The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [44]
Conan sensed that Ohlmeyer had sparked to some of the ideas—especially the fake guests. Littlefield remained impassive.
OʹBrien left the meeting feeling even more confident than he had after the test show—it had the flavor of a second audition, or maybe an oral exam in college. That evening he spoke with his sister Jane. “I think I may have just talked myself into that job.”
The NBC executives did like what he had to say. There was a freshness about him that was appealing. But come the fall, they were facing the biggest challenge the network’s late-night empire had ever taken on: David Letterman on CBS. If Tonight took a hit, certainly Late Night would as well. More than $70 million in ad revenue was tied up with that show. The fallback position was to sign Conan as backup to Costas for the Later show—the plan that Polone seemed to be promoting in the first place.
At that point NBC made a full-out run at Shandling, with a financial offer that had grown to nearly $5 million a year. Shandling pondered for about a week. Finally, on April 26, with Ohlmeyer fed up and opposed to spending that much anyway, Shandling let NBC know his decision: no.
Jeff Ross, back in New York, had no idea what was going on. The tryout had convinced him that he and Conan could work together well, so he had committed to Lorne. But things had gone quiet. On the twenty-sixth, he came back from lunch and saw a stack of messages waiting. He knew at once: “Oh my god, he got it!”
Later the same day in LA, Conan was at a table read of another Simpsons episode. The phone rang as the session ended, and the person who answered said, “Conan, it’s for you.” He picked it up and heard Gavin Polone say, “You got twelve thirty.” This time Conan was not euphoric, the cold calculation of what this meant starting to sink in. It was the be-careful-what-you-wish-for moment. Polone said Ohlmeyer would be calling in five minutes.
Conan was far enough away from his bungalow office that he needed to sprint across the lot to get there. He was slightly out of breath when he grabbed the ringing phone and heard the news officially from the top NBC West Coast executive.
The life change began instantaneously. That night, Ohlmeyer told him, Conan would do a walk-on with Jay to be introduced to the nation. A few days later they would fly him east, and he would meet the press in New York.
Back at the Tonight studio that night, Jay brought him on with appropriate fanfare and not a little curiosity. Conan, in a new (dark) blazer over jeans, looked mildly stunned by the latest developments in his life, though he made the point—several times—that he was thrilled.
Over at CBS Letterman addressed the news on his show. He called Conan “the new guy” and said, “I don’t know him. I heard he’s a nice boy. The only thing I heard about him is he killed a guy once.” He made the subject of that night’s Top Ten List tips he could offer the new host. Based on his own contentious relations with NBC management (and its parent company) as well as several famous incidents Dave had had with a stalker, these included: “GE executives are pinheads,” “NBC executives are bone-heads,” and “Don’t panic if you find a strange woman in your house.”
Desperate for any information on the new guy, reporters contacted anyone who had worked with O’Brien. Most of his former colleagues had the same reaction: really funny guy, does wild, spontaneous things for no apparent reason. Matt Groening, the cartoonist who created The Simpsons , said Conan made perfect sense as the choice for a talk-show job: “He can keep a room of seething, self-hating,