Conan O'Brien Ends Tonight Show Run With Neil Young, Will Ferrell, Beck, "Free Bird"

Conan O'Brien ended his run on The Tonight Show on Friday (Jan. 22) in style and spent a good deal of it thumbing his nose at NBC.

Neil Young was O'Brien's final musical guest on the show, performing "Long May You Run" unaccompanied in what might be a thinly veiled raspberry blown at NBC. You can check out a video of Young's performance in our media section.

O'Brien also had comedian Will Ferrell on the show, and performed "Free Bird" with him, Ferrell's wife Viveca Paulin (A Night At The Roxbury), Beck, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, former E Street Band member and house band leader Max Weinberg and Ben Harper. You can see a video of that in our media section as well.

During the episode, O'Brien stuck it to NBC again when The Beatles' "Lovely Rita" was played on the show. It was used when actor Tom Hanks, O'Brien's final guest, entered the set and was played as a tribute to his wife, Rita Wilson. It reportedly cost NBC $500,000 U.S. (about $529,000 Canadian) to use, according to The Huffington Post.

Last week, O'Brien used The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" when Adam Sandler appeared on the program, which also cost NBC a pretty penny.

It seems Weinberg's also given NBC a slap. On Thursday (Jan. 21), The Smoking Gun website revealed he and guitarist Jimmy Vivino copyrighted the theme songs for the Masturbating Bear, Pimpbot 5000 and Pimpbot 2000 characters back in 2004. Since NBC is seeking to keep control over some of the material O'Brien and his writers developed, it seems they will not be able to use the music for any of these characters.

O'Brien left The Tonight Show this month because Jay Leno, who had been moved to primetime, was suffering from low ratings. NBC proposed that O'Brien would be moved to 12:05 a.m., while Leno would host a half-hour program at 11:35 p.m. beginning Feb. 12.

O'Brien refused to move his show, and negotiated a $45 million U.S. (about $48 million Canadian) exit deal with NBC — $12 million U.S. of which went to his staff.