Conan O'Brien

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Conan O'Brien
O'Brien in New York, November 2007.
Birth name	Conan Christopher O'Brien
Born	April 18, 1963 (1963-04-18) (age 45) Brookline, Massachusetts, United States
Medium	theatre, television, stand-up
Nationality	American
Years active	1985—present
Genres	Improvisational comedy, Sketch comedy, Physical comedy, Surreal humor, self-deprecation
Influences	Johnny Carson, Woody Allen, David Letterman, Robin Williams, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Brooks, Bob Newhart
Spouse	Elizabeth Ann Powel (2002—present) (2 children)
Notable works and roles	Writer for The Simpsons (1992—1993) Host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Website	Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program 1989 Saturday Night Live 2007 Late Night with Conan O'Brien[1]

Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an Emmy Award-winning American television host and comedian, best known as host of NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien. In 2009, he will replace Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show.

Contents 1 Background 2 Career 2.1 Television writer 2.2 Late Night 2.3 Other work 3 Personal life 3.1 Subject of stalking 4 Comedy and mannerisms 5 Filmography 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] Background

O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth (née Reardon), an attorney, and Thomas Francis O'Brien, a professor of medicine and physician, both of Irish descent.^[2][3]

He later served as managing editor of his school newspaper and interned for Rep. Barney Frank.^[4] After graduating from the Brookline High School in 1981^[5] as valedictorian, O'Brien entered Harvard University and lived in Holworthy Hall during his freshman year ^[6]. In his three upper-class years, O'Brien lived in Mather House. Throughout college he was a writer for the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine. During his sophomore and junior years, O'Brien served as the Lampoon's president, making him the second person ever to serve as president twice, and the first person to have done so since the 1920s. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1985 with a B.A. in History and Literature. In 2008, he received an honorary degree in Actuarial Science from Ball State University, having previously completed core curriculum courses online, and with many credit hours earned through Harvard's reciprocity program.^[7]

[edit] Career

[edit] Television writer

O'Brien moved to Los Angeles after graduation to join the writing staff of HBO's Not Necessarily the News.^[8] He spent two years with that show, and performed regularly with improvisational groups like The Groundlings.

In January 1988, Saturday Night Live's executive producer Lorne Michaels hired O'Brien as a writer. During his 3 years on SNL he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term Memory" and "The Girl Watchers," the latter of which was first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz.^[9] O'Brien also co-wrote the sketch "Nude Beach" with Robert Smigel, a sketch in which the word "penis" was said or sung at least 42 times.

While on a writers' strike from Saturday Night Live following the 1987-1988 season, O'Brien put on an improvisational comedy revue in Chicago with fellow SNL writers Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel called Happy Happy Good Show. While living in Chicago, O'Brien briefly was roommates with Jeff Garlin.^[10]

O'Brien co-wrote Lookwell with Robert Smigel for NBC. The pilot never went to series, but it has become a cult hit and has screened at "The Other Network", a festival of un-aired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret, featuring an extended interview with O'Brien.

In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow SNL writers received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series.

O'Brien, like many SNL writers, occasionally appeared as an extra in sketches, including a role as a doorman in a sketch in which Tom Hanks was inducted into the SNL "Five-Timers Club" for hosting his fifth episode. O'Brien never became a full cast member. He did, however, come back to host the show in 2001 during SNL's 26th season (musical guest: Don Henley).

From 1991 - 1993, O'Brien was a writer and producer for The Simpsons,^[9] credited as writer or cowriter of four episodes^[11] Of all the episodes he wrote, he considers "Marge vs. the Monorail" to be his favorite.^[9] Years later, in his speech given at Class Day at Harvard in 2000,^[12] O'Brien credited The Simpsons with "saving" him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing prior to his hiring for that show.^[13] As of 2004, O'Brien's office at The Simpsons was being used as storage.^[14]

[edit] Late Night

On April 25, 1993, Lorne Michaels suggested O'Brien try out to be David Letterman's successor as host of Late Night with David Letterman, with Andy Richter signed on to be his sidekick. O'Brien auditioned on the set of The Tonight Show, where he interviewed Mimi Rogers and Jason Alexander.^[15] O'Brien resigned his position on The Simpsons, despite the fact that his contract had not expired.^[15]

Premiering on September 13 of that same year, Late Night with Conan O'Brien received generally unfavorable critical reviews for the first 2 to 3 years after its debut. O'Brien himself, a total unknown among the general public before being named host, was seen by many as not being worthy of the program. NBC even poked fun at this perception in a radio ad which aired shortly before the show's debut and had O'Brien relaying an anecdote where someone recognized him on the street and said, "Look, honey, there's the guy who doesn't deserve his own show!" Another source of criticism was the fact that O'Brien himself appeared to be very nervous and awkward during the show's early days. As a self-deprecating nod to this, the original opening sequence for Late Night With Conan O'Brien was animated and featured a caricature of O'Brien who sweated and pulled at his collar nervously.

The show remained on multi-week renewal cycles while NBC decided its fate. By 1996-97, O'Brien's writing and comedic style was thought to have improved, and he began to develop a growing fan base, especially with high school and college students, as well as the respect of critics and his peers. O'Brien would later poke fun at the first three years of the show when on his 10th Anniversary Special, Mr. T appeared to give O'Brien a gold necklace with a giant "7" on it. When O'Brien tried to point out that he's actually been on the air for ten years, Mr. T responded, "I know that, fool...but you've only been funny for seven!"

Since then, O'Brien and the Late Night writing team have consistently been nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series, and finally won in 2007. In 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004 he and the Late Night writing staff won the Writers Guild Award for Best Writing in a Comedy/Variety Series.

In 2001, he formed his own television production company, Conaco, which has since shared in the production credits for Late Night.

On the first episode after September 11th, O'Brien went out of character and told a story of how he went to pray for the first time since eight years prior, after he was announced as the host of Late Night. O'Brien was reported to have been shaken up and talked about a need to have faith.^[16]

After meeting Finnish actor/director Lauri Nurkse on October 11, 2005, O'Brien discovered that he was popular in Finland, and began a long running joke that he resembles the first female President of Finland, Tarja Halonen. After joking about this for several months (which led to the recurring segment "Conan O'Brien Hates My Homeland" and his endorsement of her campaign), O'Brien traveled to Finland and appeared on several television shows, and met President Halonen. The trip was filmed and aired as a special.

O'Brien ad libbed the fictional website name "hornymanatee.com" on December 4, 2006, after a sketch about the fictional manatee mascot and its inappropriate web-cam site. NBC opted to purchase the website domain name for $159, since the website did not previously exist. The network was concerned that someone might register the domain name and post content with which NBC would not wish to be associated, or that people would get upset and sue NBC when they found out the website is fictional.^[17] NBC now owns the rights to www.hornymanatee.com for 10 years, as per Conan O'Brien. According to O'Brien, it was decided that, since NBC owned the name, they might as well create the website. Late Night has since developed an actual website, which now has received millions of hits, reaching 4 million page views in four days. People send in "horny manatee" artwork, poems, and other content. According to the Alexa website ranking system, Hornymanatee.com has had over 10 million web hits.

A popular recurring bit on the show is Pale Force, a series of animated episodes in which comedian Jim Gaffigan and O'Brien are superheroes who fight crime with their "paleness." As Gaffigan introduces each new episode, O'Brien protests the portrayal of his character as cowardly, weak and incontinent.

As of October 2005, Late Night with Conan O'Brien had for eleven years consistently attracted an audience averaging about 2.5 million viewers.^[18]

In 2004, O'Brien was named as Jay Leno's replacement when he leaves the "Tonight Show" in 2009. Leno stated on the show that he wanted to avoid a repeat of the controversy and hard feelings that resulted when he was chosen by NBC to host the Tonight Show over David Letterman.

In 2008, Conan O'Brien staged a mock fight against Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert over taking credit on giving Mike Huckabee's campaign a "bump." This fight crossed over all three television shows and across two networks.^[19]

On his June 13, 2008 show Conan simply walked out during the show's opening, instead of his usual dance and overzealous routine. Conan, clearly upset, announced to his shocked audience that he had just received the news about the sudden unexpected death of his good friend, fellow NBC employee and frequent guest on his show, Tim Russert. Conan skipped his monologue and instead showed two clips of his favorite Russert moments on his show. ^[20]

[edit] Other work

O'Brien and Robert Smigel wrote the television pilot, Lookwell, starring Adam West. The pilot aired on NBC in 1991, but was not picked up as a series.

O'Brien played Moleculo in a skit on SNL.

O'Brien appears as a character in the 1999 film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, voiced by Brent Spiner. O'Brien later appeared in Hell in the episode "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?". In 2006, he voiced himself in a short South Park scene as part of the opening of the 2006 Emmy Awards.

O'Brien is an avid guitarist and music listener. When Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band appeared on the show as a musical guest, O'Brien joined the 17 piece band along with the Max Weinberg 7 and guests Jimmy Fallon & Thomas Haden Church and played acoustic guitar and contributed backup vocals for the song, "Pay Me My Money Down".

In 2005, O'Brien appeared in The White Stripes music video, "The Denial Twist". The band had previously been a week-long musical guest on Late Night when they were promoting their 2003 album, Elephant.

He has appeared on another late-night talk show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast (SGC2C), in Episode 77: Fire Ant, in which he and Space Ghost argue about a number of topics, including whether or not anyone actually watches SGC2C. Space Ghost later quips, "Well, that's very stupid, and you won't make it in television," an obvious parody of early reviews of O'Brien's show. A short time later, Space Ghost leaves the interview in order to follow a fire ant that bit him. As Space Ghost is crawling out of the studio, O'Brien gripes that "For all these people know, my show is a cop show on Fox or something!" Space Ghost replies, "Isn't it?"

O'Brien made an appearance on the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special on June 17, 2007 as the voice of the bounty hunter Zuckuss. In a parody of Late Night, Zuckuss hosts a talk show called "Late Night with Zuckuss. O'Brien's "Fake Celebrity Interviews" segment was even spoofed when Zuckuss did a "fake interview" with Emperor Palpatine. (Typical of Conan's fake interviews, the fake Palpatine made a fool of himself; the implication was that the actual Palpatine was not pleased, as, in the final moments of the sketch, the Death Star can be seen approaching through a window in Zuckuss' studio, then aiming and firing--then there is a "Technical Difficulties" test pattern.) He also appeared in Season one on the show in two roles. First as a pizza delivery man who is not aware of his customer's sexy advances; and as a wrestling announcer with historical figures as pro wrestlers.

Conan was a guest star on the hit TV show, "30 Rock", in which he played himself. In the episode "Tracy Does Conan", Conan has the character Tracy Jordan on his show, despite having been assaulted in a previous attempt to have him on his show.

Conan made a cameo appearance on the US version of The Office. In the episode Valentine's Day, Michael believed that he spotted someone that looks like SNL cast member Tina Fey, but mistakes another woman for her. In the meantime, Conan has a quick walk-on and the camera-crew informs Michael when he returns from talking to the Tina Fey look-alike.

On March 7, 2006, NBC announced a new adventure/comedy series entitled Andy Barker, P.I.. O'Brien was executive producer and also co-wrote the pilot. The show starred O'Brien's former sidekick Andy Richter. After several episodes and low ratings, the show was canceled despite being named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the Top Ten Shows of 2007.^[21]

O'Brien also hosted the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006, to critical acclaim.^[22] He had previously hosted the Primetime Emmys in 2002, and Co-Hosted in 2003.

[edit] Personal life

O'Brien's long-time friend is Father Paul B. O' Brien, with whom he founded Labels Are For Jars,^[23] an anti-hunger organization based in Lawrence, MA. The two are not related.

O'Brien met Elizabeth Ann 'Liza' Powel in 2000 when she appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in an advertising skit.^[24] The couple dated for nearly a year and a half before their January 12, 2002 marriage in Powel's Seattle hometown. O'Brien and Powel have a daughter Neve (born 14 October 2003)^[25] and son Beckett (born 9 November 2005).^[26]

The host used to date Friends star Lisa Kudrow.

O'Brien repeatedly affirms his Irish Catholic heritage on his show.^[27]

Conan O'Brien is 6' 4" (193 cm) tall and weights about 185 pounds (84 kg).

O'Brien donated $500 to the Senate campaign of Christopher Dodd in 1997 and again in 2004.^[28]

In December of 2007 a man was arrested for impersonating O'Brien outside a Philadelphia night club owned by Charles Barkley. The man was said to have been charging for autographs and pictures. He was later released on bail.

In January 2008, after his show was put on hold for two months due to the strike by the Writers Guild of America, he reemerged on late-night TV sporting a beard, which guest Tom Brokaw described as making him look like "a draft dodger from the Civil War."

Recently, O'Brien purchased a $10.5 million mansion in Los Angeles, California. The reason for this is that he will be moving there in 2009 from New York City to work his new job hosting The Tonight Show.^[29]

His distant cousin through marriage, Denis Leary, is also a successful comedian and actor.

[edit] Subject of stalking

It was reported that since September 2006 that O'Brien had allegedly been stalked by the Rev. David Ajemian of the Archdiocese of Boston, who, despite multiple warnings to stop, had been sending O'Brien letters signed as "your priest stalker" and coming in contact with O'Brien's parents. Ajemian sent a letter to O'Brien, frustrated that he had been denied a spot in the Late Night audience. He stated in his letter to O'Brien that he flew to New York, "in the dimming hope that you might finally acknowledge me." He also stated in another letter that, "Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans??? You owe me big time pal." Ajemian also seemed to have made a death threat to O'Brien in another letter; saying, "Remember Frank Costello once dodged a bullet in your building and so can you." Ajemian then tried to forcefully enter a taping of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, but was caught and arrested. He was previously warned by the NBC security team to stay away from the studio. After a psychological evaluation, he was deemed fit to stand trial. He has since been bailed out of jail.[28] He was then reported missing by his father around 3:15 PM EST on November 10, 2007. He was found and underwent evaluation at a hospital.[29][dead link] It is known that the two had attended Harvard University at the same time. He was found fit to stand trial on April 4, 2008.

On April 8, 2008, Ajemian pleaded guilty to stalking, stating that "he never meant to cause anxiety or to upset anyone." He was ordered to pay a $95 USD court charge, and was also required to sign a two-year restraining order, barring him from coming near O'Brien.

[edit] Comedy and mannerisms

On Late Night, O'Brien has become known for his more active and spontaneous hosting style. He starts off every show by saying "We have a great show for you tonight". His stage habits include but are not limited to mime, self-deprecation, dramatic expressions, various impressions and use of awkward pauses or responses, and moving his hair and scalp back and forth. He frequently makes fun of and interacts with the audience. He commonly makes light of his own appearance including his hairstyle, his pale skin, his clumsiness and he jokes about his height.

One of his trademarks is to perform the "string dance." He also does impressions of celebrities; among the most common are Arnold Schwarzenegger (where he pretends to bite off a piece of an imaginary sausage, only because "his Arnold always eats a sausage") and Donald Trump. His Donald impression generally includes the phrase, "You're Fired."

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Late night talk show host Conan O'Brien. NPR (2003-09-08). Retrieved on 2008-05-11.
• Rabin, Nathan (2006-08-23). Conan O'Brien. The A.V. Club. Retrieved on 2008-05-11.
• Rabin, Nathan (2006-08-30). Conan O'Brien. The A.V. Club. Retrieved on 2008-05-11.
• Rose, Charlie (2006-08-24). Charlie Rose - An hour with Conan O'Brien. Google Video. Retrieved on 2008-05-11.

[edit] External links

• Conan O'Brien at the Internet Movie Database
• O'Brien's Horny Manatee Website
• Latenight Underground

Preceded by David Letterman	Host of Late Night 1993 – 2009	Succeeded by Jimmy Fallon (Announced)
Preceded by Jay Leno	Host of The Tonight Show announced	Succeeded by –
Preceded by Ellen DeGeneres	Host of Emmys 2006	Succeeded by Ryan Seacrest

v • d • e The Simpsons writers Current writers J. Stewart Burns · Dan Castellaneta · Daniel Chun · Joel H. Cohen · Kevin Curran · John Frink · Dan Greaney · Matt Groening · Ron Hauge · Al Jean · Deb Lacusta · Tim Long · Ian Maxtone-Graham · George Meyer · David Mirkin · Bill Odenkirk · Carolyn Omine · Don Payne · Michael Price · Mike Reiss · Mike Scully · Matt Selman · Matt Warburton · Jeff Westbrook · Marc Wilmore Former recurring writers Richard Appel · James L. Brooks · Donick Cary · David X. Cohen · Jonathan Collier · Jennifer Crittenden · Greg Daniels · Larry Doyle · Brent Forrester · Dana Gould · Ken Keeler · Brian Kelley · Jay Kogen · Jeff Martin · Tom Martin · Dan McGrath · Frank Mula · Bill Oakley · Conan O'Brien · Jace Richdale · Brian Scully · Sam Simon · David M. Stern · John Swartzwelder · Julie Thacker · Steve Tompkins · Jon Vitti · Josh Weinstein · Wallace Wolodarsky One or two-time writers Bob Bendetson · Michael Carrington · Robert Cohen · Spike Feresten · Ricky Gervais · Howard Gewirtz  · Ned Goldreyer · Reid Harrison · Mick Kelly · Billy Kimball · Andrew Kreisberg · Bob Kushell · Adam I. Lapidus · Rob LaZebnik · Ken Levine · Steve O'Donnell · Steve Pepoon · Mimi Pond · Rachel Pulido · David Richardson · David Sacks · Nell Scovell · Joshua Sternin · Jeffrey Ventimilia · Patric Verrone · Steve Young

Persondata
NAME	O'Brien, Conan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	TV Personality
DATE OF BIRTH	April 18, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brookline, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH