Jay and Craig commented on the late-night rumors in their monologues

The rumors have not even been officially confirmed, in what is clearly the craziest runaway news story since Escalade-meets-tree way back in November — the story that blew up out of nowhere this morning concerning Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon and maybe (but don't hold your breath) Carson Daly.

At 9 a.m. I was making the best case for keeping things as they were, though I wasn't even persuading myself that Leno was succeeding in prime. By 7 p.m., when both sides were furiously leaking to the mainstream media, I had moved from denial to acceptance.

And now, in a sign that there simply is no topic too meta or insider to bring up in a late-night monologue, two of the hosts who would be affected by the proposed moves devoted time tonight to jokes about the unconfirmed reports — thereby effectively confirming them.

Jay Leno:

Happy birthday to Katie Couric, it's her birthday today. She left NBC for another network. I have to give her call to see how that is working out.

As you may have heard, there is a rumor floating around that we were canceled. I heard it coming in this morning on the radio. [Hey, maybe he heard it from me! -- AB] So far no one has said anything to me. But Kev, if we did get canceled it will give us time to do some traveling. I understand that Fox is beautiful this time of year.

I don't think there is any truth to the rumors. See, it's always been my experience that NBC only cancels you when you're in first place. So we are fine.

You know what happened? NBC found four guns in my locker. I was suspended. (Kevin says, "I'm glad they didn't find them in my locker.") We will keep following this story.

And then this from Craig. He started his show off camera, so while we’re looking at an empty frame we hear...

I’m sorry I can’t be here tonight. I’ve been moved. I am now appearing at 11:30 at NBC.

And then:

I’m watching on the internet of all the different things going on at NBC. This is the latest I’ve heard. I don’t know if it is true, but this is the rumor I’ve heard. This is what is going around the late night circles. Jay moves to 11:30 and does a half-hour show between 11:30 and 12. Then Conan does 12 to 1, and then Fallon does 1 till 2. I think that is what the rumor is tonight. I don’t know if that is going to happen. And I’m thinking “Where is Carson Daly in all this?” But I have to tell you when I look at all this ... when I watch the other, you know NBC making this terrible mess of the schedule — the guys that they are moving are real nice guys. I know these guys. They are perfectly nice guys, professional, they are good at their jobs — but they get moved around. And when I watch the other guys making a mess of it I think —

(evil laughter)

It’s kinda like when you are playing a game of football and the guy comes to tackle you and he kinda trips and you go ‘ha-ha-ha.’ Anyway, I just want to assure you of this, as the other guys are doing all of this stuff and making all of these mistakes ... we still make the crappiest late-night TV show. When all is said and done we will be remembered that we are the ones that sucked the most. But what did we do? We sucked at the same damn time every night.

Every night join me right here and you will get your regular dose of suck!”

Previously on TV Barn, I named the best (Craig) and worst (Last Call) in late night.