Heartless NBC execs wouldn’t let Conan O’Brien change Late Night‘s name to “Nighty Night“
O'Brien's first NBC show almost had a very different title, the long-time host revealed on a recent episode of Inside Conan
Aux News Conan
Looking back from the comfort and safety of 2023, Conan O’Brien’s run on NBC’s Late Night is the stuff of legend: An oddball and inventive take on the format of late night comedy that served as a foundation for everything O’Brien has achieved over the last 30 years of jokes. Back in 1993, though, putting the fate of a very popular TV show (which had just lost host David Letterman in one of the most public blow-ups of drama late-night had ever seen) in the hands of a funny Simpsons writer with zero on-screen experience was seen as something of a, let’s say, unconventional choice. And that’s without anyone who was observing the change at the time knowing that O’Brien had apparently wanted to change the show’s name to Nighty Night With Conan O’Brien.
This is per a recent installment of the Inside Conan podcast, which is produced by O’Brien’s own Team Coco. Discussing the early days of Late Night with long-time collaborator Jeff Ross, O’Brien revealed that he’d tried to pitch NBC exec Rich Ludwin, one of his staunchest defenders during the rough, early days of his tenure with Late Night, on changing the show’s title. (O’Brien was hoping, understandably, to distance himself from the inevitable Letterman comparisons.) Ludwin told O’Brien and head writer Robert Smiegel that NBC was attached to the name, and “wouldn’t get rid of it unless there was a spectacular new one.” Into which conditions the pair enthusiastically pitched “Nighty Night with Conan O’Brien,” which, O’Brien explained, “We thought was just really cartoon-y and funny and arch, like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.”
O’Brien goes on to describe Ludwin’s response at length, which saw him uncomfortably scratch the back of his head so much he was “tearing flesh,” before simply declaring “It’s going to remain Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
And thus is television history made!
14 Comments
I wonder if he would’ve ever had good ratings at The Tonight Show. What makes me doubt it is that after 4 years at TBS he was still trailing the Stewart/Colbert hour.
Nah, he was always a bad fit for that time slot. If Jay Leno had dropped dead of an aneurysm before NBC could cancel his primetime show, Conan would have continued to struggle until they fired him and replaced him with Fallon.The entire network late night show is going the way of the dodo, anyway. Ratings for all those shows have dropped in half in the last ten years, and apparently some horrible Fox News late night show now beats Colbert et al in the ratings. It’s a legacy format that nobody could have saved, but Conan was super not the person to save it.
I don’t think he ever would’ve, but that’s not really his fault and just a combination of two hard facts about TV at the time:1. The Tonight Show just wasn’t a place for actually talented, interesting comedians at the time. Maybe it was at some point (although I honestly just think Johnny Carson was a fluke), but from the 90s through to today, it’s not a place for being daring and interesting, and more just a thing to be safe and entertaining for older white people to watch over dinner or before bed. Leno was that, and Fallon might have the eye for a good viral bit but is basically that. It’s true of the entire late-night talk show circuit, but it’s especially true of The Tonight Show. But speaking of Fallon…2. This was when Youtube kicked in, which is where the younger audiences looking for more interesting comedy like Conan actually went. Over the years the internet is where the sort of thing that you used to tune into Late Night for was going, and over time Conan and every other talk show started crafting bits and segments for the internet rather than just for live TV. So yeah, while he might’ve gotten low ratings compared to competition on other networks (including Stewart and Colbert, who were also pretty early winners of ‘turns out this content goes well online’), that’s no longer the only metric. In fact, ‘competition’ gets kinda nebulous when suddenly audiences can watch every show that used to be on at the same time.
Conan never should have done the TBS show. It’s a shame he didn’t just quit the talk show grind and write again. I guess he’s not interested in that. His podcast is pretty good, but not really comedy. Would have liked to have see him attempt a movie or sitcom.
So many young folk think absurdist humor originated on YT and I’m just here remembering peak Adult Swim.
And I’m remembering older things than Adult Swim. We’d be fools not to remember Monty Python.But the simple fact is, that’s the sort of comedy that found its best platform on the internet. Shorter, weird shit is just the thing that works for the medium, and so it’s where the shorter, weird shit went–and when comedies wanted to appeal to the internet, they made shorter, weird clips.
Yup, and can’t forget Pee Wee’s impact.
You expected him on TBS to beat ratings for the major networks? TBS?
He’s talking about the Comedy Central shows: the Daily Show and Colbert Report.I saw a live taping of Conan during the TBS years. He could not have seemed more bored when the cameras were off. I came away convinced he only did the TBS show so that the final line on his resume wasn’t a failure.
ah, my mistake. Conan seems happier with the podcasts than in his final TBS years.
Might have just been an off night – I saw tapings as well and he was usually fairly engaged with the audience between bits, also during the TBS run.
They should have gone with my title: If You Don’t Wake Up Tomorrow, This Will Be The Last Thing You Ever See With Conan O’Brien
“Ignore Your Existential Dread With Conan”, weeknights at 12:35!
Usually I’m reflexively against executive meddling, but… uhm, yeah, right call on this one.