The talk show rounds begin!

Scotty McCreery will be a guest tonight on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

UPDATED - There has been a scheduling change and "Idol" runner-up Lauren Alaina will be on "Leno" tonight without Scotty, but Scotty will hit the show soon. We'll keep you updated here as soon as "The Tonight Show" releases that info. Sorry for anyone who unnecessarily DVRs "Leno" -- we know how  painful that can be. But you still get Lauren!

Scotty is also slated to appear on "Live with Regis & Kelly" on Tuesday, May 31. That show airs on WTVD at 9 a.m.

Next Thursday (June 2) Scotty and Lauren will both sing for the "Today" show Summer Concert Series. "Today" starts at 7 a.m. on NBC and goes until 11 a.m. 

We'll post it here if we learn of any other appearances. I'm sure he'll be on the "Ellen" show at some point.

The Bearded One is back.

After an extraordinary amount of hype, Conan O'Brien returned to late last night, debuting his new 11 p.m. talk show on TBS.

No surprise here, but "Conan" is a lot like O'Brien's old shows ("Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien") -- and that's not a bad thing. I loved those old shows, and there's really no reason I can think of for him to drastically change a formula that his loyal Team Coco adores.

In his first episode (titled "Baa Baa Blackmail" -- each episode will be named), O'Brien made a lot of self-deprecating jokes about his infamous dismissal from NBC and about being on basic cable (also not a surprise). His sidekick Andy Richter was back, and really funny (on the couch where he belongs instead of behind a podium). The Basic Cable Band sounded good, and guests Seth Rogan, Lea Michelle, and Jack White -- all good. O'Brien even played a number with White, and you could tell he was having a blast.

In short, the first five minutes of "Conan" -- a short film recounting the upheaval at NBC and his path to TBS -- were funnier than five years of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

Watch that clip below.

Chris Rock was pretty hilarious last night giving Jay Leno a hard time about all the changes at "The Tonight Show," starting with the question of "the redhead guy" who was there last time Rock was a guest. Leno kept trying to change the subject, but Rock was driving that train.

At one point Rock asked Leno, "Did the redhead guy take Kevin?" Leno told him no, Kevin Eubanks was somewhere "working with kids." Rock: "Kids?! Stop it! Y'all done fired Kevin and got a cheaper brother to take his place!"

Is anyone funnier than Chris Rock? Watch the video below:

NBC has legally kept Conan O'Brien from speaking out on television or in print about his departure from "The Tonight Show," but all of that ends this Sunday when Conan is interviewed on CBS's "60 Minutes."

The NBC deal said Conan must keep his silence until May 1. "60 Minutes" will air on May 2. Because of that clause in the contract, CBS can't even use Conan's face before May 2 in promos for their show.

Conan O'Brien, who very famously left NBC's "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" earlier this year after a shake-up involving Jay Leno and shifting time slots, will host a new late night talk show on TBS beginning in November.

The news is a bit of a surprise since industry watchers were betting on Conan moving to Fox, since his people have been in negotiations with them for awhile. Negotiations with TBS began only ten days ago. The New York Times has more on how the deal went down.

Conan's new show will air at 11pm, against "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report," both on Comedy Central. TBS already has a late night talk show at 11pm, hosted by George Lopez. Lopez will move to midnight, which is kind of funny considering the reason Conan left NBC to start with was because he didn't want his show moved to midnight.

The Chin is back.

Jay Leno returns to his "Tonight Show" spot tonight at 11:35, and it's likely to be the very same "Tonight Show" he left last May -- which then essentially became "The Jay Leno Show" in prime time. (And unless you've been living under a rock for the past three months, you know that Leno's ratings in prime time were atrocious so NBC decided to move his new show to 11:35 and shove Conan's "Tonight Show" to 12:05. When Conan balked, he was dismissed and Jay was tossed like a rabbit into a briar patch).

Jimmy Kimmel responded to Jay Leno's accusation on yesterday's "Oprah Winfrey Show" that Kimmel "sucker-punched" him when Kimmel appeared on Jay's show a few weeks ago.

On his own show last night, Kimmel pointed out that he didn't believe going on a comedy show and making jokes qualifies as a "sucker-punch." But he joked that having a comedian on your show and then running to Oprah to rat them out did feel a little like a sucker-punch. Kimmel was funny about it, not whiney and victimized (like Jay). Kimmel did what comedians do: he turned the dispute something funny, he didn't run to Oprah for therapy and damage control.

Kimmel said if he made a mistake when he went on Jay's show earlier this month, it was in thinking Jay would stray from his cue cards (which he did not). "He just stood there, kind of reading through the questions like a robot." Kimmel said he expected to make some jokes about the late night mess and then they'd "mix it up" a bit because, as Kimmel said, "you know, at one time he was a comedian." OUCH. And also, BULLSEYE.

The video is below. I also love the part where Kimmel asks everyone to keep Jay in their prayers.

The episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" featuring the Jay Leno interview will air this afternoon on WTVD.

In the interview, which was taped on Tuesday, Leno tells Oprah that he has not talked to Conan O'Brien personally about the upheaval over "The Tonight Show." According to The New York Times, Leno initially told Oprah that the jokes about him told on other shows were not hurtful, but later indicated that he was bothered by them.

The interview with Oprah is designed to repair Leno's damaged image, and according to early reports, he was in full martyr mode during the show.

Perhaps I am too easily amused, but this is so hilarious to me. Last night's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" presented a short Ken Burns-style documentary on NBC's Late Night Wars of 2009-2010. We even get General Jebediah Jay Leno reading aloud letters to his wife Mavis. The old guy they interview (the "TV watcher") eating the donut really cracked me up.

Like David Letterman, I get up every morning promising myself that I'm finished with this whole Conan O'Brien-Jay Leno mess, but I just can't help myself. 

Today's gem is a brilliant computer-animated explanation of the NBC fiasco from a television news organization in Taiwan: