Inside Conan’s Laugh Factory

It is three hours before show time on Conan O’Brien’s talk program, and the host is meeting with three young producers in an office decorated with a giant plastic pickle (a gift from the writers on the David Letterman show), a voodoo skull sunk into a basketball net and a huge painting of Abraham Lincoln on his deathbed.

“I identify with Lincoln,” explains O’Brien, who is red-haired, Harvard-educated and Catholic. “We’re both 6 feet 4 inches, we’re both manic-depressive, and we’re both in charge of a lot of other people’s lives.” He pauses, noticing one of the doctors in the painting holding a piece of paper behind his back. “You see that guy there? He’s waiting for a good moment to present the bill.”

The producers are waiting for a good moment to present their notes about one of tonight’s guests: Dr. Joyce Brothers. The guests this season on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” have included Sylvester Stallone, Elton John, Sigourney Weaver and other major stars, a reflection of the show’s hard-won hip status and success in the ratings. But this week in mid-December, along with Courteney Cox and Helen Hunt on the roster, Dr. Joyce has been booked as a last-minute addition to fill an unexpected vacancy.

“Dr. Joyce wants to talk about penis size--there’s a new scientific study on the subject,” producer Dan Ferguson tells O’Brien.

“Oh, man,” says O’Brien, who is a little shy on the subject of sex and would have preferred a hipper guest. “I guess Dr. Joyce Brothers and Charo are the flight-certification test for getting your license as a talk show host,” he jokes.

More than four years after a rocky debut and near-death experiences at the hands of NBC executives who wanted to cancel the show, “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” is flying high. The 34-year-old O’Brien--a former writer for “The Simpsons” and “Saturday Night Live” who had no on-air experience when NBC hired him in 1993 to replace David Letterman in the 12:35 a.m. time slot--is becoming the Letterman of the next generation. College kids flock to O’Brien’s World Wide Web site and to his show, which is now attracting nearly as many 18- to 49-year-olds as Letterman did in his last season on NBC, amid greater competition. (Overall this season, O’Brien’s show is averaging 2.6 million viewers per night, an increase of 6% from the previous year. CBS’ “Late Late Show With Tom Snyder” is averaging 1.6 million.)

And TV critics who once said O’Brien and his writers were too green to succeed are praising their comedy as innovative and funny. Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales, who dismissed the O’Brien broadcast as “lifeless and messy” the first season, now calls it his favorite late-night TV show.

O’Brien suffered silently through 3 1/2 years of 13-week renewals by NBC until the network finally signed him to his first multiyear contract (five years for an estimated 2 million annually) last spring.

“That first season, I felt like a premature baby in an incubator,” O’Brien says now. “NBC executives kept telling the press we were ‘showing growth’--like our birth weight was up 14% and you could see nails growing on the toes. . . . I don’t think the show is that different today from when we started. We were doing a lot of the same comedy bits we get credit for now--it just took awhile for things to coalesce.”

During four days backstage with “Late Night” at NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters, it becomes clear that building a comedy franchise can be slow, hard slogging. We’re not talking manual labor here, folks--more like late nights over stale takeout, and the staff has a good time getting there. But it’s five days a week of trying to be funny. And, to paraphrase that great comedy writer T.S. Eliot, between the idea and the reality falls the rewrite.

11:15 a.m. Tuesday: Taping doesn’t begin until 5:30 p.m., but Jeff Ross, the producer in charge of “Late Night,” is holding a daily meeting with the staff to go over that night’s program and the rest of the week.

Courteney Cox, a star of NBC’s “Friends,” will be making her first appearance on the program. (“She wants to talk about ‘Scream 2,’ ” says booker Paula Davis.) Helen Hunt, who has been on the show before, wants to talk about her new movie, “As Good as It Gets.” Donald Trump wants to plug his new book, but the staff has in mind sending him on a shopping spree.

It has been easier to book celebrities on “Late Night” since the show began catching on with viewers and critics, but the 12:35 a.m. time slot remains a disadvantage compared to the larger audiences available at 11:35 p.m. for Letterman’s “Late Show” on CBS and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” on NBC. Gina Battista and Davis, the two celebrity bookers, use charm, “Late Night’s” demographics and a large network of contacts to woo guests, particularly stars who haven’t been on before. (Stallone, for example, was booked through Harvey Weinstein, the co-president of Miramax Films, distributor of Stallone’s recent film “Cop Land.”)

“Many performers already like Conan and the humor on the show,” Battista says, “and we try to make sure that people are treated well when they come on.” This week even the two bakers from Kansas City, Mo., who make desserts for dogs are treated to their own dressing room--and a temporary star on the door.

“Late Night” has become a regular haunt for thirtysomething comedians like Janeane Garofalo, and the show (which has former Bruce Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg as its bandleader and music director) has given Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls, Jewel and other musicians their first national TV exposure.

Not everyone is loyal, of course. “We had Jenny McCarthy on when she was just starting out on MTV,” Davis says, “and we’ve spent the last three years trying to get her back.”

The best guests, the producers agree, are people who are intelligent and “come to play.” TV journalists such as Tom Brokaw and Cokie Roberts are good because they can step out of their anchor persona. Brokaw allowed himself (though special effects) to be pulled from his anchor desk by a Godzilla-sized creature reaching around the NBC skyscraper; Roberts revealed that after Sam Donaldson called her “the Coke-ster,” she started calling him the “Ham-ster.” O’Brien also has brought on Frank McCourt, James Ellroy and other authors whose books he enjoys.

Ross would love to have Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the show. Would she appeal to college audiences? “Who knows?” he responds. “She’s the first woman secretary of State--it would be great to have her on.”

2:30 p.m. Tuesday: In NBC’s Studio 6A, O’Brien and his on-air sidekick, Andy Richter, are holding flashlights to their faces like oracles in a low-budget movie, rehearsing “The Year 2000,” one of the signature sketches on “Late Night.”

The predictions for the future range from witty to gross to simply silly. In the year 2000, one joke goes, Burger King will save time by feeding fast food directly into people’s stomachs. Another: “In the year 2000, God at last reveals himself to humans, who are shocked and appalled by his really bad comb-over.”

But the host thinks the bit can be improved. “Let’s make the Spice Girls ‘middle-aged,’ ‘out-of-work’ and some third phrase,” O’Brien says. “We need a good joke about the Iowa septuplets; let’s see if we can come up with one.”

“For a late-night talk show to work, it has to reflect the host’s sensibilities,” observes producer Ross, who was executive producer for CBS’ “Kids in the Hall” and other shows before being hired at the outset to produce O’Brien’s series. “Conan had a real vision for the kind of comedy he wanted to do, and the comedy kept us going while he learned how to be a host.”

The slightly askew vision of the world on “Late Night” is visual and verbal, a little like “Monty Python.” There are gerontologically incorrect sketches with a 70-something character actor called Oldie and topical satire in “Clutch Cargo,” a recurring sketch that puts real actors’ moving lips inside still photographs of newsmakers’ heads.

When O’Brien was cast by “Saturday Night Live” creator and “Late Night” executive producer Lorne Michaels and NBC to fill the vacancy left when Letterman moved to CBS, O’Brien brought in his former “Saturday Night Live” writing partner Robert Smigel and other writers whose work he admired. (Smigel has since returned to “SNL,” but he still comes back to do the voices of President Clinton and other characters on “Clutch Cargo,” which gets its name from a cheesy cartoon that used limited animation.)

“David Letterman changed late-night TV with his comedy,” O’Brien says admiringly. “We wanted to do a show that would keep Letterman’s spirit of experimentation without copying what he had done.”

Where Letterman has made a career of ironic detachment, O’Brien’s sense of humor is “more visual and silly,” says head writer Jonathan Groff.

In keeping with that sensibility, O’Brien has hired few writers from the intellectualized school of humor at the Harvard Lampoon, where he was editor for two years. Groff, who took over as head writer 2 1/2 years ago, has been a stand-up comedian and writer himself; others on the show come from a similar background.

Late-night comedy writing is a predominately male occupation, perhaps because the hosts are men, and the humor is often about male adolescent anxieties. Of 12 writers on “Late Night,” only two are women. “Very few women apply for these jobs,” Ross says.

Yet the atmosphere on “Late Night” is egalitarian, with a female director, Liz Plonka, a female producer and the two celebrity bookers playing important roles. “Conan is a good guy, and we all work very well together,” Plonka says.

Still, writer Ellie Barancik jokes, “After a week with all the writers here, I like to spend my weekends with girlfriends for balance.”

3 p.m. Wednesday: The writers are working on a “Clutch Cargo” sketch for tonight about Latrell Sprewell, the pro basketball player who was suspended for choking his coach. They’re writing rhymes for Sprewell’s attorney, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., in the style of Cochran’s defense of O.J. Simpson: “If the coach yells at you to hustle / Then attack his breathing muscle.”

When they bring on a photo of Marv Albert as a character witness for Sprewell, writer Brian Reich suggests: How about having Albert praise Sprewell for introducing America “to the joys of erotic asphyxiation”? (The joke is a reference to allegations about kinky sex that were aired in an assault lawsuit against the former NBC sportscaster.)

The bit will make it past NBC’s broadcast standards people, although, choosing an odd moment for prudery, they change the word “orgasm” to “lovemaking.”

O’Brien goes through every line of material during rehearsals, selecting what he thinks are the best items and suggesting changes--in the lines, the delivery or the production--that might make the jokes funnier. The writers say they don’t object. “Conan has great instincts,” Groff says.

When the writers are working late at night, O’Brien often drops by to talk or to play his guitar.

“I don’t actually contribute anything,” O’Brien says jokingly one night at 9:30 as he sits in Groff’s office. “I just like to perform for these guys and steep in their juices.”

Richter, 31, is the relaxed yin to O’Brien’s energetic yang. An actor and writer who starred in the stage production of “The Real Live Brady Bunch” and worked with Chicago’s Annoyance Theater before “Late Night,” he contributes to the writing on the show and does “remotes” as a comedy correspondent.

But when he takes his seat on the couch, the laconic Richter is the anti-Ed McMahon. He throws out low-key ad-libs, but he never gets too excited and sometimes even acts bored.

“We wanted to have a sidekick who’s the opposite of the traditional role,” Richter says, “not the guy who gets kicked around by Joey Bishop and then says smilingly, ‘And now a word from Alpo!’ ”

Observing the way O’Brien hangs out with the writers, Richter perceives a dichotomy in his character:

“I think Conan still wants to be one of the guys. But it’s obvious that he’s had some tremendous drive to be a star.”

A middle kid among six children, O’Brien grew up in Brookline, Mass. His father is an infectious-disease specialist; his mother is an attorney.

“My parents and family were great,” he says, “but somehow I was depressed as a kid. I hated school.”

A stage-struck child whose principal knowledge of show business came from watching Jimmy Cagney movies on television, O’Brien convinced his parents to let him take tap-dancing lessons in Boston with an old master.

“There I was, this red-haired kid,” he recalls, smiling, “in a class full of grown-up, black artists.”

O’Brien later convinced himself that he should pursue a “serious” career, as a fiction writer. But when he got to Harvard and tried out for the Lampoon, comedy won out. After a three-year stint on “Saturday Night Live” and a couple of seasons as a writer-producer on “The Simpsons,” a Harvard enclave, O’Brien was approached by Michaels, his former “SNL” boss, to produce the new NBC “Late Night” show. O’Brien declined, but Michaels, knowing of his interest in performing, later asked him to audition as host.

“I thought it was a good idea to bring in somebody younger who could give a new audience ‘their’ late-night talk show host,” the veteran “Saturday Night Live” producer said. “Whoever replaced Letterman was going to take a beating. I thought Conan had the talent--and the character--to take the heat.”

“Those first seasons were very difficult,” producer Ross recalls. “We didn’t have a lot of friends in Burbank--we’d get notes [critiques] from people who hadn’t seen the show. Then we’d read in the press that NBC was going to bring in Greg Kinnear or somebody else to host the show.”

“Conan was awkward, affiliates were threatening to bolt, and some of my colleagues wanted to go in a different direction,” NBC late-night chief Rick Ludwin says. “I thought there was enough there that we ought to keep Conan’s show on.”

“At one point during the first season, Don Ohlmeyer told me, ‘If you can get your ratings up one-tenth of a point during sweeps, I’ll stick with you. If not, I’ll have to move on,’ ” O’Brien recalls, referring to NBC’s West Coast president. “We managed to get a bump in the ratings, thankfully--or else there would be [only] a couple of lonely comedy experts around to talk about the one season of the Conan O’Brien show.”

Continued improvements in the ratings--and O’Brien’s increasing confidence on-air--kept the show being renewed, albeit 13 weeks at a time.

6 p.m. Wednesday: The taping of the show is going well. The “Clutch Cargo” sketch has been a big hit with the audience, and tycoon Trump is going over too.

O’Brien, who has been making jokes about Trump’s wealth, asks him how much money he has in his pocket. Trump reaches into his coat and flashes what appears to be a condom in a square packet.

“What do you have there?” O’Brien asks.

“Safe sex, everybody!” Trump tells the audience.

“The best moments on the show are spontaneous,” O’Brien says later. “I swear, I had no idea Trump was going to do that. I mean, the man has young kids.”

Talking about Trump provides a segue for asking about O’Brien’s personal life. O’Brien lives with former “Late Night” booker Lynn Kaplan, who recently left the show to pursue her own career as a documentary filmmaker.

“We’ve been together for four years, and we have a good relationship,” O’Brien says. “I’d like to get married and have kids, although that’s a little daunting because I take this job so seriously. I mean, you look at the roster, and you think, ‘Where are the happily married men with kids who are doing these shows?’ Jack Paar’s the only one I can think of who’s done it all.”

7:30 p.m. Thursday: Panic time. Davis and Battista are still working to fill the holes in Friday’s lineup.

“We’re in a ‘pincheotomy,’ ” Davis gently tells Ross. “We have no guests!” Ross replies, only half-jokingly.

“This happens about once a month,” Davis confides. “We had a bunch of offers [invitations] out, and a bunch of them fell through.”

It’s time to call “friends of the show”--talk show pros who have been on before and might be willing to come over again on short notice. Battista also calls the other networks to see who’s in town. Danny Aiello, who is shooting his CBS series “Dellaventura” in New York, agrees to appear Friday. Dr. Joyce also answers the last-minute call.

The producers are relieved.

“There have been nights when I’ve called up Tony Randall at 11:30 and said, ‘Sorry to wake you and the baby,’ ” Battista says of Randall, a new father at age 77.

5:15 p.m. Friday: It’s 15 minutes to show time. Stretching his back like a runner before a long race, O’Brien waits in a darkened hallway outside his dressing room. “And now--here’s Co-nan O-Bri-en!” the announcer shouts, elongating each syllable.

O’Brien--who began working out in a gym several years ago--is no longer the skinny kid who got the Letterman gig. He takes command of the audience, picking someone out to dance with him as he does a hip-swinging version of Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love.”

“People are so jaded about coming to the taping of a TV show,” O’Brien says afterward. “I like to give them something that the audience at home won’t ever see.”

As the taping progresses, Dr. Joyce makes a mistaken effort to be hip, referring to the physical endowments of Tommy Lee Jones, not Tommy Lee, whose sexual video with wife Pamela Lee is a frequent topic of humor on the O’Brien show. But Brothers and O’Brien work well together, her clinical “openness” playing nicely against his persona as a slightly uptight guy. When she starts talking about some men’s interest in big breasts, he tells her, “It’s a safety thing--a cushion.”

7 p.m. Friday: Backstage, O’Brien, Ross and other senior staffers conduct their nightly post-mortem on the show. “I thought it was pretty good,” O’Brien offers.

“The fact that we do an hour every night is the worst part and the best part of doing this,” he adds. “If the show was bad today, you get to do another one tomorrow. If it was good today--you still have to do another one tomorrow.”