‘Conan’s Writers Live’ brings out the men behind the curtain

If any staff in entertainment deserves a mental health day, it’s the writing team behind Conan O’Brien. In the space of about a year, they got the promotions of a lifetime ( “The Tonight Show”!), moved their families cross-country, settled into their custom-made studio at Universal, only to watch it fall apart seven months later. And then — boom! — that redheaded smart aleck rocketed back with a comedy tour that summoned some kind of Team Coco movement and served as an opening act for his forthcoming talk show on TBS.

Now, some of O’Brien’s writers are taking their turn in front of the cameras. On Sunday, TBS airs “Conan’s Writers Live,” a stand-up show hosted by O’Brien’s sidekick Andy Richter and featuring writers Brian Kiley, Deon Cole, Jimmy Pardo, Andres du Bouchet, Josh Comers, Matt O’Brien and Dan Cronin along with the eccentric Brooklyn comic Reggie Watts. (The show was taped in Chicago on June 17 at TBS’ “A Very Funny Festival: Just for Laughs.”)

Like O’Brien’s 32-city tour, “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television,” this show feels like a victory lap of sorts, another way to further dissolve the bitterness that followed O’Brien’s very public feud with NBC and Jay Leno over time slots, which led him to leave “The Tonight Show.” Though the O’Brien team’s $47-million severance certainly softened the blow of a job loss, his writers say they spent several weeks last winter in shock.

“There’s been such a roller coaster of emotions,” said Kiley, waiting to take the stage in Chicago. “You go through all the stages of grief.... At some point you go, ‘Let’s move on and figure out what happens next.’”

The TBS stand-up show originated as a regular showcase in Los Angeles. It was held to introduce the New York transplants to a new community. But after “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” went off the air in January, the stand-up gig became a sort of comedy support group. “People tried to keep seeing each other to keep each others’ spirits up,” said O’Brien’s talent booker J.P. Buck.

Many of O’Brien’s writers had been with him since the “Late Night” days (17 years) and couldn’t conceive of doing anything else, particularly after NBC’s mammoth investment in them. “The show had been on so long we just assumed it would keep going,” said Kiley. “We didn’t think they would build us this new studio and fly everyone out and move everyone there just to cancel us after a few months. I think we were in shock for a while there.”

Fortunately, that torpor didn’t last more than a couple of interminable months. They waited for O’Brien to find a new home for the show, killing time and staying comically limber with shows at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club in Universal City and then at the Improv in Hollywood.

By spring, everything changed. First, O’Brien announced his “half-assed comedy tour” via Twitter. And about a month later, TBS picked up O’Brien’s talk show. Soon, the writing team was meeting daily to build the road act. And in May when TBS was assembling its Just For Laughs Festival in Chicago, the network looked to Team Coco. Just like that, the writers got their own televised special.

For Cole, in particular, the last few months have been life-changing. A veteran comedian, he landed a staff job on O’Brien’s “The Tonight Show” after a five-minute stand-up set in August.

“It was very intimidating being around all these Emmy Award-winning writers and me being from south side of Chicago not knowing what do to,” said Cole. After the show ended, he, like everyone else, was trying to catch his breath. “When everybody was cut loose, it was like, ‘What are we going to do?’” he recalled. “Now we’re doing the show we do around L.A. on TV. My mind is a little blown right now.”

Amplifying the emotional tumult was the “Legally Prohibited” tour. The swell of fan love was so breathtaking it had an inebriating effect on everyone, particularly those who toured, including Cole, Watts, Richter and writer Matt O’Brien (no relation). Celebrity guests, including Pee-wee Herman and Jack White, turned up at every stop. The crowds were so adoring that, as Kiley put it, “it was like suddenly Conan’s the leader of a small South American country.”

One can only hope that energy is evident in the writers room come August, when they start work on O’Brien’s new show, which premieres Nov. 8. Ultimately, though, it’s already been a year that none of them will forget. Or, as Richter put it: “It hasn’t been very much of a hiatus.”

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