Conan O’Brien has been one of the most successful talk show hosts ever, from hosting Late Night with Conan O’Brien, to being one of the hosts of The Tonight Show, to putting TBS on the map with his long running show Conan. These are incredibly recognizable titles, however, at one point, the host wanted to call his first talk show endeavor Nighty Night with Conan O’Brien to separate himself from his predecessors – which was shot down by network executives.
O’Brien recently chatted with Jeff Ross and Robert Smigel on his Inside Conan podcast about the early development of his beloved talk show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Both guests were heavily involved with the early days of Late Night and reminisced about taking over the show from David Letterman, and establishing O’Brien as his own voice. The group talked about how intimidating it was taking over for Letterman, and how nervous they were about being in the legend’s shadow. At one point they considered changing the name of the show to something more whimsical and suited for O’Brien’s more silly sense of humor. Said the host,
The funniest thing was, I remember it was Robert [Smigel]’s idea, he was like ‘We should change the name of the show so it’s not Late Night.’ So we were thinking, I was like ‘yeah yeah yeah.’ So we started planning and then we came up with the name that we wanted. Which was ‘Nighty Night.” Yeah, Like ‘nighty night!’, which we thought was funny, like, cartoonish.
Conan O’Brien brought a different perspective to the late night format and had a goofier, less dry sense of humor than Letterman. The “Nighty Night” name would’ve probably been more suited to the young host’s voice, and signaled to the audience how different his show would be. After settling on a name, he presented the idea to an NBC executive that was dead set on keeping the Late Night title. The host described the hilarious meeting, saying,
We had a meeting in like this office in 30 Rock, I’ll never forget, not in our offices but a special office that Rick [Ludwin] had. We told Rick we wanted to meet with him.[…] So we went up and were like ‘You know we are worried about being compared to Letterman' and Rick was like ‘Well I have to tell you, I think you’ll be compared to Letterman much to adieu.’ And I was like, ‘Well you know I think we’re gonna change the name from Late Night.' And he was like, 'Well let me tell you something, we own that name, Late Night, it is a franchise, it is a very popular franchise, it has been very good to us, since 1983, or ‘82. For 11 years it’s been a benchmark and we own that, and I don’t think we’d get rid of it unless there was a spectacular new name.' And we went, 'Well strap yourself in. Are you sitting Rick? We want to call it Nighty Night with Conan O’Brien'
Clearly that was a lot of build up for something so silly that the NBC executive would definitely not agree to it. NBC severing itself from a fruitful franchise for something so campy would’ve been an incredible risk, especially considering they were already taking a risk with the young writer taking over for Letterman. As for the executive’s reaction, well, he certainly was not wowed by “Nighty Night.” The former Tonight Show host recalled:
He starts scratching the back of his head, and going “ah okay, ah” I could see he was tearing flesh. And he goes ‘Okay I’ll tell you about this, It is late night, its gonna be late night, It’s gonna remain late night, It’s gonna be Late Night with Conan O’Brien, it’s not going to be Nighty Night.' And then he like backed out of the room.
O’Brien definitely threw the straight-laced executive for a loop, and from that day forward, “Nighty Night” dreams were squashed. However, even with the same name, the former Saturday Night Live writer was able to make the talk show format his own, and he ended up bringing in a younger audience. He hosted the NBC show for over 16 years before Jimmy Fallon took over for him in 2009 (this led to O’Brien’s short, but memorable Tonight Show stint). The Late Night name is currently held by Seth Meyers, and remains one of the most recognizable franchises for the network, even as different hosts have cycled through – so maybe NBC was right to keep the title.
Conan O’Brien has walked away from the on-camera talk show game, but he will soon be heading back to the small screen with his series Conan O'Brien Must Go, which will be available to Max subscribers in the near future. You can also check out his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, now on Spotify and Apple Music, which is one of many of O'Brien's continued endeavors.
