Conan O'Brien on 60 Minutes in 2010

60 minutes rewind very few things in this country galvanize public opinion like someone trying to mess around with people's preferences in the bedroom i'm talking of course about what they watch on late night television and nbc found that out a few months ago when conan o'brien the newly installed host of the tonight show quit after the network announced it was going to push the tonight show into tomorrow and to give its traditional time slot back to o'brien's predecessor jay leno it triggered a lot of bad publicity for nbc an outpouring of public support for conan and some of the best late night jokes in a decade conan walked away with a 32 million dollar settlement and a new cable show and nbc did its best to push him into oblivion legally prohibiting him from saying anything false or disparaging about the network and from giving interviews or appearing on television until now if you're wondering what happened to conan o'brien and what he thinks about all of this you're about to find out so what's with the beard the first day that i woke up and was no longer the host of tonight's show i remember the first thought i had is i am not shaving and uh that was my small victory you know okay so i lost the tonight show but i'll show them i'll stop shaving this has been uh quite a year yeah that's it we're done uh this was a lot of fun um it this year has been incomp is still incomprehensible to me i i the the amount of stuff that's happened in my life in the last year is uh it's going to take me a long time to process it after leaving the tonight show in january and hanging out at his home trying to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life he decided the best therapy would be to get out of the house and back to work he assembled a lot of his old staff opened a twitter account that's the tweet and began planning a nationwide comedy tour something that he had never done before and one of the few things he was allowed to do contractually see how things play out we met up with him in seattle you must have been miserable the last couple of months i went through some stuff and i got very uh depressed at times you know it was like a marriage breaking up suddenly violently quickly and i was just trying to figure out what happened when i we started putting this tour together it got i i started to feel better almost immediately and then this there's no better antidote to what i've just been through than to do this every night [Applause] you know doing this tour though this is a huge milestone for me this is the first time anybody has ever paid to see me can you believe that yeah oh they've they've paid to make me go away on the road again the legally prohibited from being funny on television tour has boosted his confidence kept him relevant and provided an outlet for him to explore his anger disappointment and anxiety with mostly self-deprecating humor my own show again i just can't wait to have my own show again i'd even take a prime time show that's on at 10. anything to have my own after 40 performances in 32 cities in the u.s and canada the tour will wind up next month at radio city music hall in new york right next door to nbc's corporate headquarters where this whole late night fiasco was cooked up i i just want to say i couldn't be happier you were the only choice you were the perfect choice you have been an absolute gentleman in private and in the press i agree conan rox good luck next week my friend jay thank you for less than one year after jay leno handed the tonight show off to conan o'brien nbc decided to cancel leno's disastrous prime time show and move him back into his old time period at 11 35 eastern conan's tonight show which was losing badly in the ratings to david letterman was to be bumped back to 1205 the next morning was in the back of your mind that look if i don't do that well they could just pop leno back in i'm a paranoid person and i think uh i'm the kind of person that can come up with lots of negative scenarios but i remember thinking that seemed like a str that was a stretch even for me what followed were some unpleasant discussions with nbc's west coast brass it just felt like the tone went very quickly from take your time we understand this is a tough decision to um you know let's go you know and that probably helped me a little bit feel like you know what this environment doesn't feel right and i've been with these people a long time and i don't like i really don't like the way this is going and when it started to get toxic and i started to feel that i'm not sure these people even really want me here let's just let's just i can't do it do you think they wanted you to leave uh yeah that's crossed my mind um i don't know how thought out this whole thing was but if they wanted me to leave it worked this was just really really hard for him it was watching someone's heart get broken liza o'brien conan's wife was one of his main confidants and closest advisors during the debacle did you approve of everything that he did 100 yeah you thought he should have left absolutely what do you think of the way he was treated by nbc from my perspective it felt like they never really gave him the job that they said we're going to give you this job in five years and they kept him with the company and they they you know he said i won't go anywhere else and i'll keep working for you and i'm in it for the long haul and it felt like they they lost their nerve to really make a change and and that that was too bad it was a shame because it would have been great to see what he could have done if he had had their full support and had some more time you've got this non-disparagement agreement do you have a copy because i haven't read it in a while um i keep coming in somewhere i keep one in my wallet [Laughter] anytime people come up to me hey so what's the deal with uh with jay leno hold on a second uh [Music] he's a fine and good man there we go put that away can i assume that this interview would take a different tenor if that agreement did not exist no it i don't think it would the biggest thing people come up and say to me in gas stations and restaurants i have so many people say this to me hey partner you got screwed i don't and i always tell them no i didn't i didn't get screwed i'm fine it just it didn't work out well you did get screwed you think i got screwed well i think most people think you got screwed i mean jay leno thinks you got screwed jay leno thinks he got screwed how did he get screwed it's like not part to me i'm sorry jay's got the tonight show i have a beard an inflatable bat and i'm touring city to city who can say who won and who lost i'm laughing because crying would be sad the story will continue after this has jay reached out to you no no calls no i do not i do not think i'll be hearing from him we should get him in here we should see is he gonna is there gonna be a surprise walk-on no no no okay but he'd call if we if you know his number or we can i'm sure he'd come over he may have caller id he won't pick up i think lena would say look i was riding high i was number one and um i was still number one when i left and conan made this deal with nbc and nbc said okay jay we're gonna take you off the air in five years regardless of whether you're number one or number two or what did he i think he felt like he was forced out by nbc at a time when he was a strong number one and was pushed out the door that's his argument it's hard for me to get inside his head and argue his side of this whole thing um i i was here's what i can say i'm happy with my decision i sleep well at night and uh i you know um hope he's happy with his decision do you think that jay lobbied for this i don't know but um what i know is what happened which is that he uh went and took that show back do you believe he acted honorably during all of this i don't i don't think i can answer that i don't think uh um [Music] i can just tell you maybe how i would have handled it and i would do it differently you wouldn't have come back on the tonight show had if i had surrendered the tonight show and handed it over to somebody publicly and wish them well um and then uh i don't would not have come back six months later but that's me you know um everyone's got their own you know way of doing things what would you have done uh done something else go someplace else i mean that's just me he is equally disappointed with nbc the company where he worked most of his adult life and with nbc universal chief jeff zucker who he has known since they were classmates at harvard has zucker called you no um you haven't talked to zucker since this offer was made to you that's right you know at some point i'm sure i'm going to bump into these people and you know i'm not sure we're going to be have our arms around each other and drinking beer and singing old irish fight songs because i don't think they know any but but you know i i wish this is just crazy i do wish these people well zucker jeff zucker was quoted as saying at the end of the day the viewers voted and they didn't like conan as the host of the tonight show can i take back what i just said do you take issue with that in my opinion i don't think that's fair accurate but he's entitled to his opinion i think for anyone to say that the results were in after six months uh that doesn't ring true to me oh they said that the for the first time in history the tonight show was losing money uh i don't see how that's i honestly don't see how that's possible it's really not possible it isn't possible did you expect nbc to give you more of a chance absolutely i yes do you feel like it was a failure my tonight show no absolutely not conan does agree with nbc's comments that it was a business decision motivated by money and he acknowledges that leno had the more expensive contract and would have been even harder to let go some people have reported that that nbc would have had to pay him 150 million dollars yeah so if you look at it that way and you're working it let's say i don't know you're working for general electric and you tell them uh you know there's this to make that guy go away or there's this uh that's that decision is probably pretty clear and i i think in my gut i honestly believe everybody knows that's what happened they did what they had to do and okay i get it and the only thing i take exception to is subsequently people saying well you know conan was losing money and you know actually he was murdering cats what you know whatever last month conan finally pulled the trigger on his future raising some eyebrows by signing on to do an 11 o'clock show for the cable channel pbs and not with a broadcast network i do not look down my nose at cable and i think anyone who does isn't paying attention to television these days because it is this world is changing very quickly you got 30 million dollars that you didn't have before you've got a a very lucrative new gig on tbs which has a an audience that uh very young audience custom-made for you it wasn't all bad that's the point i keep making it's crucial to me that anyone seeing this take they take anything away from this it's i'm fine i'm doing great i hope people still find me uh comedically absurd and ridiculous and um i and i don't regret anything i do believe and this might be my catholic upbringing or irish magical thinking but i think things happen for a reason i really do i thought the lutherans believed that oh my god it is lutherans okay i believe that if i experience any joy in life i'll go to hell that's what i believe and uh but you get my point they threw me out it happened fast they said please don't let the door get your freckled irish ass i hung around the house eating frosting from a jar i got really into gossip girl and sleeping in my car yes [Music] i've got so many shows to give i'll survive i will survive

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 1,338,073

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, conan O'brien, the tonight show, NBC, jay leno, tbs

Id: 45VyGm3N-RQ

Length: 15min 41sec (941 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/SirStick]

Conan protected his staff. He received a settlement, but they were all out of a job. So he takes everyone on tour, and onto a new network.

[u/YesIsignedupforthis]

I always thought Conan was too funny to stick with the late night host shtick. The lame monologues, fake laughing at bad celeb stories, shilling for films you know are bad.

Excited to see his variety show, I hope he'll knock it out of the park.

[u/Jamesizdabitch]

His ability to adapt is the key to his longevity. No other old school talk show host has a podcast and moving to a streaming service is the right thing to do. I love Conan.

[u/insane__knight]

Jay Leno - "don't blame Conan"

Everyone - "Oh we don't"

[u/OrcoBalorco]

Will Jordan Schlansky follow him?

[u/Atheist_Mctoker]

Good for him. I will always support Conan. He will do great.

[u/peanieone]

MIRROR

[u/bechtold1684]

This video of Norm’s “late” gift basket for Conan never, ever fails to have me in tears.

[u/Jackieirish]

It's funny how comedians of a certain generation elevated the Tonight Show as the Holy Grail of comedy and it just . . . isn't any more.

The Tonight show started with Steve Allen who passed it off to Jack Paar (whom I personally think was the best host they ever had because of his skills as a conversationalist) and then on to Johnny Carson who had the job for 30 years or so. The comedians who grew up in this time saw Johnny's show –and that's really what it was, as the pinnacle both for appearing on as a guest and as the ultimate "career goal" should the opportunity come about. But that was largely because while Johnny was hosting, there really weren't any other options. You could host a daytime talk show (maybe) or get a sitcom or jump into movies, but none of those were constant; the Tonight Show was. There were other shows that attempted over the years to compete with Johnny's show (Chevy Chase, Joan Rivers), but none were particularly successful except Arsenio and that only lasted 5 years.

So when Johnny retired he went out on top and the guys who were "next in line;" David Letterman and Jay Leno, really saw that show as the culmination of their career. But the mishandling of the transition by NBC: selecting Jay, letting Dave go to CBS, really ended the cultural dominance of The Tonight Show. At first, Dave beat Jay in the ratings, but then Jay had Hugh Grant on after his solicitation arrest and Jay stayed on top ratings-wise for the rest of his run. The thing is, though, Dave was always competitive with Jay. He may never have had ratings as high as Jay, but he proved that a competitor was viable. And that really opened the door for Craig Ferguson, James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and others from now on. Coupled with the success of John Stewart's Daily show during the late 90s early 2000s, the marketplace finally expanded. By the time Leno decided to retire, then un-retire and then give it up for good, The Tonight Show as The Tonight Show; a venerated institution, just didn't exist anymore. Gen X, of which I am a member is the last generation to have even seen Johnny Carson do the Tonight Show (and, man, he was not funny), so anyone younger than us has no real connection to it as the late night "institution."

Now does anyone really care that Jimmy Fallon is the host? It's just another show. He'll probably last for a while. Maybe he's stick around to become as unfunny as Johnny was in his last 10-15 years. But so what? While he's doing that, there will be other shows that will come along that will innovate more, speak to younger generations more, and become a part of their culture more. There may never be another Tonight Show like there was when Johnny was host, but it's not because it went to Jay Leno and not Dave and then Conan and then back to Jay and then Fallon. And it won't be because another show has superseded it. It's because the market now just won't allow any single show to dominate like that. There's just too much competition.