i had a horrible dream. i couldn't breathe. i felt like i was suffocating. then i woke up and realized, oh, conan was holding a pillow over my face. hey, hey! >> five years goes by pretty quickly. and we got to that moment, and we said oh shit, because the fact is jay was still doing incredibly well. >> so after like 17 years, they still have the number one guy. >> jay had the point of view that i shouldn't leave until i start to decline. >> i felt an obligation to the fact that i gave my word to conan about "the tonight show," so now we're faced with a dilemma of we have two guys who want "the tonight show" and jay is still on top of the world. what do we do? >> we were hearing that abc was offering jay leno the 11:30 spot. >> have you thought about the abc thing, about whether you want to come over here and more importantly, what will become of me? >> i thought, well, you know what?