Conan Obrien the More You Know Prositutes
Heeeere's . . . Conan!!!
On a dank Thursday night in tardily January, iv weeks from his terminal evidence as host of "Tardily Night," Conan O'Brien was strumming a guitar behind his beat-up desk in his cluttered office at Rockefeller Center, figuring out how to say goodbye. After xvi years and 2,725 shows, O'Brien would be moving, along with almost all his staff, to Universal City in California to take over "The Tonight Testify." He'd had time to ponder his farewell. In 2004, when O'Brien's contract was up and other networks were aggressively wooing him, NBC promised him their flagship. "Just they wanted me to wait five years to be the host of 'The This evening Show,' " O'Brien told me. "And in 2004, 2009 sounded absurdly far abroad. I thought that in 2009, we'd be flying effectually with jet packs and our dinners would be in pill form. It was like being given a motorcar when you're 11 years one-time and beingness told, When yous're sixteen, yous go to drive it. And so I put my blinders on, and I went back to piece of work. And, then, two years ago, I began to experience the barometric pressure changing. When it was a year away, I sat bolt upright in my bed. And now. . . " O'Brien's vocalisation trailed off as three of his 15 writers arrived for their weekly meeting. "And now, we're stuck between ii worlds. We're putting on a show here while we're imagining another show there."
O'Brien began playing "Dazed and Confused" on an unplugged aqua blueish electric guitar as his staff assembled. When he's not on camera in a sleek conform and tie, O'Brien most e'er wears a compatible of jeans, T-shirt and V-neck sweater in various shades of blue, brown or gray. He is skyscraper-tall, with near of his length in his legs, and his red hair rises above his forehead in an elongating airborne pouf. Because of his pale peel, freckles and higher-dorm wardrobe, O'Brien, who is 46, looks adolescent, but his off-camera manner is well-nigh scholarly. He was the president of The Harvard Lampoon for ii years and started his professional person career equally a writer for shows like "Saturday Night Alive" and "The Simpsons." O'Brien's approach to comedy and television is belittling and exact. There'due south a split in his psyche: he can be goofy, but he obsesses over the nuances of that goofiness. He'due south constantly trying to puzzle out how all-time to be funny five nights a week for an audition of millions.
He learned on the chore. In the early days of his bear witness, O'Brien, who had near no experience as a performer and was plucked from obscurity by Lorne Michaels, the producer of "Saturday Dark Alive," was constantly at adventure of cancellation. At i depression bespeak in 1994, NBC threatened to put him on a week-to-calendar week contract. "At that place were so many doubters the starting time year," says Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Universal. "They said Conan jumped around also much in front of the camera, that he was also smart, too East Coast, too sophisticated, likewise immature and even too tall to be successful. Just Conan proved everybody wrong. Nosotros learned that y'all underestimate Conan at your ain peril."
Within a year, O'Brien began to work out a kind of comedic formula for "Late Night." In improver to the usual glittering array of guests, the show combined the lewd and wacky (regulars included a masturbating bear and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) with more elegant, narrative-driven curt films (which are called remotes) in which O'Brien left the studio and reported on, say, a historic baseball league or a station in Houston that refused to behave his show at its normal 60 minutes. The apotheosis of the "Belatedly Night" remotes centered on the realization in 2006 that O'Brien bears a striking resemblance to the (female) president of Republic of finland. "We took the show to Helsinki for v days," O'Brien recalled, "where we were embraced like a national treasure." Subsequently that first year, his audience, which was largely young and male (a coveted demographic), grew steadily, and, for the last 15 seasons, "Late Night" shell all competitors. "Lorne always says, 'The longer you're there is the longer you're there,' " says Jeff Ross, an executive producer of "Late Dark." "Significant, if y'all tin atmospheric condition the storms — and we had major storms — over time other shows volition disappear and you will offset to seem like part of the family unit."
O'Brien's role was a living scrapbook of his show. Leftover props (a Hillary Clinton can opener, a Nib Clinton corkscrew) leaned against caricatures of Conan sent in by fans. There were framed photos on the walls (his wife, Liza Powel O'Brien; their two children; Johnny Carson). Above a shelf full of awards for writing hung a big cork bulletin lath. The board, which was once devoted to bluish index cards denoting guests and comedy bits scheduled for "Late Nighttime," had been colonized by a battalion of yellowish alphabetize cards, on which were written ideas for "The This night Evidence." The suggestions, nigh of them for remotes, offered glimpses of a new mentality: "Conan as car valet," "Conan as Mexican-wrestling star," "Conan cleans pools," "Conan goes canoeing on the Los Angeles River." Almost of the ideas utilized the notion of O'Brien equally an outsider, alien to the ways of Hollywood. "Conan takes a cheerful spin on the 'Psycho' ready," read one card; "Conan tries to be a stunt human being," suggested some other. "Conan has 2,318 dollars and tries to get in on the California bailout."
"None of those ideas are certain nonetheless," O'Brien explained, as the rest of his writers piled into his function. "It's Darwinian on the board and Darwinian in our meetings. What I learned virtually this show when nosotros were struggling is that ideas have to fight for survival." But before the new show could begin, "Late Nighttime" needed a send-off, a proper ending. The head writer, Mike Sweeney, and his team of guys in their 30s and 40s (at that place were no women on the writing staff) were sprawled around the room on a mussed-up sofa and stained chairs. Some were sitting on the carpeted floor. "We have to remember that we're not going off the air forever," O'Brien said, playing the guitar.
"You could end the show," Sweeney said, "by leaving the studio and getting into a cab and maxim, 'I want to go to Los Angeles,' and the commuter says, 'WHAT?' " O'Brien continued to play. He said zip. "How about," Sweeney went on, "a locker-room celebration? Bob Costas comes into the frame and does a play by play of Conan O'Brien leaving his show." O'Brien shook his head. "That's maybe a lilliputian too sketchy. Nosotros don't want to be besides ha-ha." The room was silent.
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"I keep thinking of something happening at night on the street," O'Brien said. "It might be nice if information technology didn't require dialogue. What would Jacques Tati do? What would our parents recall was really funny? What has never been done?" There was a long interruption. Finally, a author wearing an Illinois sweatshirt suggested that O'Brien casually crawl into the trunk of a car, which prompted some other writer to propose that O'Brien steal a car, and "then we see a route sign that says, 'Los Angeles, three,000 miles.' "
No ane spoke. "What if nosotros shot three different endings," Sweeney finally said. "Faux endings, rejected endings, emotional endings." O'Brien liked that notion. "That'southward a really funny idea," he said. "I don't really want to end with a joke. And I want to make sure they know I'yard non retiring." O'Brien looked over at the corkboard. The yellow cards were beckoning. "Why practice I all of a sudden have 9,000 ideas about the tour bus at Universal?" he joked. "Information technology's similar Eskimos writing jokes that involve snow." He paused. "I think we're ready to leave. Nosotros've scraped the ice cream container make clean in New York. At that place'due south maybe one chocolate bit left, and it'southward the last show."
While O'Brien was concentrating on his final show and his plans for "The Tonight Prove," Jay Leno was becoming more than and more than unhappy about the idea of retiring from belatedly-nighttime television. About 5 years ago, in September 2004, he honored NBC's wish to supplant him with O'Brien. Leno made the announcement on the 50th anniversary of "The This evening Show," saying that he would go out the phase in 2009, when he would be almost lx. "You tin can practise these things until they carry you out on a stretcher, or you can get out when you're nevertheless doing practiced," Leno told the audience. "I'thousand not quitting prove business concern, simply I realized I'g non spending enough fourth dimension with my cars." Leno, who has more than 100 vintage cars, which he stores in an airplane hangar in Burbank, began to reconsider his good day ii years ago.
"We're still on top," Leno told me when I visited him at "The Tonight Testify" in early May. Leno was dressed in a blue piece of work shirt tucked into worn jeans, and we spoke in a small, anonymous backstage dressing room. His dark green, sharklike car (he drives a different one every day), a rare model called a Tatra, was parked right exterior the studio; its exoticism provided a vivid contrast with Leno's regular-guy-ness.
"V years ago," Leno continued, "I remember they idea we wouldn't however exist on pinnacle. Back and then, I said, 'Whatever you want.' I don't have an agent. I don't have a director. If the girl doesn't want to sleep with you, that's O.One thousand. I'thou not one of those guys who says, 'Why don't y'all want to sleep with me?' I say, 'O.K., great — let'due south exist friends.' You want to make a alter? That's great — we'll brand a change."
Every bit he became increasingly disgruntled, Leno began entertaining offers from other networks. Although viewership on network Tv is shrinking and advertising is migrating to cablevision and (to a lesser caste) to the Spider web, topical shows with comedy and glory guests are inexpensive to produce and maintain a consistent entreatment. Leno is a proper noun brand — he could easily move to ABC or Fox and become O'Brien's contest, which is what NBC feared. "It became clear that Jay wanted to proceed telling jokes on television at xi:30," Zucker said. To entice him to stay at NBC, Zucker offered Leno a daytime show, a cable show, a series of specials. When Leno turned all those down, Zucker proposed a half-60 minutes show, five nights a week at 8 p.thousand. The idea was that Leno would merely practise his monologue, riffing off the events of the twenty-four hour period. "Viii p.chiliad. doesn't work," Leno explained to me. "I never assume anyone is watching because I'm good-looking. You're selling a product. In my particular instance, the product, hopefully, is jokes. With 'The This night Evidence,' y'all have the jokes plus Angelina Jolie, and that'south a picayune more enticement. A half-hour monologue every night doesn't seem like enough enticement."
Zucker made his concluding plea: an hourlong show at 10 p.m., five nights a calendar week. To Zucker'southward surprise, Leno agreed. "I have believed, for a long time, that at that place should be a daily prime-time program with a topical format," Zucker told me. "I've never said this publicly earlier, but I approached Oprah Winfrey about her doing a daily hourlong show in prime time. She turned me down, merely I rekindled the idea with Jay. The advantage of a show similar that is it's easy to join, DVR-proof due to its topicality and different. Also much on television is the same show recycled. This will be a show that tin can provide an answer for the changing times we alive in."
Prototype
It's also cheap to make. "Nosotros can do v of my new prove for the cost of one 'CSI: Miami,' " Leno bragged. "At 10 p.m., the shows on the other networks will exist about murder and killing people. I'd like to beat 'CSI' when information technology's in reruns. When they're on the murder for the second time, we'll be doing original shows, talking about what's happening right at present."
Leno would not reveal how his new show would be different from "The This night Evidence." He told me he didn't plan to take a desk-bound, that the desk belongs to "The Tonight Show." ("I guarantee he'll have the desk," says someone close to "The This night Prove," who asked not to be identified for fear of offending Leno.) And that bands will not perform on the last segment of the show because they traditionally are idea to contribute to ratings drops. "Research tells u.s. that the audience expects a bigger show," said Rick Ludwin, the NBC executive who volition oversee Leno's new prove and has worked with every tardily-testify host from Carson on. "But viewers say loud and clear, Don't alter our Jay. They want that same bluish-collar guy who could be their next door neighbor. That's what has made 'The Tonight Bear witness' and so pop all these years."
Leno'south popularity will be tested at 10 p.yard. Senior-level executives at NBC, who requested anonymity because they work for Zucker, say they fear that his new prove volition be trounced by hourlong dramas (especially on CBS) and viewers will venture elsewhere, well before 11:thirty and O'Brien. Many see Leno'southward movement to x p.thousand. equally a boost for David Letterman. Leno and Letterman have been rivals since NBC chose Leno to exist Johnny Carson's successor and Letterman moved to CBS. Letterman was Carson's pick — when Carson retired, he appeared twice on Dave's show and never on Jay'south — and he'southward revered in the tight-knit customs of comedy writers, many of whom, like O'Brien, grew up watching him. Letterman'due south cool irony (peculiarly when compared with Leno'south genial demeanor) can brand him seem unkind, merely it tin can likewise create thrilling one-act out of unexpected situtations. On Feb. 11, Letterman's interview with a heavily disguised, quasi-asleep Joaquin Phoenix not only offered up Letterman at his best but demonstrated why talk shows endure even every bit the TV audition becomes increasingly fragmented. By allowing Phoenix, who was unable to speak for stretches at a time, to dictate the pace of the interview, Letterman created foreign, uncomfortable and riveting alive television. "When Dave is good," O'Brien told me the twenty-four hour period after the Phoenix episode, "no one is better. At moments like that, I can't touch on him."
While Letterman is his direct competition at eleven:xxx, O'Brien also has to contend with the double bill of Jon Stewart and, to a lesser degree, Stephen Colbert on Comedy Primal. Topical humor has proved to be popular, peculiarly with young men. That's why Zucker wanted Leno to do a nightly monologue, riffing off the events of the day, and why the network just scheduled "Saturday Nighttime Live Weekend Update Thursdays" as a one-half-hr prime-time show. Last fall, during the presidential campaign, "Weekend Update Thursdays" specials averaged nearly 2 million more than viewers than the Emmy Award-winning "30 Rock," also on NBC. Audiences preferred to see Tina Fey as Sarah Palin rather than Tina Fey as a character on a funny sitcom. "They want reality," Zucker told me.
Similarly, final year, Stewart and Colbert reached their biggest audience ever. Their popularity may have contributed to a decline in O'Brien's ratings on "Late Night": he went from 2.half-dozen million viewers in 2007 to 1.9 meg in 2008. Networks, in full general, are scrambling to retain audience share, merely no one believes that "The This night Show" should adopt Stewart'southward faux-news format. "I've always wondered why Conan lost the Emmy to Jon Stewart," Michaels told me ruefully. "I think it'southward because they recollect this generation gets their news from Jon Stewart, that he'south doing important work, while Conan is just doing comedy."
The biggest contest for "The Tonight Prove" may come from NBC itself: Leno's connected nightly presence makes it more hard for O'Brien to assume full ownership of the bear witness. Their dorsum-to-back time slots set up an inevitable comparison betwixt O'Brien'south more upscale persona and Leno's heartland approach. "In that location is a reason President Obama went on with Jay to promote his plans for the economic system," Ludwin boasted. "It was the best way to reach the middle-class voters." In addition to doing his nightly show, Leno does 160 stand up-up engagements a year — ordinarily 3 a calendar week — all over America, and he recently organized and performed at a free evidence in Detroit. "It'southward the best mode to take the temperature of the country," Leno said. "When y'all live in L.A. or New York, you realize that a funny joke about the president is a smart-ass Hollywood-y joke in the rest of the country. On the show, I never chosen President Bush an idiot. I'd say, 'I don't think the president quite understands.' That'south the sensibility of 200 miles in on either coast. And that'south what tends to work for 'The Tonight Show.' "
The not-and then-subtle message here is that O'Brien (similar his time-slot adversary, Letterman) does not take Leno's cozy human relationship to the Eye American viewer. While Carson deftly married sophistication, topicality, sophomoric humor and sex, today'southward late-nighttime talk shows rarely accept that range. In Carson's day, there were also vastly fewer choices on television receiver — he hosted the all-time dinner political party around. It's much harder now, and the search for a loyal constituency (which Leno seems to have) forced NBC to scramble.
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And yet, later waiting all these years for "The Tonight Bear witness" to be his, O'Brien was surprised when Zucker told him in December that Leno would be back on the network at 10 p.one thousand. "My offset reaction was to calculate my self-interest," O'Brien said a calendar month subsequently, over dinner at a restaurant near his apartment on the Upper Due west Side. "It took me about 45 minutes of, 'Really?' I recall, realistically, that Jay will be doing the same show he's doing now. I knew that there was this thing that was starting to brew that poor Jay was being pushed out by Conan. Jay was clearly becoming unhappy, and it had the makings of a situation that would brand me unhappy. I like Jay. I don't want to be an unpleasant chapter in his life. Or he in mine."
O'Brien paused. "What I realized is, I'm notwithstanding doing 'The Tonight Show.' That was my dream. When I can't slumber and it's 3 in the morning, I'm not thinking most Jay. I'm thinking about all the things I want to exercise on the evidence. And I'1000 not thinking about how I'one thousand going to modify myself to fit a certain demographic. I just have to block that nonsense out. In amusement, you take to pale out what y'all think is right, yous have to put out that signal, make certain it's pure and then do it and do it and do information technology and know that they volition come up. And if they don't, you lot have to pack up your numberless and say: 'I enjoyed my time here. Sorry it didn't work out.' Only the biggest mistake would exist to modify my signal to brand sure that I achieve all these different people. Because then you're lost."
Conan O'Brien was exhausted. It was iii:20 on Feb. xx, less than ii hours before O'Brien would be taping his final "Late Night" show in Studio 6A, and he was pacing around his soon-to-be destroyed set, the prepare he lived in for the by 16 years, in a strangely calm country. "I'm also tired to exist nervous about tonight," he said, while friends and family sat in the studio audience and sought refuge in his dressing room. Andy Richter, O'Brien's sidekick until 2000, was sitting behind the bear witness desk-bound talking to Robert Smigel, the first head writer for "Belatedly Nighttime" and the human being who doubles as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. It was a reunion mixed with a wake. "Everything big that's happened in my life has been a effect of this testify," O'Brien said. "Merely now nosotros have to get. I feel like I've been in high school for 16 years. A great loftier school, only it's time to graduate."
He huddled briefly with Jeff Ross, one of the executive producers, who was already dressed for the evidence in a suit and tie, and then settled behind the drum kit of the "Tardily Night" ring, the Max Weinberg Seven. O'Brien began drumming as the band played "On the Road Again." "Music and comedy are then linked," O'Brien said earlier, as he walked up and down the halls of his offices, playing one of his many guitars. "The rhythm of comedy is connected to the rhythm of music. They're both about creating tension and knowing when to let it go. I'm always surprised when somebody funny is not musical." O'Brien smiled. "And, you know, Johnny loved to play the drums."
The 3rd of half-dozen children — "It'south the role he can't escape: Conan is e'er the middle child," Lorne Michaels said, when he heard that Leno was moving to 10 p.m. — O'Brien grew upward in Brookline, Mass., watching Johnny Carson with his father, a microbiologist. "He would permit me stay up for the monologue," O'Brien told me earlier. "I was interested in this guy who fabricated my dad laugh. In the '70s, Johnny was a harmonious place for me and my dad: the evidence was such an American ritual that information technology covered the mainstream and the counterculture. Everybody laughed at Carson — they all watched him. I started analyzing the bear witness then. Since I was a teenager, I take been thinking about what'south funny and what'south not funny almost all the time. Not much in my life has changed since I was a kid.
"When all the writers are packed into Sweeney'due south function," Conan continued, "it'due south very comfortable for me, because that'southward how I grew up. My older brothers, Neal and Luke, slept in twin beds, and I was in a cot at the foot of their beds. I loved it. When you're Irish Catholic, you learn to practise comedy at the foot of your brothers' beds. Information technology's all almost trying to make your family unit laugh. And I utilize the same muscle today. It's just that now I brand a living out of it."
O'Brien wrote his thesis at Harvard on Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner ("Allow'southward just say that during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn't come upwardly much"), and in 1983 and '84 he was elected president of The Harvard Lampoon for a rare two sequent terms. After graduation in 1985, O'Brien and Greg Daniels (who went on to produce "The Office" for NBC) became writing partners and moved to Los Angeles. They immediately got a job on HBO's "Non Necessarily the News." "Greg Daniels and I were shackled together like 'The Defiant Ones,' " O'Brien recalled. "We shared an apartment, a car and an function with iron desks that faced each other. You quickly become a married couple. If one of us had a chance at having a date, nosotros would have to ask the other to borrow the car." While he was writing for goggle box, O'Brien began performing with the Groundlings, a comedy troupe in Los Angeles that jump-started the careers of, among others, Pee-wee Herman and Will Ferrell. In 1988, he moved Eastward to write for "Sabbatum Night Live," and in 1991, he moved Westward again to work on "The Simpsons." With his 30th birthday approaching, O'Brien decided he wanted to reinvent himself as a performer. He got a new amanuensis, Gavin Polone (who is now his director), and he began thinking about hosting a talk show. I met O'Brien around this time; he was well regarded as a writer in the concentric comedy circles of "SNL," "The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld," but he had virtually no feel performing on television receiver. It was audacious to recall that he could host a nightly bear witness. He had never fifty-fifty been a head writer.
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And then, on Apr 26, 1992, after a whirlwind courtship, O'Brien was picked to supersede David Letterman. "Information technology'due south fair to say that it was unprecedented," Lorne Michaels told me, calling from his office i evening. Michaels was obligated, equally an executive producer, to discover the "Belatedly Night" host (but equally he eventually picked Jimmy Fallon to replace O'Brien). "I liked that Conan was immature, intelligent and that he had, like Johnny Carson, good manners. A skillful host ever obeys the rules of hospitality, and Conan has an essential decency and work ethic that were obvious from the offset. Sadly, talent and character practice not oftentimes reside in the aforementioned person, but they do in Conan. And that was never more axiomatic than when his show was fighting for its life."
Critics attacked him (Tom Shales suggested in The Washington Post that "the host resume his previous identity, Conan O'Blivion"), and the NBC executives were broken-hearted to replace him with Greg Kinnear, who was on the network at 1:30 a.grand. "Ane executive," O'Brien recalled, "particularly despised Andy [Richter]. He told me I'd never succeed until I 'got rid of that big fat dildo.' That was the tone of the conversations between us and the network."
Slowly, things improved. Kinnear didn't want the job (he left hosting to become an actor), and at that place were no piece of cake replacements for O'Brien. That bought him time. Stars like Tom Hanks agreed to announced on "Late Night," which boosted audience awareness. Even Letterman, who admired O'Brien's comic sensibility, came on to annals his support. Mostly, though, O'Brien'southward performance improved. "Conan always knew he had the production," Leno told me. "He said information technology kind of dopey, only what he was saying was clever and smart. And then he learned how to say it well."
He never quit. One key to O'Brien's character is his quiet confidence that if he applies himself, he will eventually succeed. He's not arrogant, just he's willing to live and breathe the bear witness. "The thing that saved my life was that I didn't actually know what I was in for," O'Brien said, an hour before taping his terminal show. "If they had explained to me exactly what was involved, I might have run. But I did not want to neglect. And now I'm addicted to the feeling of what information technology's similar to do a good evidence. There are 35 variables every dark — what comedy do we have? What's the audience similar? Who are the guests? What time of year is it? What'south my mood? You need xv cherries to line up to pay out the jackpot. And, every now and then, the stars align. And you keep chasing subsequently that feeling."
O'Brien ran off — he needed to cheque on Will Ferrell, who was appearing on the show every bit George W. Bush that dark and was as well rehearsing a kind of striptease. His parents and his older brother Luke had arrived from Boston, and they were waiting with Conan'south married woman, Liza, in his dressing room. O'Brien met his wife through "Belatedly Night." In 2000, he was doing a remote at the advertising agency where she worked. After the segment was taped, O'Brien asked Sweeney to brand certain that he compiled anybody's name and address. "It's the blonde, isn't it?" Sweeney replied.
"I immediately knew Liza was the one," O'Brien told me earlier. "I couldn't say, Oh no, I'chiliad not ready — I need to be with a few drug-addicted supermodels with rage problems. It's my nature to be the contrary of a self-destructive person: something inside of me usually makes me do the right thing." This applies to the bear witness as well. Dissimilar Letterman and Carson, O'Brien doesn't seem to have a nighttime side. His sense of humour is not mean — he'd rather laugh with the audience than at them. And unlike Stewart, he's not on Boob tube to educate through mockery. Information technology's impossible, for instance, to imagine O'Brien sparring with someone like Jim Cramer, the CNBC money guru, as Stewart recently did. O'Brien is too respectful to be aroused; like Leno, he works hard to be polite.
Which is why, despite many meetings and dozens of pitched ideas, the final "Late Night" did not end with a comedy flake. Instead, O'Brien spent 11 minutes thanking his staff, his family and, particularly, Lorne Michaels for assertive in him. He singled out David Letterman'south comic genius and enormous influence while politely, dutifully, thanking Leno for his "back up." O'Brien was choking back tears and he just briefly attended the crowded after-party in Studio 8H. Jeff Zucker was there with O'Brien's amanuensis, Rick Rosen. "I'1000 going to accept to lay off 10 people to pay for this political party," Zucker said, as he popped a caviar-and-blini hors d'oeuvre into his rima oris. He was half-joking. "Conan better be a success at 11:30."
Epitome
In the kitchen of O'Brien's new firm in Los Angeles, there is a map of America that he clipped from USA Today. Crisscrossing lines connect cities coast to coast. "That'south what I've been doing for the past two months," O'Brien said. "I moved to Los Angeles on March ix, and I've only slept hither 2 nights in three weeks." It was an evening in early April, and Conan, Liza, their 2 children, Beckett and Neve, and the golden retriever, Bosco, were having dinner (Liza prepared lasagna with a green salad and fruit for dessert) at habitation. Knowing that they would be moving in 2009, they bought a brand-new house in West Los Angeles more than than a year ago. The many huge rooms, nigh of which have double-elevation ceilings, are sparsely furnished with overstuffed sofas and chairs. The walk-in closets are and so spacious that Conan has an elliptical trainer in his and Liza has a desk in hers. Naturally, there'southward a pool in the lawn, and I lost count at four guest rooms and 3 dens. "I have moments of 'Whose life is this?' " O'Brien said as he gave me a tour. "I become up in this house, I get in my car and I drive to work, and it's like I've adopted a new personality. A lot of the early stage of the show will probably play off my feeling of being on the moon." O'Brien saturday downwardly at the kitchen table, where he had placed the Us Today map. "That's why, as nice every bit this is, it was so important that I went to see the affiliates. It's good to call back that 'The Tonight Show' is not just shown in New York and L.A."
Network television comprises a web of stations that have pledged their fidelity to a particular company and its programming slate. "In that location really is no NBC," Leno told me. "There are the affiliates that ain NBC. So, you become see them and say, 'Hey, here's what I plan to do.' And they say, 'We like y'all.' America'south a football — whoever controls the ball, controls the game."
Leno speaks from experience. In 1992, NBC gave him "The Tonight Show" over David Letterman partly because he had the staunch backing of the affiliates. (He visited them; Letterman didn't.) Wooing the affiliates is not dissimilar garnering support during a presidential campaign, with particular attending paid to the cities and states that don't understand or favor the candidate on offering. "They never really liked Conan in the Southeast," Rick Ludwin said. "And we strongly suggested that he visit those stations."
Even before "Late Night" ended, O'Brien was doing two shows on Thursday and flying on Friday to see the affiliates. He'd visit two cities a twenty-four hour period, often with Jeff Ross, who will be the executive producer of "The Tonight Show." "I felt like Lyndon Johnson in the hill country, running a grass-roots campaign," O'Brien said, every bit his daughter came to say goodnight. "In places like Oklahoma Urban center, everyone was wearing Conan wigs and they brought a Clydesdale out of a truck. I grabbed a cowboy hat and rode in circles in front of the station. At that place were cheerleaders doing cheers for me and banners with my name on them. I kept thinking, I came into show business organization through the back door of 'Due south.Northward.L.' and 'The Simpsons,' and now I'm in the carnival. Which I love. If y'all desire to host 'The Tonight Show,' you need to become to Kansas City and Cleveland and Milwaukee and San Jose and Oklahoma City. There's something about the show that does belong to those people."
In most cities, he made a regular stump speech well-nigh watching Johnny Carson with his father and how much the show mattered to him. In early April, the NBC affiliate in Boston dropped a bombshell: they did not want to behave Leno's new 10 p.m. show. Instead, they would put on the local news. NBC reacted immediately, threatening to strip the station of its network affiliation. "They had to exist aggressive," said Jeff Ross. "They couldn't run a risk a trend." After a heated ii-week boxing, the network prevailed: Leno'south 10 p.m. show will now be shown in Boston. Interestingly, Leno made an appearance in Boston during the two-week dispute. "Don't bitch and moan," he told me. "Practice something if y'all want the ball back."
On his affiliate tour, O'Brien never visited Boston; it was considered a reliable city for him. "I'm sure I'll end up going," he said. "But there'southward work to practice here." It was less than two months before "The Tonight Show" would have its June 1 première, and O'Brien knew he had to establish his show with a new eleven:xxx audience before Leno began broadcasting in September. "The apprehension of doing the show is getting hard," he continued. "I accept to talk well-nigh things endlessly rather than doing them. It'due south all buildup. I need to become back to a room full of writers and come up up with ideas. I need to actually do the bear witness."
Around the same time that Conan O'Brien was named the next host of "The This evening Show," Full general Electrical, NBC'due south parent visitor, purchased Vivendi Universal Entertainment and fused the two divisions. A newly hatched NBC Universal moved nearly of its West Declension operations from Burbank to Universal Metropolis. This means that the new "The Tonight Show" will non hail, as it did for decades, from Burbank. "I was worried that we would be the to the lowest degree-exciting attraction at the Universal theme park," O'Brien said in late April, as he stood outside his new offices. The nondescript five-story edifice was constructed for "The This night Show" on what was once a parking lot. The offices are connected to an existing soundstage, which will business firm the studio. "In 1961, Jack Benny filmed his bear witness here," O'Brien said, pointing to his new home. "And so, in the '80s, 'Knight Rider' was shot here. But I prefer to associate with Benny." O'Brien walked toward the soundstage. "They wanted to put my name on the building, but Rule No. 1 in Hollywood is don't put your proper noun on anything," O'Brien said. "All I imagine is them putting my name in cement and so having to jackhammer information technology out."
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The Universal lot could not exist more than different from Rockefeller Center. Located in the San Fernando Valley, Universal is an old-fashioned working back lot, where Spielberg (and others) notwithstanding shoot parts of their movies. Where Rockefeller Heart, in all its deco splendor and history, is urban, charmingly chaotic and rather cavelike, Universal is vast and sunny and seems to take been designed by dozens of architects with no interest in comparison notes. There are low bungalows that expect as if they belong to silent-film stars side by side to office buildings that resemble swinging-singles apartment complexes from the '70s.
The show's offices, which are merely inside the studio's gates, are completely generic. "I wanted information technology that way," O'Brien said, equally he took the elevator to the quaternary flooring and walked down the hall to his new home. "I said, I don't desire a desk-bound made of onyx and baboon skulls." He shipped his old metal desk from his New York office; the same cork bulletin board that hung there was mounted on the wall here. The colour coding has changed: yellow index cards now connote comedy ideas; blue, possibilities for remotes; white, fabric for O'Brien to perform at the desk-bound; and each pink bill of fare, the name of a scheduled guest. The lineup for the kickoff evidence, on June i, was set: Will Ferrell and Pearl Jam. (Interestingly, O'Brien will be Leno's guest on his final show.)
Ideas were starting to accept shape, also, many of them inspired by the back lot itself. "Jaws" was a huge striking for Universal, and one writer suggested that Bruce, the mechanical shark, could occasionally drop past the bear witness. "In our listen, he sounds similar Paul Lynde," O'Brien explained. "He dishes dirt about his co-stars." The bear witness had an verbal replica of O'Brien'due south desk built onto the front of a golf cart and, later that 24-hour interval, O'Brien was scheduled to take a short road trip through the studio. "We're going to drive up to the 'Psycho' house and try and interview Norman Bates at the desk," O'Brien said. "And possibly we'll take a suspension during 1869 in Western Boondocks. So we'll swing by the 'Drastic Housewives' gear up and effort to see Eva Longoria in her trailer for an interview.
For O'Brien, the open up mural of California may be both inspiring and isolating. In his "Late Night" show in New York, O'Brien was able to ascertain himself as a smart outsider, but "The Tonight Show" is, past its nature, a different game for a different crowd. Traditionally, it has mirrored the mood of the country. "Johnny'due south the one I look dorsum to," O'Brien continued. "The constant is Johnny. He was very sophisticated, but he was besides a clown. As a child, I was fascinated by the fact that while he was clearly the coolest guy in America, he could dress up like an old adult female or take a raccoon clamber on his head. He surrendered his dignity, and it merely made him cooler. There aren't a lot of hosts who volition put on a skimpy bathing suit and jump into a hot tub with Don Rickles." O'Brien picked up a guitar. "When I first got 'Belatedly Nighttime,' " he said, "I was whisked to John Cheever Connecticut to a 50th birthday party for Bob Wright, who was then the caput of NBC. They said, 'We want you to get up and exist funny.' And and so I realized that Johnny Carson was there, too. I was petrified. Johnny was wearing dark glasses and he was ramrod directly and perfectly coiffed. He was very shy. I wanted to kill myself. And I had to go first. I had prepared a thing — the idea was I didn't know who Bob Wright was — and information technology worked. People actually laughed. And Johnny nodded. And then he got upwards, made his toast and blew the roof off the place. Afterward, he came over to me and said, 'Good luck to you.' He said, 'Just exist yourself — that's the simply mode it tin work.' " O'Brien paused, "At that place'south an opportunity to put my stamp on this show. I've got an ego, and I desire to practice my 'This evening Show.' "
O'Brien was interrupted past Jeff Ross, who wanted him to get downstairs to the phase. When the set up was being designed, O'Brien's main business organisation was that the space not experience as well big. "Nosotros want to have a parade of elephants if nosotros need it," Ross explained as we went through the stage doors, "but we still desire the audience to experience similar they're close to Conan." These decisions matter: for the first two years of Leno's tenure, Letterman was regularly beating him. Then Leno inverse studios, switching from Carson's old arrangement, which put him at a distance from the audience, to a closer configuration. Every bit a stand up-up comedian, Leno played more than to the crowd and needed to see faces. It may take been a coincidence or a national alter in sense of taste, but when he altered his gear up, Leno started to win in the ratings. So, in 1995, Hugh Grant was arrested for soliciting a prostitute and didn't cancel his "Tonight Show" booking. When an affrighted Grant saturday down, Leno asked, "What the hell were you thinking?" At that place was a huge laugh, and ratings soared. From and so on, Leno was No. 1.
"Exercise y'all call back it was the set or Hugh?" I asked Ross.
"Well," he said, "I couldn't come up up with five names living that will guarantee a rating. News-generated guests will be big, but everything has been diluted past the entertainment shows. Everyone is everywhere 4 or 5 times a solar day. So unless y'all have a sitting president like Barack Obama on, or a big scandal, yous're better off with a prepare that helps."
The new "This evening Show" fix has the usual elements: ring beat out stage left, desk-bound stage right and a mesh drapery fabricated of metal in the center. Merely the curtain is curved and, like the rest of the set, is deco in style. It evokes the mood of thirty Rockefeller Plaza merely is much grander than O'Brien'due south former set in Studio 6A. There are most double the number of seats, and there are many more lights flashing. "I liked the set," Lorne Michaels told me later, "but I wonder if it'southward the movie version of a talk prove."
Every bit he wandered effectually the phase, O'Brien looked comfortable, at home. "The hardest matter in L.A. is a destination," he said. "I'chiliad spoiled. I've had the destination in New York: Rockefeller Center. It'due south the high temple of American Telly, and we were smack-dab in the heart of it. L.A. is different. Everything can feel like the lunar landscape out here."
He paced around the set. The prepare wasn't finished: there were at least 25 workers installing lights or checking plans or hammering. "I'm happy when I'm in the studio," O'Brien said. "I'm eating my meals here now." O'Brien'due south desk wasn't finished nevertheless, and there were 3 folding chairs where the guests would be. "I miss doing the bear witness," he said. "I miss the audience. The other 24-hour interval, I was at my daughter'southward school to read to the kids, and I started interim out all the characters. I ran into Liza on my way out, and she said, 'How did it go?' I said, 'I killed in there!' She looked at me and said: 'They're a bunch of iv-year-olds. You're just supposed to read the book.' "
O'Brien laughed. He walked over to an 10 that had been taped to the floor. When the show starts, that will be where he'll stand when he emerges from the drapery to accost the audience. "I come here at night, subsequently everyone'due south gone habitation, and I do giving the monologue," he said. "Every night. For hours. I just stand up on the X and imagine the rest."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24Conan-t.html
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