At the beginning of a clip from this podcast episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend with Matt Groening, Conan talks about one of his favorite things they did on The Simpsons:
It’s a phenomenon that the Simpsons did so beautifully, which is — and we did this with Homer a lot — but Homer is not the smartest guy in the world, but if it’s funny for him to have a certain knowledge of something or turn a phrase, suddenly he has it.
And one of my favorites of that is he’s sitting around the table and Lisa’s despondent. Something didn’t go well for her and she doesn’t think she’s going to get to go to a good school now. And she’s sitting at the table and she said, “Oh no, now I’ll never get to go to an Ivy League school. I’ll have to go to Vasser.” Which is just this like — by the way, my wife went to Vasser, it’s a very good school. But it was just this thing where in Lisa’s little world, oh my god, I’ve been I’ve been ruined. I’ll have to go to Vasser. And Homer like slams a table and says, “There’ll be no Vasser bashing in this house.”
I loved this about the show too. And it was part of a general thing the writers did where sometimes characters would play against type. So Marge became reckless, Homer was smart/sensitive, Bart was organized, and Lisa was a giggly little girl. Those moments helped make the show and when, after the epic run in the early-to-mid 90s, the show became almost exclusively about how dumb & crass Homer was, it was much less rich and entertaining. (thx, mark)
This excerpt from Conan O’Brien’s acceptance speech for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is quite good.
Twain was suspicious of populism, jingoism, imperialism, the money-obsessed mania of the Gilded Age, and any expression of mindless American might or self-importance. Above all, Twain was a patriot in the best sense of the word. He loved America but knew it was deeply flawed. Twain wrote, “Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time and your government when it deserves it.”
(thx, andy)
To mark the 25th anniversary of its airing, the very first episode of Late Night With Conan O’Brien has been made available online in its entirety. His guests that evening were John Goodman, Drew Barrymore, and Tony Randall.
O’Brien says this initial video will be joined by a “complete online archive of Conan’s 25 years in late night” in January 2019. (via anil dash)
Apologies in advance for the Charlie Sheen mention, but Alec Baldwin’s advice to Sheen (and, belatedly, Conan) is golden.
Conan has moved on and his great talent is undiminished by his difficult experiences. I had wanted to say to him back then what I will now offer to Charlie. You can’t win. Really. You can’t. When executives at studios and networks move up to the highest ranks, they are given a book. The book is called How to Handle Actors. And one principle held dear in that book is that no actor is greater than the show itself when the show is a hit. And, in that regard, they are often right. Add to that the fact that the actor who is torturing their diseased egos is a drug addled, porn star-squiring, near Joycean Internet ranter, and they really want you to go.
Reminds me of Frank Sinatra’s letter to George Michael.
Come on George, Loosen up. Swing, man, Dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice and be grateful to carry the baggage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments.
(via stellar)
Todd Levin wrote for Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show; here’s Levin in GQ describing the job and those final few weeks of the “I’m with Coco” business.
So it wasn’t until my third day of work that I finally decided to slip past Conan — hunched over his desk, busily doodling on that day’s script — and join the other writers behind the couch. As I settled into my spot among three veteran writers and prayed for invisibility, Conan glanced over, sized us up, and mock sneered, “Look at you four, standing there. You’re like a Mount Rushmore of incompetence.” Then he chuckled and returned to his cartooning. It was a quality put-down, and I was honestly overjoyed to be included in it.
Pay attention, here’s how you write a statement.
1. Address it to “People of Earth”.
2. Write it like a person wrote it, not like a robot wrote it.
3. Oh, just go read it.
I think companies should hire comedy writers to write their press releases. Why not, right? They already produce our most trusted news sources.
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