Late-Night's Leftover Hosts Pay Tribute to Conan

Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman all show their playful support to Team CoCo following his final night as Tonight Showhost

By Megan Masters Jan 23, 2010 9:05 PMTags

While Team CoCo partied away their last Tonight together, Conan O'Brien was saluted by his fellow late-night cohorts.

Late Night successor Jimmy Fallon honored the the short-lived Tonight Show host by opening his show with a pitchy, albeit heartfelt, rendition of the tear-inducing Boyz II Men hit "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday."

Fellow hosts Jimmy Kimmel and David Letterman also addressed NBC's late-night snafu, respectively, letting viewers, and one red-headed funnyman, know they're all on Team CoCo.

Kimmel went back a decade or two, superimposing Conan into footage from Jay Leno's 1989 flop, Collision Course. The two engaged in a faux gunfight, alongside Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), as Kimmel teased that this was actual breaking news from early Friday night.

And Letterman's approach? Jabs at Jay, of course. The Late Show host created a fictional trailer for The Late Shift 2, a spinoff of the 1996 HBO film about Letterman and Leno's first battle for the coveted Tonight Show spot.

Following his final production, Conan signed autographs and took pictures with fans, thanking them again for their unwavering support. The cast, crew and guests, including Will Ferrell and 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer (Tom Hanks had to leave for the Help With Haiti Now telethon), stuck around the Tonight Show studio for a huge afterparty.

While sipping on Jameson whiskey, O'Brien's staff donned "Team Conan" shirts, while all of the interns wore their "I'm with Coco" gear.

"There was more laughter then tears," a source tells E! News of the festivities, which lasted well into the night.

—Additional reporting by Marc Malkin

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