Conan O'Brien
Encyclopedia
Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show
that airs on the American cable television station TBS
.
O'Brien was born in Brookline
, Massachusetts
, and raised in an Irish Catholic family. He served as president of the Harvard Lampoon
while attending Harvard University
, and was a writer for the sketch comedy series Not Necessarily the News
. After writing for several comedy shows in Los Angeles, he joined the writing staff of Saturday Night Live
, and later of The Simpsons
. He hosted Late Night with Conan O'Brien
from 1993 to 2009, followed by seven months hosting The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
, the only person to serve as the permanent host for both NBC programs.
) to Thomas O'Brien, a physician, epidemiologist
, and professor of medicine at Harvard, and Ruth O'Brien (née Reardon), an attorney and partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray. He is the third of six children. O'Brien's family is Irish Catholic
and descends from pre-Civil War
era immigrants. In a Late Night episode, O'Brien paid a visit to County Kerry
, Ireland, where his ancestors originated.
O'Brien attended Brookline High School
, where he served as the managing editor
of the school newspaper
. In his senior year, O'Brien won the National Council of Teachers of English
writing contest with his short story, "To Bury the Living". After graduating as valedictorian
in 1981, he entered Harvard University
. At Harvard, O'Brien lived in Holworthy Hall
during his freshman year and Mather House during his three upper-class years. He concentrated in history and literature and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. His senior thesis concerned the use of children as symbols in the works of William Faulkner
and Flannery O'Connor
. Throughout college, O'Brien was a writer for the Harvard Lampoon
humor magazine. He also briefly served as the drummer in a band called "The Bad Clams". During his sophomore and junior years, he served as the Lampoons president. At this time, O'Brien's future boss at NBC
, Jeff Zucker
, was serving as President of the rival The Harvard Crimson
.
Saturday Night Live (1987–1991).jpg)
O'Brien moved to Los Angeles after graduation to join the writing staff of HBO
's Not Necessarily the News
. He was also a writer on the short-lived The Wilton North Report
. He spent two years with that show and performed regularly with improvisation
al groups, including The Groundlings
. In January 1988, Saturday Night Live
s executive producer, Lorne Michaels
, hired O'Brien as a writer. During his three years on Saturday Night Live (SNL), he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term Memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by Tom Hanks
and Jon Lovitz
. O'Brien also co-wrote the sketch, "Nude Beach", with Robert Smigel
, in which the word "penis" was said or sung at least 42 times. While on a writers' strike from Saturday Night Live following the 1987–88 season, O'Brien put on an improvisational comedy revue in Chicago with fellow SNL writers Bob Odenkirk
and Robert Smigel called Happy Happy Good Show
. While living in Chicago, O'Brien briefly roomed with Jeff Garlin
. In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow SNL writers received an Emmy Award
for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series.
O'Brien, like many SNL writers, occasionally appeared as an extra in sketches; his most notable appearance was as a doorman in a sketch in which Tom Hanks
was inducted into the SNL "Five-Timers Club
" for hosting his fifth episode. O'Brien returned to host the show in 2001 during its 26th season. O'Brien and Robert Smigel
wrote the television pilot for Lookwell
starring Adam West
, which aired on NBC in 1991. The pilot never went to series, but it became a cult hit. It was later screened at The Other Network, a festival of unaired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret
; it featured an extended interview with O'Brien and was rerun in 2002 on the Trio
network.
and was credited as writer or co-writer of four episodes. Of all the episodes he wrote, he considers "Marge vs. the Monorail
" to be his favorite. Along with this episode, he has sole writing credits on "New Kid on the Block
," "Homer Goes to College
," and "Treehouse of Horror IV
," on which he wrote the episode wraparounds. He was an active producer during seasons 4 and 5 as well, meaning he would frequently contribute to scripts from those seasons as well as come up with story ideas, plot points, and jokes. The style of the show's comedy during this period was also influenced by his sensibilities, with "Marge vs. the Monorail" being cited by several former writers as the turning point in the show's history where more absurd and visual comedy became acceptable. He also developed a reputation as a "room guy," or a writer who performs comedy bits throughout the day to entertain other writers.
In his speech given at Class Day at Harvard in 2000, O'Brien credited The Simpsons with saving him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing prior to his being hired for the show.
During his time at The Simpsons, O'Brien also had a side project working with former writing partner Robert Smigel on the script for a musical film based on the "Hans and Franz
" sketch from Saturday Night Live. The film was never produced.
. Premiering on September 13, 1993, Late Night with Conan O'Brien
received generally unfavorable critical reviews during its first few years. The show remained on multiweek renewal cycles while NBC decided its fate. O'Brien later poked fun at the first three years of the show, when on his 10th Anniversary Special Mr. T
appeared to give O'Brien a gold necklace with a giant "7" on it. When O'Brien tried to point out that he had actually been on the air for ten years, Mr. T responded, "I know that, fool; but you've only been funny for seven!"
Beginning in 1996, O'Brien and the Late Night writing team were nominated annually for the Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series, winning the award for the first and only time in 2007. In 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004, he and the Late Night writing staff won the Writers Guild Award
for Best Writing in a Comedy/Variety Series. In 2001, he formed his own television production company, Conaco
, which subsequently shared in the production credits for Late Night.
A long-running joke, which stems from the recurring segment "Conan O'Brien Hates My Homeland", is that O'Brien resembles the first female president of Finland
, Tarja Halonen
. After joking about this for several months (which led to his endorsement of her campaign), O'Brien traveled to Finland, appearing on several television shows and meeting President Halonen. The trip was filmed and aired as a special.
O'Brien ad-libbed the fictional website name "hornymanatee.com" on December 4, 2006, after a sketch about the fictional manatee mascot
and its inappropriate webcam
site. NBC opted to purchase the website domain name
for $159, since the website did not previously exist. The network was concerned that the Federal Communications Commission
would hold NBC liable for promoting inappropriate content if a third party were to register the domain and post such material. For a period of time, the website hosted material concerning Conan's initial manatee joke and other Tonight Show references, but today the site just redirects to NBC's main web page.
A popular recurring bit on the show was "Pale Force
", a series of animated episodes in which comedian Jim Gaffigan
and O'Brien are superhero
es who fight crime with their "paleness". As Gaffigan introduced each new episode, O'Brien protested the portrayal of his character as cowardly, weak, and impotent. , Late Night with Conan O'Brien had for eleven years consistently attracted an audience averaging about 2.5 million viewers. O'Brien is an avid guitarist and music listener. When Bruce Springsteen
and the Sessions Band appeared on the show as musical guests, O'Brien joined the 17-piece band, along with the Max Weinberg 7 and guests Jimmy Fallon
and Thomas Haden Church
, playing acoustic guitar
and contributing backup vocals for the song "Pay Me My Money Down
". On the June 13, 2008, episode of Late Night, O'Brien simply walked onto the stage at the start of the show. Instead of his usual upbeat antics and monologue, O'Brien announced that he had just received news about the sudden death of his good friend, fellow NBC employee and frequent Late Night guest, Tim Russert
. O'Brien proceeded to show two clips of his favorite Russert Late Night moments. On February 20, 2009, NBC aired the last episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The show consisted of a compilation of previous Late Night clips and included a surprise appearance by former sidekick, Andy Richter
. Will Ferrell
, John Mayer
, and the White Stripes also appeared. O'Brien ended the episode by destroying the set with an axe, handing out the pieces of the set to the audience, and thanking a list of people who helped him get to that point in his career. Among those thanked were Lorne Michaels, David Letterman, Jay Leno
, and O'Brien's wife and children.
with Comedy Central
's Jon Stewart
(of The Daily Show
) and Stephen Colbert
(of The Colbert Report) over a dispute about which of the three were responsible for giving a "bump" to Mike Huckabee
's campaign to become the Republican
presidential nominee. This feud crossed over all three shows during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike.
. As part of the deal, O'Brien would take over The Tonight Show
from Jay Leno
in 2009. O'Brien was a guest on Jay Leno's final episode of The Tonight Show. On June 1, 2009, Will Ferrell
became Conan's first Tonight Show guest on the couch and Pearl Jam
appeared as his first musical guest.
During the taping of the Friday, September 25, 2009, episode of The Tonight Show, O'Brien suffered from a mild concussion after he slipped and hit his head while running a race as part of a comedy sketch with guest Teri Hatcher
. He was examined at a hospital and released the same day. A rerun was aired that night, but O'Brien returned to work the following Monday and poked fun at the incident.
at 11:35 pm On January 10, NBC Universal
Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin confirmed that The Jay Leno Show would indeed end at the start of the Winter Olympics on February 12, 2010, and be moved to 11:35 pm following the Olympics coverage. Sources familiar with the situation told the New York Post
that O'Brien was unhappy with NBC's plan.
On January 12, O'Brien released this statement: "I sincerely believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t The Tonight Show." On January 21, 2010, it was announced that Conan had reached a deal with NBC that would see him exit The Tonight Show the next day. The deal also granted him $45 million, of which $12 million was designated for distribution to his staff, who had moved with Conan to Los Angeles from New York when he left Late Night.
The final Tonight Show with Conan aired January 22, 2010, and featured guests Tom Hanks
, Steve Carell
(who did an exit interview and shredded Conan's ID badge), Neil Young
(singing "Long May You Run
"), and Will Ferrell
. For Ferrell's appearance, Conan played guitar with the band and Ferrell sang "Free Bird
" while reprising his SNL
cowbell
. Ferrell's wife, Viveca Paulin
, together with Ben Harper
, Beck
, and ZZ Top
guitarist Billy Gibbons
, also joined the band for this final performance.
Jay Leno returned to The Tonight Show following NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Under the $45 million deal with NBC, Conan was allowed to start working for another network as soon as September 2010. Conan's rumored next networks ranged anywhere from Fox to Comedy Central
.
penthouse in New York with an asking price of $35 million. He purchased the apartment in 2007 for $10 million. Two years earlier, O'Brien had purchased a home in the Brentwood
section of Los Angeles for over $10.5 million. Some industry insiders have speculated that O'Brien had chosen to stay on the west coast in order to facilitate a return to late night television and because he did not want to put his children through another move.
On February 24, 2010, O'Brien attracted media attention for starting a Twitter account. His tweets, although primarily jokes, amounted to his first public statements since leaving The Tonight Show one month earlier. After about one hour, O'Brien's subscriber list had rocketed to over 30,000 members and approximately 30 minutes later, he was on the brink of passing 50,000 followers, already 20,000 more than the verified @jayleno account. After 24 hours, O'Brien had well over 300,000 followers. In late May 2010, he surpassed the one million mark for number of Twitter followers, and he has over 4 million followers.
O'Brien has been named to the 2010 Time 100
, a list compiled by TIME of the 100 most influential people in the world as voted on by readers. After being prohibited from making television appearances of any kind until May, O'Brien spoke about the Tonight Show conflict on the CBS
newsmagazine 60 Minutes
on May 2, 2010. During the interview with Steve Kroft
, O'Brien said the situation felt "like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently, quickly. And I was just trying to figure out what happened." He also said he "absolutely" expected NBC to give him more of a chance and that, if in Jay Leno's position, he would not have come back to The Tonight Show. However, Conan said he did not feel he got shafted. "It's crucial to me that anyone seeing this, if they take anything away from this, it's I'm fine. I'm doing great," said O'Brien. "I hope people still find me comedically absurd and ridiculous. And I don't regret anything."
". Co-host Andy Richter
, along with members of the former Tonight Show Band
, joined O'Brien on the tour. Max Weinberg
, however, was not able to join, except for a guest appearance at one of Conan's New York City shows. VIP
tickets for $695 offered the opportunity to meet O'Brien in person. On the same day, teamcoco.com—an apparently official website—was launched.
On April 12, 2010, O'Brien opened his two-month comedy tour in Eugene, Oregon
, with a crowd of 2,500 and no TV cameras. The tour traveled through America's Northwest and Canada before moving on to larger cities, including Los Angeles and New York City, where he performed on the campuses that house both of the NBC-owned studios he formerly occupied. The tour ended in Atlanta on June 14. With ticket prices starting at $40, "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour" was effectively sold out.
, O'Brien announced that he would host a new show on cable station TBS
. The show debuted on November 8, 2010, and airs Monday through Thursday beginning at 11:00 pm ET/10:00 pm CT. O'Brien's addition moved Lopez Tonight
with George Lopez
back one hour to midnight ET/11:00 pm CT. Refusing at first to do to Lopez what had happened to him at NBC, O'Brien agreed to join the network after Lopez called to persuade him to come to TBS. In Canada, CTV
will air the show and in Turkey, CNBC-e
will air the show.
Other networks that were reportedly interested in O'Brien include TBS' sister networks TNT and HBO, Fox
, FX, Comedy Central
, Showtime, Revision3, and even the NBC Universal
-owned USA Network
.
On September 1, 2010, O'Brien announced via his Twitter account and Team Coco YouTube page that the title of his new show on TBS would simply be Conan.
, something which some felt reflected prejudice against Francophones. On March 7, 2006, NBC announced a new adventure/comedy series entitled Andy Barker, P.I., starring O'Brien's former sidekick, Andy Richter
. O'Brien was executive producer and co-wrote the pilot. After six episodes and low ratings, the show was canceled despite being named by Entertainment Weekly
as one of the Top Ten Shows of 2007. USA Network
has handed out a 90-minute, cast-contingent pilot order to the medical-themed Operating Instructions
from O'Brien's production banner. O'Brien will serve as an executive producer through his Conaco
label. The script comes from Just Shoot Me veterans Judd Pillot and John Peaslee who will also executive produce." NBC
ordered two pilots from Conaco in January 2010, the one-hour courtroom drama, Outlaw
, and a half-hour comedy. Outlaw was later green-lit to series and premiered on September 15, 2010.
episode "Bart Gets Famous
", interviewing Bart Simpson
during his rise to fame as a catchphrase comedian. The episode was produced after O'Brien's audition to replace David Letterman
, but before he was hired for the show. O'Brien recorded his part after his own show went on the air, though he believed his show would be canceled by the time "Bart Gets Famous" aired. In 2006, he voiced himself in a short South Park scene as part of the opening of the 2006 Emmy Awards. In 2005, he provided the voice of Robert Todd Lincoln
in the audio book
version of Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
.
O'Brien has made multiple voice appearances on the Adult Swim
series Robot Chicken
, including the specials Robot Chicken: Star Wars, and Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II
as the voice of the bounty hunter Zuckuss. On the TV show 30 Rock
, O'Brien is depicted as an ex-boyfriend of lead character Liz Lemon
, who works in the same building. In the episode "Tracy Does Conan
," Conan appears as himself, awkwardly reunited with Lemon and coerced by network executive Jack Donaghy
into having the character Tracy Jordan
on Late Night, despite having been assaulted in Jordan's previous appearance.
O'Brien made an appearance on Futurama
in the second-season episode "Xmas Story
". O'Brien plays himself as a head in a jar
and still alive in the year 3000. O'Brien performs a stand-up routine at a futuristic ski lodge while being heckled by Bender the robot.
O'Brien also made a cameo appearance on the U.S. version of The Office. In the episode "Valentine's Day", Michael
believes that he spots former SNL
cast member, Tina Fey
, but has actually mistaken another woman for her. In the meantime, Conan has a quick walk-on and the camera crew informs Michael, when he returns from talking to the Tina Fey lookalike.
In January 2010, O'Brien appeared in The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice! to honor the show he had written for in the early 1990s.
O'Brien created a superhero character with veteran DC Comics
animator Bruce Timm
during one episode of Conan. Named "The Flaming C", the superhero bears a likeness to O'Brien, with a typically muscular superhero body and costume with chest insignia, but also with idiosyncrasies arbitrarily suggested by O'Brien like an oven mitt, a jai alai
glove, marijuana leaf buckle, golf shoes, sock garters and fishnet stockings. O'Brien later aired a clip in which the character appears in Young Justice
.
on August 27, 2006, to critical acclaim. He had previously hosted the Primetime Emmys in 2002, and co-hosted in 2003.
s measuring the familiarity and appeal of celebrities and brands, almost 74% of U.S. consumers are familiar with O'Brien. In spite of that high score, O'Brien hasn't done many commercials for corporate America; two recent examples are a 2009 appearance in a Super Bowl XLIII
commercial for Bud Light, and one for American Express
, which debuted on the same day as Conan. He donated his proceeds from the Super Bowl commercial to the Fresh Air Fund, a charity which sends inner-city New York children to the country for vacations. According to The Wall Street Journal, O'Brien was paid more than one million dollars to do the American Express
commercial, which required him to spend three days in Jaipur
, India filming it.
While O'Brien has done few commercials, he "does do plenty of promoting, weaving product pitches into his show"; he has said "it's increasingly incumbent to help with tie-ins [but] if it can't be funny, I'd rather go hungry."
hosting style, which has been characterized as "awkward, self-deprecating humor".
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O'Brien met Elizabeth Ann 'Liza' Powel in 2000 when she appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in an advertising skit involving Foote, Cone & Belding, where she worked as senior copywriter. The couple dated for nearly 18 months before their 2002 marriage in Powel's hometown of Seattle. O'Brien and Powel have a daughter, Neve (born in 2003) and a son, Beckett (born in 2005).
O'Brien repeatedly affirms his Irish Catholic
heritage on his show. On a 2009 episode of Inside the Actors Studio
, he stated that both sides of his family moved to America from Ireland in the 1850s, subsequently marrying only other Irish Catholics, and that his lineage is thus 100% Irish Catholic.
He has been a staunch Democrat
since casting his first vote for President
in 1984 for Walter Mondale
, although he considers himself a moderate on the political spectrum. O'Brien's longtime friend and former roommate at Harvard is Father Paul B. O' Brien, with whom he founded Labels Are For Jars, an antihunger organization based in Lawrence, Massachusetts
, and helped open the Cor Unum meal center in 2006. The two are not related.
In January 2008, after his show was put on hold for two months owing to the strike by the Writers Guild of America, he reemerged on late-night TV sporting a beard
, which guest Tom Brokaw
described as making him look like "a draft dodger from the Civil War." After leaving The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
on Jan. 22, 2010, O'Brien again grew a beard, which he kept until May 2, 2011, when it was partially shaved on the set of his TBS
talk show, Conan, by Will Ferrell
with battery-operated clippers (and completely shaved off-screen by a professional barber). The event was dubbed on the show as "Beardocalypse," and included a contest for fan-submitted artwork.
O'Brien purchased a $10.5-million mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California
, to prepare for his move there in 2009 from New York City to host The Tonight Show
at Universal Studios Hollywood
. As part of a long running gag, he brought his 1992 Ford Taurus SHO
with him to California, showcasing it on both the inaugural episodes of The Tonight Show and Conan.
On October 21, 2011, O'Brien was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church
, allowing him to perform a same-sex marriage while back in New York (where gay marriage is legal) to tape a week's worth of shows. The wedding, between a member of O'Brien's staff and his partner, was held on the stage of the Beacon Theatre on November 3, 2011, and broadcast on Conan.
by Father David Ajemian of the Archdiocese of Boston
, who, despite multiple warnings to stop, had been sending O'Brien letters signed as "your priest stalker" and coming in contact with O'Brien's parents. Frustrated that he had been denied a spot in the Late Night audience, Ajemian sent a letter to O'Brien stating that he flew to New York "in the dimming hope that you might finally acknowledge me." He stated in another letter, "Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans??? You owe me big time, pal." In another letter, Ajemian seemed to make a death threat, saying, "Remember Frank Costello
once dodged a bullet in your building and so can you." Ajemian then tried to forcefully enter a taping of Late Night but was caught and arrested. He was previously warned by the NBC security team to stay away from the studio. After a psychological evaluation, he was deemed fit to stand trial. He has since been bailed out of jail. He was then reported missing by his father on November 10, 2007. He was found and underwent evaluation at a hospital. It is known that the two had attended Harvard University
at the same time. He was found fit to stand trial on April 4, 2008. On April 8, 2008, Ajemian pleaded guilty to stalking, stating that he "never meant to cause anxiety or to upset anyone." He was ordered to pay a $95 US$ court charge and to sign a two-year restraining order
barring him from coming near O'Brien. On September 11, 2008, Ajemian checked himself out of his treatment at a hospital against the wishes of his bishop, Seán Patrick O'Malley. Cardinal O'Malley then released a statement saying that because he violated his bishop's wishes, Ajemian could no longer serve as a priest in the Catholic Church. As of late 2010, Ajemian has moved on to stalking Anthony Everett
.
used the nickname during his subsequent interview, even getting the audience to chant it. In reaction to the moniker, Conan remarked to Hanks in jest, "If that catches on, I'll sue you."
In a March 23, 2011, interview with WWE Champion The Miz on Conan, The Miz dubbed Conan "The Ginja Ninja", a reference to Conan's red hair and the fact that he came back fighting to get his new late-night talk show. A week later, "Team Ginja Ninja" T-shirts were available on TeamCoco.com.
Other shows:
Late-night talk show
In American television, the late-night talk show is a specific kind of comedy-oriented talk and variety show that airs late at night. Characteristics of the genre include topical monologues in which the host makes fun of the day's news, comedy sketches, celebrity interviews, and musical performances...
that airs on the American cable television station TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
.
O'Brien was born in Brookline
Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, which borders on the cities of Boston and Newton. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 58,732.-Etymology:...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and raised in an Irish Catholic family. He served as president of the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
while attending Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and was a writer for the sketch comedy series Not Necessarily the News
Not Necessarily the News
Not Necessarily the News was a satirical sketch comedy series that ran on HBO from 1983 to 1990. It featured sketches, parody news items, commercial parodies, and humorous bits made from overdubbing or editing actual news footage. It was based on the British series, Not the Nine O'Clock News...
. After writing for several comedy shows in Los Angeles, he joined the writing staff of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, and later of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
. He hosted Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
from 1993 to 2009, followed by seven months hosting The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show that featured Conan O'Brien as host from June 1, 2009 to January 22, 2010 as part of NBC's long-running Tonight Show franchise...
, the only person to serve as the permanent host for both NBC programs.
Early life
O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts (a suburb of BostonBoston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
) to Thomas O'Brien, a physician, epidemiologist
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
, and professor of medicine at Harvard, and Ruth O'Brien (née Reardon), an attorney and partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray. He is the third of six children. O'Brien's family is Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
and descends from pre-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
era immigrants. In a Late Night episode, O'Brien paid a visit to County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
, Ireland, where his ancestors originated.
O'Brien attended Brookline High School
Brookline High School
Brookline High School is a four-year public high school in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, in the United States.As of the 2007-08 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,826 students and 136 teachers , for a student-teacher ratio of 13.4 to 1 teacher.-Education:Almost every senior in...
, where he served as the managing editor
Managing editor
A managing editor is a senior member of a publication's management team.In the United States, a managing editor oversees and coordinates the publication's editorial activities...
of the school newspaper
Student newspaper
A student newspaper is a newspaper run by students of a university, high school, middle school, or other school. These papers traditionally cover local and, primarily, school or university news....
. In his senior year, O'Brien won the National Council of Teachers of English
National Council of Teachers of English
The National Council of Teachers of English is an American professional organization dedicated to "improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education...
writing contest with his short story, "To Bury the Living". After graduating as valedictorian
Valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title conferred upon the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony. Usually, the valedictorian is the highest ranked student among those graduating from an educational institution...
in 1981, he entered Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. At Harvard, O'Brien lived in Holworthy Hall
Holworthy Hall
Holworthy Hall is one of the dormitories housing first-year students at Harvard College. Housing 85 students, it is located in Harvard Yard and borders Kirkland Street. It is the closest dorm to the Harvard Science Center and the second-closest dormitory to Memorial Hall, which houses the freshman...
during his freshman year and Mather House during his three upper-class years. He concentrated in history and literature and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. His senior thesis concerned the use of children as symbols in the works of William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
and Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...
. Throughout college, O'Brien was a writer for the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
humor magazine. He also briefly served as the drummer in a band called "The Bad Clams". During his sophomore and junior years, he served as the Lampoons president. At this time, O'Brien's future boss at NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, Jeff Zucker
Jeff Zucker
Jeffrey "Jeff" Zucker is an American television executive and former President and CEO of NBCUniversal.-Personal life:Zucker was born to Jewish-American parents in Homestead, Florida, near Miami. His father was a cardiologist, and his mother, Arlene, was a school teacher...
, was serving as President of the rival The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
.
Saturday Night Live (1987–1991)
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
's Not Necessarily the News
Not Necessarily the News
Not Necessarily the News was a satirical sketch comedy series that ran on HBO from 1983 to 1990. It featured sketches, parody news items, commercial parodies, and humorous bits made from overdubbing or editing actual news footage. It was based on the British series, Not the Nine O'Clock News...
. He was also a writer on the short-lived The Wilton North Report
The Wilton North Report
The Wilton North Report was Fox's second attempt at a regular late-night show, replacing The Late Show. The series premiered on December 11, 1987 and ended four weeks later, on January 8, 1988....
. He spent two years with that show and performed regularly with improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
al groups, including The Groundlings
The Groundlings
The Groundlings are an improvisational comedy troupe based in Los Angeles, California. The troupe was formed by Gary Austin in 1974 and uses an improv format influenced by Viola Spolin to produce sketches and improvised scenes...
. In January 1988, Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
s executive producer, Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...
, hired O'Brien as a writer. During his three years on Saturday Night Live (SNL), he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term Memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
and Jon Lovitz
Jon Lovitz
Jonathan "Jon" Lovitz is an American comedian, actor, and singer. He is best known as a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1990.-Early life:...
. O'Brien also co-wrote the sketch, "Nude Beach", with Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel is an American actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.-Early life:...
, in which the word "penis" was said or sung at least 42 times. While on a writers' strike from Saturday Night Live following the 1987–88 season, O'Brien put on an improvisational comedy revue in Chicago with fellow SNL writers Bob Odenkirk
Bob Odenkirk
Robert "Bob" Odenkirk is an American actor, comedian, writer, director and producer. He is best known as the co-creator and co-star of the HBO sketch comedy series Mr...
and Robert Smigel called Happy Happy Good Show
Happy Happy Good Show
Happy Happy Good Show was an improvisational comedy revue held at the Victory Gardens Studio Theater in Chicago during the summer of 1988. The cast and writers were largely made up of writers on strike from Saturday Night Live after the 1987–1988 season...
. While living in Chicago, O'Brien briefly roomed with Jeff Garlin
Jeff Garlin
Jeffrey "Jeff" Garlin is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, voice artist, director, writer and author, best known for his role as Jeff Greene on the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm...
. In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow SNL writers received an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series.
O'Brien, like many SNL writers, occasionally appeared as an extra in sketches; his most notable appearance was as a doorman in a sketch in which Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
was inducted into the SNL "Five-Timers Club
Five-Timers Club
Saturday Night Lives Five Timer's Club is the group of performers who has either hosted or appeared as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live at least five times.-Origins:...
" for hosting his fifth episode. O'Brien returned to host the show in 2001 during its 26th season. O'Brien and Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel is an American actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.-Early life:...
wrote the television pilot for Lookwell
Lookwell
Lookwell was a television pilot written and produced by Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel. It starred Adam West as a washed-up TV action hero—who at the peak of his career was ceremonially deputized by local law enforcement—who falsely believes he can solve crimes in real life. His student, Jason,...
starring Adam West
Adam West
William West Anderson , better known by the stage name Adam West, is an American actor best known for his lead role in the Batman TV series and the film of the same name...
, which aired on NBC in 1991. The pilot never went to series, but it became a cult hit. It was later screened at The Other Network, a festival of unaired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret
Un-Cabaret
Un-Cabaret is a Los Angeles-based alternative comedy organization that produces live, TV and multi-media projects, workshops and events.-History:...
; it featured an extended interview with O'Brien and was rerun in 2002 on the Trio
Trio (TV network)
Trio was an American cable and satellite television network.Trio went on the air in 1997, then originally owned and operated jointly by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Power Broadcasting Inc. as a venue for airing the CBC's arts, culture and entertainment programming in the U.S...
network.
The Simpsons (1991–1993)
From 1991 to 1993, O'Brien was a writer and producer for The SimpsonsThe Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
and was credited as writer or co-writer of four episodes. Of all the episodes he wrote, he considers "Marge vs. the Monorail
Marge vs. the Monorail
"Marge vs. the Monorail" is the twelfth episode of The Simpsonss fourth season and originally aired on January 14, 1993. The plot focuses around Springfield's purchase of a monorail from a conman, and Marge's dislike of the purchase. It was written by Conan O'Brien and directed by Rich Moore...
" to be his favorite. Along with this episode, he has sole writing credits on "New Kid on the Block
New Kid on the Block
"New Kid on the Block" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons fourth season, which originally aired on November 12, 1992. After meeting his new neighbor, Laura, Bart develops a crush on her, only to later discover that she has a boyfriend, Jimbo Jones, whom he attempts to scare off so that he can...
," "Homer Goes to College
Homer Goes to College
"Homer Goes to College" is the third episode of The Simpsons fifth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 14, 1993. In the episode, Homer's lack of a college degree is revealed and he is sent to Springfield University to pass a nuclear physics class...
," and "Treehouse of Horror IV
Treehouse of Horror IV
"Treehouse of Horror IV" is the fifth episode of The Simpsons fifth season and the fourth episode in the Treehouse of Horror series of Halloween specials. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 28, 1993, and features three short stories called "The Devil and Homer...
," on which he wrote the episode wraparounds. He was an active producer during seasons 4 and 5 as well, meaning he would frequently contribute to scripts from those seasons as well as come up with story ideas, plot points, and jokes. The style of the show's comedy during this period was also influenced by his sensibilities, with "Marge vs. the Monorail" being cited by several former writers as the turning point in the show's history where more absurd and visual comedy became acceptable. He also developed a reputation as a "room guy," or a writer who performs comedy bits throughout the day to entertain other writers.
In his speech given at Class Day at Harvard in 2000, O'Brien credited The Simpsons with saving him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing prior to his being hired for the show.
During his time at The Simpsons, O'Brien also had a side project working with former writing partner Robert Smigel on the script for a musical film based on the "Hans and Franz
Hans and Franz
Hans and Franz were characters in a recurring sketch called "Pumping Up with Hans & Franz" on the television sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live...
" sketch from Saturday Night Live. The film was never produced.
Late Night (1993–2009)
As executive producer, Lorne Michaels invited O'Brien to audition to host the successor show to Late Night with David LettermanLate Night with David Letterman
Late Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC that was created and hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 as the first incarnation of the Late Night franchise and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to Late Show on CBS. Late Night...
. Premiering on September 13, 1993, Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
received generally unfavorable critical reviews during its first few years. The show remained on multiweek renewal cycles while NBC decided its fate. O'Brien later poked fun at the first three years of the show, when on his 10th Anniversary Special Mr. T
Mr. T
Mr. T is an American actor known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s television series The A-Team, as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film Rocky III, and for his appearances as a professional wrestler. Mr. T is known for his trademark African Mandinka warrior hairstyle, his gold jewelry,...
appeared to give O'Brien a gold necklace with a giant "7" on it. When O'Brien tried to point out that he had actually been on the air for ten years, Mr. T responded, "I know that, fool; but you've only been funny for seven!"
Beginning in 1996, O'Brien and the Late Night writing team were nominated annually for the Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series, winning the award for the first and only time in 2007. In 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004, he and the Late Night writing staff won the Writers Guild Award
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
for Best Writing in a Comedy/Variety Series. In 2001, he formed his own television production company, Conaco
Conaco
Conaco is the television production firm owned by entertainer Conan O'Brien. It has produced programs primarily for NBCUniversal, including O'Brien's Late Night and Tonight shows. David Kissinger, former NBCU executive and the son of Henry Kissinger, has been president since 2005.Conaco's first...
, which subsequently shared in the production credits for Late Night.
A long-running joke, which stems from the recurring segment "Conan O'Brien Hates My Homeland", is that O'Brien resembles the first female president of Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, Tarja Halonen
Tarja Halonen
Tarja Kaarina Halonen is the incumbent President of Finland. The first female to hold the office, Halonen had previously been a member of the parliament from 1979 to 2000 when she resigned after her election to the presidency...
. After joking about this for several months (which led to his endorsement of her campaign), O'Brien traveled to Finland, appearing on several television shows and meeting President Halonen. The trip was filmed and aired as a special.
O'Brien ad-libbed the fictional website name "hornymanatee.com" on December 4, 2006, after a sketch about the fictional manatee mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
and its inappropriate webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
site. NBC opted to purchase the website domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
for $159, since the website did not previously exist. The network was concerned that the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
would hold NBC liable for promoting inappropriate content if a third party were to register the domain and post such material. For a period of time, the website hosted material concerning Conan's initial manatee joke and other Tonight Show references, but today the site just redirects to NBC's main web page.
A popular recurring bit on the show was "Pale Force
Pale Force
Pale Force was a series of short animations starring Jim Gaffigan that aired on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Its humor was derived from "paleness" of both Gaffigan and O'Brien, as well as from portraying Conan as a weakling to poke fun at the real-life TV host on his own show...
", a series of animated episodes in which comedian Jim Gaffigan
Jim Gaffigan
James Christopher "Jim" Gaffigan is an American stand-up comedian and actor.-Early life:Gaffigan was born in Chesterton, Indiana and attended La Lumiere School in La Porte, Indiana. He is the youngest of six children and often jokes about growing up in a large family. He attended one year at...
and O'Brien are superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
es who fight crime with their "paleness". As Gaffigan introduced each new episode, O'Brien protested the portrayal of his character as cowardly, weak, and impotent. , Late Night with Conan O'Brien had for eleven years consistently attracted an audience averaging about 2.5 million viewers. O'Brien is an avid guitarist and music listener. When Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
and the Sessions Band appeared on the show as musical guests, O'Brien joined the 17-piece band, along with the Max Weinberg 7 and guests Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Fallon
James Thomas "Jimmy" Fallon, Jr. is an American actor, comedian, singer, musician and television host. He currently hosts Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a late-night talk show that airs Monday through Friday on NBC...
and Thomas Haden Church
Thomas Haden Church
Thomas Haden Church is an American actor. After co-starring in the 1990s sitcom Wings, Church became well known for his film roles, including his Academy Award-nominated performance in Sideways and his role as the Sandman in Spider-Man 3.-Early life:Church, the fourth of six children, was born...
, playing acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
and contributing backup vocals for the song "Pay Me My Money Down
Pay Me My Money Down
A work song, "Pay Me My Money Down" originated among the Negro stevedores working in the Georgia Sea Islands. It was collected by Lydia Parrish and published in her 1942 book, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands:Also known as "Pay Me" or "Pay Me, You Owe Me", it was performed by The Weavers...
". On the June 13, 2008, episode of Late Night, O'Brien simply walked onto the stage at the start of the show. Instead of his usual upbeat antics and monologue, O'Brien announced that he had just received news about the sudden death of his good friend, fellow NBC employee and frequent Late Night guest, Tim Russert
Tim Russert
Timothy John "Tim" Russert was an American television journalist and lawyer who appeared for more than 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC's Meet the Press. He was a senior vice president at NBC News, Washington bureau chief and also hosted the eponymous CNBC/MSNBC weekend interview...
. O'Brien proceeded to show two clips of his favorite Russert Late Night moments. On February 20, 2009, NBC aired the last episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The show consisted of a compilation of previous Late Night clips and included a surprise appearance by former sidekick, Andy Richter
Andy Richter
Paul Andrew "Andy" Richter is an American actor, writer, comedian, and late night talk show announcer. He is best known for his role as the sidekick of Conan O'Brien on each of the host's programs: Late Night and The Tonight Show on NBC, and Conan on TBS...
. Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
John William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
, John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...
, and the White Stripes also appeared. O'Brien ended the episode by destroying the set with an axe, handing out the pieces of the set to the audience, and thanking a list of people who helped him get to that point in his career. Among those thanked were Lorne Michaels, David Letterman, Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
, and O'Brien's wife and children.
The Colbert / O'Brien / Stewart mock feud
During the writers' strike in 2008, O'Brien staged a mock feudFeud
A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...
with Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
's Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
(of The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
) and Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
(of The Colbert Report) over a dispute about which of the three were responsible for giving a "bump" to Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee
Michael "Mike" Dale Huckabee is an American politician who served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate in the 2008 United States Republican presidential primaries, finishing second in delegate count and third in both popular vote and number of states won . He won...
's campaign to become the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
presidential nominee. This feud crossed over all three shows during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike.
The Tonight Show (2009–2010)
In 2004, O'Brien negotiated a new contract with NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
. As part of the deal, O'Brien would take over The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
from Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
in 2009. O'Brien was a guest on Jay Leno's final episode of The Tonight Show. On June 1, 2009, Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
John William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
became Conan's first Tonight Show guest on the couch and Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
appeared as his first musical guest.
During the taping of the Friday, September 25, 2009, episode of The Tonight Show, O'Brien suffered from a mild concussion after he slipped and hit his head while running a race as part of a comedy sketch with guest Teri Hatcher
Teri Hatcher
Teri Lynn Hatcher is an American actress, writer, and presenter. She is known for her television roles as Susan Mayer on the ABC comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives, and Lois Lane on the ABC comedy-drama series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman...
. He was examined at a hospital and released the same day. A rerun was aired that night, but O'Brien returned to work the following Monday and poked fun at the incident.
Departure from The Tonight Show
On Thursday, January 7, 2010, NBC executive Jeff Zucker met with Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien to discuss how to get Leno out of prime time, where his ratings were lackluster, and back into late night. A proposal was made that would see O'Brien remain as host of The Tonight Show, which would be moved to 12:05 am with Leno hosting a 30-minute showThe Jay Leno Show
The Jay Leno Show is an American comedy show created by and starring Jay Leno, that aired from September 14, 2009 to February 9, 2010 on NBC following the May 29, 2009 conclusion of Leno's first tenure as host of The Tonight Show...
at 11:35 pm On January 10, NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin confirmed that The Jay Leno Show would indeed end at the start of the Winter Olympics on February 12, 2010, and be moved to 11:35 pm following the Olympics coverage. Sources familiar with the situation told the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
that O'Brien was unhappy with NBC's plan.
On January 12, O'Brien released this statement: "I sincerely believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t The Tonight Show." On January 21, 2010, it was announced that Conan had reached a deal with NBC that would see him exit The Tonight Show the next day. The deal also granted him $45 million, of which $12 million was designated for distribution to his staff, who had moved with Conan to Los Angeles from New York when he left Late Night.
The final Tonight Show with Conan aired January 22, 2010, and featured guests Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
, Steve Carell
Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office...
(who did an exit interview and shredded Conan's ID badge), Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
(singing "Long May You Run
Long May You Run
-Side two:-Personnel:* Neil Young – vocals, guitars, piano, harmonica, synthesizer* Stephen Stills – vocals, guitar, piano* Jerry Aiello – organ, piano* George "Chocolate" Perry – bass, backing vocals...
"), and Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
John William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
. For Ferrell's appearance, Conan played guitar with the band and Ferrell sang "Free Bird
Free Bird
"Free Bird" is a song by the American southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd...
" while reprising his SNL
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
cowbell
More Cowbell
"More cowbell" is an American pop culture catchphrase originally derived from an April 8, 2000, Saturday Night Live comedy sketch which fictionalized the recording of the song " The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult...
. Ferrell's wife, Viveca Paulin
Viveca Paulin
Viveca Paulin is a Swedish actress, born in Askim, Gothenburg Municipality, Sweden, who married American comedic actor Will Ferrell in August 2000. She attended Pomona College, graduating in 1991. The couple have three sons, Magnus Paulin Ferrell, born March 7, 2004, Mattias Paulin Ferrell, born...
, together with Ben Harper
Ben Harper
Benjamin Chase "Ben" Harper is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances and activism. Harper's fan base spans several continents...
, Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
, and ZZ Top
ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "That Little Ol' Band from Texas". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based boogie rock, has come to incorporate elements of arena, southern, and boogie rock. The band, from Houston Texas, formed in 1969...
guitarist Billy Gibbons
Billy Gibbons
William Frederick "Billy" Gibbons is an American musician, actor and car customizer, best known as the guitarist of the Texas blues-rock band ZZ Top. He is also the lead singer and composer for many of the band's songs. Gibbons is known for playing his Gretsch Billy Bo guitar and his famous 1959...
, also joined the band for this final performance.
Jay Leno returned to The Tonight Show following NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Under the $45 million deal with NBC, Conan was allowed to start working for another network as soon as September 2010. Conan's rumored next networks ranged anywhere from Fox to Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
.
After Tonight
On February 8, 2010, it was reported that O'Brien was attempting to sell his Central Park WestCentral Park West
Central Park West is an avenue that runs north-south in the New York City borough of Manhattan, in the United States....
penthouse in New York with an asking price of $35 million. He purchased the apartment in 2007 for $10 million. Two years earlier, O'Brien had purchased a home in the Brentwood
Brentwood, Los Angeles, California
Brentwood is a district in western Los Angeles, California, United States. The district is located at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, bounded by the San Diego Freeway on the east, Wilshire Boulevard on the south, the Santa Monica city limits on the southwest, the border of Topanga State...
section of Los Angeles for over $10.5 million. Some industry insiders have speculated that O'Brien had chosen to stay on the west coast in order to facilitate a return to late night television and because he did not want to put his children through another move.
On February 24, 2010, O'Brien attracted media attention for starting a Twitter account. His tweets, although primarily jokes, amounted to his first public statements since leaving The Tonight Show one month earlier. After about one hour, O'Brien's subscriber list had rocketed to over 30,000 members and approximately 30 minutes later, he was on the brink of passing 50,000 followers, already 20,000 more than the verified @jayleno account. After 24 hours, O'Brien had well over 300,000 followers. In late May 2010, he surpassed the one million mark for number of Twitter followers, and he has over 4 million followers.
O'Brien has been named to the 2010 Time 100
Time 100
Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by Time. First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the list has become an annual event.-History and format:...
, a list compiled by TIME of the 100 most influential people in the world as voted on by readers. After being prohibited from making television appearances of any kind until May, O'Brien spoke about the Tonight Show conflict on the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
newsmagazine 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
on May 2, 2010. During the interview with Steve Kroft
Steve Kroft
Steve Kroft is an American journalist and a longtime correspondent for 60 Minutes. His investigative reporting has garnered him much acclaim, including three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy awards, one of which was an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement.-Early life:Born on August 22, 1945 in Kokomo,...
, O'Brien said the situation felt "like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently, quickly. And I was just trying to figure out what happened." He also said he "absolutely" expected NBC to give him more of a chance and that, if in Jay Leno's position, he would not have come back to The Tonight Show. However, Conan said he did not feel he got shafted. "It's crucial to me that anyone seeing this, if they take anything away from this, it's I'm fine. I'm doing great," said O'Brien. "I hope people still find me comedically absurd and ridiculous. And I don't regret anything."
The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour
On March 11, 2010, O'Brien announced via his Twitter account that he would embark on a 30-city live tour beginning April 12, 2010, entitled "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television TourThe Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour
The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour was a comedy tour featuring Conan O'Brien. The title of the tour is a reference to the 2010 Tonight Show host and timeslot conflict which resulted in O'Brien resigning from his position as host of The Tonight Show in January 2010...
". Co-host Andy Richter
Andy Richter
Paul Andrew "Andy" Richter is an American actor, writer, comedian, and late night talk show announcer. He is best known for his role as the sidekick of Conan O'Brien on each of the host's programs: Late Night and The Tonight Show on NBC, and Conan on TBS...
, along with members of the former Tonight Show Band
The Legally Prohibited Band
Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band is the house band for Conan O'Brien's late-night talk show Conan which debuted on November 8, 2010. Guitarist and arranger Jimmy Vivino is the group's leader...
, joined O'Brien on the tour. Max Weinberg
Max Weinberg
Max Weinberg is an American drummer and television personality, most widely known as the longtime drummer for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and as the bandleader for Conan O'Brien on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.Weinberg grew up in suburban New Jersey...
, however, was not able to join, except for a guest appearance at one of Conan's New York City shows. VIP
VIP
VIP and V.I.P. is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:-In general:* Vacuum insulated panel* Values, Influence, and Peers, an anti-crime campaign in Ontario elementary schools* Variable Information Printing, a form of on-demand printing...
tickets for $695 offered the opportunity to meet O'Brien in person. On the same day, teamcoco.com—an apparently official website—was launched.
On April 12, 2010, O'Brien opened his two-month comedy tour in Eugene, Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
, with a crowd of 2,500 and no TV cameras. The tour traveled through America's Northwest and Canada before moving on to larger cities, including Los Angeles and New York City, where he performed on the campuses that house both of the NBC-owned studios he formerly occupied. The tour ended in Atlanta on June 14. With ticket prices starting at $40, "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour" was effectively sold out.
Conan (2010–present)
On April 12, 2010, just hours before the start of his tour in Eugene, OregonEugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
, O'Brien announced that he would host a new show on cable station TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
. The show debuted on November 8, 2010, and airs Monday through Thursday beginning at 11:00 pm ET/10:00 pm CT. O'Brien's addition moved Lopez Tonight
Lopez Tonight
Lopez Tonight was an American late-night television talk show hosted by comedian George Lopez. The hour-long program premiered on November 9, 2009, on cable network TBS. Lopez was the first Mexican American to host a late-night talk show on an English-language network in the United States. The...
with George Lopez
George Lopez
George Lopez is an American comedian, actor, and talk show host. He is mostly known for starring in his self-produced ABC sitcom George Lopez. His stand-up comedy examines race and ethnic relations, including the Mexican American culture...
back one hour to midnight ET/11:00 pm CT. Refusing at first to do to Lopez what had happened to him at NBC, O'Brien agreed to join the network after Lopez called to persuade him to come to TBS. In Canada, CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
will air the show and in Turkey, CNBC-e
CNBC-e
CNBC-e is a hybrid business/financial and entertainment channel operated in Turkey by CNBC Europe and the NTV Group.The channel shares its name with a co-owned magazine about CNBC-e....
will air the show.
Other networks that were reportedly interested in O'Brien include TBS' sister networks TNT and HBO, Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, FX, Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
, Showtime, Revision3, and even the NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
-owned USA Network
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
.
On September 1, 2010, O'Brien announced via his Twitter account and Team Coco YouTube page that the title of his new show on TBS would simply be Conan.
Television writer/producer (2002–present)
In 2004, O'Brien apologized to Canadians for engaging in Quebec bashingQuebec bashing
Anti-Quebec sentiment is opposition or hostility toward the government, culture, or the francophone people of Quebec.The term Quebec bashing is used in the French-language media to refer to what is perceived and depicted by Quebec nationalists as defamatory anti-Quebec coverage, in the...
, something which some felt reflected prejudice against Francophones. On March 7, 2006, NBC announced a new adventure/comedy series entitled Andy Barker, P.I., starring O'Brien's former sidekick, Andy Richter
Andy Richter
Paul Andrew "Andy" Richter is an American actor, writer, comedian, and late night talk show announcer. He is best known for his role as the sidekick of Conan O'Brien on each of the host's programs: Late Night and The Tonight Show on NBC, and Conan on TBS...
. O'Brien was executive producer and co-wrote the pilot. After six episodes and low ratings, the show was canceled despite being named by Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
as one of the Top Ten Shows of 2007. USA Network
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
has handed out a 90-minute, cast-contingent pilot order to the medical-themed Operating Instructions
Operating Instructions
Operating Instructions is an unsold drama television pilot starring Christine Lahti and Emily Rose, produced for the USA Network in 2009.-Overview:...
from O'Brien's production banner. O'Brien will serve as an executive producer through his Conaco
Conaco
Conaco is the television production firm owned by entertainer Conan O'Brien. It has produced programs primarily for NBCUniversal, including O'Brien's Late Night and Tonight shows. David Kissinger, former NBCU executive and the son of Henry Kissinger, has been president since 2005.Conaco's first...
label. The script comes from Just Shoot Me veterans Judd Pillot and John Peaslee who will also executive produce." NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
ordered two pilots from Conaco in January 2010, the one-hour courtroom drama, Outlaw
Outlaw (TV series)
Outlaw is an American television series that was aired on the NBC network. The one-hour courtroom drama stars Jimmy Smits as a Supreme Court Justice who resigns from the bench to start his own law firm, as a way to more directly promote the ends of justice...
, and a half-hour comedy. Outlaw was later green-lit to series and premiered on September 15, 2010.
Voice work and guest appearances
O'Brien's first guest appearance after beginning his late-night career was on the show he used to write for, The Simpsons. He played himself in the season fiveThe Simpsons (season 5)
The Simpsons fifth season originally aired on the Fox network between September 30, 1993 and May 19, 1994. The show runner for the fifth production season was David Mirkin who executive produced 20 episodes. Al Jean and Mike Reiss executive produced the remaining two, which were both hold overs...
episode "Bart Gets Famous
Bart Gets Famous
"Bart Gets Famous" is the twelfth episode of The Simpsons fifth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 3, 1994. In the episode, Bart gets a job as Krusty the Clown's production assistant. However, he soon becomes sick of the job and comes close to quitting....
", interviewing Bart Simpson
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
during his rise to fame as a catchphrase comedian. The episode was produced after O'Brien's audition to replace David Letterman
David Letterman
David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...
, but before he was hired for the show. O'Brien recorded his part after his own show went on the air, though he believed his show would be canceled by the time "Bart Gets Famous" aired. In 2006, he voiced himself in a short South Park scene as part of the opening of the 2006 Emmy Awards. In 2005, he provided the voice of Robert Todd Lincoln
Robert Todd Lincoln
Robert Todd Lincoln was an American lawyer and Secretary of War, and the first son of President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln...
in the audio book
Audio book
An audiobook or audio book is a recording of a text being read. It is not necessarily an exact audio version of a book or magazine.Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the...
version of Assassination Vacation
Assassination Vacation
Assassination Vacation is a book by Sarah Vowell, published in 2005, in which she travels around the United States researching the assassinations of U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley and James Garfield...
by Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell
Sarah Jane Vowell is an American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator. Often referred to as a "social observer," Vowell has written five nonfiction books on American history and culture, and was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio...
.
O'Brien has made multiple voice appearances on the Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...
series Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...
, including the specials Robot Chicken: Star Wars, and Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II
Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II
Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II is a 2008 episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken, and the sequel to the Annie Award winning Robot Chicken Star Wars, which aired as a one-off special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on November 16, 2008...
as the voice of the bounty hunter Zuckuss. On the TV show 30 Rock
30 Rock
30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
, O'Brien is depicted as an ex-boyfriend of lead character Liz Lemon
Liz Lemon
Elizabeth Miervaldis "Liz" Lemon is the main character of the American television series 30 Rock. She is portrayed by Tina Fey, who is also the creator of the series and its showrunner.-Personal history:...
, who works in the same building. In the episode "Tracy Does Conan
Tracy Does Conan
"Tracy Does Conan" is the seventh episode of NBC's first season of 30 Rock. It was written by the series' creator and executive producer, Tina Fey and it was directed by one of the season's supervising producers, Adam Bernstein. It first aired on December 7, 2006 in the United States and November...
," Conan appears as himself, awkwardly reunited with Lemon and coerced by network executive Jack Donaghy
Jack Donaghy
John Francis "Jack" Donaghy is a fictional character on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. He is the Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming for General Electric and later Kabletown....
into having the character Tracy Jordan
Tracy Jordan
Ogbert Jordan, better known by his stage name, Tracy, is a fictional character on the American television series 30 Rock, based on and played by Tracy Morgan.-Brief overview:...
on Late Night, despite having been assaulted in Jordan's previous appearance.
O'Brien made an appearance on Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
in the second-season episode "Xmas Story
Xmas Story
"Xmas Story" is the fourth episode in the second production season of Futurama. It originally aired as the eighth episode in the second broadcast season in North America on December 19, 1999. The episode was written by David X. Cohen and directed by Peter Avanzino. John Goodman guest stars in this...
". O'Brien plays himself as a head in a jar
Isolated brain
Isolated brain refers to keeping a brain alive in-vitro. This is done either by perfusion by a blood substitute, often an oxygenated solution of various salts, or by submerging the brain in oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid . It is the biological counterpart of brain in a vat...
and still alive in the year 3000. O'Brien performs a stand-up routine at a futuristic ski lodge while being heckled by Bender the robot.
O'Brien also made a cameo appearance on the U.S. version of The Office. In the episode "Valentine's Day", Michael
Michael Scott (The Office)
Michael Gary Scott is a fictional character on NBC's The Office, portrayed by Steve Carell, and based on David Brent from the original British version. Michael, the central character of the series, was the manager of the Scranton branch of paper and printer distribution company Dunder Mifflin Inc...
believes that he spots former SNL
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
cast member, Tina Fey
Tina Fey
Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live , the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, and films such as Mean Girls and Baby Mama .Fey first broke into comedy as a featured player in the...
, but has actually mistaken another woman for her. In the meantime, Conan has a quick walk-on and the camera crew informs Michael, when he returns from talking to the Tina Fey lookalike.
In January 2010, O'Brien appeared in The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice! to honor the show he had written for in the early 1990s.
O'Brien created a superhero character with veteran DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
animator Bruce Timm
Bruce Timm
Bruce Walter Timm is an American character designer, animator and producer. He is also a writer and artist working in comics, and is known for his contributions building the modern DC Comics animated franchise, the DC animated universe.-Animation:Timm's early career in animation was varied; he...
during one episode of Conan. Named "The Flaming C", the superhero bears a likeness to O'Brien, with a typically muscular superhero body and costume with chest insignia, but also with idiosyncrasies arbitrarily suggested by O'Brien like an oven mitt, a jai alai
Jai alai
Jai alai is a sport involving a ball bounced off a walled space. It is a variety of Basque Pelota. The term, coined by Serafin Baroja in 1875, is also often loosely applied to the fronton where the sport is played...
glove, marijuana leaf buckle, golf shoes, sock garters and fishnet stockings. O'Brien later aired a clip in which the character appears in Young Justice
Young Justice (TV series)
Young Justice is an American animated television series created by Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti for Cartoon Network. Despite its title, it is not an adaptation of Todd Dezago and Todd Nauck's Young Justice comic series, but rather an adaptation of the entire DC Universe with a focus on young...
.
Emmy host
O'Brien hosted the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards58th Primetime Emmy Awards
The 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California on Sunday, August 27, 2006 on NBC at 8:00pm ET with Conan O'Brien hosting the show...
on August 27, 2006, to critical acclaim. He had previously hosted the Primetime Emmys in 2002, and co-hosted in 2003.
Commercials and product placements
According to Marketing Evolutions, the company that produces Q ScoreQ Score
The Q Score is a measurement of the familiarity and appeal of a brand, company, celebrity, or television show used in the United States. The higher the Q Score, the more highly regarded the item or person is among the group that is familiar with them...
s measuring the familiarity and appeal of celebrities and brands, almost 74% of U.S. consumers are familiar with O'Brien. In spite of that high score, O'Brien hasn't done many commercials for corporate America; two recent examples are a 2009 appearance in a Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game pitting the American Football Conference champion Pittsburgh Steelers against the National Football Conference champion Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League champion for the 2008 season. The game was played on February 1, 2009,...
commercial for Bud Light, and one for American Express
American Express
American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...
, which debuted on the same day as Conan. He donated his proceeds from the Super Bowl commercial to the Fresh Air Fund, a charity which sends inner-city New York children to the country for vacations. According to The Wall Street Journal, O'Brien was paid more than one million dollars to do the American Express
American Express
American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...
commercial, which required him to spend three days in Jaipur
Jaipur
Jaipur , also popularly known as the Pink City, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, the city today has a population of more than 3.1 million....
, India filming it.
While O'Brien has done few commercials, he "does do plenty of promoting, weaving product pitches into his show"; he has said "it's increasingly incumbent to help with tie-ins [but] if it can't be funny, I'd rather go hungry."
Comedy and mannerisms
On Late Night, O'Brien became known for his active and spontaneousAd libitum
Ad libitum is Latin for "at one's pleasure"; it is often shortened to "ad lib" or "ad-lib"...
hosting style, which has been characterized as "awkward, self-deprecating humor".
Personal life
O'Brien repeatedly affirms his Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
heritage on his show. On a 2009 episode of Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio is a series on the Bravo cable television channel, hosted by James Lipton. It is produced and directed by Jeff Wurtz; the executive producer is James Lipton. The program, which premiered in 1994, is distributed internationally by CABLEready and is broadcast in 125 countries...
, he stated that both sides of his family moved to America from Ireland in the 1850s, subsequently marrying only other Irish Catholics, and that his lineage is thus 100% Irish Catholic.
He has been a staunch Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
since casting his first vote for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in 1984 for Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
, although he considers himself a moderate on the political spectrum. O'Brien's longtime friend and former roommate at Harvard is Father Paul B. O' Brien, with whom he founded Labels Are For Jars, an antihunger organization based in Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
, and helped open the Cor Unum meal center in 2006. The two are not related.
In January 2008, after his show was put on hold for two months owing to the strike by the Writers Guild of America, he reemerged on late-night TV sporting a beard
Beard
A beard is the collection of hair that grows on the chin, cheeks and neck of human beings. Usually, only pubescent or adult males are able to grow beards. However, women with hirsutism may develop a beard...
, which guest Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
described as making him look like "a draft dodger from the Civil War." After leaving The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show that featured Conan O'Brien as host from June 1, 2009 to January 22, 2010 as part of NBC's long-running Tonight Show franchise...
on Jan. 22, 2010, O'Brien again grew a beard, which he kept until May 2, 2011, when it was partially shaved on the set of his TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
talk show, Conan, by Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
John William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
with battery-operated clippers (and completely shaved off-screen by a professional barber). The event was dubbed on the show as "Beardocalypse," and included a contest for fan-submitted artwork.
O'Brien purchased a $10.5-million mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California
Brentwood, Los Angeles, California
Brentwood is a district in western Los Angeles, California, United States. The district is located at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, bounded by the San Diego Freeway on the east, Wilshire Boulevard on the south, the Santa Monica city limits on the southwest, the border of Topanga State...
, to prepare for his move there in 2009 from New York City to host The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
at Universal Studios Hollywood
Universal Studios Hollywood
Universal Studios Hollywood is a movie studio and theme park in the unincorporated Universal City community of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood movie studios still in use...
. As part of a long running gag, he brought his 1992 Ford Taurus SHO
Ford Taurus SHO
The Ford Taurus SHO is a full-size performance sedan based on the Ford Taurus that was originally produced by the Ford Motor Company from 1989 until 1999. It returned in 2009 for the 2010 model year....
with him to California, showcasing it on both the inaugural episodes of The Tonight Show and Conan.
On October 21, 2011, O'Brien was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church
Universal Life Church
The Universal Life Church is a religious organization that offers anyone semi-immediate ordination as a ULC minister free of charge. The organization states that anyone can become a minister immediately, without having to go through the pre-ordination process required by other religious faiths...
, allowing him to perform a same-sex marriage while back in New York (where gay marriage is legal) to tape a week's worth of shows. The wedding, between a member of O'Brien's staff and his partner, was held on the stage of the Beacon Theatre on November 3, 2011, and broadcast on Conan.
Victim of stalking
It was reported that since September 2006, O'Brien had allegedly been stalkedStalking
Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...
by Father David Ajemian of the Archdiocese of Boston
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the New England region of the United States. It comprises several counties of the state of Massachusetts...
, who, despite multiple warnings to stop, had been sending O'Brien letters signed as "your priest stalker" and coming in contact with O'Brien's parents. Frustrated that he had been denied a spot in the Late Night audience, Ajemian sent a letter to O'Brien stating that he flew to New York "in the dimming hope that you might finally acknowledge me." He stated in another letter, "Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans??? You owe me big time, pal." In another letter, Ajemian seemed to make a death threat, saying, "Remember Frank Costello
Frank Costello
Frank Costello was an Italian New York City gangster who rose to the top of America's underworld, controlled a vast gambling empire across the United States and enjoyed political influence.Nicknamed the "Prime Minister of the Underworld", he became one of the most powerful and influential Mafia...
once dodged a bullet in your building and so can you." Ajemian then tried to forcefully enter a taping of Late Night but was caught and arrested. He was previously warned by the NBC security team to stay away from the studio. After a psychological evaluation, he was deemed fit to stand trial. He has since been bailed out of jail. He was then reported missing by his father on November 10, 2007. He was found and underwent evaluation at a hospital. It is known that the two had attended Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
at the same time. He was found fit to stand trial on April 4, 2008. On April 8, 2008, Ajemian pleaded guilty to stalking, stating that he "never meant to cause anxiety or to upset anyone." He was ordered to pay a $95 US$ court charge and to sign a two-year restraining order
Restraining order
A restraining order or order of protection is a form of legal injunction that requires a party to do, or to refrain from doing, certain acts. A party that refuses to comply with an order faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
barring him from coming near O'Brien. On September 11, 2008, Ajemian checked himself out of his treatment at a hospital against the wishes of his bishop, Seán Patrick O'Malley. Cardinal O'Malley then released a statement saying that because he violated his bishop's wishes, Ajemian could no longer serve as a priest in the Catholic Church. As of late 2010, Ajemian has moved on to stalking Anthony Everett
Anthony Everett
Anthony Everett is a news anchor for WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliate of Boston, Massachusetts.Since September 2005, Everett has been a co-host of the channel's news magazine Chronicle. Everett is a fill-in anchor of the channel's local news at 5:00 PM, 5:30 PM, 6:00PM and 11pm weekday newscasts...
.
Nicknames
Conan acquired the nickname "Coco" after its use in the first "Twitter Tracker" sketch during the second episode of his Tonight Show run. Guest Tom HanksTom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
used the nickname during his subsequent interview, even getting the audience to chant it. In reaction to the moniker, Conan remarked to Hanks in jest, "If that catches on, I'll sue you."
In a March 23, 2011, interview with WWE Champion The Miz on Conan, The Miz dubbed Conan "The Ginja Ninja", a reference to Conan's red hair and the fact that he came back fighting to get his new late-night talk show. A week later, "Team Ginja Ninja" T-shirts were available on TeamCoco.com.
Filmography
Appearances on talk shows:- Guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay LenoThe Tonight Show with Jay LenoThe Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that initially aired from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009, and resumed production on March 1, 2010. The fourth incarnation of the Tonight Show franchise made its debut on May 25, 1992, three days following Johnny...
(1993, 2007, 2008, 2009) - Guest appearance on Late Night with David LettermanLate Night with David LettermanLate Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC that was created and hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 as the first incarnation of the Late Night franchise and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to Late Show on CBS. Late Night...
(1993) - Guest appearance on The Jon Stewart ShowThe Jon Stewart ShowThe Jon Stewart Show was a short-lived talk show hosted by comedian Jon Stewart on MTV. It premiered in 1993 and became the second highest-rated program on the network behind Beavis and Butt-Head....
(1993) - Late Night with Conan O'BrienLate Night with Conan O'BrienLate Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
(1993–2009) - Guest appearance on Last Call with Carson DalyLast Call with Carson DalyLast Call with Carson Daly is an American late night talk show that is broadcast on NBC. The show is hosted by Carson Daly, the half-hour show featuring celebrity interviews, documentary-style coverage of a topic, and musical performances. Last Call airs weeknights at 1:35 a.m. Eastern / 12:35 a.m....
(2002) - Guest appearance on The Daily Show with Jon StewartThe Daily ShowThe Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
(2007, 2008) - Guest appearance on The Colbert Report (2007, 2008)
- Late Night with Jimmy FallonLate Night with Jimmy FallonLate Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman....
(2009) - The Tonight Show with Conan O'BrienThe Tonight Show with Conan O'BrienThe Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show that featured Conan O'Brien as host from June 1, 2009 to January 22, 2010 as part of NBC's long-running Tonight Show franchise...
(2009–2010) - Guest appearance on Lopez TonightLopez TonightLopez Tonight was an American late-night television talk show hosted by comedian George Lopez. The hour-long program premiered on November 9, 2009, on cable network TBS. Lopez was the first Mexican American to host a late-night talk show on an English-language network in the United States. The...
(2010, 2011) - Conan (November 8, 2010–)
- Guest appearance on Late Night with Jimmy FallonLate Night with Jimmy FallonLate Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman....
(2011)
Other shows:
- Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
(1991, 2001) - The SimpsonsThe SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
(as himself) (1994) - Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (as himself) (1999)
- Mr. Show with Bob and David (1995)
- The Single GuyThe Single GuyThe Single Guy is an American television sitcom that ran for two seasons on NBC, from September 1995 to April 1997. It starred Jonathan Silverman as struggling New York City writer Jonathan Eliot, and followed several of his close friends The series also starred Joey Slotnick as Eliot's best...
(1996) - Arli$$ (1996)
- Spin CitySpin CitySpin City is an American sitcom television series that aired from September 17, 1996 until April 30, 2002 on the ABC network. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show was based on a fictional local government running New York City, and originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike...
(1999) - FuturamaFuturamaFuturama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
(1999) - StorytellingStorytelling (film)Storytelling is a 2001 film, directed by Todd Solondz. It features original music by Belle & Sebastian, later compiled on an album of the same name...
(2001) - Vanilla SkyVanilla SkyVanilla Sky is a 2001 American psychological thriller film directed, co-produced and co-written by Cameron Crowe. The film is an English-language remake of the 1997 Spanish movie Abre los ojos , the screenplay for which was written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil...
(2001) - Sugar & SpiceSugar & SpiceSugar & Spice is a 2001 American teen crime comedy film directed by Francine McDougall. It was filmed entirely in the state of Minnesota.-Plot:...
(2001) (cameoCameo appearanceA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
in end credits) - Dr. Katz (as himself) (2002)
- Andy Richter Controls the UniverseAndy Richter Controls the UniverseAndy Richter Controls the Universe is a sitcom which aired from 2002–2003 on the Fox network. The series was Andy Richter's first starring role after leaving Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 2000....
(2003) - End of the CenturyEnd of the Century: The Story of the RamonesEnd of the Century: The Story of the Ramones is a 2003 documentary film about highly influential New York punk rock band the Ramones. The film, produced and directed by Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia, documents the band's history from their formation in the early 1970s and 22 subsequent years of...
(2003) - Bewitched (as himself) (2005)
- Robot ChickenRobot ChickenRobot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...
(2005) - The Denial TwistThe Denial Twist"The Denial Twist" is the third single released from American alternative rock band The White Stripes' 2005 album, Get Behind Me Satan.-Track listing:*CD version# "The Denial Twist" – 2:35# "Shelter of Your Arms" – 3:30...
(The White StripesThe White StripesThe White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
music video) (2005) - O'GradyO'GradyO'Grady is an animated television show created by Tom Snyder and Carl Adams and developed for TV by co-star Holly Schlesinger. It used to air on The N in the US, on MTV in Latin America, Nickelodeon in the United Kingdom and on 2x2 in Russia. It stars Melissa Bardin Galsky and H...
(2006) - The Office (cameoCameo appearanceA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
) (2006) - Queer DuckQueer DuckQueer Duck is an animated series produced by Mondo that originally appeared on Icebox.com and later moved to the American cable television channel Showtime in 2002, where it aired as a followup feature of the American version of Queer as Folk...
(as himself) (2006) - 30 Rock30 Rock30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
(as himself) (2007, 2009) - Robot Chicken Star WarsStar Wars (Robot Chicken episode)Robot Chicken: Star Wars is a 2007 episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken, airing as a one-off special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on June 17, 2007...
(as Zuckuss) (2007) - Sesame StreetSesame StreetSesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
(2008) - Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II (as Zuckuss, Star Wars nerd) (2008)
- The BackyardigansThe BackyardigansThe Backyardigans is a Canadian/American 3-D CGI-animated children's TV series, created by Janice Burgess. It features five animal children, who imagine that their backyard becomes an adventure place. It is a coproduction of Treehouse TV, and the Canadian animation studio Nelvana. Debuting on...
(2009) - 60 Minutes60 Minutes60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
(interview) (2010) - EagleheartEagleheart (TV series)Eagleheart is a live-action comedy television series that premiered on February 3, 2011, on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim. Eagleheart is produced by Conan O'Brien's production company, Conaco, and stars Chris Elliott as Chris Monsanto...
(himself) (2010)
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Work | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Emmy Award Emmy Award An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various... |
Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture... |
Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program | Won |
| 1990 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| 1991 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| 1996 | Emmy Award | Late Night with Conan O'Brien Late Night with Conan O'Brien Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am... |
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated |
| 1997 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award Writers Guild of America Award The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949... |
Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Won | ||
| 1998 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| 1999 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Nominated | ||
| 2000 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Won | ||
| 2001 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Nominated | ||
| 2002 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Won | ||
| 2003 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Won | ||
| 2004 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Nominated | ||
| 2005 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| People's Choice Award | Favorite Late Night Talk Show Host | Nominated | ||
| Telvis Award | For the color spot of the year | Special Telvis | Won | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Late Night with Conan O'Brien | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Won | |
| 2006 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| People's Choice Award | Favorite Late Night Talk Show Host | Nominated | ||
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Won | ||
| 2007 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Won | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Nominated | ||
| 2008 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| 2009 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program | Nominated | |
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Nominated | ||
| 2010 | Emmy Award | The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show that featured Conan O'Brien as host from June 1, 2009 to January 22, 2010 as part of NBC's long-running Tonight Show franchise... |
Outstanding Comedy, Music or Variety Series | Nominated |
| Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series | Nominated | |||
| Writers Guild of America Award | Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series | Nominated | ||
| 2011 | People's Choice Award | Conan | Favorite TV Talk Show Host | Won |
| Emmy Award | Outstanding Comedy, Music or Variety Series | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series | Nominated | |||
| Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series | Nominated | |||
| American Express American Express American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best... |
Outstanding Commercial | Nominated | ||
| 2012 | People's Choice Award | Conan | Favorite TV Talk Show Host | Pending |