O'Brien captures the 'Night'

By Elson Trinidad
Staff Writer

    In 1985, the school newspaper at Harvard University ran an article on a senior named Conan O'Brien, president of the Harvard Lampoon, the renowned humor publication. When asked what he would be doing in ten years, the American history and literature major envisioned himself having his own television show and his own line of designer jeans.

     A decade later, though the name "Conan" isn't associated with names like Lee and Levi's, it does share the late night television kingdom with such names as Letterman and Leno. 

     O'Brien, the host of NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (which airs locally on KNBC -weeknights at 12:35 a.m.), with sidekick Andy Richter and bandleader Max Weinberg's swing-based septet, leads an after-midnight comedy circus featuring celebrity guests and musical acts.

     "I was always someone who loved to perform," said O'Brien, "but I don't consider myself an actor. I always thought I was really good with people. That's how I thought of myself as funny, interacting with other people."

     For O'Brien, 31, most of his comedic skills were honed in college. As the only person elected to two consecutive terms as president of the Lampoon, he also dabbled in standup comedy and sought inspiration from television.

     - "I remembered watching David Letterman's show when I was in college, when it was still pretty new, and thought, 'Wow, that's something I'd love to do. . ."'

     In April 1993, O'Brien got his wish when he was chosen by "Saturday Night Live" executive producer Lorne Michaels to succeed NBC's "Late Night" after Letterman jumped over to a new timeslot at CBS.

     In developing the new show, O'Brien and his writing staff sought to establish a new identity for the show, which meant not touching NBC's "intellectual property" previously used on Letterman's show.

     "The biggest mistake we could've made was to go anywhere near Dave's style. The only way to go was to carve out our own thing. . . That was our only choice," O'Brien said.

     Shortly following its debut in September of that year, the new "Late Night" was panned by some critics and was thought to be the next late-night talk show casualty.

     "I think a lot of it just came with trying to replace David Letterman. . . To be quite honest, I wouldn't liked whoever replaced David Letterman. I would have thought, 'Who's this idiot?' People were very negative about it, but we didn't focus on that. . . We focused on doing what we wanted to do, to remain true to the vision we had," O'Brien said.

     For O'Brien, that persistence paid off last year, when Letterman himself appeared as a guest and praised the freshman host and his staff for the show's quality, originality and uniqueness.

     "That was probably the single most important show that we've done," O'Brien said. "It turned things around for us."

     Letterman's appearance was a definite ratings boost, garnering the highest number of viewers since O'Brien's debut, and ratings continued to climb steadily. It seemed like a comfortable position, until it was announced that the Letterman-produced "The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder" would compete against the "Late Night" timeslot in many television market areas. Critics thought of this as the end of O'Brien's show, but since Snyder's interview show debuted earlier this year, ratings have increased for both shows.

     Born and raised in Brookline, Mass., O'Brien is the third of six children born to a Harvard professor father and attorney mother. Following his graduation, the tall redhead moved to Los Angeles to write for comedy programs such as HBO's "Not Necessarily the News" and Fox's short-lived "The Wilton North Report." He moved back to the east coast in 1988 as a writer for "Saturday Night Live" where he and his fellow writers won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing Series. In 1991, he moved yet again to L.A., this time as a writer and producer for Fox's animated series, "The Simpsons."

     With years of writing television humor under his belt, O'Brien takes his comedy seriously, as evidenced by the variety of bits on his show. "If They Mated," presents pictures of celebrity couples and combines them to show what possible offspring would look like. Regular characters include Tomorry, a giant "ostrich" which runs amok in the studio and lays a large egg on O'Brien's desk— cracked open to reveal a list of the next night's guests. Then there are the familiar "moving lips;" which feature impersonations crudely represented by the impersonator's lips superimposed over the celebrity's still picture (President Clinton and Bob Dole are frequent "visitors" here). Some of this results in side-splitting laughter among viewers, while some other bits produce nary a smirk.

     "We take a lot of chances on the show," O'Brien said. "Our attitude has always been, 'It's better to fail but really try to do something interesting than to always score but within a narrow, familiar band (of comedy)."'

     Other entertaining moments on the show are also produced by Richter, O'Brien's . sidekick (see sidebar) as well as the guests themselves.

     While the usual cavalcade of celebrities make their rounds on "Late Night," the show has matured enough to pride itself on its own circle of frequent guests it can call its own, such as rock legend progeny Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa, SNL's Ellen Cleghorne, comedian Gilbert Gottfried and Scott Thompson of "The Kids in the Hall."

     "We like to have our family of people...There's something about the chemistry of the show and them, where they seem to do better on the show than anywhere else. It's like they've become part of our little world," O'Brien said.

     O'Brien explained that the show's appeal to college students is attributed to its experimental attitude towards comedy.

     "We never set out to get any one demographic," he said. "I think young people appreciate experimentation more. I really think that's all there is to it. I mean, it's not like we do lots of bits about kegs and stuff."

     O'Brien also pointed out the show's popularity with the college crowd by its musical guests, which have ranged from Sheryl Crow to Green Day, most of whom have appeared on the show before they hit it big.

     O'Brien, though, seems he's already hit it big.

     "Sometimes people ask me, 'Well, are you doing this to get into movies or other things?' and I tell them, 'No, this is it.' This isn't a means towards some other end."

     But has success already spoiled Conan O'Brien?

     "Not yet. I'd like it to. I'd like to be as morally corrupt in as little time as possible . . . if only I could find the time to do it."