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Associated Press -- Boston Globe -- Wednesday, May 5, 1993 -- Section: LIVING, Page: 76 NEW YORK -- David Letterman welcomed his heir apparent, writer-comedian Conan O'Brien, onto NBC's ''Late Night'' show last night, and O'Brien used the occasion to gently poke fun at himself. O'Brien sat at ease in the guest's chair and said he was approached to succeed Letterman -- who is moving to CBS this summer -- by ''Saturday Night Live'' creator Lorne Michaels, his boss for five years. "Where exactly did he approach you?" Letterman demanded. "I was lured into a cab," O'Brien replied. O'Brien, 30, went on to complain that the press had labeled him as someone with no experience as a performer, and he showed video clips from "SNL," in which he was a background character with no lines. Asked for his ideas about the next incarnation of "Late Night," O'Brien said, "I pretty much want to copy 'Kathie Lee and Regis.' . . . It works in the daytime, it's going to work at night. People love that." "We're getting that crying Indian guy to be my sidekick," he said, referring to Iron Eyes Cody's famous antipollution commercial. "When I attempt a joke and it bombs, we'll just close in on his face, he'll turn, and dramatically start crying." "We're had great fun here and we've had wonderful times and terrific success," Letterman told O'Brien to close the interview. "And I certainly wish all of that for you, Conan." Then, after a commercial break, Letterman told viewers that once O'Brien was backstage, his "hair-trigger temper" had snapped and he'd started screaming, "Out of my way, punks! I'm taking over! You geeks is history! This dump is mine!" Copyright 1993, 1998 Globe Newspaper Company |