The Daily Beast has a great gallery of great US TV talk show moments from 2009. (They give it the marginally less clunky title "The Year In Talk: 2009's 19 Most Pivotal Moments".) It's worth a watch.
Here's my favourite:
Late-Night Hosts Say Goodbye, Hello
It was a year of change on late-night television, too, as comedians played musical chairs: Conan O’Brien said goodbye to Late Night, as Jimmy Fallon stepped in to fill his shoes. Jay Leno bid adieu to The Tonight Show—for his new, beleaguered 10 p.m. show—as Conan stepped in to fill his shoes. Follow that? Here’s the most compelling of these transitions.