BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.–It’s always easy to spot Conan O’Brien at a party.
His red rooster ‘do is generally the highest point in any room. Tuesday night it hovered over TNT’s 25th Anniversary Party, held poolside at the Beverly Hilton. Stars from several TNT and TBS shows worked the party, including Angie Harmon and Lorrane Bracco from Rizoli & Isles, Noah Wyle from Falling Skies, Patrick Duffy and Linda Grey from Dallas, Eric Danes from The Last Ship, Heather Locklear, Eric McCormack, LeVar Burton and others.
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| Heather Locklear: schwing! |
Also at the party was Vancouver native Shawn Ashmore, whose wife Dana is a producer on Frank Darabont’s upcoming series Lost Angels.
O’Brien was insightful as always, talking about his summer stint hosting Carson on TCM.
He also chatted up his new late night prodigy Pete Holmes, who’s new half hour comedy series will follow Conan on TBS in September.
O’Brien seemed relaxed and happy to be out of the spotlight as the guy at the centre of the Late Night Wars. He chatted about how it doesn’t really matter what channel or what time he’s on anymore. “A lot of the fans don’t care how or when I’m on,” he says.
He’s right. Fans get Google alerts to clips from last night’s show which take you directly to highlights you can watch on your tablet of phone. That’s how many people view O’Brien, whose show is one of the most active of all shows on social media.
“The great lesson I had to learn is you have to keep on learning,” he told those of us in the scrum. “Like a lot of you, I grew up in one world. I grew up watching Carson, so I was aspirational in that way.”
Now, says O’Brien, “the mission is just to be funny and to be honest with your audience.” Read more at this feature I filed to The Canadian Press.
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| Michael Wright, President of TNT, TBS and TCM programming, with two of his stars, Angie Harmon and Eric McCormack |
