Posted in: NBC, TBS, TV | Tagged: conan, conan o'brien, Conan Without Borders, Jeff Ross, late night, lorne michaels, robert smigel

Conan O'Brien Commemorates His "Late Night" 30th Anniversary

Former Late Night host Conan O'Brien reflects on 30 years since he got his start hosting his NBC talk show, succeeding David Letterman.

Conan O'Brien represents a true underdog story of the late-night talk show scene since his more humble days in TV starting with 1983's Not Necessarily the News for HBO. He rose up the ranks as a writer and occasional performer with his stints on The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. O'Brien's big break came as a result of the fallout between comedian Jay Leno and Late Night host David Letterman to vie for the coveted host of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson retiring and his final show airing on May 22, 1992. With Leno winning the job, Letterman opted to let his NBC contract expire and suffer the temporary indignity of becoming Leno being his lead-in before taking his services to CBS to host The Late Show. O'Brien would succeed Letterman on Late Night hosting from 1993-2009 to which he took to social media to mark the occasion.

O'Brien focused his dedication starting with the SNL creator. "30 years ago today, we launched an alleged talk show called 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien.' We were on a mission to make the silly show of our immature dreams. My eternal thanks to Lorne Michaels, Jeff Ross, Robert Smigel, and countless disturbed, loyal, creative friends," he wrote. The host found himself ironically similar to his predecessor's once-dream-come-true stint to become the true unchallenged successor host of The Tonight Show became a nightmare as NBC attempted to have their cake and eat it too by locking both Leno and O'Brien to contracts to retain their talent to prevent to become beneficiaries to their network rivals with Leno moving to 10 p.m. before the local news.

As their Leno prime show failed miserably, NBC attempted to move Leno back to his original Tonight Show spot at 11:30 to lead into Conan's version, which both scoffed at. While the behind-the-scenes chaos became public fodder, Letterman and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel of Jimmy Kimmel Live!" took every opportunity to eviscerate Leno and NBC for screwing over O'Brien as the latter took every opportunity he could to throw his network bosses under the bus at their mishandling.

An agreement was reached between NBC and both hosts to prematurely end O'Brien's Tonight Show in 2010 with Leno to return, and O'Brien's contract bought out with a hefty severance package. Following O'Brien's tour, he took his talents to cable television with his self-titled late-night series Conan, which originally was preceded by George Lopez's own late-night talk show before O'Brien eventually took over the 11 p.m. spot with Lopez Tonight ending in 2011. Following O'Brien's decision to end his TBS series in 2021, he started his comedy travelogue series called Conan Without Borders in 2023 for TBS. He also still makes the occasional voiceover and live-action appearance.

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