How Conan Became The Host Of "Late Night" | Inside Conan

Maybe we can start at the very beginning uh what were your first impressions of each other well we should tell the story that how you met yeah i'll set it up and then jeff you can take it away to take people way back when in the wayback machine david letterman announces he's because he didn't get the tonight show he's pissed he's angry he feels like that he was in line for that Jay got it forget his last name and so letterman's upset and then he does the thing that nbc doesn't see coming he says i'm

out of here yeah and they never thought he would do that and so suddenly uh there's an opening they need a host for 12 30 and in a streaming era all there are there's no such thing as a time slot anyway really but there's just an infinite number of jobs now and shows back then when there was a space Available it was like a once in a decade event especially in late night it was a big deal it was a huge deal and everyone's like who's going to replace dave and what they the affiliates were

getting nervous so nbc had an idea which is to stall and to keep the affiliates calm we'll just tell them lorne michaels is going to figure it out the you know producers are not live and he Always makes the right choice so lauren will do it and so lauren agreed to that i think you know and with the understanding that he would produce it and that bought nbc some time with the affiliates they're like whoa oh good good well then lauren is figuring it out it's being handled it's being handled and so then and that's

great shorthanded getting put out it was a very good idea on um and nbc has only had good ideas this was an incredible team a brain Trust and then they um so lauren's handling it and then lauren's first move before he picks anybody is he knows a young lad named jeff ross and he dials the phone jeff fresh back from cabo even back then tequila getting abused no no no not at all and by the way this is a six hour episode it's more like a recta rectal exam yeah it won't be that pleasant yeah

yeah Those who get medication from mexico i love a rectal exam if i get the wrong profile so phone rings and jeff you take it from there uh i'm leaving lauren i get that lauren says to me i guess it was in the news we all knew he was gonna produce the show and pick the host and he says to me would would you produce it how did you know lauren oh i'm sorry that's true that's a good thing here Yeah that's called a follow-up question i had spent a year in canada producing the kids

in the hall and then i was doing some other shows for lauren a lot of hbo specials and i was around and lorne knew me and i guess he just he had to hire somebody to do something on this thing so he he called me and he was like so you know i'm doing this thing i got the i got to find the i got to produce the show to replace letterman I go i heard and he says you want to produce it and it it's it's sort of to what kind of was saying it's

such a surreal thing you know let alone you know obviously you want to be the host somebody says you want to produce the show that that's going to replace letterman which was the biggest thing at the time and there's no idea who the host is so i wound up in this Sort of like crazy whirlwind of nutty ideas and going to auditions i think at the same time he was talking to you he talked to you first because i knew i had heard your name we hadn't met yet we hadn't met and and lauren i

had left snl and two two years earlier maybe two and a half years earlier and gone to the Simpsons right yeah and uh so i was in los angeles and i had moved on lauren very sweetly had really wanted me to stay at snl and he was saying you can work from home it was really nice he really was he said he said there's going to be a terrible virus there's a there's a virus in wuhan there's no scene and i said no i really have to go i was going through a lot at the

time it'll All be in my memoir i was going through a lot of stuff uh in my personal life and i was i think very unhappy and i just decided i've gotta leave uh the east coast and so i i got this great chance to work on the simpsons so i'm there and i really feel like i've put new york in my rearview mirror and i've put even though i had an amazing experience at snl i thought that's all Behind me now and then it's now two years later and the phone rings and it's lorne

and um he said that he's setting up the new late night should replace letterman and i'll remember very clearly me saying whoa good luck because there's no replacing letterman and i was just sorry for whoever gets no no i i really need to show a test pattern and i think jeff probably felt The same way we both felt like i mean he had been you know dave had you know recreated um the talk show and and and created this whole new sensibility and it felt like he had discovered this whole new continent and how do

you follow that and he had carved out 1235 as this yes and i actually thought it wasn't really going to happen you Thought what i just thought it wasn't going to happen what do you mean in other words either lauren wasn't going to produce it or you know some something was going to happen and i wasn't going to produce it right so it just seemed not real were you at the time did you hesitate to say yes to producing this show no i said yes you just jumped right in yeah okay i said yeah a

lot of crazy but i hadn't but i i didn't believe it okay okay and i and and so lauren at First is talking to me about being um the kind of head writer right so jeff will be the producer who makes it all happen and then i'll be the the head writer sort of producer and i remember initially being like well i'll talk to you about it i had it first of all i had a contract at the simpsons right that technically wasn't breakable which Sounds crazy but box is hard they don't i'm not kidding

they they and so i think they're on the story yeah i had signed like a a four-year deal to be at the simpsons and i think i was doing a good job and they liked having me there so um this is not a place uh not the simpsons and be specific here fox is not a place where you can just say you know what right i'm out of here yeah and i also kept saying i don't Think anyone can replace letterman i mean i was saying that uh and thinking that and actually still believe it

i see no evidence no i'm i'm not kidding i still think that's the case but we hadn't met yet right jeff's just a name and then i bow out i say you know what i remember having an anxiety attack a really strong anxiety attack right and thinking i just can't do this i actually went and met lauren who had an office at The time at the paramount lot and i just said i can't do it and he was i think a little rattled because he i think was telling people i've got this lined up i've

got jeff i've got conan he's trying to put pieces together he's trying to put the piece against an anxiety attack just on being the head writer of the show yeah and you don't know who the host is and i don't know who the host is and so i bow out and so i'm out of the process And i remember feeling a huge sense of relief huge relief yeah then a couple of weeks go by and lauren i think had a showcase and i think jeff went to the showcase i was on the east coast doing

another show and i had to go come to la to do a different show and lauren calls me to his office the same office at paramount so i go see him and he says you're still going to prove the show right the late night show And i went yeah yeah but but do you know who the host is says well can you go to this showcase tonight at the improv uh-huh and we've talked about this before yeah yeah it's like you know yeah there's like five comics all male 1 and they all knew that they

were auditioning for lauren oh yeah oh yeah the lord was there and so was and so were the guys who wrote the network don Allmeyer was there uh warren littlefield was there but johnny golia was there he was like the business affairs guy and afterwards what was that what was the rest those guys are always good laughs remember the mustache oh yeah remember the mustache cafe biz affairs the mustache counter that was across from the remember the mustache so afterwards they're all going us and lauren goes come on come with us and i'm thinking this

is It's crazy yeah and we go over there and i'm sitting there and he goes and everybody's arguing about who they thought was good and who was not good and and oh my gosh everybody meet my office tomorrow and lauren times me goes can you come to this meeting at o'myer's office and i go sure and so i go to this office and this is when the connection started with conan oh myers kind of beating up On everybody because that's kind of the way he was you know yeah he was uh donald meyer you all

know him but he was running nbc when uh the oj trial was happening and don was very good friends with oj and um would get very upset when norm mcdonald would do jokes that basically said for reasons i don't because i don't see the evidence but basically basically say that on the day of the Verdict nor macdonald said well it's official murder is now legal in the state of california but john olamir was kind of like imagine babe ruth 45 years old like a big over the top and i have a lot of affection for

don i want to make that clear i really do and i think he had a lot of really good qualities and he was very loyal to me in the long run so there's a lot of things about don that i'm i have very good Feelings about but he was he could sometimes he could be very intimidating and be kind of he had a sports mentality because he had come from the world of sports so it was a lot of like kicking guys in the ass and get out there come on you got to figure it

out get your head in the game you and it was that kind of absolutely so finally lauren says well i think conan could do it And he turns to me and says don't you think oh wow and that was the first time he brought it up he had not met he had never met me until i smartly go yeah i think so and i'll never forget this and and then and then omar goes well can we test them and then lauren turns to me and goes can we test them and i go yeah sure so

what happens is i'm working at the Simpsons like a normal everyday joe and i come home with my lunch pail and my hard hat and i put it down and i see that there's a machine the machine that's back when you had a machine with a blank spline machine yeah and um so i play it and it's and it's not lauren doesn't leave messages to this day but it's one of his 35 people saying um conan could give lauren a call so i called him and he Said look i know you don't want to do

it but would you be interested in going to an audition now i had a panic attack at that which is the idea that i would audition because i was a writer now things have changed a lot since then this is before i mean now seth meyers john mulaney there's just this long tradition tina fey people are writers and then um They they get elevated uh and and they figure it out this hadn't really happened before right now behind the scenes i had been kind of a performing writer for a bunch of years doing improv groundlings

and improvisation and and constantly uh it's where i met lisa kudrow doing we started doing improv in 85. and i was so i was very interested in that right but i was not a stand-up Comic which is really was considered it's like to drive a car you need a license yes what do you mean you're not a stand-up comic so i was just a guy that was a mindset back then yeah and i remembered at snl i was jim downey was always putting me in things because i was the guy who was in the room

entertaining the room of writers yeah In a room full of writers my and to this day my favorite place to be is in a room full of writers yeah trying to make everybody laugh and doing a dance for them or spitting out some wild thread and so i think lauren had seen me doing that right he had seen me cracking up jim downey and he had seen me you know play little utility roles and sketches here and there right and so the notion was Maybe so he talks to me i'm very nervous i call robert

smeigle imagine yeah robert smeigle's response was you know i wouldn't do it if i were you oh wow now listen listen i'm going to say that's for your own sake i'm assuming no no but listen he to be honest he was echoing everything in my head yeah yeah it's what everyone would say yeah he said i wouldn't do it if i Were you and i said and what's the reason and he said because that is a hard way to get into show business like you're a complete unknown the knives will be out he said all

the things that ended up uh to a large degree playing out and he was telling me all that and i was nodding i remember uh this was a apartment on cochrane um cochran near the grove No i'm sorry hold that no i'm sorry no not cochran that was my earlier apartment i moved around more than like ted bundy bundy drive yeah bundy once said to me before he was executed you moved around a lot and i'm like you know what that's my business but i was on weatherly which is kind of near the four seasons

hotel so i had this little like i was a guy that didn't know how to furnish an apartment I just wrote and ate out at chinese food places at night and worked on my simpson scripts you know completely undeveloped uh male human and i was in this little breakfast nook and i remember very clearly the table i was sitting at talking on this shitty little phone and robert saying i don't think i would do it i was like kind of agreeing in the background i heard michelle his wife Say uh who's fantastic and michelle i

just heard her in the background go william i couldn't quite hear her and i said what did she say and i heard robert talk to her and then he came back to the phone and he went well michelle says what do you have to lose and then i heard in the background michelle was like he should do it what does he have to lose he's funny and i had this little like tremor of Maybe yeah what do i have to lose and then robert went well that's a really good point so i thought well what's

the worst that could happen if i audition i'm not to get it but i'm interested in this getting out in front of people so that's when the next thing i know i'm told by lauren okay we're going to test you you're to go meet jeff ross at the four seasons hotel which in in beverly hills Which was like a five-minute walk from my apartment so i walk over i get to the lobby first because jeff's up upstairs beauty regimen putting the cucumbers on his eyes he needed a spa hotel and he's charged and i'm downstairs

and there's a lobby they've changed the lobby of the four seasons now but there used to be this um kind of business desk that was made of lucite it Was like a clear plastic desk when i went and i was sitting at that clear plastic desk just waiting and then jeff comes off the elevator we've never met and he walks around the corner and goes and i go uh jeff goes conan and i go jeff and i go yeah and then i gesture to the desk and go what do you think like true i could

yeah i kind of hit i kind of hit the desk and like what do you think and jeff Was like no lose sight and jeff pierre jeff was like i don't know and i was like yeah i know so then we talked about how crazy it was honestly chemistry was off the charts yeah right away right away you know what i love my first interaction with jeff was disinterest right and no faith in me and nothing's changed he would have been looking at his cell phone if he'd had one there was no cell Phone no

jeff used to carry a rotary phone jeff you couldn't really believe in your heart it was going to happen like you were probably both laughing at them yes when you met each other right it was completely absurd and i have to say you're crazy i was laughing at that point because i took what michelle uh robert's wife said his heart which is Oh what the just try this it's not going to happen anyway right so it's a good experience this story i mean this story could be a whole we could do nine hours on this

story and i'm trying to move it along but long story short jeff starts to with nbc's help starts to put together kind of like an audition and the only space they have to use is the tonight show um And trust me it's always been good luck for me so uh they set up um the idea is when jay's done with his show he's gonna leave and the crowd's gonna leave they're gonna bring in another audience and the idea was i will come out and do a monologue and then interview two celebrities and i won't know

who they are until i get to burbank wow so jeff Was putting it together and trying to find the celebrities and i had nothing to wear so at the time i call my best friend lisa kudrow and i say lisa you've got to help me and she says don't worry i can help you so she took me to makeover montage well it's hilarious this is the worst makeover montage but i had no one he would just two two thirds of the way through the movie that's when they went to best buy And no uh we

went to fred siegel oh down here santa monica i have a 1992 ford taurus with a stick shift very proud of that we still have by the way it's you know what i can't believe it is it's still on our budget oh like of the thanksgiving when you sign the chat i don't want it that's uh it's no but i mean it's paid off by now isn't It no no no it could be you could make it an airbnb so you could be earning money so i pick up lisa we drive over to fred siegel

and we go to we're walking around now i now know things just from being in show business but i kind of know like i should probably they should put some makeup on me yeah but i also know kind of when you're my coloring what are good colors To wear like blues are really good they make the old blue eyes pop and they also um what colors really help if you are very very pale redhead the one thing i've learned that you're not supposed to do is wear very very pale like white i should not wear

that so lisa and i together we committed this crime together like leopold and low individually we would not have killed But together we did we pick out a white linen jacket a white linen jacket like a white shirt i think and i throw in the back of my ford taurus which by the way i later found out has radiator fluid in the back green radiator fluid which got on some part of the jacket but i that i hid i love that ford taurus was the car you drove to to do that so then jeff sets

this thing up and we're kind of talking back and forth Yeah then i drive it's set up for this time i drive to burbank i get there and when i get there you guys had worked it out you had found mimi rogers and jason alexander as guests as guests and jason alexander of course uh doing uh seinfeld and uh mimi rogers was doing movies and she had been a model and modeled and you know and married tom cruise yeah uh brief marriage to tom Cruise yeah my first time getting interview notes so i got research

you jeff had arranged he asked nbc and they said yeah we can use the tonight show research so i was given a research that they had on file for the last time jason alexander had been on the tonight show and the last time you meet uh rogers have been on the tonight show so i go in this office and i'm just looking and i'm scribbling out my monologue which i had been thinking About yeah i had no writers oh my god how far in advance of the tapings was this hold on what what is that

what's that says there's a vikings are landing he didn't mute us it was like a horn it was like yeah it was a norse horse it is so i want to use that ringtone i'm in the north if You see the movie i interrupt a tribal retreat with my phone so please check out the doors please keep that in so i like these are the best moments mike sweeney's phone just went off and his ringtone is a norse norse horns the tonight show was still going on when i got there they were still taping it

which might be maybe they taped it i don't know five to six or something Right and so this would have been after that i think our taping was going to start at seven okay like that i'm going over the notes i had come up with an idea for a monologue it wasn't topical yeah uh which would sort of foretell the kind of comedy right but it was all about the absurdity of me um and i remember the monologue was kind of i think actually you can see it now but um i think i was very

taken with i need to Get this job quickly because the irish don't age well and it's it's a theme i've been working a lot just gonna say holy cow and i was like and i was like my face is acceptable for television now but as ted kennedy is proof that my face is going to expand and so i had this whole and then that's what i remember most is then it's time to do it it's really surreal jeff's over at the you know at the podium And we go there's no band or anything and i

come out and i was immediately surprisingly comfortable i was just very i like i had always liked being on stage i was very comfortable doing the monologue and then i slid over and the minute i got behind the desk i was just kind of happy and mimi rogers came out first and the and the jason alexander was Second i don't know if you remember this but in between the two it was like a commercial break like a fake commercial what happened in a script packet i guess it was the research or something yeah i don't

know if you remember this i wrote on that and i just scribbled on the back you're killing yeah and they slid it in front of him and what he did was he and he looked yeah he should have fixed his thigh or something yeah yeah you know he's still here No we shredded everything immediately right right jeff wanted we were like we were like the germans as the russians were just shredding and burning everything um but yes i remember that very clearly and what i remember is the monologue went well and i just felt comfortable

doing it it was very me yeah i wasn't trying to like tell jokes about clinton or tell i was just and you're doing great ice Breaking for that audience to like yeah you knew that they didn't know who you were well also to let them overcome the shock of this is a very pale man wearing a white linen jacket with uh radiator stains on the back but then i cross over and i talk to mimi rogers and what i remember was there was a moment which if you look at late night moments since or whatever

you'd think well this isn't That it was fine right but what happened was you got to see kind of for a second i think economy i was my very myself right so mimi rogers is talking and i'm interviewing her my posture's terrible my hair's all droopy i'm wearing this awful jacket i'm listening to her and then she said uh she said yeah you know people i'd model and she said and a lot of people say Modeling is easy but it's a tough job and i was being polite and agreeing going yeah yeah yeah no i

can see i can see and then i just stop myself and i go wait a minute no no i'm sorry i'm sorry a tough job is like turning a big crank right right and i mind turning a big crank that's a tough job turning a big crank and people laughed and it was very spontaneous and we do this and the jason alexander went well but That was a moment of me just interrupting and then almost acting out a cartoon image and inserting my personality into the situation and then it ended and i went with i

think lisa and i went to man i wish i could um it's a woman it's actually it's a fred seagull yeah we went back to set shield just turn the channel to sue them and we put the jacket back on the shelf and i said yeah yeah i can't it came Like that there were cell phones then because i remember driving away you would they were huge yeah and i was in the car and lauren calls me and says that went well and i went oh yeah because he was watching in new york and he

goes but it's going to be shadowing yeah all right so right away now this is what i kind of knew yeah so that they were talking so i Had done this thing and this thing i have to say the audition made me really want to do it because i thought yeah i was like a duck that had never been put in water and suddenly i was like oh that felt right that and i'm not used to feeling good about anything and it'll only go well yeah exactly it'll only go that well but you had a

total flip where you're like now i want well i was excited but i couldn't even let Myself think that yet so i was excited but i couldn't get myself to that point yet but i remember we went out to kate mantellini remember kate mantellini that restaurant that's on wilshire i went there with lisa and everyone was really excited and then i was 29 at the time and my 30th birthday was about a week and a half away i remember that yeah wow so then when my 30th i'd go back to the simpsons and it was

just well get back to work yeah And then i had a conversation a couple days later lauren called me and i was in my car so you're right there were giant car phones but you know yeah i was in my car and lauren called me he loves to break bad news on over a phone in a car and he told me you were great yeah and he said i'll never forget he said bob wright um loved your interview and he loved the whole crank thing when you did the crank Thing he loved that and i

remember thinking it's true it could be the train no no i said what i was gonna say is who the is bob right i don't know who bob wright is i didn't know who bob wright was and they said well and he said bob wright loves it and suzanne really loves it and i said well who were they and he and and lauren was like what are you talking about he's the president of around the network He ran the network of nbc and he and his wife they they expressed them this videotape out in connecticut

and they watched it and they're like we like this weird irish kid with the funny name yeah that crank thing man that really cracked us up but then he called me later on and said you know the same thing that he had told jeff he said look it's not going to be you you're not going to get 12 30. but you did yourself a lot of Good and they're probably going to give you like 130 and i remember thinking well that would be great because there's no pressure right if i get 130 there's no pressure

and wait a minute that's that's cool mm-hmm and i'll never forget you started wanting that yeah yeah i still want 130. uh i'll take that now i'll give it to you but i hung up the phone when i was with lisa and lisa was like Well that's you know so you're not going to get 12 30 and i said uh i don't know if i don't think this channel is going to happen and she said well lauren just told you what's going to happen and i said i don't know why but i just said it

doesn't make sense to me gary is a peer of dave's and he's killing it with his own show larry sanders yeah and he's getting all of his critical acclaim and awards for Making fun of the forum right who wants to go in and go in every day and try and do it yeah and i said i just it's not going to be shambling i don't think shane's going to do it i think that's that doesn't make any sense to me he's too cautious he's too smart he's not going to no he's not going to want

to go in every day and figure this out and sure enough that's what ended up happening yeah i think i told the story but i was i don't know What i talked to you guys last time but i was basically in my i was out for lunch or something i had an office of broadway video in new york and i come back and i had all these messages when they used to be like paper messages that you would paint yeah and they were all people that had something to do with it it was just obvious

i was like right hello he got it oh wow and how long was just a couple of weeks after what was it well i Remember one of the last things i remember from the old life the um black and white the black and white portion of wizard of oz before i open the cabin door what i remember really well is i had a birthday party was when i turned 30. and i had it at my apartment on weatherly and a second floor a par apartment on the Second floor was a sort of a duplex old

1920s place and all my friends at the simpsons and my writer friends came over and everyone brought gag gifts like someone brought me uh arsenio's like had written a book like his bite you know and and people they all knew that you were in this process yeah you know everyone knew that i was in this process and everyone was talking About it but it was kind of funny yeah yeah yeah oh yeah you know well here's your how-to book and everybody and and um jeff was there and we had this nice birthday party which was

april 18th 1993. and then it was a i was like see ya it was like see you go back to new york yeah jeff's going back to new york and i'm get back with my get on with my life And it's in the back of my mind that something might happen but i don't know what right and it may have been a week later i'm in a record at the simpsons it was in the basement in the building on the fox slot and the way you do a record is there's a table read first so

the whole cast is there and we go through the script and then it's done and everyone applauds and then what happens is we quickly talk About what changes may need to be made before they start doing the record and the writers are all going to work that out make these changes as they're recording to try and tighten it up just a little more and i remember we had just finished and we're starting to talk about it when there's a phone call someone in the room said conan the phone's for you and i picked it up

and i put the phone to my ear and it's gavin pallone who's Still my manager i've been with him forever he said you got 12 30. and and i said this not in a celebratory way i said it in a defeated way he said you got 12 30 and i went i know because i just had this you had a premonition i just knew for some reason and so i didn't want it i leave the room i walk up the stairs i Walk outside and i was told by gavin i said i know and then

he said uh donald mayor is calling you in like five minutes in your office and i hung up and i start walking and then i start going into a slight it's very cinematic but i start walking fast then i start running right and i run to my office and then he's saying okay here's the plan you got it kid i think it's all crazy but you got it now here's the idea He said you're going on a tonight show tonight because i'm sick of us getting scooped what they've scooped us the whole time and we're

gonna show we're gonna flip the script on the media he had this very like combative sporty yeah so he said jay's gonna just say we got the new host for the for the late night show here he is and you're gonna walk out there and you're just gonna and he said kick it in the balls you know and really show who's who and i'm just the Kid that just came out of a record yeah and i'm like um oh and he's like shut up get in your car and get over to nbc right now before

the press finds out so the next thing i know i'm driving over to and i'm in a totally oh no panic and then they sure enough uh jay calls me out and remembered robert and i think this is good robert was like don't take any big swings right you know because the worst thing that i could do is going i was kidding yeah Yeah she was like you do you do you have a lot to lose the simpsons is a good gig so what robert said no no he was just like don't take any big

swings and i remember thinking yeah yeah because if they say hey guess what we found a new replacement for letterman his name's uh chip quizly and uh here he is and you walk out there and go hey everybody knock knock who's there an elephant an elephant who i don't know I forgot my trunk hello i just played it straight like i and i remembered uh people were like well if that's the new host of late night and i was like you know he didn't come out and kill and i think oh meyer really wanted me

to go out there and say like all right everybody now listen to this you know and we're that's right do the incredibly smart yeah so and he told don i'm gonna bring that to the show don't Worry more of that and at that point all went very smoothly yeah well jeff we're so you that i was not there oh you were back in new york yeah i did did you guys talk before he went on jay i don't think we probably don't think so okay i'm not sure if we did it all right so then

what happened next with you two we had to figure out how to make a show and uh conan got came in back to new york Got a place i had to well the crazy thing is i had to go they wanted to introduce me to the press in the rainbow room that was the first big hurdle was i had to immediately come east it was not clear because then nbc started to get into it with fox and fox was like excuse me he's under contract i i can't believe yeah and we were like well this

one in a billion year accident just happened where one of your writers is going to Get to again i want to be clear it was not the simpsons the simpsons were really great about it but there was an executive at fox who was saying no i don't know so uh nbc and i i think had i think i had to pay money and nbc had to pay money to get me out of my contract that's crazy because at the time these shows were making so much money right they were nickel and diming every little thing

yeah That's how they made it they weren't happy for you you had a line at the press conference yes what was it you know we all met it was going to be in the rainbow room which is the top of rockford center and everyone from the press corps was going to be there and i was going to go out and meet the press and we all met at lauren's apartment and the nbc people were there and then we Walked through the park it is now early may we're walking through the park and i'm seeing rock

forest center get closer and closer and closer and i know that i have to go to the top of this tower and then meet the nastiest press yeah in the history of media this is cinematic as well yeah and so we're walking there and then as we are getting to 30 rock trying to keep it light and trying to stay loose a reporter comes up to me says i forget if He said he was from the post or newsweek but he said hey conan my job is i was at letterman's letterman had had a press

conference for his new cbs show at radio city like the week before and of course being you know he killed destroyed right he said i was at letterman's press conference last week and i know how many laughs he got on my job is to count how many laughs you get and see how you stack up and he told me that as we were going through The i mean on the north side it should be illegal right in between radio city and rockford center we were going in right there and he was like my job's to

count how many laughs you know so it was literally like good luck spartacus in the ring so i go up there lauren talks briefly and there's a shot i mean vanity fair covered it at the time and there's a great the iconic photographer uh anyway Lewis took a shot of me a reverse shot i'm in the front and it's the entire press corps and explosion of photographs and i'm as i said i'm a week and a half earlier i was uh in the room at the simpsons right yeah it's still not real no but i

remember that the thing that saved my ass was i get up to the microphone i remember and stuttering john from the howard stern show was there and he's wearing a terrible fake mustache and Fake glasses on like a wig and so he goes like conan conan who did you have to sleep with to get this job and i just just said uh no one i wasn't sleeping with before next question and everybody laughed and then i was like hey hey that's stuttering john john take off the wig because he kept his job was to with

me yeah yeah yeah and i was loving it anytime he'd say something i'd be like i would have fun with it and then i was Like john come on take off the end and end that wasn't there uh somebody said to you something about being a relative unknown no no you're uh yeah aren't you a relative unknown i said sir i am a complete unknown and then people were like that's jesus i remember foolishly the press conference went really well and the take was well he's funny and it could work that's and all you wanted

he got three laughs he got three laps right I'm dying to hear that count i want to take up that art but you did a thing i'm sorry john that you've done every time since i think where you have an event is is like if you can find one person mm-hmm a true line and to play off of and you've always been graded i always try and find who's going to be my first right yeah and then use them as the through line and stuttering john was There and he was my foil and to make

things even crazier that event's over and the first thing i hear is um bob wright of we love the crank bob right bob wright's having a uh 50th birthday party in connecticut and they want you to go up and be the one of the one of the people no one of the people who speaks and it's in three days and i said okay so i come up with an idea for what i Could do and i worked on it with robert i get in a uh town car with lauren because he's coming too and we

drive out to this nice part of connecticut and we walk into this very fancy country club where there's a big party and i recognize all these famous people you know there's all these people from the today show and all these people from all The different nbc shows are there to salute bob brennan's 50th and my job is to get up and speak and i and i get there and um who's standing ramrod straight in the corner but johnny carson oh my god and john and i am the opener this guy can't catch a break i

am the opener for johnny carson and my previous experience is uh i did some i did some pretty good improv at the groundlings and um had thought of One good quip with uh mimi rogers and so he's standing there and he's wearing sunglasses inside i remember and he just looked it's johnny carson it's the biggest thing and suddenly i'm being introduced to him and i said well i called him mr carson and he went please uh call me johnny and i went oh johnny and he was very he seemed kind of quiet and reserved so

i didn't say that much to him and then i got up And uh i think the idea that i went with was giving a toast about someone i clearly don't know so i was like what can i tell you about bob wright and it was all the jokes were things like he's i think five nine right he is the and it's clear i've just looked stuff up on wikipedia uh which actually didn't exist didn't exist um in encyclopedia yeah anyway i had that experience and then he like applauded And gave like a little like good

for you kind of yeah that was okay it was fine and um yeah there was no prank and he said follow that car yeah i've i should have totally i should have totally been like now johnny coach but then he got up and of course um blew the lid off the place uh but that was how rapidly insane things were happening you know it was like rainbow Room meet the new york press and be confronted by stuttering john off to open for johnny carson and it was just this cavalcade of craziness i remember and then

it was go meet all the affiliates i had to go like around the united states and meet affiliates that seems at least like i don't know that seems like a cool down period compared to what you just described the one point i would make That i am still blown away by is that this process of bullshittery that had to happen of things that needed to happen you know um press and affiliates and um birthday parties and by the time that's over it's late may early june and our start date was september 13th yeah no band

uh-huh no writers No it's myself and jeff just no bookers yeah no set they've completely uh taken out the letterman set and so there's just a 6a is just an empty concrete rectangle and that's the part that never makes sense to me is how quickly you know today when i hear about someone doing a show It's like well you'll see it in six months you'll see it in a year and i've got to figure the idea that they found the person with the least experience yeah in the history of the medium and said you can

really get started on june 1st right right i wasn't exactly sure i wasn't exactly experienced at doing a late night talk show i've done a lot a lot of different types Of shows in the hall but that's a totally different pre-tape there is nothing well there were only two or three shows of that kind of time so you know it's no experience so you were both learning yeah on the job so who did you turn to for uh i didn't really well you know he's probably pretty busy no a little bit of lauren you know

lauren there was a lot of we had a lot of Saturn and live people helping us and different different uh variations of helping them not helping i don't know i don't know if they were trying to kill us or what but uh dude that's a whole nother uh that's that episode you realize this is nine podcasts yeah yeah yeah we're and we started we had this we had that we had the stuff i knew a lot of those people because i had worked with them before and i we Sort of managed my way through that

and yeah it was um the process of getting a band was insane the process of getting built was insane there is a crazy story behind everything and um moments moments of true despair i mean uh to the point of there were i think maybe seven different times just in that summer where i fantasized no joke about getting hurt i didn't want to die like i didn't Want to but i remembered very clearly thinking if i was hit by a car it was very clear to me that it that it can't be my fault but if

something were to happen to me and i'd be badly injured i'd be off the hook right yeah and that might be a good i would also want an induced coma i would yes i just would want to check it was generous was robert morton who at the time was producing the letter in the show he was generous right he was a Friend of mine he was you were already friends he was generous about it and was there an early moment you two remember being thrown into this where there was things you bonded over in particular

just we've never bonded yeah that's what we invite this is the first time eight minutes ago i really started to think this jeff ross guy there's something to him he is like ahab my Whole thing was just try to make it as easy as possible for for conan right just try to keep him away from all the at that time it was kind of impossible right because there were a lot of opposing forces right you know and people who were less than helpful sure when they were made like they were being helpful it was just

a lot of craziness like passive aggressiveness a lot of Craziness and this is where i really have to i think i've tried to say this a lot in my career and on my last tbs show and it can't be said enough the two big things that had to happen were initiated and made possible by lorne so first of all there's this weird opening in the universe i always make fun of marvel movies because i hate a portal that opens in the sky i always think it's a portal opened and Lazy lazy writing came in another

direction another dimension look uh important but this weird portal opened in the sky where there was a second where this big tv job was kind of in play and lorne for whatever reason and i still maintain he may have up said conan o'brien now that's huge because lorne was the only person in show Business who had that power one of the people and he's also i think uh he's clearly saw something and and said i think he could do it probably regretted it almost immediately and i've actually told this until when i went back to

snl a couple months ago i said i'm sure you regretted that immediately and he was like no but i Could tell like fairness to lauren he did that and then the second thing he did was he said jeff ross and my dad over the years who likes to ask a question more than once the same question um whatever the years go like now how did jeff get into the equation and i would always say um well lauren was the one who who Brought jeff in and he would go like well jeff is very key and

i go yes jeff's you know and then you know i'd count a year and a half like now tell he seems to compliment your energy yes that's right dad we've talked about this several times yeah sure this is lisa kudrow still buying your clothes yeah whatever happened to lisa kudrow well a year later she did it Lauren by just moving his pinky he says right well it's conan o'brien it's jeff ross right yeah and i do think those are two massive key moves and then the third move that needed to happen at the beginning was

robert smigel and i pushed for that and of course i only knew robert because of snl where i'd worked with him for all these years and i knew that he had the sensibility like we used to talk about this we used to talk about comedy and i knew that Robert kind of had to be there and lauren you know i think was reluctant to lose robert from snl and that was a whole story but when you think about it the three main players that needed to happen for everything else to happen really come through top

and snl and they happen fairly quickly and then the rest is i always think it's one of those movies like you start with robin hood and he's Walking through the forest and then you know he starts fighting with someone on a stream and it's it's fryer tuck you're with me and then you pick up people as you go i think of it as jeff and i pretty much start the journey out together and robert's there almost immediately then it's the three of us and then it's this whole odyssey of merry men you know literally jeff

garland saying hey check out this guy andy richter and we do and i have lunch With him meet him at a deli as i've said many times and he came in and i immediately a lot of it's instinctual but immediately i was like this guy needs to be part of this adventure yeah because he's fantastic you're like lauren all of a sudden you're just like ah this guy those initial elements are the fascinating part and then everything else is right a good story and you guys have i mean done a great job of Mining these

incredible stories because we put together because it happened so quickly and so strangely we put together a group of people that didn't know anything about tv and and really didn't have experience and then we ended up you know we inherited our crew from letterman's old show and he did dave did a very different kind of show and suddenly we're telling 62 year old cameramen who've never had to move we've got a funny idea where conan races down sixth avenue and you follow him and they were like how about you go yourself i'm getting on it

i'll be on a break yeah and then it was just once you hit september 13th when we premiere uh 93 the next two years is us two and a half no year and a half i Thought no i think so solid two years of we're in terrible terrible danger of being canceled any second we were canceled at one point but also justified fear because yeah there was we were i mean you've said it you was weak to weak for a while all we did was this was the way i felt is i had like visors

on i was like one of those horses right you know what i mean you still are very important you're still very hoarse Like i appreciate it we give jeff a sugar cube after after [Laughter] we're going to go back and retell the whole story but you realize that this is you just have to put your head down and not pay attention to a lot of things yeah go forward i mean i don't know what you guys were expecting for length of this podcast but it is absurd that I think it's just i still to this

day cannot believe that somehow we got away with it i i don't 100 i had one of the surreal moments just popped into my head and one of them was we move in and we take over these offices there were offices that had been like an insurance company or something um but they ended up being our late night offices for all those 16 years and We move in and there's no there's nobody yet i mean literally there's myself and jeff we had offices on the opposite remember the yeah corners jeff at least 100 feet apart

but jeff jeff had the offices that looked at the at the sign for radio city on the north side and i had the south side i was down like where the writers are and jeff was upwards you know all the adults who make the show really work are up on that side and i was with the idiots but at the Time there's no one's there yet people are in the oppressive hiring people so you could look it up but dave winds up his last late night show probably sometime in june i'm guessing um and where

am i i'm on the ninth floor wow in my office and i'm watching the feed and i'm watching dave record his last Show just uh three floors below three floors below me and he's recording in the studio that i'm going to take over but we haven't even gotten started yet and i'm sitting there watching it and so dave does this amazing show last show and then bruce springsteen comes out and does glory days right and i'm in my office watching this and then it ends and dave does his final words and he says i'm moving

on this has been really and he says the last thing He says is and uh conan o'brien i don't know much about the man but i i believe he shot somebody once you know which it would always get sure and then he said uh i hope someday he has me on his show that'd be nice anyway good night that ends and i'm like for the first time as long as dave was on the air i felt this isn't real yes once he left suddenly it's like you're up kid oh wait right dimaggio Just left the

batter's box he just hit a home run yeah you're up i hope you're watching here i am also it feels heavy we went down there after the show i was going to get to that yeah and what was surreal to me first of all they're all there who's they joe just sprinkled things down there they were all diabetes no no but it's like letterman's just done his last show so there's a whole Thing bruce is in the hall wearing like a flannel shirt and having a you know literally like he had like a beer bottle

because someone had put beer out it's a problem and um yeah it was just filled with uh lacroix um so dave was in this little tiny dressing room and someone said you should go in there so i went in and i just suddenly i'm in a tiny tiny room with David letterman just done his last show and he wishes me well and i said that was really amazing and well i i should go and start making the show that will replace your iconic show i suppose and i walk outside and tom hanks was a guest

on the last show and tom hanks is there yeah with his wife rita and tom looks at me and he knew i knew him from being a writer on snl and he you know he he used to call Robert bob odenkirk and i the and greg daniels the boiler room boys he'd be like hey fellas we're the boy over fellas get over here fellas and so he was like he looked at me and he stared right through me and like put his hands on my shoulders and he said what's just happened to you doesn't happen

wow it never happens and i don't know exactly how to take that but i don't think he meant anything but He was pretty much saying this is kind of unprecedented in show business history okay i'm gonna go now don't this guy i also remember being in that hallway and immediately they were ripping the set out oh my god and i'm i was just watching them rip this out and on the floor pretty much and just going and our set experience would had a little to Be desired you know with that first set and and we're

going through all that i'm watching this set being ripped out i'm just like oh my god oh that's real this is we just got to figure it out so is empty by probably the next two days later yeah there's a thing i think that night thing you hear about a lot of breaks that uh you know back before people there were rules and laws about child care that if you wanted to teach a child to swim You would just take the child and throw him into the deep end of the pool this was this was

like i'm taking the child into a c-47 plane and throwing them out into the arctic waters and the worst thing about it all was like i think if it had been done to me my psychological response would have been you know if i was told by the government your name's been selected randomly and you have to replace Letterman and this is your your job to save america i would have had a very different attitude about it but in my own up catholic way i think i was very much you asked for this yeah you and

so i got what you wanted i had yeah you got what you wanted now let's see you know you put yourself in this position you said yes because someone just had to host a talk show and the voice in my head is far more Punitive than anything anyone can ever say to me and so i just beat the out of myself all the time and i now think that when i look at the audition or the times i've seen it since i was more relaxed in the audition than i was on television because psychologically well

i'm being asked to try out well i'll do my part nothing to lose i took it very seriously yes it just took me a while for the volume it was literally the Volume in the amount of work we were doing and the volume of shows and it's getting malcolm gladwell's 10 000 hours yeah the hard way in front of everybody in front of it in front of everybody and so you could probably see watch a you could have a some program could probably take one image three images a show from every show the first two

years and speed them up and you would literally see Somebody you know my skeletal structure would change right from the sheer i wanted it to work i was it was not going to not work right i remember thinking it was this is going to work because it has to work because being a joke trivia question is not an option right yeah but that to me just learning to do that on the job because you you mentioned Like tina fey and you know seth like yes they were writer background but then they had all this performance

experience kind of yeah under the radar second city yeah almost everyone in television started you know letterman was a weather man and even that yeah just that little practice just being me in front of a camera just being yeah right to be fair I used to go to uh department stores a lot that were selling televisions and they used to have a video camera and i would do the thing right i swear to god i i i i had spent a lot of time impressed yeah i had really taken it back really gotten my chops

floor five yeah it is a very improbable story and and that's where it ended for you too and that's why no no but you know that's so funny that's amazing what's crazy to me is that's the Beginning yeah and we've told you 1 20th of the good stuff because there's so much insanity that happened and we're saving that for the book but that's just the beginning yeah and you could believe like and then finally the ship write it itself and went off to have a pleasant career we haven't gotten to the tonight show like yeah

that is in every way as insane and unprecedented And crazy and counterintuitive as the beginning yes and that happens 16 years later what's fascinating is we told this part of the story and then you i go i was about to say well and then we went up those elevators in the coolest building that you could do television in in the world for the next 16 years yeah it's crazy yeah yeah the volume of stuff and the the variety of things that we Tried i can't even i see it now and i have no connection to

it so i mean we used to do a piece where we would do a whole like soap opera in front of the audience and with famous people john lithgow did it john lithgow did it and martin sheen did it And we would have people in the audience wear a green like sock a green screen green screen over their head so that we could drop them in and put their heads on the bodies of actors who were there so that an audience member who just showed up and paul was looking at me horrified yeah paula davis

is here stay in your seat it was called paula davis one of the first people we Hired to be our booker and she's sitting here and paula you don't even remember this you booked it you booked she didn't know you hosted it yeah i'm conan by the way um she's like where's corden i'm like okay we'll get to that his american accent is impressive there are maybe 75 to 100 sketches or more right that someone could tell me we did and i would say Don't do that how would that even work it was putting out

a newspaper every day and there was no you could never not move the clock back and then and then in the middle of that somebody says let's do the show on the circle line right okay yeah yeah let's get a circle line right well a circle line bow yeah for the the boats that go around manhattan but i mean that's i have to Say robert gets a lot of credit for robert has large eyes like there's that old saying my grandmother used to say if you didn't finish your food she'd say well your eyes were

bigger than your stomach right yeah and robert has creatively huge eyes like i let's rent a zeppelin yes let's fill it with cheddar cheese let's get paula to book and he makes it happen yeah and Let's get he wills it through an insane you know and and things get crazy and hairy and there are fist fights and there's shouting maybe people get killed during the sketch who knows but um they're not important when we were really taking heat early on right not in through 93 and people are um i was reading at the time there

were reviews that said things like it would Be really nice if you know conan died you know and it'd be great if andy died with him you know just just people were just very upset by it and uh that's actually in print i think once your home town paper yeah yeah you're fine exactly i was gonna say written by dr thomas o'brien um if he died it wouldn't be his fault you see he never adequately explained jeff Ross to me yeah just now and now he must be punished there was there was a time when

um i think even lauren was saying couldn't you just interview people and couldn't it be because because our comedy was very aggressive right and aggressively strange and i think still looks that way and they thought well this conan guy he cleans up nice and he's affable right why can't he just be affable and chat With people and that way they're still the problems there's less sticky edges instead um you know conan's yodeling and he's wearing a bikini and andy's dressed as a monkey and the whole thing is uh very there's a punk rock element to

it like like it or go yourself one of the great things about that when you wound up your show in tbs last year were all these successful like seth rogen and all these other big names who you wouldn't this Wouldn't even occur to you at the time we're just trying to do a show every night yeah they all they all ate the feast of all this comedy yeah we're like finally someone's making comedy for me and that's what people felt that must have been very satisfying it was but i have to say i don't know

how you felt jeff but i think the thing that gratifies me the most is that you know haters and mullaney's and all These these people who are so um crazy talented and good at what they do and brilliant and um they say nice things about and and what our show meant to them back in the day and my immediate response is couldn't you have said anything because because nothing you're old enough to write yeah like couldn't you have written something why weren't you annoying mr o'brien did fairness that it Would there were a couple of

situations where somebody's kids yes they were they were hearing like executives who i can't remember who it was who was it there was a guy who um and again this is probably for another installment but there was a guy who was sort of hired to kick us in the ass and he was uh had worked with don ohmeyer and his job was to come and kick us in the ass and you know let's let's let's get this thing moving again i mean we got to figure this out and you Know knock off all this you

guys are this up and so it was like an episode of a sitcom where wow character comes in a drill sergeant moves in with the family oh boy does he turn things upside down but i remember him telling us you got to pull this together then he went off to visit his i believe it was his son who went to boston college so he went and went to visit his son and he was hanging out in the dorm Room and he's like so guys you know you know tell me what is everybody watching these days

what are the kids loving and he said the dorm room was like conan wow and he was saying no no seriously seriously seriously you know did you guys like jazz on its way out yeah you guys like caroline in the city right and they were like no no it's we watch conan it's so great and weird and to his credit he did Repeat that he told me he didn't have to tell me but he told me um well he's got to take credit for it i mean in the end that's probably the kind of thing

that saved us yes yes i mean the first thing that saved us was nobody was paying attention we could do whatever we wanted right yeah and then it became after the initial yeah i think what helped save us is that we were in new york and Had we been in los angeles where they could come in if we had been in los angeles they could have been there every day and they would have seen me putting on an octopus costume right right and us putting a green felt sock over martin sheen's head and uh and

they would have said stop we just saw that on the field stop have dick caved on and interview him and be pleasant to you and we were a car accident so there was also a Bit of a let's not take that road that i mean people stayed away from us for a while because no one wanted to own it and we we have to give a shout out to someone who was a real stalwart uh rick ludwig who is no longer with us rick ledwin uh was the nbc executive in charge of late night and

he was horrified by a lot that we Were doing early on yeah but he was there and he was watching audiences laugh at us he was the first executive to get it yes yeah and and had the only one with the balls to go into a room and go it's good he said he said i don't get it he said he said something's happening here you know there's something happening here what it is ain't exactly clear you can edit that out or actually put music into Lupus there's something over there i've got to be well

it's time to stop don't make that show everybody says my favorite stew gizmo anyway this is why i really thought you know what if i had said if my al hadn't come along if i had if i had sung that diddy at my rehearsal you wouldn't know me now i'd be at the guy at ikea i know there was a divine force helping you Through helping me not make stupid songs up yeah rick ludwin said there's something happening there and he just doubled down and went to bat for us and uh what remained a good

friend of us all through you know everything and even through the tonight show craziness was like nope disagreed with people audibly anyway not important um yeah we have to uh wrap this up we do have to wrap this up so Just look up the tomatoes the serious deal people can read about that online well this was a new spin-off series this it's tough and i know i run off at the mouth but it's very outside i i'm very i don't talk about this stuff a lot and so when it comes up in this forum you

realize it's like ptsd right you start talking and it's it's hard to stop no no it just it felt very Visceral like you were there and you were remembering the lucite table and it was nice seeing all this it's also easier to talk to you guys about it because you know what it is right yeah but also the process of talking about it it's almost like to reaffirm that it really happened because it was so yeah well that's why i will say i'm i'm grateful to you guys for doing this podcast because Um as much

as i uh i have trouble listening to our podcast just the i like the sense that you exist and are doing and sharing it with me it's just a lack of chemistry uh let's get a robot and a bottle of soap i'll have you know no no no i hope i'm the soap oh you are definitely i love being a robot but bleep bleep where's my Oil uh you know the joint i have trouble going back there sometimes i mean i have trouble going back and and but um the fact that you guys are talking

to robert and bill toe and when i heard that you guys had done a deep dive on the old-timey baseball remote and found nell is it now yes yes she hasn't forgotten you and and found her that is a magical moment in my life and this is very Name-droppy but we just paul and i went and saw jack white do his show recently and he was telling me afterwards we both realized we're going to be in the seattle area on the same time and he said oh i'm i'm playing a baseball game then with a

bunch of friends and i'm going to be in there because he's on tour and he said you should stop by and uh and uh you could do you could you could play with us he said and you could Do it as an old-timey guy and then he's like quoting from it and i'm realizing he probably saw that when he was like eight why didn't he write a letter exactly what got him into comedy i'm really grateful that you guys are doing this because you know you can love us you can hate us but whatever happened

during this crazy 28 29 year span was authentic kooky and involved a lot of brilliant Weird difficult lovable people you know in this movable feast that just seems to i mean now it's continuing in audio form and and i think we'll morph into other things but i just love that you guys are are getting these stories down because none of us should have ever been allowed to be in rockford center or warner brothers or any of these places it's insane and i love that you're getting This sort of oral history of a terrible mistake right