NEW YORK – Former late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien yesterday unveiled plans to poke fun at being barred from television in a live comedy show that will tour Canadian and U.S. theatres starting next month.

The 30-city tour, titled Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television, is to start April 12 in Eugene, Ore. It will travel to Vancouver, Toronto and Edmonton, as well as major U.S. cities. (No Montreal date was announced.)

Conan spent an ill-fated seven months as host of the The Tonight Show on NBC, a position he took over from Jay Leno. Amid falling ratings, NBC ousted O’Brien and placed Leno back on the late-night talk show as of March 1. As part of a $45-million exit package, O’Brien agreed not to appear on TV before Sept. 1.

Billed as “a night of music, comedy, hugging and the occasional awkward silence,” according to O’Brien’s website at www.team

coco.com, he will be accompanied on stage by sidekick Andy Richter and his former Tonight Show band.

O’Brien, 46, joked about his motivation in a statement announcing the tour with the quip: “It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house.”

During his Tonight Show run, fans nicknamed the often self-deprecating, redheaded O’Brien “Coco.” A Facebook page run by O’Brien fans, titled I’m with Coco, was abuzz shortly after the tour was announced, with some of his nearly one million fans lamenting that he wasn’t stopping in their town.

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