BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Late-Night Icon Reveals How Conan Overcame His Lowest Moment

Andy Richter shared the secret to Conan O’Brien’s success on “Obsessed: The Podcast.”

Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show disaster ultimately helped him become the comedic juggernaut he is today, his longtime sidekick told Obsessed: The Podcast.

O’Brien hosted Late Night on NBC from 1993 to 2009, with comedian Andy Richter as his sidekick until 2000. They then helmed NBC’s The Tonight Show for seven months before the network ousted O’Brien in what became one of late-night’s biggest controversies.

But Richter doesn’t view the drama as a setback. “I think it all worked out for the best,” the comedian told Obsessed. “Even if Conan had continued to be the host of The Tonight Show, he never would have owned that show. But he owns his life now. He owns what he does. And he never would have had that.”

To better accommodate former Tonight Show host Jay Leno’s new show, NBC wanted to push O’Brien’s The Tonight Show from its traditional 11:35 pm slot to 12:05 am. O’Brien, who signed a contract with NBC in 2004 to succeed Leno in 2009, refused.

“For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news,” O’Brien wrote at the time in a statement addressed to “People of Earth.” “I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show.”

He added, “I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction.”

After his high-profile NBC departure, O’Brien found a new home for his late-night show at TBS; Conan aired on its new network from 2010 to 2021. A key term of his contract gave O’Brien ownership of the series, rather than making him a network employee. He therefore retained rights, controlled production through his production company Conaco, and profited from international syndication.

Richter said his position as O’Brien’s sidekick was even more enticing after several years away from late-night. He spent almost a decade in the acting world and “enjoyed a lot of success,” including three network sitcoms.

When O’Brien asked Richter to join The Tonight Show, Richter wanted a stable job in entertainment—and one that would let him get his comedic ideas on the air immediately.

“So much of what you do when you’re in primetime is have an idea, and then you have to wait 16 months before anything happens with it,” Richter said, adding that he had been excited to return to late-night for a few reasons.

“The immediacy of this job, the fun of this job, and the steadiness of this job were all very easy to say yes to,” he added. “And again, it was The Tonight Show. I felt like I was getting a tenured position in show business. I was supposed to be the sidekick on The Tonight Show. You get to do that until you’re in the grave if you want. But you know, it didn’t work out that way.”

Richter never doubted that O’Brien would get another job, or that he “was gonna go with him,” he said. “Because I didn’t want the story of our reunion, the ending of it, to be written by NBC. I wanted us to write it ourselves. And we did. And I got to be on the TBS show, which I’m deeply, deeply proud of.”

Elf Unwrapped, Andy Richter’s new oral history of the comedy film Elf, is available now.

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Dana Herrnstadt Editorial Intern, Obsessed

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