Conan O'Brien launches new show with hilarious recap of the past year

Apparently, Conan O'Brien's exit deal from NBC wasn't as sweet a package as previously reported. According to this recap that opened his new TBS talk show last night, Conan spent the last year trying to get a series of increasingly insulting jobs (I won't give away any of the gags) and finally contemplating suicide... until his guardian angel intervened.

Thankfully, O'Brien did not stick with the fictional backstory presented here. In his opening monologue, he made several direct jibes at the NBC fiasco that favored Jay Leno: 

"Yes, I know what you guys are thinking, 'Hey, it's the guy from Twitter.' Welcome to my new show, Conan. People ask me why I named the show "Conan." I did it so I'd be harder to replace.

"This is an exciting night. I'm glad to be on cable. The truth is, I've dreamed of being a talk show host on basic cable ever since I was 46.

"And things are going well already. I'm happy to report that we're already number one in TBS's key demographic: people who can't afford HBO.

"I'm going to be honest: It's not easy doing a late-night show on a channel without a lot of money and that viewers have trouble finding. So that's why I left NBC." [OMG/Yahoo]

The rest of the show was not as well-received. Seth Rogen talked about his girlfriend's "titties" and how he put her engagement ring around her nipple when he proposed. Hmm.

Perhaps everyone was so worked up, so motivated to like this show and prove the corporate greedheads at NBC to be the dopes they are, that the reviews could only be so-so.