Early writing jobs and Saturday Night Live (1985–1991) After graduating from Harvard, O'Brien moved to
Los Angeles to join the writing staff of
HBO's sketch comedy series
Not Necessarily the News, where he worked for two seasons. Around this time, he started taking
improvisation classes with
Cynthia Szigeti and
The Groundlings. His next job as a writer was on the short-lived
The Wilton North Report. In January 1988,
Saturday Night Live (
SNL) executive producer
Lorne Michaels hired O'Brien as a writer. During his three years on
SNL, he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by
Tom Hanks and
Jon Lovitz. While on a
writers' strike from
Saturday Night Live following the 1987–88 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 shared an apartment with
Jeff Garlin near
Wrigley Field. In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow
SNL writers received an
Emmy Award for
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. O'Brien, like many
SNL writers, occasionally appeared as an extra in sketches; his most notable appearance was as a doorman in a sketch in which
Tom Hanks was inducted into the SNL "
Five-Timers Club" for hosting his fifth episode in 1990. O'Brien and Robert Smigel wrote the television pilot for
Lookwell starring
Adam West, which aired on NBC in 1991. Even with support from
NBC president
Brandon Tartikoff, the pilot never went to series. Despite the negative reviews, it became a
cult hit. It was later screened at
The Other Network, a festival of unaired TV pilots produced by
Un-Cabaret; it featured an extended interview with O'Brien and was rerun in 2002 on the
Trio network. In 1991, after the failure of his sitcom, O'Brien also had an engagement to be married fall through and he quit
Saturday Night Live, citing
burnout. O'Brien would later return to the show as host in 2001, and in a 2022 cameo appearance.
The Simpsons (1991–1993) Mike Reiss and
Al Jean, then
showrunners of the animated sitcom
The Simpsons, called O'Brien and offered him a job. The series was prestigious in the writing community at the time; O'Brien recalls "everyone wanted to be on that show, but they never hired." O'Brien credited
The Simpsons with saving him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing before being hired for the show. From 1991 to 1993, O'Brien was a writer and producer for
The Simpsons. When O'Brien first arrived at the Fox lot, they temporarily gave him writer
Jeff Martin's office. O'Brien was nervous and self-conscious, feeling that he would embarrass himself in front of what he regarded as an intimidating collection of writers. He fit in quickly, commanding control of the room frequently; writer
Josh Weinstein called it a "ten-hour Conan show, nonstop". The show was initially a highly realistic family sitcom; after O'Brien's debut, the show took a rapid shift in the direction of the surreal. Meanwhile,
David Letterman was preparing to leave the talk show
Late Night, prompting executive producer Lorne Michaels to search for a new host. Michaels approached O'Brien to produce; then-agent
Gavin Polone stressed that O'Brien wanted to perform, rather than produce. O'Brien was picked as the new host of
Late Night on April 26, 1993. "He was passed out facedown into this horrible shag carpet. He was just quiet and comatose down there on that carpet," recalled postproduction supervisor
J. Michael Mendel. "I remember looking at him and saying, 'Wow. Your life is about to change, in a really dramatic way.'" During pre-production, writer
Robert Smigel suggested fellow writer
Andy Richter to sit beside O'Brien and act as a
sidekick. After O'Brien's departure, the writers at
The Simpsons would watch videotaped episodes of
Late Night at lunch the day following their midnight broadcast and analyze them. This reception was not completely unsurprising: there was significant public apprehension due to O'Brien being virtually unknown to the public, and O'Brien himself wrote a self-deprecating
The New York Times piece titled "O'Brien Flops!" on the day of the show's premiere. Critics attacked O'Brien:
Tom Shales of
The Washington Post suggested that "the host resume his previous identity, Conan O'Blivion." Generally, critics viewed O'Brien as nervous and fidgety on-camera, and that he was "too smart, too East Coast, too sophisticated, too young and even too tall to be successful." In one installment after a short stretch of reruns, sidekick
Andy Richter described his vacation activities as follows: "I sat back and reminded myself what it's like to be unemployed." The in-joke alluded to the rumors floating in the trades that NBC was near canceling the program.
Late Night under O'Brien slowly but steadily acquired commercial and critical success. Sketches grew in popularity ("If They Mated", "Desk Drive", "In the Year 2000"). The show went through a wobble in January 1995 when Robert Smigel, feeling burned out, quit as head writer. An increase in quality over time, perceived by some observers, was sometimes credited to a growth in O'Brien's comedic performance. Within a year, a comedic formula began to arise: the show would combine the lewd and wacky with more elegant, narrative-driven
remotes. One famous remote was when O'Brien visited a historic, Civil War-era baseball league. O'Brien's audience, largely young and male (a coveted demographic), grew steadily and the show began to best competitors in the ratings, and continued to do so for 15 seasons. Even Tom Shales was a convert: he called the show "one of the most amazing transformations in television history." O'Brien traveled to Finland shortly after the election. "We took the show to
Helsinki for five days," O'Brien recalled, "where we were embraced like a national treasure." As part of the five-day trip, which was released as a one-hour special episode of
Late Night, O'Brien met with Halonen at the Finnish
Presidential Palace. During the
writers' strike in 2008, O'Brien staged a
mock feud with
Comedy Central's
Jon Stewart (of
The Daily Show) and
Stephen Colbert (of
The Colbert Report) over a dispute about which of the three were responsible for giving a "bump" to
Mike Huckabee's campaign to become the
Republican presidential nominee. This feud crossed over all three shows during the
2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. On February 20, 2009, NBC aired the last episode of ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien
. The show consisted of a compilation of previous Late Night'' clips and included a surprise appearance by former sidekick Andy Richter.
Will Ferrell,
John Mayer, and the
White Stripes also appeared. O'Brien ended the episode by destroying the set with an axe, handing out the pieces of the set to the audience, and thanking a list of people who helped him. Among those thanked were Lorne Michaels, David Letterman,
Jay Leno, and O'Brien's wife and children. In 2019, clips from O'Brien's time on
Late Night began to be posted on his TBS website and on the Team Coco YouTube channel.
The Tonight Show (2009–2010) displaying his "Coco" nickname As part of a new contract negotiated with
NBC in 2004, the network decided that O'Brien would take over
The Tonight Show from
Jay Leno in 2009. Leno then moved to a
prime time slot, named
The Jay Leno Show. Hosting
The Tonight Show was a lifelong dream of O'Brien's, and the promise of succeeding Leno kept him in NBC's employ despite the fact that he likely could have secured a more lucrative deal at another network. O'Brien was a guest on Jay Leno's final episode of
The Tonight Show. On June 1, 2009,
Will Ferrell became Conan's first
Tonight Show guest on the couch and
Pearl Jam appeared as his first musical guest. O'Brien acquired the nickname "
Coco" after its use in the first "Twitter Tracker" sketch during the second episode of his
Tonight Show run. Guest Tom Hanks used the nickname during his subsequent interview, even getting the audience to chant it. In reaction to the
moniker, O'Brien remarked to Hanks in jest, "If that catches on, I'll sue you." During the taping of the Friday, September 25, 2009, episode of
The Tonight Show, O'Brien suffered a mild concussion after he slipped and hit his head while running a race as part of a comedy sketch with guest
Teri Hatcher. He was examined at a hospital and released the same day. A rerun was aired that night, but O'Brien returned to work the following Monday and poked fun at the incident. By November 2009, ratings for O'Brien's
The Tonight Show declined by around 2 million viewers since the previous year when Leno was host. On January 7, 2010, NBC executive Jeff Zucker met with Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien to discuss how to move Leno out of prime time, where his ratings were lackluster, and back into late night. It was proposed that O'Brien would remain as host of
The Tonight Show, which would run at 12:05 am with Leno hosting a 30-minute show at 11:35 pm. Three days later,
NBC Universal Television Entertainment chairman
Jeff Gaspin confirmed that
The Jay Leno Show would be moved to 11:35 pm following NBC's coverage of the
2010 Winter Olympics. Sources familiar with the situation stated that O'Brien was unhappy and disappointed with NBC's plan. On January 12, O'Brien released this statement: "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." On January 21, 2010, it was announced that O'Brien had reached a deal with NBC that would see him exit
The Tonight Show the next day. The deal also granted him $45 million, of which $12 million was designated for distribution to his staff, who had moved with O'Brien to Los Angeles from New York when he left
Late Night. The final
Tonight Show with O'Brien aired January 22, 2010, and featured guests
Tom Hanks,
Steve Carell (who did an exit interview and shredded Conan's
ID badge),
Neil Young (singing "
Long May You Run"), and
Will Ferrell. For Ferrell's appearance, O'Brien played guitar with the band and Ferrell sang "
Free Bird" while reprising his
SNL cowbell. Ferrell's wife,
Viveca Paulin, together with
Ben Harper,
Beck, and
ZZ Top guitarist
Billy Gibbons, also joined the band for this final performance. Jay Leno returned to
The Tonight Show following NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Under the $45 million deal with NBC, O'Brien was allowed to start working for another network as soon as September 2010. Conan's rumored next networks ranged from Fox to
Comedy Central. Other networks reportedly interested in O'Brien included
TNT,
HBO,
FX,
Showtime,
Revision3, and even the
NBCUniversal–owned
USA Network.
Television hiatus and comedy tour (2010) wore in
Eddie Murphy Raw (1987) in 2010 On February 8, 2010, it was reported that O'Brien was attempting to sell his
Central Park West penthouse in New York with an asking price of $35 million. He had purchased the apartment in 2007 for $10 million. Two years earlier, O'Brien had purchased a home in the
Brentwood section of Los Angeles for over $10.5 million. Some industry insiders have speculated that O'Brien had chosen to stay on the west coast in order to facilitate a return to late night television and because he did not want to put his children through another move. O'Brien was included in the 2010
Time 100, a list compiled by
Time of the 100 most influential people in the world as voted on by readers. After being prohibited from making television appearances of any kind until May, O'Brien spoke about the
Tonight Show conflict on the
CBS newsmagazine
60 Minutes on May 2, 2010. During the interview with
Steve Kroft, O'Brien said the situation felt "like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently, quickly. And I was just trying to figure out what happened." He also said he "absolutely" expected NBC to give him more of a chance and that, if in Jay Leno's position, he would not have come back to
The Tonight Show. However, O'Brien said he did not feel unfortunate. "It's crucial to me that anyone seeing this, if they take anything away from this, it's I'm fine. I'm doing great," said O'Brien. "I hope people still find me comedically absurd and ridiculous. And I don't regret anything." On March 11, 2010, O'Brien announced via his Twitter account that he would embark on a 30-city live tour beginning April 12, 2010, entitled, "
The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour". Co-host
Andy Richter, along with members of the former
Tonight Show Band, joined O'Brien on the tour.
Max Weinberg, however, was not able to join, except for a guest appearance at one of Conan's New York City shows. On April 12, 2010, O'Brien opened his two-month comedy tour in
Eugene, Oregon, with a crowd of 2,500 and no TV cameras. The tour traveled through America's Northwest and Canada before moving on to larger cities, including Los Angeles and New York City, where he performed at
Radio City Music Hall, next to his former
Late Night studios. The tour ended in
Atlanta on June 14. In 2011, the documentary film titled ''
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop'' was released which followed O'Brien throughout his comedy tour. The film premiered March 2011 at the
South by Southwest media festival to positive reviews. It was directed by
Rodman Flender who is O'Brien's personal friend and classmate at Harvard University.
Conan and Conan Without Borders (2010–2021) '' at the 2011
SXSW convention The day his live tour began, O'Brien announced that he would host a new show on cable station
TBS. O'Brien's addition moved
Lopez Tonight with
George Lopez back one hour. during "Conan in Qatar" In February 2015, following the onset of the
Cuban thaw, O'Brien became the first American television personality to film in
Cuba for more than half a century. O'Brien then visited
Armenia for his next show abroad, during which he featured his assistant
Sona Movsesian, who is
Armenian American. While visiting, O'Brien guest-starred as a gangster on an Armenian soap opera. In April 2016, O'Brien visited
South Korea in response to a fan letter urging him to visit, as well as a growing fan base online. His visit included a trip to the
Korean Demilitarized Zone, which resulted in O'Brien and
Steven Yeun also visiting
North Korea on a technicality by stepping across the border line at the
DMZ. O'Brien commented on the significance during the sketch, claiming, "The idea that you and I could be in North Korea, talking and communicating freely, seems like kind of a cool message." These remotes were later branded
Conan Without Borders and became part of their own series, with O'Brien eventually traveling to thirteen countries in total. The series became some of his most popular work, winning an Emmy in 2018. The international shows became available on
Netflix before moving to
HBO Max. TBS extended the show through 2018 in 2014 and through 2022 in 2017. In late 2018,
Conan took a three-month hiatus while O'Brien launched another national comedy tour. The show returned January 22, 2019, in a new half-hour format without the live band. In response to the
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the program switched to a remotely-produced format from O'Brien's home beginning March 30, 2020. In July 2020, it was announced that
Conan would continue with this format, but would be filmed with limited on-site staff from the
Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles and no studio audience — making it the first American late-night talk show to return to filming outside of the host's residence (albeit still not from its main studio). In November 2020, TBS announced that
Conan would end in June 2021. The final show aired on June 24, 2021, featuring a live audience and marking the end of O'Brien's twenty-eight year run as a late-night host. It was announced that O'Brien would move to a weekly untitled variety show on fellow
WarnerMedia property
HBO Max, where he was expected to focus more on his podcast and travel shows with a relaxed production schedule. On his final show, O'Brien featured fictional character
Homer Simpson, marking also the three episodes that O'Brien wrote for the series. Comedians
Will Ferrell and
Jack Black also paid their farewell to the show in the series finale.
Podcasting and ''Conan O'Brien Must Go'' (2018–present) In 2018, O'Brien's production company, Team Coco, partnered with
Earwolf to launch his own weekly podcast, ''
Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend''. The podcast debuted November 18, 2018, with
Will Ferrell as the first guest. Each episode has the guest join O'Brien together with his co-hosts, his former assistant
Sona Movsesian and the show's producer
Matt Gourley. Guests on the podcast have included
Barack and
Michelle Obama,
Stephen Colbert, and
Bob Newhart among others. The podcast has received strong reviews and became the top podcast on
iTunes. The podcast has also won numerous awards throughout its run.
Deadline Hollywood reported that, as of August 2021, the podcast had been downloaded over 250 million times and was averaging more than 9 million downloads per month. On April 18, 2024,
HBO released a four-episode international travel series titled ''
Conan O'Brien Must Go'' on
Max to widespread critical acclaim. The series featured O'Brien traveling to Norway, Argentina, Thailand, and Ireland to meet fans whom he had previously featured via video calls in his podcast series ''Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan''. The show was renewed for a second season of six episodes in May 2024. In January 2025, it was announced that O'Brien would be the 2025 recipient of the
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He received the award on March 23 at the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The recording of the presentation later garnered him an Emmy in 2025 for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded). ==Other work==