Early last month, when I wrote about the death of Canadian talk show host Mike Bullard, it reminded me of a turning point for one of the biggest late night stars in America: Conan O’Brien.
Now 61, O’Brien was 40 early in 2004 and after a decade at 12:35 a.m. secure enough in his job to take his NBC series Late Night with Conan O’Brien on the road.
With some financial encouragement from the Canadian and Ontario governments — to the tune of one million taxpayer dollars — O’Brien moved his writers, producers, the Max Weinberg 7 and other crew members across the border and into Toronto’s historic Elgin Theatre for four unforgettable shows.
I was the television columnist for The Toronto Sun at the time and worked day and night on that coverage. Conan was on our front page after all four February shows as well as the cover of the weekend “Showcase” magazine and our weekly television guide. I did everything but fly a plane with a giant “Conan” banner across the GTA.
The event led to O’Brien inking a new contract with NBC that gave him what he always wanted — the big chair following Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show. That he had to wait five years for that job — hey, that wasn’t Toronto’s fault. We did our part.
O’Brien packed his Toronto shows with big name Canadian guest stars, both comedians and musicians. The shows were a sensation. You can read all the details in my first assignment for LateNighter, the on-line place to stay up to date on everything Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Saturday Night Live and much more. They’ve posted some great insight into the late Bill Zehme’s new book Carson The Magnificent as well.
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As for O’Brien, his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend is as wonderful as ever, a must listen and has been downloaded over 250 million times. His new HBO/Max travel series Conan O’Brien Must Go also rocks. Arguably, he’s had the most impressive post-late night career of them all.
