50 Things You Didn’t Know About Conan O’Brien, Late Night’s Greatest Weirdo
TAGS: Conan O’Brien, Liza Powel, Andy Richter, Lorne Michaels, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Robert Smigel, Lisa Kudrow, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Homer Simpson, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Mike Huckabee, Jeff Zucker, Jeff Garlin, Bob Odenkirk, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Adam West, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, ZZ Top, Beck, Ben Harper, White Stripes, Denis Leary, Sona Movsesian, Matt Gourley, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Steven Yeun, Tarja Halonen, Ira Kaplan,
Conan O’Brien has been making people laugh for over four decades, from Harvard dorm rooms to The Tonight Show to the Oscars stage. He wrote for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons before most people knew his name. He survived cancellation threats, network warfare, and a concussion caused by Teri Hatcher. He married a ghost in a same-sex ceremony on his own show. He is, by any measure, one of the most singular figures in the history of American entertainment. Here are 50 things you probably didn’t know about the man himself.
- He was born on April 18, 1963, in Brookline, Massachusetts.
- His father was a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School specializing in epidemiology.
- His mother was an attorney and partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray.
- He is a third cousin of comedian Denis Leary.
- He served as managing editor of his high school newspaper, then called The Sagamore.
- He was a congressional intern for Congressmen Robert Drinan and Barney Frank.
- In his senior year of high school, he won the National Council of Teachers of English writing contest with a short story called “To Bury the Living.”
- He graduated as valedictorian in 1981.
- At Harvard, he majored in history and literature and graduated magna cum laude.
- His senior thesis was titled Literary Progeria in the Works of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.
- He briefly played drums in a college band called the Bad Clams.
- He served as president of The Harvard Lampoon during his sophomore and junior years.
- His future NBC boss Jeff Zucker was president of The Harvard Crimson at the same time.
- His first TV writing job was on HBO’s Not Necessarily the News.
- He took improvisation classes with The Groundlings.
- He co-wrote the SNL sketch “The Girl Watchers,” first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz.
- During the 1987-88 writers’ strike, he put on an improv comedy revue in Chicago with Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel called Happy Happy Good Show.
- While living in Chicago during that period, he briefly shared an apartment with Jeff Garlin near Wrigley Field.
- He and his SNL writing staff won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 1989.
- His most notable SNL appearance was as a doorman in the sketch inducting Tom Hanks into the Five-Timers Club.
- He co-wrote the TV pilot Lookwell starring Adam West, which aired on NBC in 1991 but never went to series. It became a cult hit.
- Lisa Kudrow helped him find an apartment in Beverly Hills when he joined The Simpsons. They also briefly dated.
- Kudrow believed he should perform rather than write. He disagreed.
- On his first day at The Simpsons, a bird flew through his office window, hit the far wall, and fell dead on the floor.
- He wrote some of The Simpsons’ most acclaimed episodes, including “Marge vs. the Monorail” and “Homer Goes to College.”
- His arrival at The Simpsons coincided with the show taking a rapid shift toward the surreal.
- He was picked as host of Late Night on April 26, 1993, while at a voice recording session for “Homer Goes to College.”
- When he got the call, a colleague found him “passed out facedown into this horrible shag carpet.”
- His Late Night premiere received deeply unfavorable reviews. One critic suggested he “resume his previous identity, Conan O’Blivion.”
- In 1994, NBC threatened to put him on a week-to-week contract and considered replacing him with Greg Kinnear.
- Interns filled empty seats in the audience during those early struggling years.
- A turning point came when David Letterman appeared on the show in February 1994 and validated O’Brien on air.
- He holds the record as the longest-serving host in the history of the Late Night franchise, hosting for 16 years.
- In 2006, he ran mock political ads in Finland exploiting his perceived resemblance to Finnish president Tarja Halonen. Halonen won re-election.
- He traveled to Finland for five days following the election and was, in his own words, “embraced like a national treasure.”
- On September 25, 2009, he suffered a mild concussion after slipping and hitting his head while running a comedy sketch with guest Teri Hatcher.
- Tom Hanks coined his nickname “Coco” during the second episode of his Tonight Show run. O’Brien responded: “If that catches on, I’ll sue you.”
- His Tonight Show exit deal with NBC was worth $45 million, of which $12 million was designated for his staff.
- On his final Tonight Show, Neil Young sang “Long May You Run,” and Will Ferrell performed “Free Bird” with Ben Harper, Beck, and ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons.
- His post-NBC comedy tour was called The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour. It ran 32 cities.
- A documentary about that tour, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, premiered at SXSW in March 2011 to positive reviews.
- He refused to do to George Lopez at TBS what NBC had done to him, only agreeing to join TBS after Lopez personally called to persuade him.
- His Conan Without Borders international travel series eventually took him to 13 countries and won an Emmy in 2018.
- In February 2015, he became the first American television personality to film in Cuba for more than half a century.
- His podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend launched in November 2018 with Will Ferrell as the first guest. By August 2021, it had been downloaded over 250 million times.
- In May 2022, his production company Team Coco was sold to SiriusXM for $150 million.
- On October 21, 2011, he was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church Monastery and performed a same-sex wedding on the stage of the Beacon Theatre, the first such ceremony broadcast on American late night television.
- He hosted the 97th Academy Awards in March 2025 to wide acclaim, with the ceremony achieving its best U.S. television ratings in five years. He was immediately invited back to host the 98th.
- He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2025 and received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor the same year.
- He is set to voice a character called Smarty Pants in Toy Story 5.