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By Gail Pennington -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service -- September 10, 2003 Ten years ago this summer, NBC introduced TV critics meeting in Los Angeles to a tall, pale redhead named Conan O'Brien, who had been handed the daunting task of replacing David Letterman as host of "Late Night." Nobody _ not even, apparently, NBC _ gave him much chance of succeeding. When his selection was announced two months earlier, one questioner had labeled him "a virtual unknown," to which O'Brien responded: "No, sir, I am a complete unknown." As O'Brien puts it now, "I was just a guy who was in the phone book who was chosen to replace David Letterman. No one even had a picture of me, I think." At his first meeting with TV critics in a Pasadena, Calif., hotel ballroom, his demeanor was classic deer in the headlights. He re-enacts the encounter: "Hi, everybody, everybody, everybody" _ his voice echoing and trailing away. "There was a wild skepticism," O'Brien recalls. "People said, `You'll never make it. We're putting our money on Chevy (Chase)'," another would-be talk show host who famously crashed and burned. Now, here O'Brien is with two Emmy nominations in his pocket (including the first for best comedy or variety series), celebrating a decade with a prime-time special Sunday on NBC. Guests will include former sidekick Andy Richter, bandleader Max Weinberg and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. The special is "a big old pat on the back for yours truly, frankly," he told TV critics in a return visit last month. Seriously, he added that for him and executive producer Jeff Ross, "This has been our life. This has not been a cynical job opportunity or anything we've capitalized on. I have put my bone marrow into this show. I desperately care about this show. Every night, I want it to be as funny as it can be." In the early going, that passion was painful for O'Brien. Reviews were terrible. Asked to remember the worst, O'Brien muses, "Which snowflake do you like the best?" NBC handed out renewals in tiny increments _ at first, week by week. "For the first two, three and a half years, it was touch and go, and I really felt like my life is on the line here. That's how seriously I took it." Although O'Brien had performed with the Los Angeles improv group the Groundlings when he won the host lottery at age 30, his experience was primarily as a writer for HBO's "Not Necessarily the News," NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and Fox's "The Simpsons." He loved what he considered "creating comedy" and believed that doing interviews was a necessary downside of the job. That has changed: "Over time, I've realized that often that's the funniest part of the shows. I love doing the interviews, and I think I've gotten a lot better at it." He now gets the first-tier guests, the same Tom Hankses and Harrison Fords who do Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" or David Letterman's "Late Show." Still, although some viewers stay up for the guests and others for the musical acts (O'Brien gets credit for "discovering" the likes of Sheryl Crow, Jewel and Green Day), the factor that makes the show particularly appealing to late-night viewers is the surreal comedy, a Conan trademark. He stays fresh, O'Brien says, by avoiding watching competition. "I check out specific things, but ... I don't believe that comedy is a competitive sport in that you go and watch other people and that fires you up. I tend to think that just makes you copy them subliminally." More than 2 million people watch "Late Night" on NBC (12:35 p.m. EDT weeknights), and more now catch the show at an earlier hour in next-day repeats on Comedy Central. "I'm meeting people all the time who only know it in that context," O'Brien says. His feelings about the late-night, post-Leno time slot are mixed. "When I started doing this show, I remember thinking, `Finally, I get to do a show that my comedy peers can watch and enjoy.' My comedy peers have children. They're not up at 12:30 at night. And I very quickly realized, no, I'm doing a show that's for people 10, 15 years younger than me. So that was a big revelation." Would he like someday to be on earlier and be seen by more people? "Yes, I think that would be nice. How that happens, I have no clue." Although many have pointed to him as the natural successor to Leno, he says, "It's a little like saying my ambition is to be pope, because so much weird stuff has to happen for you to become pope, and so much of it is out of your control. The timing may not be right for me. Jay wants to do it 10, 15, 20 more years, and then I'm not going to succeed him if I'm 60." Still, "I think it's natural to want to, at some point, move on. And I think I've proven that I can do a show that I don't think has to exist at 12:30." Until then, "I get paid a lot of money to have really beautiful women and talented people come on the show," he says. "I get to do what I love to do, which is create _ along with amazing writers _ silly, abstract comedy that seems to make people laugh. And I get to improvise, which is one of the things I love. "Most people in America don't get to do something that they have a great passion for. I'm one of the few." ___ THE LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL 9:30-11 p.m. EDT Sunday NBC ___ Visit the Post-Dispatch on the World Wide Web at http://www.stltoday.com/ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. _____ ARCHIVE PHOTOS on KRT Direct (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): ARCHIVE CARICATURE on KRT Direct (from KRT Faces in the News Library, 202-383-6064): Conan O'Brien (c) 2003, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. COPYRIGHT 2003 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service |