Lisa Kudrow Thought Ex Conan O'Brien Would Get 'Late Night' Gig Cuz He Was 'No One'

By Emily Richardson | TV | December 21, 2023 |

By Emily Richardson | TV | December 21, 2023 |

Yesterday, Vanity Fair came out with an oral history of Conan O’Brien’s “wild first year” hosting Late Night. It’s a good read. Interviewees include Conan, David Letterman, head writer Robert Smigel, Lorne Michaels, Andy Richter, bandleader Max Weinberg, writer Bob Odenkirk, and frequent guests Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo, and Lisa Kudrow.

Lisa and Conan, both 60, first met at an improv class in 1986. They became very close friends, and even dated for awhile. In 1993, NBC was looking for a replacement for Letterman on Late Night. Executive producer Lorne Michaels hired Conan as the head writer, and the two of them went on a host search together. Lisa remembers Conan talking about his wishlist for a host:

Conan was spending time looking for who the host would be. He knew he wanted to do a show that was not just celebrity interviews, but [hosted by] someone who knew enough and who read enough to ask intelligent questions of scientists or authors or other people too. And I said, “So it sounds like you want you.” And he said, “That would never happen.”

Conan was at the point in his career where he wanted to make the move from writing to performing. So, he quit as head writer. The search continued without him. Then, in April 1993, Lorne told NBC that he thought Conan might make a good host. Executives agreed to test him.

So, on short notice, Conan auditioned with Mimi Rogers and Jason Alexander as fake guests. Lisa was in the audience. Apparently, Conan won the crowd over when he told Mimi, “People always say that it’s tough to be a model. Turning a big crank is tough!” NBC was impressed and Conan was confident.

Then, the late, great Garry Shandling entered the chat. Conan recalls:

Lorne Michaels called me and said, “You’re not going to get it. It’s going to go to Garry Shandling. Shandling’s going to do 12:30.”

I hung up and I remember saying to Lisa Kudrow what I just heard, and I said, “Yeah, I don’t see it. Garry’s a peer of Dave’s.” And at the time, he was doing The Larry Sanders Show. He’s getting all this critical praise for making this amazing show that satirizes the form. I don’t see him going in and doing Monday through Friday.

Lisa Kudrow also had hope because Conan was “no one”:

I don’t know how much we talked about it. I just knew, “You’re trying to replace David Letterman. No one replaces David Letterman. You’re no one.” [Laughs.] It can’t be anybody that an audience would know.

Turns out, she was dead-on. NBC hired Conan. The first year was rough. Critics didn’t get Conan’s absurd sense of humor. Andy Richter says:

Critics could say, “Late Night With Conan O’Brien is a boring, juvenile shit show. And that fat slob Andy Richter is a no-talent jerk,” and it would still be like, “Hey, I’m in the paper!” [Laughs.] I never knew there were so many ways to call someone fat. It was “portly,” “cherubic.” You go through the thesaurus for “fat,” and I will have been called it.

Conan adds that they were “very naive”:

I just had to go through the spanking machine. I had to develop from a fetal pig to a full-size pig in front of America. And that just had to happen. There was no way around it.

But Conan kept trying. Bob Odenkirk says Conan kept “coming in with the greatest spirit you could ever ask for.” Lisa adds:

He just kept showing up as him. He just kept being himself, with his own kind of humor and comedy, where if you just keep doing it, then people get it: “Oh, that’s you. This isn’t an awkward thing. It’s you.

The show was almost cancelled, but, during the summer of 1994, NBC realized a “loyal following” (mostly college kids) had emerged. Conan recalls one experience with an NBC executive:

NBC sent a guy to ride herd on us, and he was really rough on us. He’s telling us, “This is all wrong. Don Ohlmeyer sent me here to kick your ass.”

And then after he was done reading us the riot act, he went to visit his son at Boston College. He was hanging out in the dorm room and he said, “So what do you kids like to watch?” And all of them said, “Oh, we watch Late Night With Conan O’Brien. We really like that show!” And he had just told us pretty much that we were shit. [Laughs.]

The tide turned, execs and critics warmed to Conan, and they all lived happily ever after… err, until NBC totally screwed Conan when he took over The Tonight Show in 2009. Damn you, Leno!

Lisa Kudrow made lots of appearances on Late Night and Conan on TBS. Here’s one from 1999, where she talks about attending Conan’s 1993 audition:

And their final interview together on Conan:

And, for an extra-special Christmas treat, here’s Conan’s very first Late Night episode, with guests John Goodman, Drew Barrymore, and Tony Randall: