Conan O'Brien

Talk Show Host / Writer

Conan O'Brien is the longtime host of the TV talk show Late Night With Conan O'Brien. He got his start in comedy as a student at Harvard, editing the prestigious satirical mag The Harvard Lampoon. Several jobs later he became a writer and producer for the hit TV comedy The Simpsons. That's where he was when Lorne Michaels plucked him from relative obscurity and made him the host of NBC's show Late Night in 1993. Lanky, red-haired and ironical, O'Brien replaced David Letterman in the time slot following the long-running hit The Tonight Show. O'Brien was a success and became known less for celebrity chat than for his screwball gags on all kinds of topics, from his alleged resemblance to red-haired Finnish president Tarja Halonen to the fictional college mascot the Horny Manatee. NBC announced in 2004 that O'Brien would become host of The Tonight Show in 2009, when the contract of longtime host Jay Leno expires.

Extra credit: O'Brien's bandleader Max Weinberg also drums for rocker Bruce Springsteen... O'Brien married ad executive Liza Powel on 12 January 2002; they have a daughter, Neve, born on 14 October 2003, and a son, Beckett, born on 9 November 2005... O'Brien is a cousin to comedian Denis Leary... Other past editors of the Harvard Lampoon include Doug Kenney and Robert Benchley.

O'Brien and Ed McMahon make brief appearances in our loop on Tonight Show Hosts.