Conan O Brien: Life Lessons from the Famous Host of the Conan Show

Transcription

1 Conan O Brien: Life Lessons from the Famous Host of the Conan Show

2 Table of Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Birth of a New Comedy Chapter 2: Welcome to the Simpsons Chapter 3: From Writing to Performing Chapter 4: Yet another Phase Chapter 5: Just Coco Chapter 6: This and That Conclusion

3 Introduction He is a comedian, an American television host, a voice actor, a writer, and a producer; and among other things, truly a very entertaining fellow. Conan O Brien had proved his spot as one of the most celebrated comedians in American TV through his years of hard work, his sheer perseverance, inborn humor, and just nothing but his funny self. And presently, he continues to make people laugh with his show simply and aptly titled Conan. Conan became widely known for his unique sense of humor and his hosting style that is energetic and spontaneous, characterizing his act as an awkward, self-deprecating humor that was quickly caught on by his audiences. But before all his successes, Conan O Brien went through a lot of conflicts, hardships and obstacles. Written here is a short yet concise account of his journey, and how he became known as the Conan people see him today.

4 Chapter 1: Birth of a New Comedy It's a good thing I was born in this century, when superfluous television seems to be part of the economy. -Conan O Brien Conan Christopher O Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on the 18 th of April 1963, and is the third of the six children of Dr. Thomas Francis O Brien and Ruth Reardon O Brien. His family consisted of pure Irish Catholics, he also revealed that his ancestors from both sides of his family moved to America from Ireland beginning in the 1950 s and has subsequently married Irish Catholics, continuing their 100% Irish Catholic lineage. His father is a noted epidemiologist, a professor at Harvard Medical School and the head of microbiology at Peter Brigham Hospital, while his mother was an attorney and a partner at a law firm called Ropes & Gray just outside Boston until her retirement in the year Conan has three brothers and two sisters: Neal, who is an antique car collector; Luke, a lawyer, and Justin, a business consultant. His two sisters, Kate and Jane, are teacher and scriptwriter respectively. At a young age, Conan had been intelligent and prone to writing. He attended Brookline High School where he served as the managing editor of the school newspaper; and on his senior year won the National Council of Teachers of English writing contest with a short story he entitled To Bury the Living. Because of his outstanding performances in high school, Conan graduated in 1981 as a valedictorian. Conan had shown a preference to comedy and a penchant for goofing off when he was still young, and this carried on when he entered the prestigious Harvard University where he majored in American History; his studies in college mainly focusing in history and literature. He acted out many pranks in his time when he lived in Holworthy Hall during his freshman year, and then moving into Mather House during his three upper-class years. Throughout his college life, Conan served as a writer for a humor magazine called the Harvard Lampoon. He later graduated as cum laude in After he finished his college, Conan moved to Los Angeles to join HBO s Not Necessarily the News (NNTN) writing staff, his first professional television gig. NNTN is a humorous sketch comedy series that was first aired on HBO in September 1982, and then ran as a series from 1983 to 1990 as a comedy special. NNTN featured sketches, commercial parodies, parody news

5 items and hilarious bits prepared from editing or overdubbing actual news footage. Conan also became a writer for the brief The Wilton North Report; and after spending two years with that show he began to perform regularly with improvisational groups, one of which is The Groundlings, a sketch comedy and improvisational troupe located in Los Angeles, California. In the year 1988, executive producer of Saturday Night Live (SNL) Lorne Michaels hired Conan as a writer. He rendered the returning sketches like Mr. Short-Term Memory and The Girl Watchers, the latter performed by Jon Lovitz and Tom Hanks; another one of his sketches are Nude Beach which he co-written with Robert Smigel. Conan was also part of the Happy Happy Good Show, an improvisational comedy revue done as a writer s strike from Saturday Night Live in Chicago. Like his fellow SNL writers, Conan irregularly comes out as an extra in some sketches. His most notable appearance in a sketch by far was as a doorman where in Tom Hanks was introduced into the SNL Five-Timers Club for hosting his fifth episode. And then on 1989, Conan and his team of SNL writers won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series. Yet things didn t go well all the way for Conan O Brien; when the year 1991 hit, Conan burned out and quit Saturday Night Live. Conan began to look for something else he needed to do. Eventually, the dual show runners of the Simpsons Mike Reiss and Al Jean called Conan and offered him a job. Back then, the Simpsons series is notorious in the writing community, and it was the dream of every writer to be a part of that community, yet they never hired. Conan happened to be one of the first hires after the original crew.

6 Chapter 2: Welcome to the Simpsons "I was very nervous when I started. They showed me into this office and told me to start writing down some ideas. They left me alone in that office. I left after five minutes to go get a cup of coffee. I heard a crash. I walked back to the office, and there was a hole in the window and a dead bird on the floor. Literally, in my first ten minutes at The Simpsons, a bird had flown through the glass of my window, hit the far wall, broken its neck, and fallen dead on the floor. George Meyer came in and looked at it, and said, 'Man, this is some kind of weird omen.'"-conan O Brien Conan became the writer and producer for The Simpsons in the spring of 1991 up to At first, Conan was nervous and self-conscious about his position as a new writer for the Simpsons; often thinking he would be an embarrassment among the people he regarded as an unapproachable set of writers. But Conan fit in immediately; at first he would imitate characters in their voices, but later on he would take command of the room. One of his fellow writers Josh Weinstein often called it a ten-hour Conan show, nonstop. The Simpson s took a different turn when Conan started to handle it. The Simpsons was originally a highly realistic family sitcom; but after Conan s debut, the show steered to a route towards the bizarre. Conan holds the writing credits for the episodes New Kid on the Block and the Treehouse of Horror IV. He also contributed what most regarded as some of the series most unforgettable and best episodes: Marge vs. the Monorail and Homer Goes to College. Other than episodes, he created the character of Captain Horatio McCallister (the Sea Captain), and converted Jub-Jub, something that Conan used to say during awkward silences during writing, into the name of Patty Bouvier s iguana. Even in his early years, Conan s innate acting for comedy had already surfaced. Wallace Wolodarsky described something Conan usually acts, which they dubbed the Nervous Writer. This involved Conan prying open a can of diet coke while simultaneously throwing in a joke, and then he would spray diet coke all over himself, and that had always sent them cracking up endlessly.

7 Chapter 3: From Writing to Performing Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or Conan O Brien Conan had stepped to the platform of performing the moment David Letterman prompted executive producer Lorne Michaels to search for a new host in the Late Night show; and then-agent Gavin Polone stated that Conan had wanted to perform, rather than produce. What follows is Conan doing a test audition for the stage of the Tonight Show. The audience comprised of Jason Alexander, Mimi Rogers and the Simpsons writers. Again, Wallace Wolodarsky described the experience as something surreal, saying that seeing Conan convey a monologue is something that can only be the stuff of dreams but not something one could actually see happening. Conan was picked as the new host for Late Night after his performance, succeeding David Letterman, and he took the news quite dramatically, passing out face down into a shag carpet after receiving the phone call from Polone. Postproduction supervisor Michael Mendel remembered Conan just quiet as if in comatose, and he also recalled looking at Conan and saying, Wow. Your life is about to change, in a really dramatic way. And so the Late Night with Conan O Brien premiered on September 13, 1993, airing form Studio 6A at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. The opening episode featured John Goodman, Drew Barrymore and Tony Randall. The episode also featured a teaser of Conan walking to the studio while constantly being reminded that people expected him to live up to his predecessor, and Conan seeming to be impassive by the remarks arrives at his dressing room and prepares to hang himself with a smile; but was cut off when a warning sounded that the show was about to start. Conan s inexperience leaked through the screens and critics judged him as second-rate because of his apparent anxiety. Tom Shales wrote, "As for O'Brien, the young man is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He has dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever." Lon Grankhe of Chicago Sun-Times deemed Conan as nervous, unprepared and generally geeky. Added to the show s bad first impression was Conan writing a self-deprecating New York Times piece that was entitled O Brien Flops! on the day of the premiere. Because of this critics attacked Conan, generally viewing him as someone who is fidgety and tense on-camera; and also saying that Conan was "too smart, too East Coast, too sophisticated, too young and even too tall to be successful."

8 Late Night with Conan O Brien continuously got negative views and the show was always on the verge of cancellation. It came to the point that NBC threatened to put Conan on a week-to-week contract when his show hit an all-time low in Eventually though, the comedy slowly improved over time, Conan s comedic performance plus his original and catchy banter with his sidekick Andy Richter garnered them steady audiences; and sketches like If They Mated, Desk Drive, and In the Year 2000 slowly grew in popularity. Conan s style gradually improved and a formula for humor began to appear, merging the lewd and the crazy with more elegant and narrative-driven remotes. The audience awareness got a boost when stars like Tom Hanks agreed to show on Late Night. The ratings progressively improved over the span of two years, finally reaching a new level of commercial success and positive critical reviews in 1996; and Conan received his first ever Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series nomination, and was continued to be nominated annually. The show finally got the award for the first and only time in Conan and the Late Night writing staff also won the Writer s Guild Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series for the year 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003 and The audience of Late Night with Conan O Brien steadily grew and began to come in par with other competitors in terms of ratings. Everywhere, fans launched unofficial websites that collect clear-cut summaries of each episode. And Tom Shales, who first criticized Conan, became a convert, revoking his earlier criticism and calling the show one of the most amazing transformations in television history, that attracted an audience averaging on 2.5 million for the span of eleven years. For its last episode aired on February 20, 2009, the show featured a compilation of preceding Late Night clips, also including the appearance of Andy Richter, John Meyer, Will Ferrell and the White Stripes. Conan ended the episode wrecking the Late Night set with an axe and handing out the pieces to the audience.

9 Chapter 4: Yet another Phase Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. - Conan O Brien After Conan and The Late Night show was the Tonight Show with Conan O Brien, a new contract Conan discussed with NBC in the year 2004; part of the deal was Conan taking over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno. To prepare for his move there, Conan purchased a $10.5 million mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. He also brought with him his 1992 Ford Taurus SHO to California, displaying it on both of the introductory episodes of The Tonight Show and Conan. A big blow came to Conan O Brien on the 7 th of January 2010 when executive Jeff Zucker discussed with Conan how to get the Jay Leno out of prime time, where his ratings were dwindling and back into late night. The offer stated that Conan s Late Night show be moved to 12:05 am, and Leno taking the spot of a 30-minute show at 11:35 pm. Conan was unhappy with NBC s plan and made a statement on January 12 of the same year, he says: "I sincerely believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn t The Tonight Show." Conan finally reached an agreement with NBC on January 21, 2010, and that is to part ways with the firm that had been his second home for more than 20 years the very next day. The deal granted Conan $45 million, where $12 million of it would be allocated and distributed to the rest of his crew. For his farewell, the Tonight Show that was aired on January 22, 2010 featured guests Steve Carell, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell and Neil Young. Under the $45 million deal with NBC, Conan is barred from appearing on television as a program host until September In May 2, 2010 on the CBS news magazine called 60 Minutes, Conan talked about the conflict between the Tonight Show. Conan relayed on the interview with Steve Kroft that the situation felt "like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently, quickly. And I was just trying to figure out what happened." Conan was even expecting that NBC give him more of a chance, nevertheless, he spoke that he did not feel he got shafted. He had said, "It's crucial to me that anyone seeing this, if they take anything away from this,

10 it's I'm fine. I'm doing great. I hope people still find me comedically absurd and ridiculous. And I don't regret anything." Conan started attracting attention from the media on February 24, 2010, the act: starting a Twitter account. His tweets started off as jokes that hinted the public statements he made when he left The Tonight Show a month earlier; and then after about an hour, Conan s followers zoomed into a surprisingly fast 30, 000 followers and then thirty minutes later, began closing into 50, 000 followers. The growth of Conan s followers after 24 hours swelled into a whopping 300, 000 followers, and it didn t stop there. By May 2010, Conan had gone beyond the one million mark for Twitter followers, and as of April 2013, those followers rocketed to a staggering 8 million. The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, or also known as the Prohibited Tour was announced on March 11, 2013 on Conan s Twitter account. The Tour outlined Conan embarking on a live tour beginning on April 12, 2010, and is in no violation of his settlement with NBC, which only prohibits him appearing on television. Conan announced the birth of his new show simply entitled Conan during the tour, and would debut on TBS in November The Tour was effectively sold out with ticket prices starting at $40. The Prohibited Tour was a success and ended magnificently in Atlanta. The late-night talk show Conan started to air its premiere episode on November 8, 2010 on TBS, and is, of course, hosted by comedian, writer and performer, Conan O Brien. The Conan Show was described as traditional late-night talk show that draws its comedy for political figures, famous celebrities and fresh news stories. Like Conan, the show became a success, leading all late-night talk shows with 4,100,000 viewers; tripling the audience of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

11 Chapter 5: Just Coco There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. - Conan O Brien Conan sported a beard after his show was put on hold for two months because of a strike by the Writer s Guild of America. Tom Brokaw commented that Conan looked like, a draft dodger from the Civil War." Conan again emerged with a beard after leaving the Tonight Show; he kept his beard until May 2, 2011 until it was partially shaved on the set of his Conan show by Will Ferrell using battery-operated clippers; aptly naming the episode as Beardocalypse. Apart from hosting comedy talk shows, Conan also had a lot going on outside show business; Conan did many things in his time, met many famous people and celebrities. But only one made a profound and lasting mark on him, and that is his wife Elizabeth Ann Liza Powel. They met in the year 2000, when Elizabeth appeared on Late Night with Conan O Brien because of an advertising skit that involved Foote, Cone & Belding where she worked as a senior copywriter. They started to date and lasted for nearly 18 months before they decided to get married in Elizabeth s hometown in Seattle. And then in 2003, Elizabeth gave birth to their first daughter named Neve, and then in 2005, a son named Beckett. The Simpson s never did truly leave Conan, when he appeared in The Simpsons 20 th Anniversary Special in January And being a very widespread fellow and not afraid to try something new, Conan created a superhero character with Bruce Timm, a veteran DC Comics animator, during one episode of Conan. He named it the Flaming C, which bears a striking resemblance to Conan; although generally muscular paired with a costume with a matching chest insignia, the character was also with idiosyncrasies. Conan suggested an oven mitt, a jai alai glove, golf shoes, a marijuana leaf buckle, fishnet stockings and sock garters. Later, Conan aired a short clip where the superhero character appears in Young Justice. Conan spread himself to a lot of things which is as follows. Conan was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church Monastery on October 21, 2011, allowing him to perform same-sex marriage which is legal in New York. He also hosted the Christmas in Washington special for TBS sister network, TNT, since The show features celebrity performances and a special appearance of the Obama family. The same year, Conan starred himself at a web series entitled Web Therapy for three episodes.

12 In Nickelodeon s The Penguin s of Madagascar, he provided the voice of the character Kuchikukan in the episode operation: Lunacorn Apocalypse. Conan also dubbed the voice of talk show host Dave Endochrine in the 2013 DC Universe animated film entitled, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Part 2). Conan had served as the master of ceremonies for the White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, D.C. for two times: in 1995 and then once again in He hosted the 58 th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006 that received critical applause. Conan also hosted the Primetime Emmys in 2002 and co-hosted back in Apparently, Conan had a face for commercials. Marketing Revolutions, a company that generates Q Scores that measures the public s familiarity and appeal of celebrities and brands stated that almost 74% of U.S. consumers tend to be more familiar with Conan O Brien. Yet Conan hasn t advertised that many commercials in America, only following his 2009 appearance in a Super Bowl XLIII commercial for Bud Light, and another commercial for the American Express, which started the same day as the Conan show. He then proceeded to donate his earnings from the Super Bowl commercial to the Fresh Air Fund, a charity that enables inner-city New York children to go on vacations. Most of the time, Conan incorporates advertising a few commercials, as he said, he "does do plenty of promoting, weaving product pitches into his show"; he has said "it's increasingly incumbent to help with tie-ins [but] if it can't be funny, I'd rather go hungry." Time Magazine named Conan to the 2010 Time 100, a list of the top 100 most influential people in the world via voting by readers.

13 Chapter 6: This and That The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality. - Conan O'Brien Most people who look at Conan O Brien first see a man who is successful and highly laughed at for his comedy. But, like most men, too, he had undergone a series of ill moments through his career, and some of them were big time. When Conan found himself jobless, he had to figure out what step he ll do next after losing his dream job. With his funny personality, and his tendency to delve in optimism, he imparted a few lessons that may help: Be committed. When Conan hit rock bottom, he had to find a way to push himself back up, and that means being committed, and being the person he wants to be if ever something messes up. He needed inspiration for a show and he needs it fast. When the O Brien team started selling tickets and booking theaters and promoting the tour, they haven t come up what the show would be about yet. And nothing else is a better motivator for figuring out what the show would be about than already sold tickets. Conan committed to that. Laugh. That s what Conan does best and makes best, laugh and laughter. Conan is much funnier when his jokes are directed at himself, and is a better option to boost one s morale. Nothing serious, just light-hearted, pure and all-out fun. Instead of complaining about a firm that paid him $32million to go away. He laughs, and finds a way to solve his problem. Improvisation and improvisation. Conan got a lot of practice for improvising, and he did it a lot. He improvised in front of a live audience, he improvised on the stage and that s what he did when his career came into a grinding and screeching halt: improvise. Conan and his team planned their idea of a comedy tour out of countless brainstorming meetings; planned it, molded it until it took out a life of its own. Promote Thyself. Conan constantly met with people who can bring his show to a brighter spotlight. It was his willingness to do it that got him where he was today. He interviewed a lot of people, shook hands with them. He met with promoters and fans, and even though this stresses him out often times, and makes him think he might lose his voice, he kept going. He also thinks of the people below him who would be offtrack when he s no longer working. New is great. Conan described himself as a technology Luddite; he didn t even have a twitter account. And yet he tried it. With the help of some devoted fans and a couple of staff, Conan began his first

14 Tweeting adventure in February And what did he get? Only being one of the most-followed Tweeters on the Web. The following Conan received played a fundamental part of spreading the news of his comeback, and what sold most of his tickets. Just chill. Relax. Eat a sandwich. That s what Conan wanted to do when the tour was nearly over. It s important to know when to stop and smell the flowers. Too much work stresses the nerves. Conan says, This is the most exciting thing I ve done in show business, but you can see the sickness in it, too. I love this, but I also see that it needs to stop pretty soon. Famous people did not necessarily start at the top and remained there. Conan O Brien clearly illustrated the outline of his success and what went on during those years. He had said on a commencement address he had given for the Dartmouth College of 2011 that upon failing on what he expected to be the most defining career moment of his life, he did a lot of silly and unconventional things, and he evolved his dream into something that he is now proud of.

15 Conclusion Conan O Brien s success had reflected the amount of perseverance and effort he expended, and with this left a lasting impression to his audiences worldwide. Though famous for his biting humor, snappy and humorous comebacks and his immortal red hair and beard; he imparted a much clearer and long-lasting message to people, and that is to keep going. Keep moving towards a goal, or whatever it is that one wants in life. He proved his resolve and determination and continues to do so every passing day, and for that he is widely-celebrated. What s important is to take life easy, yet with strong motivations, and a head that is clearly set on a dream.