The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [32]
Having served the previous year as editor of the school paper at Brookline High, Conan had already tried on one hat, dropping into what was called a “comp meeting” at the Harvard Crimson, the deadly serious, tradition-steeped daily that beckoned to those among the student elite with a calling for journalism, social commentary, and perhaps even literary pursuits. O’Brien fell somewhere within that territory, having formed a vague picture of himself working in the future as a serious writer of short fiction. Still, the Crimson meeting hadn’t felt right; he emerged thinking, This isn’t me; this isn’t it.
In the days since, he had wandered around the campus pondering which other Harvard headwear he might try on, without much success. Like most everything else he had experienced in his early life, this Harvard thing was starting to feel as though it was going to be a slow build.
Then one of his suitemates, John O’Connor, poked his head in the door and asked, “You wanna go to the Lampoon meeting?”
Conan knew the name but not much else about the Harvard Lampoon. He had never even read its more popular commercial offshoot, the National Lampoon, in his life. In his ongoing hat survey, the Lampoon hadn’t figured in at all. But he had no special plans. “Well, I’ll come along with you,” he said.
At the meeting, held in the Lampoon “Castle”—every Harvard publication had its own pretensions—prospective contributors were given the rundown: They had to write three audition pieces. If they made the cut with those, they would have to write three more. That’s all it took: six funny pieces, and you were in.
Conan’s reaction was not immediate enthusiasm, but writing something purely out of his head—rather than having to, say, gather facts for a piece in the Crimson—appealed to the nascent creative side of the O’Brien brain. So that night he sat down and wrote his first piece. It was quickly approved, so he wrote another. That, too, got enthusiastic approval. The third got him hired and also put him on the fast track to becoming the only freshman on what they called the “lit board” of the magazine.
For OʹBrien, the experience was a rush. For the first time in his life, he was doing something that came easily to him and that people apparently valued. Suddenly a group of people who seemed like actual adults—twenty-two-year-olds—respected him, wanted to publish things that sprang from his imagination. And then he started hearing about former Lampoon writers who had written sketches on Saturday Night Live. That was another revelation: People got paid for doing this kind of thing? You could make a career out of this?
The following year O’Brien was elected “president” (anywhere else, editor) of the magazine, an unusual honor for a sophomore. That led to the even more unusual honor of holding the position for two years. (It was only the second time in the magazine’s then-century-old history that that had occurred, and the first to hold that distinction was Robert Benchley.) His funny credentials assured, Conan began, at editorial meetings, to unleash his highly energized, spontaneous, almost Dadaist comedy, hurling himself around the room, doing almost anything to make his colleagues laugh—which they did, a lot.
His pals began to tell him he should save some of this material for when he had his show. His show—that sounded right. An inveterate doodler, he had already created the self-caricature—outline of features, dots for freckles, big swoosh of hair—that would later become his signature. When he passed the information kiosks that dotted the Harvard campus, he would quickly sketch the little Conan head and have it saying some nonsense words like “Jub, Jub.” When people would ask him what he was doing, he would say, “It’s a promotion—for my show.”
It was all talk. When offered his first real on-campus performing