Where does Conan O’Brien fit into the current late-night TV landscape?
Does he even fit in?
O’Brien certainly is the longest-serving late-night host in American television, presiding over talk shows on NBC and now TBS since 1993, and The Washington Post‘s Emily Yahr checks in on Conan and Team Coco for a great profile and brings you up to speed on O’Brien’s TV history if you need that, too.
The money quotes, for my money?
O’Brien on how he feels now:
“I’m hungry like a vampire that’s feeding off anything that will make me feel like I’m still doing this for the first time. At this stage of my life and career, I’m just obsessed with really having fun and having new experiences and maybe getting to be funny in a slightly different way.”
And about all of the new competition:
“The international stuff and focusing more on the remotes has probably resulted in me feeling less pressure to be like: ‘America needs a Marco Rubio joke tonight, or a Donald Trump joke tonight, and it’s my job to supply it!’ I know it seems counterintuitive, but when I began in 1993, there were so few [hosts] that everything was a huge deal. . . . Now you feel like you’re able to focus more purely on: ‘What is it that I really want to do with this time? What’s important to me?’ ”
Read the full profile and sidebars on Conan O’Brien in The Washington Post.