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talk show. And every night he had the same guest: Jeff Garlin. They created an ersatz set with host base behind a coffee table and guest on the couch. Almost every night they would fall into doing the show. Conan as George Takei would ask Garlin about his act and touring: How was that going? Garlin would go along for a time, but eventually he would come around to asking Takei about those residuals from Star Trek: And how were they coming along? After first trying to be dismissive, or to change the subject, Conan’s Takei would start to become agitated and then bitter about how he’d been cheated on his residuals. And the interchange would get out of hand, with Takei ever more furious.

The bit slayed Garlin. He marveled at Conan’s ability to wind the Takei character up ever tighter. All summer they went back to “Wild Blue Yonder”—always only for themselves. It did not make Garlin picture Conan as a future talk show host—maybe because he was always George Takei. But he was blown away by Conan’s comedy mind.

When the summer ended, Conan dragged the disgusting futon out of his steam room and threw it away. On his last night in Chicago, though, he had to have George Takei sit down one last time with Jeff Garlin.

Again, Takei tried to explore the homey details of Garlin’s emerging show-biz career, but as soon as Jeff went to the indignity of those missing residuals, it proved too much for George Takei. He howled to the moon and committed seppuku on the spot.

“And that was the end of ‘Wild Blue Yonder,ʹʺ Garlin said.

The cast took “The Happy Happy Good Show” for a two-week run in Los Angeles, hoping it might burnish their comedy reputations a little. It didn’t, but it was by chance seen by a young agent for ICM named Gavin Polone. He enjoyed it and was particularly impressed by the tall redheaded guy.

In mid-August, after five months and seven days, the writers’ strike ended, and everyone from the stage show returned to New York and the new season of Saturday Night Live. Conan settled back into his writing assignments, relishing the times that he got little on-camera shots on the show, like “handsome guy in the background.”

Conan had idiosyncrasies unusual even for SNL. Though he loved to be in the writers’ room kicking around ideas, when he got down to the actual word-on-page process, he would sometimes like to wander off with Greg Daniels—the way they used to at Harvard when they had to study for an exam. At SNL they took to drifting through the floors and halls of 30 Rock, looking for the best place to get inspired and write. At some point this led them to the sixth floor and the entrance to Studio 6A.

To their amazement, there was no guard there, nothing to stop them from drifting in and checking out the place where it all took place every evening. The Letterman studio, which always shocked fans when they turned up in the audience because it was so much smaller than it looked on TV, was as quiet as a church late at night when OʹBrien and Daniels moseyed in. Dave’s desk had a plastic covering over it, but it didn’t stop Conan from stepping up and planting himself in the chair, Dave’s chair, facing out into the empty seats of his audience, while Daniels, the undemonstrative partner in the pair, would find a seat down in the first row. There they would sit, Conan behind the desk, conducting a writing session like Dave conducted an interview.

It wasn’t as if he were a kid in a “look at me” moment, sitting behind the wheel of Dad’s car in the garage. Nor was it a sign of any innate audacity; if someone had walked in, he would undoubtedly have been embarrassed and fled the scene. But sitting there, in the dim light, at that desk, looking out into that studio, the sensation, the aspect, felt right to Conan. He found himself thinking, What this guy is doing, this is the kind of thing I could do. It wouldn’t be the same way he does it. I’m not a precision instrument like David Letterman. But when I am having fun and I’m in the moment, there’s nothing else like it. . . . If only I could figure out a way . . .

In 1991,