The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [43]
Conan interrupted him. “Lorne, listen. It’s going to be great. I’m sure of it.” The line had been unplanned, but it was the truth. He wasn’t sure exactly why he had said it, but he was sure of one thing, something that probably nobody out there in that audience would have believed: He was not scared shitless.
And then he was onstage, standing on his mark, acting like a real entertainer. He looked more sheepish than anything else, a point he underscored with his jokes, which mainly had to do with trying to explain precisely how he came to be standing there that night. “This is the result of a drunken wager between Lorne Michaels and Don Ohlmeyer,” he said. With his arms swinging loosely and his indifferent posture, he didn’t look like a guy accustomed to standing up and telling jokes—but he didn’t look bad, either. Something close to charm managed to filter through the awkwardness.
His quasi-monologue finished, O’Brien made the crossover to sit in Jay’s chair behind Jay’s desk. He read the prepared introduction, and Mimi Rogers stepped out, looking a bit as though she was worried that she had stumbled into a Candid Camera bit. But she quickly turned giggly and seemed to warm up to the kid behind the desk.
At one point, after Conan asked about her modeling career, Rogers started to explain what hard work modeling was—much harder than people thought. Conan responded with his best unscripted line: “No. People always say being a model is hard. Turning a big crank, that’s hard”—and he mimicked great effort with a crank (not unlike trying to lift an invisible desk). He scored—with Rogers, who laughed effusively, and also with the little audience in the studio.
During an ersatz commercial break Jeff Ross approached from where he had been standing off camera and leaned in to straighten Conan’s tie a bit. “How’m I doing?” Conan started to ask. But before he could finish the question Ross held up a piece of paper. On it was written, “You’re killing.” Then he walked away.
Conan chuffed up, having concluded, At least I’ve won him over.
As he left the studio that night, Conan felt he had done well, surely better than anyone expected. As he replayed the audition, he started to feel real joy—euphoria, even. He let himself dream: Shit, I think something’s going to happen now.
Over the next week, however, the inside word was that NBC was hard after Shandling. For his part, Lorne was still positive. “Bob Wright really loved your tape,” he told Conan. Conan asked, “Who’s Bob Wright?” Then one morning a Simpsons colleague walked into his office and casually asked, “Hey, have you seen Variety today?”
Conan rushed out to the newsstand on Fairfax Avenue. The headline was on the front page: “Talks of Conan for Late Night at NBC.ʺ It was the first time he had seen his name in print since the Crimson. He imagined people all over Hollywood asking, “Conan who?” and “What’s a Conan? Sounds like a joke name.”
That same day the call came in: Get to Ohlmeyer’s office for a meeting. So he sped over to Burbank, where he faced another gathering of NBC princes. Ohlmeyer, who seemed intrigued by O’Brien, led the meeting, seconded by Littlefield, who seemed openly skeptical. “The Wrights really loved your tape,” Ohlmeyer said. (Conan wondered: There’s more than one?)
“Here’s the thing,” Littlefield chimed in. “The tape’s OK, but what kind of show would you do?”
Conan had not really prepared a formal treatise on this subject, but he had, after all, been thinking through every aspect of having his own show since about the time he gave up tap.
He leaned forward in his chair and, as though possessed by a demon, let fly:
“Letterman’s done irony. He did the anti-talk show. This show has to have a different quality. I think the time is right for silliness. Dave’s got that dignity and that personal space. My thing is, I don’t really do that. I do silliness. We’re going to do things like have plants in the audience—not unprofessional