There's always been something a little sad to me about Jay Leno, whose eagerness to please sometimes comes across as desperation.

But how eager would you be to please the company that was getting ready to replace you in a job you'd given every appearance of loving? Yesterday, it was announced that Leno's final night on  "The Tonight Show" would be May 29, 2009.

If we're to believe what we've read elsewhere, Leno, who this morning staged a Jimmy Kimmel-like stunt at the beginning of a press conference with NBC entertainment co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, is more resigned than ecstatic about vacating "The Tonight Show" next year to make room for Conan O'Brien, who'll take over "Tonight" on June 1, 2009.

Sure, it's almost exactly what Leno himself did to Johnny Carson, but it's hard to imagine Carson disguising himself as a bald, bespectacled guy and impersonating a reporter, just to give the real reporters the impression that everything's OK between him and the NBC honchos, who'd obviously been part of the stunt. Especially when Kimmel had done the same thing the previous week with ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson.

After asking about those rumors that Leno would be going to ABC, the would-be reporter did get off a couple of lines, asking if it's "true that you've offered Leno a fifth hour on the 'Today' show?" and, "I know you've brought back 'Knight Rider.' Any chance you're bringing 'Manimal' back?"

Afterward, Graboff, who said he still hasn't given up trying to persuade Leno to stay at NBC in some other capacity, said,  “We can’t thank Jay enough. He’s a class act.”

As to why he was bald, "he had to fool you," said Silverman.

Or maybe just himself.

Nicole Richie will guest-star in NBC's "Chuck" this fall, playing a "super-villain" whose episode will involve a shower.

Executive producer Josh Schwartz would do just about anything to get you to watch "Chuck" -- as you should be, anyway -- but his explanation of what Richie will be doing there is heavy on the shower scene (it involves a "seriously wet showdown") and short on spoilers.

As if you could spoil something like this.

Looks as if Jimmy Fallon's going to be getting an online tryout before taking over "Late Night" from Conan O'Brien (who's due to take over "The Tonight Show" from Jay Leno next year).

Fallon's new boss is the same as his old one: "Saturday Night Live" executive producer Lorne Michaels, who said, "I think what we're going to try and do with Jimmy's show is try and go on and do the show virtually on the Internet for leading up to it so that we start to -- we can kind of experiment on it, and one of the things that I learned from the first year of  'Conan' was how brutal it is finding a show on the air."

Michaels continued: "In 1975, with 'SNL,'  there was that time. We were given that time, and we were in a relatively obscure time period, and there wasn't much light on it. So we were able to stay experimental and keep finding it, but living through what Conan had to go through or even recently what Jimmy Kimmel had to go through, I think that beginning it on the Internet for five or six months before it goes on will be an exciting process and allow us to sort of find the voice of the show."

"Saturday Night Live's" Fred Armisen doesn't seem too pleased to ask about the less-than-universal critical acclaim that's greeted his Barack Obama impersonation -- and, yes, I've been among the naysayers -- while admitting "it's something I'm definitely working on.

But boss Lorne Michaels is inclined to defend him, noting that at this point in the Bush-Gore matchup eight years ago, Darrell Hammond hadn't yet nailed his Gore, even though he'd been vice president for seven years by then.

The character started to work, he said, because "everybody was paying attention."

Obama is difficult to make into a character because "I think he’s still defining himself, and he is primarily cast as heroic, which is I think what he is," said the producer, who makes no bones about his longtime support for Democratic candidates.

"But sooner or later, everybody does something to irritate us,” he added.

Asked if he'd miss the Bush administration, he said no.

"About two years ago, it became clear that it was harder and harder to do the president on the show. There was nothing you could tell the audience" they didn't already know, and they were tired of it, he said.

He does, however, love the current campaign.

"I think the whole country's watching," which is one reason "SNL's" returning early this fall, launching Sept. 13 with four live shows in a row and adding three prime-time half-hours on Thursdays starting Oct. 13.

And whether John McCain or Obama is elected, expect the mocking to continue.

"Whoever's in power, we're pretty much suspicious of," Michaels said.

Nothing wakes up a long, long afternoon of NBC Universal cable presentations like a visit from a middle-aged rapper.

Coolio's here to promote his new Oxygen show, "Coolio's Rules," where he'll become the latest performer to turn to his family for a "reality" show.

Coolio, who's divorced, isn't exactly Reverend Run, whose "Run's House" is in its fifth season on MTV.

Asked about executive producer Greg Goldman's contention that Coolio, who's 44, is having a bit of a midlife crisis, the rapper insisted he has no problem being 44.

With four of his children -- Jackie, Artis, Brandi and Artisha Ivey -- looking on, he then suggested we bring him a 24-year-old guy, "let me sleep with his girlfriend and let him sleep with mine."

No, that's not a midlife crisis. Not at all.

"I'm a much better performer than I was at 24, I'm a much better writer. I'm just not as pretty," he said, adding that his ambition is "to go platinum" at 50.

Oh, and whatever you might think about rap and how it treats women, Coolio wanted us to know that he's not about the misogyny. Perhaps he heard that he's on Oxygen?

"I like women. A whole lot. More than the average man, I think."

Which no doubt explains his willingness to sleep with other men's girlfriends.

The new "90210" cast will make room for Shannen Doherty -- as a guest star

Knowing how eagerly we've all been waiting (OK, so maybe not) to find out if Shannen Doherty will play a part in the CW's new "90210," producers put us out of her misery right away.

Yes!

Doherty will indeed return to the role of Brenda Walsh, guest-starring as the director of a high school musical.

No, we have no idea where they got the idea of staging a High School Musical. Because it's been a whole couple of days since the Disney Channel was here.

Doherty's "Beverly Hills 90210" co-star Tori Spelling will also be appearing on the show, according to the producers, though one reporter tells them he spoke to Tori just last week and she told him there wasn't a deal.

They seem to be blaming that on postpartum confusion, which also perhaps accounts for their not seeming to know much about what it is Tori will be doing on the show, other than reminding people that her late father, Aaron Spelling, is the reason they're all here in the first place.

After the session, we're given a press release, headlined, "Brenda Walsh Is Back!" that tells us a little more about this breathless development. Seems that after she moved to London to study acting (Brenda, not Shannen), she became "a successful theater actress, splitting her time between London and New York" (again, Brenda, not Shannen) before "transitioning into directing for theater," something she was so successful at that West Beverly Hills High "has approached Walsh to return to her alma mater as a guest director for the school's musical production."

OK, enough about Shannen.

There's not much to say about "90210" -- for which no pilot is yet available -- that's terribly definitive, but it's at least interesting to see that  "The Wire's" Tristan Wilds is playing a former foster kid who's been adopted by rich people and that "Arrested Development's" Jessica Walter is playing Tabitha Wilson, a grandmother with a drinking problem.

“Lucille liked vodka and Tabitha likes scotch,” is the way Walter explains it when asked about the difference between her last character, who also had a wee problem with alcohol.

“I’ve promised [her character's family] I’m going to try. Lucille never tried” to quit drinking, said Walter, who also sees the Wilsons as normal, relatively speaking.

On "Arrested," “the Bluths were so dysfunctional. Are still so dysfunctional – we hope we’re going to be making a movie,” she said.

Michael C. Hall's asked how the folks back back home -- that would maybe be North Carolina, which is where IMDB.com says he grew up -- responded when they first heard about his role as serial killer Dexter Morgan in Showtime's "Dexter."

"As long as you're not kissing a black man!" Hall drawled mockingly, in a reference to his "Six Feet Under" character David Fisher, a gay man in a relationship with a black police officer (played by Philadelphia's Mathew St. Patrick).

"I think my family was more comfortable with my simulating murder and vivisection than they were with a healthy relationship with a black man," he said, adding that they seemed "weirdly comfortable" with "Dexter."

"The L Word" may be spun off into a new series when its run ends next year, according to Showtime entertainment president Robert Greenblatt, who isn't divulging many details.

We did see a tantalizing few minutes of Showtime's newest deal, the tentatively titled "Nurse Jackie," which stars Edie Falco as "a very complicated nurse in a New York City hospital," he said.

For "complicated," read really smart and maybe hooked on drugs.

If that sounds like Fox's "House," as it did to at least one critic, Greenblatt doesn't think it should, while admitting the concept might not be totally original. Unlike "House," it's not going to be case-driven," he said.

Plus,  "the flawed character's" an element in many Showtime shows, he said.

I wouldn't review from a clip on a bet, but who doesn't want to see more of Edie Falco? And the character looks a world away from Carmela Soprano.

I'm maybe a little less enthusiastic about the announcement that there'll be at least two more seasons of "Weeds," but I know that's just me. For the rest of you (or at least members of that subset that lives  in one of Showtime's 16 million households and also likes "Weeds"), Greenblatt promises "there'll be much more illicit drugs to come on the show."

Given shows like "Weeds," "Californication," "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" and others, Greenblatt was asked what the criteria was for choosing Showtime series, and whether nipples might be involved.

"I don't think we show nipple on every show," Greenblatt joked. "But we're striving to get there."

Then more seriously: Yes, premium cable can show skin, he said. But "I hope we don't do that just exploitively."

Of course not. Never.

Aussie actor Simon Baker will be playing "The Mentalist" on CBS next season, but he's probably best known to the network's viewers as "The Guardian."

Still,  if you saw a little thing called "The Devil Wears Prada," you may remember him as a guy who plays a bit of a heel.

And we're not talking Manolos.

Credit for that bit of work goes to Baker's daughter, Stella, who was 11 when the "Devil" script came to Baker. Looking for something to read one day, she asked her father if he had anything and pointed her toward the script.

She read it "in record time," he said, and then told Baker: "The character's a bit of a d---, but I think you should do that."

Apparently, she thought it would be cool to have him in a film she and her friends could see -- and one in which he wasn't killing or being killed.

So he did it.

Beyond that, Baker confessed, "I'm really bad at choosing [movies] myself."