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Conan Christopher O'Brien
(born April 18, 1963) is an
Emmy-winning American comedian,
writer and television
personality best known as host
of NBC's late-night
talk/variety show Late Night
with Conan O'Brien. NBC has
announced that O'Brien will
take over for Jay Leno as host
of The Tonight Show in
2009.
 Background
Conan was born in Brookline,
Massachusetts, a suburb of
Boston, Massachusetts, to Ruthe
Reardon, an attorney, and
Thomas Francis O’Brien, M.D.
O'Brien excelled at English; he
served as managing editor of
his school newspaper and
interned for Rep. Barney
Frank.
After graduating from high
school, O'Brien entered Harvard
University and, in his three
upper-class years, lived in
Mather House. Throughout his
college career, 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 only the
second person ever to serve as
president twice, and the first
person to have done it in 85
years. He graduated magna cum
laude from Harvard University
in 1985 with a B.A. in History
and Literature.
While attending Harvard,
O'Brien was roommates with
Damon Krukowski, who later
became drummer for the indie
band Galaxie 500. O'Brien had
previously bought himself a
drumkit, but had only recently
given up playing it. He lent it
to Krukowski, whom he knew
would get more use out of it.
O'Brien's drum kit can be heard
on many of Galaxie 500's early
recordings.
Career
Television Writer
O'Brien moved to Los Angeles
after graduation to join the
writing staff of HBO's Not
Necessarily the News. He spent
two years with that show, and
performed regularly with
improvisational groups like The
Groundlings. He also acted in
corporate infomercials to earn
money during this period.
After Not Necessarily the News,
O'Brien partnered with Harvard
classmate Greg Daniels (who
went on to be the executive
producer of King of The Hill
and The Office) as staff
writers on the short-lived
Wilton North Report for Fox
Broadcasting. He also
occasionally served as that
show's live audience warm-up
person. Wilton North, with
former Letterman producer Barry
Sand as executive producer,
lasted only four weeks, and is
noteworthy mostly as the show
that bumped the Arsenio
Hall-hosted Late Show off the
air.
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. O'Brien
also wrote the sketch "Nude
Beach", 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.
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.
Years later, when Hanks was a
guest on Late Night, O'Brien
showed the clip and jokingly
claimed their appearance
together was the source of all
of Hanks' subsequent
success.
From 1991 to 1994, O'Brien was
a writer and producer for The
Simpsons, credited as writer or
cowriter of four episodes Of
all the episodes he wrote while
writing for The Simpsons, he
considers "Marge vs. the
Monorail" to be his favorite.
Years later, in his speech
given at Class Day at Harvard
in 2000, O'Brien credited The
Simpsons with "saving" him, a
reference to the career slump
he was experiencing prior to
his hiring for that show. As of
2004, Conan's office at The
Simpsons was being used as
storage.
Late
Night
On April 25, 1993, Lorne
Michaels chose O'Brien to be
David Letterman's successor as
host of Late Night with David
Letterman, with Andy Richter
signed on to be his sidekick.
Conan auditioned on the set of
The Tonight Show, where he
interviewed Mimi Rogers and
Jason Alexander. O'Brien
resigned his position on The
Simpsons, despite the fact that
his contract had not
expired.
Premiering on September 13,
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
received generally unfavorable
critical reviews for the first
2 to 3 years after its debut.
O'Brien himself, an almost
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
Conan 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 Conan 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 Conan
who sweated and pulled at his
collar nervously. O'Brien was a
guest on The Howard Stern Show,
where Stern and his crew mocked
him by throwing a going-away
party for him, brought on by
newspaper reports that NBC was
already looking for someone to
replace O'Brien.
The show was reportedly
canceled by network executives,
but was allowed to remain on a
week-to-week basis when NBC
realized there was no
programming available to
replace it. 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 Conan 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,
though they have not won as of
2006. 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 in eight
years, the previous time was
after he was announced as the
host of Late Night. O'Brien was
noticeably shaken up, however
he did not cry on the air. He
talked about a need to have
faith and even said "God Bless"
at the end of the show.
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, O'Brien traveled to
Finland and appeared on several
television shows, and met
President Halonen. The trip was
filmed and aired as a
special.
Conan ad libbed the fictional
website name "hornymanatee.com"
on December 4, 2006, after a
sketch about the fictional
Florida State University
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. NBC now owns the
rights to www.hornymanatee.com
for 10 years, as per Conan
O'Brien. According to Conan, 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.
In 2005, Jay Leno named Conan
as his replacement when he
leaves the "Tonight Show" in
2009. Leno stated on the show
that he had done this 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. According to
speculation, NBC had asked Leno
to do this so Conan, who was a
vital asset to the network,
wouldn't jump ship for a more
lucrative offer. It was rumored
that at the time of the
announcement ABC was talking to
Conan about possibly replacing
Jimmy Kimmel.
As of October 2006, Late Night
with Conan O'Brien had for
eleven years consistently
attracted an audience averaging
about 2.5 million viewers.
Personal
life
On January 12, 2002, O'Brien
married former advertising
copywriter Elizabeth Ann 'Liza'
Powel of Seattle, Washington.
Officiating at the wedding was
O'Brien's long-time friend,
Father Paul B. O' Brien, with
whom he founded Labels Are For
Jars, an anti-hunger
organization based in Lawrence,
MA. Conan and Liza have a
daughter, Neve, born October
14, 2003 and a son, Beckett,
born November 9, 2005, both
born in New York City.
Source : Some
of the information on this page
came from a Wikipedia
article and is
licensed under the GNU
Documentation License.
©2008
www.geneticmatrix.com.
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