Remember those rumors a while ago that Jimmy Fallon was NBC’s top choice to slide into Conan O’Brien’s 12:30 timeslot? And we all sort of laughed off the reports, figuring that Conan’s move was years away and if we just kept ignoring the news, it’d eventually go away and some other semi-unknown-but-ingenious candidate would randomly emerge, just as Conan did fifteen years ago?

Ahhhhh, crap.

NBC will officially name Jimmy Fallon as Conan O’Brien’s “Late Night” replacement within the next few weeks, if not sooner, Peacock insiders said Thursday.

Fallon has been the only real candidate for the job since February 2007, when Broadcasting & Cable and the New York Times reported that the former “Saturday Night Live” star had quietly signed a holding deal envisioning just such a gig. Six months later, Peacock latenight chief Rick Ludwin confirmed that Fallon was in line for the job.

The good news is, the announcement still technically hasn’t happened yet, and even when it does, Fallon still won’t actually be on television for another year or so, so we can continue to stick our fingers in our ears and say “la la la la la” and pretend that this entire bizarre out-of-nowhere choice was, in fact, just an elaborate nightmare.