Favorite Late Night Host

[Soxy]

Conan's Late Start (NY Times)

 

April 4, 2004

By BILL CARTER

 

In February, Conan O'Brien brought his hit NBC late-night

show from New York to Toronto, of all places, as a favor to

a city still reeling from the SARS crisis, and for a week

twentysomething Canadians went a little crazy, lining up

for hours and filling the elegant 1300-seat Elgin Theater

with the energy of a rock concert.

 

Last September, a similarly frenzied New York crowd packed

the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side for the taping of

a prime-time special to celebrate Mr. O'Brien's 10th

anniversary as host of "Late Night." The audience was

treated to the Conan specialties: outrageous characters,

wicked, self-deprecating wit and a roster of performers

from Jack Black to Will Ferrell.

 

Then there was the night 18 months ago when Mr. O'Brien

scored a critical triumph as host of the Emmy Awards -

displaying his highly energized surreal silliness with a

brief acoustic version of Jethro Tull's "Aqualung."

 

But lately things have gone quiet. Conan is back in his

office in Rockefeller Center, sitting at his old familiar

desk, getting ready to put on another edition of "Late

Night" in the 200-seat Studio 6A that has been his home for

the last decade. And he can't help feeling, well, a little

bummed.

 

"It was hard to experience something like that in Toronto

and go back to 6A," Mr. O'Brien says, with a sort of shrug

in his voice. "It's like when you go back to third grade

and suddenly you notice the water fountain is like 4 inches

off the ground." It's plain that Conan O'Brien, who has

always been exceedingly tall but has lately become

indisputably big in the world of late-night television, is

aching to stretch. "A big question is looming," he

acknowledges. "It's the elephant in the room that no one is

talking about." He utters the question somewhat

reluctantly, knowing that even that could be enough to stir

up a lot of unwanted attention. But utter it he does:

"What's next?"

 

The most obvious next step is to be host of a show earlier

in the evening - in the coveted 11:30 period, made famous

by Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. At NBC, that job is

currently held by Jay Leno, who consistently trounces all

competition. Until recently, it was possible for Mr.

O'Brien and his team to imagine a time in the

not-too-distant future when Jay might step down from his

throne, and Conan might step up. But last week, NBC

announced it was extending Mr. Leno's contract to the end

of the decade. The decision has inescapable implications

for Mr. O'Brien's career, as everyone around him knows.

 

Gavin Polone, Mr. O'Brien's manager and long-time friend,

puts it in the plainest terms. "There's just no question

that he's going to be on earlier than 12:30," he says.

"He's going to 11:30. It's going to happen."

 

There it is: the late-night star at 12:30 is pondering a

move to 11:30 (it's really 12:35 and 11:35, rounded off for

convenience). If it sounds at all familiar, it's because

we've been here before - same time, and yes, same channel.

David Letterman starred in the original; after more than a

decade as host of the later show, he was blocked from

advancing to the main room, the 11:35 show, the franchise,

NBC's "Tonight" Show, because NBC decided to give Johnny

Carson's chair to a guy its executives believed was a more

mainstream - and cooperative - star.

 

Now Conan O'Brien is getting set for the remake. And Jay

Leno is being cast yet again as the man in possession of

the prize. Mr. O'Brien has a little over a year and half

left on his NBC deal, which means in only a matter of

months he's likely to find himself in the precise position

that David Letterman did in 1993: choosing between staying

in his comfortable 12:35 home on NBC and chasing that

hour-earlier dream on other networks.

 

Mr. O'Brien takes pains to point out the distinctions. "The

difference with Dave, which even NBC will admit, is that

there was no way Dave could continue to do the job at 12:30

with Jay as the `Tonight' show host, because they were

peers. I'm 15 years younger. With me at 12:30, you can

still feel there's order in the heavens somewhat."

 

Still, he is aware of the permutations. "By the end of my

contract I will have done the show 13 years, 2 more than

Dave did it," he says. "No one at NBC has said: `Here's

what we're going to do. Here's the offer.' It's hard to

figure these things out in a vacuum. I know I have a great

job now. I think it's natural to at some point want to move

earlier. I think I've proved I can do a show that I don't

think has to exist at 12:30."

 

Mr. O'Brien and his NBC bosses are heading unavoidably

toward a relationship dilemma. After the announcement that

he had signed Mr. Leno to a new long-term deal, Jeff

Zucker, the president of NBC Entertainment and the man into

whose hands this exploding cigar has fallen, said, "Conan

is a huge star, and I believe he's going to have a long

future with NBC with a lot of tremendous opportunities."

 

The network has so far courted Mr. O'Brien as best it can.

Nobody on either side will confirm, but neither will they

deny, that in the event of some misfortune befalling Mr.

Leno, Mr. O'Brien has a Prince of Wales clause. Mr. O'Brien

wants to create comedy shows through his production company

and NBC is already steering business his way - particularly

one promising comedy pilot starring Macaulay Culkin. And

Mr. O'Brien had only to ask once to do a prime-time

Christmas special this year.

 

But these are side dishes, and everybody knows it. "The

production company is fun," he says. "But it's never going

to be the passion that the show is. I've got the bit in my

teeth with this show and I'm very determined to take it as

far as it will go."

 

When and where he will take it are the questions of the

moment. Mr. O'Brien turns 41 this year. By the time the new

Leno contract runs out, Mr. O'Brien will be almost 47 -

about the same age that Mr. Letterman was when he decided

he was too old for post-midnight. If he stays at NBC, he

will have done a 12:35 show for a television eternity: 17

years.

 

In their fondest dreams, Mr. O'Brien and his team, which

also includes his executive producer, Jeff Ross, and his

agents from the Endeavor talent agency, would have liked

NBC to draw up a formal plan of succession: say, three or

four more years and then Conan gets the "Tonight" job. But

that scenario would essentially have involved NBC's asking

Mr. Leno, whose show is bringing in more profits than any

show except "Today," to set himself up as a lame duck.

 

"It's hard for me emotionally to say: how can Leno deserve

to be there, when I deserve to be there? I don't feel that

in my bones," Mr. O'Brien says. "My agents can say that -

and they do. But I have no control over them. They're

Rottweilers that I bought. Their job is to attack. My job

is to say: dear me. But I don't expect things that are

unrealistic."

 

Mr. Leno said last week that he thinks very highly of Mr.

O'Brien: "I know he's really good. What he does he does

great." He also said that there shouldn't be much

distinction between 11:35 and 12:35 now that viewers can

easily record shows and play them when they like. Given his

reputation for a work ethic to shame a boatload of galley

slaves, it is not surprising that NBC doesn't seem to be

contemplating Mr. Leno's retirement - ever. As Mr. O'Brien

jokes: "Jay may decide he wants to do the show until 2025.

Jay could say: my brain will be in a jar and we'll wheel it

out and I'll do the monologue."

 

But Mr. O'Brien's team has no intention of waiting around

to see, especially after last week's news. "I was a little

surprised by what NBC did with Jay," Gavin Polone says,

referring to both the length of NBC's commitment and the

fact that it was made without first locking Mr. O'Brien in.

But, Mr. Polone says: "Conan has a lot of great choices

ahead of him. NBC has probably only a lot of anxiety ahead

of them."

 

He sees late-night opportunities everywhere. "I think Fox

has to offer," Mr. Polone says, an easy prediction since

the Fox network made a serious run at Mr. O'Brien two years

ago. "I believe CBS might have to offer," he continues,

speculating that Mr. Letterman might be ready to step aside

by early 2006 - a prospect Mr. Letterman's close associates

discount as extremely unlikely. "And ABC obviously has to

offer," he says. Just two years ago, ABC's executives were

so eager to land a successful 11:35 entertainment show that

they were willing to dump the much honored "Nightline" if

Mr. Letterman would take its place. "Nightline" eventually

won a reprieve, but ABC's guarantee to continue the news

program runs out just around the same time that Mr.

O'Brien's contract comes up for renewal.

 

"You might have three companies that need new jetliners at

the same time, and we'll be the only company actually

building a jet," Mr. Polone concludes. "Other people may be

building washing machines. But why go to a company offering

washing machines when you need a jet?"

 

Some late-night fans can already hear jet-like noises

coming from the direction of Comedy Central, where Jon

Stewart has burnished a reputation for smart, topical

comedy on "The Daily Show." If the network late-night wheel

swings again, Mr. Stewart, who is 41, would seem to be

positioned alongside Mr. O'Brien in the line for the next

11:35 ride.

 

Mr. Stewart re-upped last month for four more years at "The

Daily Show." The president of Comedy Central, Larry Divney,

asserted that no network can steal Mr. Stewart away until

2008. But: Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, which also

happens to own CBS. Presumably if Mr. Letterman surprised

the world and decided to step down, the CBS chairman,

Leslie Moonves, could dial some familiar numbers. "If Les

called could he get Jon away?" Mr. Divney said. "That's a

good question."

 

None of the outside options seem all that clear-cut to Mr.

O'Brien - at least at the moment. "There may be

possibilities, but are they viable?" he says. "NBC at 12:30

is still better than a lot of things. Following the

`Tonight' show is still better than a poke in the eye with

a sharp stick. There is the curiosity to take the show

earlier. But if going to another network for more money

still means being seen by fewer people, what are you doing?

Then it's just an ego thing."

 

In the last contract season, Fox came at Mr. O'Brien with a

deal he acknowledges would have "put me financially in the

same league as the other guys." The round, fat number of

$25 million a year has been mentioned. Mr. O'Brien settled

for about a third as much to stay at NBC. "I'd like to make

more money, like everybody else," he says. "But it's more

important to do this well and be in a situation where I can

do it well. So if the Pax network offers me $60 million

next year to do a Christian talk show, and the $60 million

is guaranteed, a lot of people would say: `Look, go take

the 60 million and if the show goes under, you're fine.' I

would say I'm not fine. I'm a really rich guy who doesn't

get to do the thing he really loves, cause it got canceled

after four weeks."

 

Far more important to him is the fear that he might be on

the shoulder waiting for the road to clear when a member of

his own generation zooms by. "If NBC said, `Listen, Conan,

Jamie Kennedy is going to do the `Tonight' show and we

really want you to continue at 12:30.' Or `Carrot Top is

going to get the 'Tonight' show'; well, I'd be out the

door. No offense to Carrot Top."

 

Mr. O'Brien means no offense to any parties - particularly

the guy whose job he really wants. "I like Jay and I

wouldn't want to do anything with NBC that I wouldn't be

able to tell Jay I was doing," he says. "I do not want to

manipulate my way into this job. I do not want to do

anything that I couldn't comfortably say to Jay Leno I was

doing."

 

Statements like this are made all the time in show

business. What makes it a bit different with Mr. O'Brien is

that he is, his show's staff members and his NBC bosses

acknowledge, an almost shockingly nice and normal human

being to be caught up in the ego-and neurosis-driven

business of late-night. This is true even though he, more

than any of the others who have dispensed humor into

American bedrooms past midnight, has every right to be

bitter, twisted and full of bile.

 

There was a night, after all, just as he was finishing up

his first year, when Mr. O'Brien sat on the floor of Jeff

Ross's office listening to Gavin Polone on the speaker

phone delivering the gut-wrenching news that the network,

reneging on a previous oral promise of a one-year contract

extension, was instead offering a "week-to-week" renewal.

Nothing like that had ever been done to a television star

before - not even Lassie.

 

At that point the NBC hierarchy was disposed to write off

Conan as a loony failed experiment. A comedy writer for

"The Simpsons," he had been plucked from obscurity, like

Lana Turner at a soda fountain, by Lorne Michaels, the man

who created "Saturday Night Live." Mr. Michaels had the

novel idea that a new face might be able to make it in late

night.

 

John Agoglia, then NBC's chief deal-maker, made little

secret of his doubts about Mr. O'Brien - and especially his

then-sidekick, Andy Richter, whom nobody at NBC got in the

least. NBC later relented, though only to the point of

giving Mr. O'Brien 13-week renewals. One night, NBC

actually ordered Mr. O'Brien canceled, only to rescind the

order the next morning, a night he didn't know of until

years later.

 

"I swear I've made my peace with all of it," he says,

taking the high road. "I got an unprecedented break, and I

went for it. It wasn't easy. I took my lumps. I have no

problems with any of it." But Mr. O'Brien has been studying

carefully recent events in late-night - and all the while

he's been fingering the scar.

 

"I have watched a lot of people launch late-night shows

since I launched mine and I don't think any of them have

been as good." (Hello, Craig Kilborn; that means you, Jimmy

Kimmel.) "And they got harsh criticism. But their networks

stood behind them steadfastly. I feel my first week of

shows are still better than a lot of these other shows that

have come along since, and they've had 10 times the network

support I had.

 

"I don't have any complaint with anybody finding fault with

me as a performer in the first two years of the show

because there was fault there and I'll take it." Here Mr.

O'Brien's affable demeanor takes a turn. "But NBC made it

more difficult than it had to be. That 13-week renewal

stuff is unprecedented in the history of show business. I'm

a forgiving person. I tend to let things go and move on.

But if John Agoglia somehow fell to the bottom of a coal

mine and I was the only one who knew about it, I'm not

saying I wouldn't alert the authorities, but I might take

my time about it, maybe wait a week or two - provided he

had plenty of fresh water."

 

Outburst finished, Mr. O'Brien stresses that this

apparently weighty psychic baggage will not be a factor in

future decisions. "I really am past all that. It's all

good. They treat me really well." By they he means Mr.

Zucker - and especially the NBC chairman, Bob Wright, who

supported Mr. O'Brien earlier than most others, and with

whom he has forged an unusually close personal

relationship. "I would walk across broken glass for Bob

Wright," Mr. O'Brien says. "He did the right thing with me

and it worked out. I'm very happy to do anything Bob Wright

asks me to do."

 

Surely the biggest request Mr. Wright is likely to come up

with is: Conan, will you stay?

 

On the couch in Jeff Ross's office, where he first heard

about NBC's one-week contract offer, Mr. O'Brien flops

down, his stilt-size legs draped over one armrest. Toronto,

the prime-time special, those are now dimming memories: the

adoring crowds, the booming high-ceilinged laughs, the guy

who held up a sign that read: "I took Conan for my

Confirmation name."

 

Mr. O'Brien knows he could have been at Fox for more than a

year already. Possibly, he could even have been at CBS.

ABC's run at Mr. Letterman coincided almost precisely with

the final days of Mr. O'Brien's last negotiation with NBC.

"At the last second, CBS called: `We'd like to talk to

Conan.' Of course my agents started howling, yipping, and

flipping." CBS was looking for protection if Mr. Letterman

bolted. But Mr. O'Brien had none of it. "I told my guys he

wasn't going, and I don't want to be the stick for CBS to

hit David Letterman with. I have undying respect and

admiration for the man."

 

The connection with Dave goes well beyond the fact that

Conan is host of the show that Mr. Letterman created. "I

started watching Dave's morning show and was really

interested in comedy," Mr. O'Brien says. "Then it's like:

Yup, that's my guy. He got to me at that age when you can

really affect people. When they're between 15 and 22. You

make an emotional connection, sort of the way Led Zeppelin

made an emotional connection with people at a certain age,

and for the rest of their lives all they want to do is put

on a Led Zepplin record. It's the same thing in late night.

I think I've grown a generation of people who think our

show is their show."

 

We are entering the prime of Conan O'Brien - and he knows

it. "It sounds smug, but I just know time is on our side.

When I went in front of that Emmy crowd it was like they

had marked my height when I was about 4 years old. Then

it's 10 years later and 6-foot-4 Conan walks in, and

they're shocked. Because their frame of reference is always

Letterman or Leno. I don't think young people were shocked

at all."

 

The onstage Conan, once geeky, often trying too hard,

needing support from Andy Richter, has been replaced by the

confident performer who does it all alone, who saves bad

material with physical shtick, who can use his intellectual

gifts to elicit both humor and information from an

interview segment. The offstage Conan brims with the same

élan. "I have infinite confidence that I'm good at this. If

you cut my legs and arms off, I'd go out there and put on a

good show."

 

Jack Paar, the first host to make the "Tonight" show a

phenomenon, befriended Mr. O'Brien several years before his

death. "He wrote me a letter and he just told me he liked

my style," Mr. O'Brien says. "He told me to marry a nice

girl, get a nice dog, and a lot of blue shirts. All of

which I have since done. And he said: `Just think what I

could have done if I had your hair.'

 

"And he was right. I think aside from John Davidson, I have

the best hair on television. So if I keep doing good shows

and the hair stays, it will all work out."

 

Conan pauses, then adds, "Let's just hope it gets ugly and

then we'll all have fun."

[SuperSteve]

O`Brien is awesome, as is Jimmy Kimmel.

[Goldmember]

leno has the best show

 

conan and kimmel are funny but their shows aren't as good. letterman just plain sucks. kilborne just freaks me out.

[Pale Hose Jon]

Kimmel and obrien are great.

He shouls reconsider the fox gig, that is the only spot tha will be available to him short of letterman having a fatal heart attack

[HighHeat45]

leno,and i hate conan for some reason

[whitesoxin']

I like Dave, I can't stand Jay Leno for some reason.

[whitesoxin']

And I just noticed I have crossed the 1,000 posts barrier!

[Cali]

Leno is unwatchable to me now. He's a terrible interviewer and the monolouge goes on for waaaaay too long -- and it's not a particularly funny long monolouge. It's just such a phony show to watch for me. He's never gonna ask tough questions to the big name people, probably why he can get the huge names to come on the show, they know no matter what that they won't be grilled on what they're in trouble/famous for. And in turn that's what gives him the super ratings.

[Cerbaho-WG]

Leno is f***ing awful.

 

For me it goes Letterman to O'Brien.

[Chisoxfn]

Conan all the way

[Spiff]

Leno is a product of hype. He's not a funny guy. Letterman and Conan know how to get it done, although Conan uses the same jokes every night ("We have a great show for you tonight, I never say that but tonight we really do...") and he interrupts his guests way too much to make his own jokes. Best three are Letterman, Jon Stewart and Conan. I rarely remember Kimmel is on but he's pretty good in his own right.

[SuperSteve]

And I just noticed I have crossed the 1,000 posts barrier!

5000.

[bmags]

I find COnan hilarious, his skits are by far funnier than any other late nite host...(i remove the daily show from that because its on earlier than the rest...)

[SnB]

Conan rules all, he has such a unique style for talk-show hosts, he is absolutely hilarious, conan wins in a blowout.

[southsider2k5]

5000.

14,000

[danman31]

This always brings up good discussion.

 

Kimmel

O'Brien

Letterman

Leno

Kilborn (how does he have a show?)

[Pale Hose Jon]

14,000 

300

[CubsSuck1]

Conan. By far. Its note even a contest here. But on a side note he needs to stay at 11:30 though. That way he can stay more underground and do more risque stuff. If he was at 10:30 I wouldn't be so sure he wouldn't sell his soul to the networks. And get him hte hell out of New York. Bring him to Chicago.

[SoxAce]

Conan by far. Kimmel then Letterman next.

[whitesoxin']

14,000 

:finger

[HighHeat45]

5000.

yeah steve, you are 38 post away from making #10 on the top 10 posters since heather barely posts anymore

[Rex Kickass]

14,000 

700

I got a life, ya know.

[SoxAce]

I got a life, ya know.

I was gonna say the same thing.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Letterman and Conan is still a good lineup. Leno's writers write to the lowest common denominator audience - it's accessible, safe as milk, and never particularly witty or thought provoking. That's exactly why he has the huge market share he does.

[bmags]

^true...