NBC anoints Fallon as Conan O'Brien successor

Jimmy Fallon's eighth-grade yearbook at St. Mary of the Snow in Saugerties, N.Y., listed him as "most likely to take over for David Letterman."

Letterman's not going anywhere, but close enough: Fallon is succeeding Conan O'Brien as the host of NBC's "Late Night" sometime in the middle of next year. NBC on Monday made official a plan that's been talked about since 2003, when a network executive first broached the idea of doing a talk show with the former "Saturday Night Live" star.

"I've been doing a monologue in my living room the last three years and it was embarrassing," Fallon joked at a news conference.

However, he said, "my wife seemed to like it."

Fallon told the anecdote about his school yearbook at a news conference, saying it was when he was in kindergarten. He insisted afterward that the story was true, but NBC later said his mother had corrected him: it was his eighth grade yearbook.

NBC's plan is to have O'Brien move west to take over for Jay Leno at the "Tonight" show next year. After a break to refurbish the Rockefeller Center studio where O'Brien now works, the 33-year-old Fallon will take over.