It’s official: Conan O’Brien is launching a 32-city nationwide stage tour, starting April 12. You can get tickets for the Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television tour here, or here. Unless they’re already sold out and you can’t. (Conan has already announced extra dates in New York—at Radio City, natch, right by NBC’s 30 Rock HQ—and Chicago.)
Before anyone asks, I don’t know anything more about the possibility of Conan going to Fox. I don’t know how much more likely the tour makes it. But optics-wise, as they say, this idea seems pretty much genius.
In one shot, Conan circumvents his contractual shut-out from TV, gets a couple months of massive, probably positive, publicity, and further cements the notion of himself as some kind of grassroots comedic folkhero, whether or not his ticket buyers are people who didn’t get around to watching him on TV for free. If you’re negotiating a TV deal, I don’t exactly see how that hurts.
Unless he can’t sell tickets, which judging from teamcoco.com’s being overwhelmed this morning, does not yet seem to be a problem.