The former late-night host told the Inside Conan podcast that he wanted to change the name of the show.
The season finale of theInside Conanpodcast brought the man himself onto the show.
Hosts and Conan writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell interviewedConan O’Brienand producer Jeff Ross about the beginning ofLate Night.
Conan O’Brien.Margret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank
O’Brien and Ross discuss not wanting to be overshadowed byDavid Lettermanafter his high-profile departure from NBC.
“We really wanted to not be in Letterman’s shadow,” O’Brien says.
And you’d think, ‘I’m replacing Letterman, there’s no way to avoid that.’
That feeling led to theNighty Nightconcept.
“It was Robert’s idea.
He’s like, ‘We should change the name of the show so it’s notLate Night.’
I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,” O’Brien said.
“Then we came up with the name that we wanted, which wasNighty Night.Nighty Night With Conan O’Brien.
Like, ‘nighty night,’ which we thought was just really cartoony and funny and arch.
Kind ofPee-Wee’s Playhouse.”
“I thought, ‘What are you f—ing talking about?’
As a creative person, I don’t want to do Top Ten lists.”
I think I felt that way, Robert felt that way," he says.
“Letterman’s thing, which was so brilliant…
There was the talk show, which was Johnny Carson.
Then there’s the anti-talk show, which was more Letterman, which was more ironic.
This has to be what’s next.
It was almost this sort of postmodern, it’s going to be a mix ofPee-wee’s PlayhouseandSCTV.
When we do false reality, I won’t wink at the camera.”
O’Brien wound up hosting late-night talk shows for 28 years until he concludedConanin 2021.
Though, he never got a show calledNighty Night.
