Thirty years in the past in the present day, Conan O’Brien hosted his first episode of Late Night time, stepping up because the unlikely successor of comedy royalty David Letterman. This momentous event started the decades-long means of the late-night watching public falling in love with the lanky ginger and out of affection with Jay Leno.
Conan had simply essentially the most unbelievable success story of any late-night host to ever spend over 1 / 4 of a century on the air. Versus the Lenos and the Lettermans of the period, Conan was not a tried-and-tested stand-up able to successful over any viewers, in-studio or in a membership. The 6-foot-4, Massachusetts-born Irish-American was, as an alternative, an completed TV author coming off of a profitable stint on The Simpsons, the place he wrote iconic episodes like “Marge vs. The Monorail” and “Treehouse of Horror IV.” He was a Harvard yuppie with only a small handful of on-screen credit who was handed the doubtful honor of changing the late-night host most thought-about to be TV’s finest. Very similar to Eire itself, Conan was inexperienced.
Trying again precisely three a long time after Conan’s late-night profession started, it’s onerous to think about any alternate timeline the place issues shake out higher for the shaking, keen and endlessly enthusiastic 30-year-old who, astoundingly, selected to launch the brand new Late Night time with a leg-wrestling match between John Goodman and George Wendt. Right here is the primary episode of Late Night time with Conan O’Brien in all its early Nineties glory:
The pilot begins on a powerful notice. In an prolonged lead-in, Conan skips throughout New York Metropolis, shrugging off feedback from passersby that there’s “quite a lot of stress” on him and ignoring imprecise threats from Tom Brokaw that “you higher be pretty much as good as Letterman — or else.” Conan enters his dressing room and, whereas whistling, loops a noose over the ceiling fan and prepares to slide his head by way of it earlier than a crew member calls him to the set.
An awkwardly lengthy and clearly unearned applause precedes Conan’s first opening monologue, which he acknowledges alongside along with his inexperience, saying, “I’ve been in showbusiness for 45 seconds, and that is the nicest reception I’ve ever had!” Conan additional performs on NBC’s nontraditional casting alternative for the internet hosting gig, mentioning that he’s residing the stand-up comedian’s dream in reverse: “My plan is to begin on TV, then claw my manner into the golf equipment. Ten years from now I wish to be in highschool!”
Conan closes out the monologue, delivered with all of the eagerness and visual preparation of a theater child in a highschool audition room, by recalling a narrative of how he instructed his associates again throughout his teen years that his dream was to host a chat present, to which they supposedly replied, “O’Brien, the day you get your personal speak present is the day there’s peace within the Center East!”
After the monologue, Conan and his soon-to-be longtime sidekick Andy Richter have interaction in some scripted banter, breezing by way of a phase referred to as “Precise Small City Objects” during which the 2 faux that fabricated clippings from native newspapers are precise finds from their analysis division. Conan incredulously exhibits off an “advert” from a “mini golf course” which reads, “We're a very dangerous miniature golf course. You shouldn’t come right here.”
Goodman joins the present as its first visitor, exhibiting himself to be a legendarily good sport when Conan parades him in entrance of a crowd of “paparazzi” and hangs a medal round his neck which reads, “1st Visitor.” Goodman cracks concerning the award, “In a few years after I backside out I can commerce this for a bottle of low cost scotch.” The 2 undergo some pre-planned, surface-level patter concerning the film Goodman is selling (the live-action Flintsones movie) earlier than difficult anybody within the studio to “leg wrestle” with the visitor. Cheers star George Wendt stands up from the viewers and accepts the provide, and the present cuts to business as the 2 burly beloved actors writhe on the ground.
Previous this level, the present visibly falls aside. Conan interviews future speak present host Drew Barrymore in a much less managed dialog that provides subsequent to no leisure worth, then an aged Tony Randall wearing a good tuxedo takes the seat subsequent to the host as he and Conan have interaction in some rehearsed banter about Conan’s clothes decisions, with the one seemingly natural second occurring when Conan flubs a line and says to his visitor, “You’re not amused by me in any respect, are you?”
The present ends with a track as Conan sings “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music as nuns and SS officers within the viewers are moved to tears. Roll credit. First one within the books.
Total, Conan’s first Late Night time expertise was nervously energetic however surprisingly stiff. NBC didn’t exhibit quite a lot of religion of their new rent by scripting the whole evening down to each utterance and awkward pause, and many of the memorable jokes got here from anybody however Conan himself. Nonetheless, Conan’s charisma and pleasure shined by way of in these few significant moments that foretold how his viewers and NBC itself would be taught to like his weirdness, his earnestness and the sheer spastic spectacle of his stage presence.
A minimum of it went higher than his stint on The Tonight Present.
