letterman's looking comfortable at his pearl anniversary.

"I wanted to do the show, we just couldn't get it worked out … And then, my sister and I were watching the show when Bill made his threat, and I just thought . . . whether it's a comedian or a terrorist, you should not respond to threats," O'Donnell told Leno. 

O'Donnell was a guest on 22 episodes of Maher's old talk show, "Politically Incorrect," which aired from 1993 until 2002. In September, Maher began the new season of "Real Time" with a message for O'Donnell.

"Christine, if you're watching, I created you. You need to come on this show. if you don't come on this show, I'm going to show a clip every week," he said. 

Maher then proceeded to air an 11 year-old clip where O'Donnell discussed how she once "dabbled in witchcraft."

"One of my first dates with a witch was on a Satanic altar," said O'Donnell in the clip.

The witchcraft clip became a viral video sensation and prompted a 30-second commercial where O'Donnell informed television viewers that she's "not a witch." 

Approximately 4.15 million viewers tuned in for O'brien's inaugural TBS broadcast, 3.28 million of whom were in the adults 18-49 demographic that is the gold standard for television advertisers. Last night's episode of the "Tonight Show" was O'Brien's closest competition with about 3.45 million viewers. Letterman drew an audience of 3.39 million. "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" earned an average of 1.1 million viewers apiece.

After his break with NBC, O'Brien was contractually prohibited from appearing on television until this month. But he managed to build a huge following during his exile from the airwaves by playing up his martyr status with a live concert tour and savvy use of social media. O'Brien joined Twitter in February and has since accumulated over 1.8 million followers on the social networking site.

O'Brien's premiere ratings are exactly what TBS was hoping for when they signed him to a five-year contract that was reportedly worth at least $10 million. In a statement on the ratings for "Conan," Turner Entertainment Networks President Steve Koonin called O'Brien's premiere performance "extraordinary."

"Conan’s audience has been very vocal online, and he clearly made a smooth transition from Twitter to TBS,” Koonin said.

The question now is how much of his impressive debut audience O'Brien will be able to retain now that the long-running saga of his exit from NBC has truly come to an end. TBS will probably be happy if he's able to hold on to at least half of the viewers who watched the premiere.

In that group, Ms. White’s “SNL” show hit a 4.6 rating. If the show were counted as a prime-time show it would have beaten every other show on network television last week except the two editions of “American Idol” and “Glee” on Fox, while tying with “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS.

Last night Betty White sat down with Jay Leno and began her interview by saying the audience "should be throwing rocks at me—you've had such an overdose!"

[via Politico]