Conan's Wife: 'Tonight' Lost 'cultural relevancy'

CoCo may have felt like he was in a car accident after losing "The Tonight Show" earlier this year, but his wife said a seatbelt wouldn't have helped, according to a story at NYDailynews.com.

In the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine, which hits newsstands Friday, Elizabeth Ann Powel opened up about the sad state of the NBC show that ousted her husband.

"The truth is, ‘The Tonight Show’ was the definition of cultural relevancy for decades. And all of a sudden, it's not," she told rollingstone.com. "That's not Conan's fault. It's not anybody's fault. It just happened."

Read more here.

Meanwhile, NYPost.com reports, Conan O'Brien isn't letting sleeping dogs -- or bears -- lie when "Conan" begins on TBS next month.

The late-night host says that he won't let potential NBC intellectual property rights lawsuits dictate what he does on his new talk show.

"If there's something we did for a long time that we've established as ours, we'll figure out a way to do it," O'Brien told Rolling Stone in its Nov. 11 issue. "I won't be denied my Masturbating Bear!"

He is, of course, referring to the "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" gag where a bear wearing a loincloth -- actually a man in a costume -- walked on stage and then pleasured itself to the strains of Aram
Khachaturian's famous "Sabre Dance." It's one of many characters and comedy bits that frequently appeared on "Late Night."

"What I really wanna do," O'Brien confided, "is be sued over the bear and then appear in court with the Masturbating Bear. 'Your Honor, this bear can't help himself!' "

Read more here.