Conan (talk show)

Did You Know?

• The show taped on location at the Beacon Theatre in New York City from October 31 to November 3, 2011, with guests including Jimmy Fallon, Hugh Jackman, Matthew Broderick, and Louis C.K.
• The series premiere drew 4.1 million viewers, but by its fourth episode viewership dropped to 2.02 million.

Episode format

Each episode of Conan during its first eight years ran 60 minutes including commercials and followed a six-piece late-night format. The show opened with Richter announcing 'Coming to you from Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, it's Conan!' and introducing O'Brien, The Basic Cable Band, and the episode's guests. For the first several seasons, each episode had a title announced at the end of the opening sequence, styled after old-fashioned murder-mystery radio shows or television sitcoms; these titles were dropped in early 2014. The original title sequence was designed by Rob Ashe, Dan Dome, and Eric McGilloway, using organic-looking textures made of construction paper soaked in soda and lit in Photoshop. O'Brien opened each episode with a monologue drawing from current news stories, sometimes accompanied by clips and brief comedy skits, as well as occasional interactions with Richter and the audience. One or more comedy bits followed the monologue, some presented from the monologue stage and others from the desk area after the first commercial break. Some sketches were original and appeared only once. In May 2018, O'Brien and TBS announced the show would be reformatted into a 30-minute show with a looser structure starting 2019.

History

After the 2010 Tonight Show conflict, O'Brien announced on the first day of The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour that he had signed a deal with TBS to host a talk show beginning in November 2010. O'Brien initially had reservations about the move because it would place George Lopez's show Lopez Tonight one hour later to midnight, but Lopez reportedly called O'Brien and expressed excitement. Lopez Tonight was canceled less than nine months later. Turner Broadcasting stated that O'Brien had begun negotiations only a week prior to the official announcement. Steve Koonin, President of Turner Entertainment Networks, commented that O'Brien had been the comedic voice for a generation and that TBS already had a young comedy audience. O'Brien stated, 'In three months I've gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I'm headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly.' O'Brien's production company, Conaco, reportedly owned all rights to the show. TBS also announced a one-hour special featuring several writers for Conan and comedian Reggie Watts, broadcast on June 27, 2010. A 24-hour 'Live-Coco Cam' was set up on October 20, 2010, and a short online broadcast called 'Show Zero' aired on November 1, 2010, featuring O'Brien, Andy Richter, and Jerry Vivino, with guests Jim Parsons and Steel Train.

Production

Conan O'Brien's TBS show was set to tape at Warner Bros.' Stage 15 in Burbank, starting May 16, 2010. Episodes were recorded at 4:30 p.m. Pacific, after rehearsals from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. O'Brien initially aimed to avoid recycling any sketches from his NBC days, though he later admitted some bits might return over time. Eventually, the show featured The Masturbating Bear, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Celebrity Survey, The Audiency Awards, Clutch Cargo interviews, and a segment called If They Melded. When longtime writer-performer Brian Stack left in 2015, his character The Interrupter made a one-time comeback. O'Brien and sidekick Andy Richter said the program would lean closer to the edgy spirit of Late Night than the more restrained Tonight Show, since the later TBS time slot allowed for bolder material. Richter explained on Marc Maron's podcast that they no longer had to uphold a "respected franchise," and sketches that felt too late-night for The Tonight Show would now fit. At the 2010 San Francisco Sketch Comedy Festival, O'Brien told the crowd he had stopped caring about "broadening" the audience or appealing to all ages, implying the content would stay sharp.

International syndication

In Australia, the show debuted on GO!, a Nine Network channel, in August 2012 right after the Olympic Games, but GO! stopped carrying it around the middle of 2014. The plan was to air it within half a day of the U.S. broadcast, at 11:30 p.m. on weeknights. The Comedy Channel, which had broadcast earlier Conan O'Brien programs, said it wouldn't pick up this one because Nine had exclusive rights to Time Warner content. From November 2010 to July 2012, the show was on GEM. In Israel, it started on the new Comedy Central Israel channel in early 2011, running episodes four to five days after their TBS debut, but the channel dropped it in October 2011. In Canada, The Comedy Network carried it from November 8, 2010, to August 30, 2013, airing Monday through Thursday at midnight ET/PT, with a repeat on CTV at 1:07 a.m. local time. CTV initially announced it would air there, which raised concerns about the late slot—two hours after the U.S. airing for Eastern viewers (CTV Atlantic had it at 1:05 a.m. AT). The delay was due to local and national news at 11 p.m. and CTV's commitments to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart at 12:05 a.m. and The Colbert Report at 12:35 a.m. CTV executives later said the show might air earlier on The Comedy Network, but that channel also had conflicts, having long aired Daily and Colbert at 11 p.m. ET. In September 2010, The Comedy Network tried moving those shows to 10 p.m. to fit Conan at 11, but technical issues caused reruns, so they reverted to the old schedule, putting Conan at midnight. On September 3, 2013, Much Music started broadcasting it at 11 p.m. ET, but shifted back to midnight the next month.