In a surprise move, Conan O’Brien balked at conventional wisdom and is going to begin employment with TBS next. While he is still banned from TV until September, he has signed a 5-year deal with TBS to start in November. The terms were undisclosed, but referred to as “competitive.

Conan is currently on tour doing stand up once again.

Fox was his expected future home, and : Executives had talked openly for months of their interest in hiring the comedian to expand into late night during the week, after several failures years ago. But its local stations were reluctant to clear their lineups of lucrative syndicated reruns (these shows are better than all these late night crapfests anyways.), making it unclear how widely a new Conan show on Fox would initially be seen.

“In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed back to basic cable,” the comedian said in a statement. “My plan is working perfectly.”

The deal pretty much allows Conan to stay out of competition with Leno and Letterman considering that he is nno longer on broadcast TV, but cable. Odds are the most TV viewer get TBS though so he should get some good chatter at least early on.

Conan O’Brien was basically told that he would have to stay off TV for the rest of the year. Well at least until September as part of his huge settlement for getting booted off The Tonight Show. So…he could sit around and read books, post on Twitter like he has been and getting hundreds of thousands of followers a minute, or take it to the road. He is taking it to the road.

Starting April 12 in Eugene, Ore., and including dates at Radio City Music Hall on June 1 and 2, O’Brien’s 30-city tour starts. The tour is playing up his problems with NBC, and it is called: The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour. Obviously, it will be a sell out the entire way I’m guessing since he had so many supporters during this ridiculous situation.

He plans to bring some of his old friends along it appears with Andy Richter, and members of his “Tonight Show” band. Mr. O’Brien announced the details in a message to his followers on Twitter on Thursday morning.

With Conan all but gone, and a pocket full of fat cash, the only thing left to do is make fun of Jay Leno for screwing him over in the first place.

Leno decided that after Kimmel went on a 10 minute rant dissing Leno earlier in the week that he would just bring him on his own show. Obviously, Kimmel isn’t going to just come on the show and kiss Leno’s ass like I’m sure Leno probably thought would happen. Leno seems to have made himself a lot of enemies the past few weeks, and I doubt Conan is going to be sending him any communion invitations anytime soon.

So…Leno has Kimmel do his 10 questions interview, or whatever he calls it (I never watch Leno, I’m not 60). Kimmel starts off rather tame, but on question 5 he gives LEno about as much torment as he can handle.

With all the Leno vs. Conan stuff going on at this point, Conan is probably about ready to make a nice settlement instead of having to do the Tonight Show for the next 2 1/1 years.

O’Brien, who had a guaranteed contract for another two and a half years at a salary that has been reported to be $10 million to $20 million a year, is expected to get a settlement that will pay him more than $30 million. In addition, under the terms now on the table, he would win the right to start a new show at some other network, probably as early as September.

So…he will likely get around $30 Million and another huge deal from someone else such as Fox to start another show while slipping out the back window with his Michael Kors gloves and a bag of cash.