I got nuthin’

Conan O’Brien is a very popular comedian, and a man I regard as seriously and naturally funny. I knew very little about him until a couple of years ago when I tuned into an interview he did with Mel Brooks. I did so for Brooks, not O’Brien, but found Conan to be engaging and funny. He is also known to be nice to his employees and kind to people in general. I have learned since discovering him for myself that he does not speak ill of anyone when on air, and probably not in private either.

O’Brien comes from a family of six, raised in Brookline, MA, a suburb of Boston. He graduated from Harvard and to do so wrote an unreadable historical thesis. While at Harvard, he one day with a friend visited the Harvard Lampoon, and found his home. He became a comedy writer, never imagining that anyone would actually pay him to write like that. After graduating, he wrote for a show called Not Necessarily the News. I remember that show and watched it whenever it was on in my younger years when entertainment was not everywhere around us. Hosted by Rich Hall, it became highly regarded for its “Sniglets, or funny and satirical one-liners. One I remember clearly was labeling the square in the upper right of an envelope that said “Affix stamp here” as the “idiot box”. I have a hunch O’Brien wrote that. His observational humor is timeless. (He avoids topical humor – look elsewhere for Biden/Trump jokes.)

From NNTN he went on to be a writer for Saturday Night Live, and from there wrote for The Simpsons, where he is credited with writing their best episode ever, The Monorail. The following clip is three and one-half minutes out of a 22 minute episode. Enjoy.

While writing for The Simpsons (under contract) the late night wars were going on, and Jay Leno took over The Tonight Show while David Letterman left his Late Night slot to host his own show on CBS. The search was on for a replacement. Lorne Michaels, host of Saturday Night Live and by then an industry mogul, suggested Conan. He knew from his SNL days in the writers’ room that the guy was funny, and could make the whole room laugh outload at once. They bought out his Simpsons contract and gave him his shot.

Conan, of course, was scared out of his mind, but with encouragement from his then-girlfriend (and not yet famous) Lisa Kudrow, he realized that he had nothing to lose. He hosted a mock show with an audience brought into The Tonight Show theater, with guests Jason Alexander and Mimi Rogers. Since he had nothing to lose, he was relaxed and funny, and amazingly, got the job. For two years after he would suffer in the ratings and face the constant threat of cancellation. In fact, once on a Friday the show was canceled, only to be brought back the following Monday. What a way to live! Tom Hanks once came to his dressing room before or after a show to advise him that “This does not happen.” I am not sure what that means.

One executive who seriously wanted to cancel the show visited his kid and some friends at an upstate campus, and learned that the show was a big hit with college kids. That might have saved the day for O’Brien.

Anyway, the show caught on and the rest is history too. He retired from TV a few years ago, and took on podcasting, where his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend show has an enormous following, including me. Which is what brought me here. I did not plan to write any of the above, and am motivated by an ad that O’Brien did for Luxe Bidets. He often cracks up while reading ad copy, as with a client named Magoosh, where he would pronounce the “Ma” and then go into high-pitched falsetto for “Goosh”. He wondered why they lost that company as a client, only to be told by his staff that Magoosh is getting free ads every time he makes fun of the name.

Why am I writing all of this? Luxe Bidets. Conan was handed ad copy to read, and went ballistic. Enjoy. Swearing is involved, so turn away if you’ve sensitive ears.