UPDATE: My Jan. 13 column: Conan says hell no, he won't go -- making NBC look like a clown

UPDATE 1/12: Conan O'Brien vetoes NBC's move of "Tonight Show": "I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction"

UPDATE 1/11: NBC finally listens to affiliates it bullied into primetime experiment, moving Jay Leno back to late night; Conan O'Brien weighs options

Johnny Carson routinely turned missteps to his advantage with uncommon grace and skill, becoming an enduring icon of late-night TV on NBC's "The Tonight Show" partly because of what Dennis Miller has described as a "Houdini-like ability to extricate (himself) from the bad joke."

Carson's gone, but they're still making mistakes at NBC, especially around "Tonight," and only making a bad joke worse.

First in trying to keep Conan O'Brien from leaving, then in trying to keep Jay Leno from leaving and now in trying to keep affiliates burned by those first two moves from open rebellion, Carson's old network has found it can't wriggle out of its straitjacket. Forget about the shackles, the locked trunk and swimming to the surface.

Continue reading my Jan. 10 column "NBC struggles to salvage mess it made with 'Tonight Show' "

ALSO: Fox may be interested in Conan, if he does decide to ditch NBC.