Conan O'Brien Was 'Too Hyperactive' To Survive The Simpsons Any Longer
Conan O'Brien didn't go to school for comedy, but he was always a writer. In high school, he wrote for his school newspaper, the Sagamore. He would go on to major in history and literature at Harvard and wrote his college thesis on the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. He also contributed to the notorious Harvard Lampoon. He always had a sense of humor, but was more of a book nerd and lit-facing intellectual than a standup comedy enthusiast. It was at some point in college that O'Brien was bitten by the showbiz bug, and he moved to Los Angeles in his early 20s to pursue a career in writing. He got gigs with "Not Necessarily the News," and would be hired by "Saturday Night Live" in 1988.
Shortly after O'Brien left "SNL," citing burnout, he was offered a job writing for the hit animated sitcom "The Simpsons." Already a known presence in the comedy world, "The Simpsons" really put O'Brien on the map. The comedian would serve as a producer for 48 episodes and have four as a credited writer. One of the show's most celebrated episodes, "Marge vs. the Monorail," was penned by O'Brien.
But working at "The Simpsons" wasn't a breeze. In 2014, O'Brien talked to Buzzfeed about his days in the "Simpsons" writers' room, and how sweaty, cramped, and intense it was. He describes brain-melting 12-hour shifts wherein teams of people try to be funny on demand. When the writers ran low on ideas, they would point to O'Brien and expect some sort of caper or foolish behavior to get their creative juices flowing. For someone as energetic as O'Brien, this wasn't always an easy gig.
Bring me my jester
O'Brien had a glorious and prestigious run at "The Simpsons" that lasted from the show's third season through its fifth. Many consider this time to be when the series really took off in quality. Given that "The Simpsons" is still running after 150 years, there was every reason for O'Brien to stay and continue writing for the series. When asked if he wished he had stayed, however, O'Brien answered with an emphatic "God, no." The circumstances of the show's writing were fraught to begin with. O'Brien said:
"When I was on 'The Simpsons,' imagine a room like this, only really crappy. On 'The Simpsons,' it was a room about this size [of a small garage]. Really rowdy furniture, all of us sitting around staring at each other from 9 o'clock in the morning until 9 o'clock at night, trying to think of ideas, and it was hard, hard work. I'm very hyperactive, so the writers used to use me to be their court jester. They would get bored and would say "Conan!" and I would get up and do all of this stuff and dance around, so as a writer I was always very energetic, and a performer."
O'Brien served as the "court jester" for three years before being told, in a sort of code, that it was time for him to move on. O'Brien recalled a fellow writer, John Swartzwelder, saying to him that he was too talented to stay in the "Simpsons" writers' room and that he needed to headline his own TV series. O'Brien took that not as a compliment, but a gentle encouragement to finally hit the road. He did.
His own shows, he notes, are far more active than any old garage-like comedy conference.
Idiocy after idiocy
O'Brien's association with "The Simpsons" ended in 1993, and he would immediately parlay his experience into the NBC show "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," the show to air after "The Tonight Show." O'Brien brought his unique brand of a-hole-ish absurdism to "Late Night," free to be a little more ribald and a lot stranger than "The Simpsons" would ever permit. Recall that "Late Night" was the original home of the Masturbating Bear and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. O'Brien was eventually selected to replace Jay Leno as host of "The Tonight Show" in 2009 but was brusquely fired in 2010 when the network didn't like his shtick. To heal, he went on a comedy tour and then was able to re-launch a new talk show, just called "Conan" in 2010.
Conan O'Brien can't stop. And one can see why, given what the talk show circuit has allowed him. He said:
"I get to write things and edit things, but I also get to meet all of these amazing people; play the guitar with Bruce Springsteen, get in the bathtub with Ricky Gervais, get my beard shaved on the episode with Will Ferrell, it goes on and on and on. Hundreds of thousands of amazing experiences. I got to go to Finland and become a national hero in Finland, for no reason. There's just so much – my life in the last 21 years has been one big piece of performance art, idiocy after idiocy, and it's sort of beautiful."
O'Brien said he cherished his time at "The Simpsons," but also that if he had stayed, "I probably would have jumped out of the window, because I was too hyperactive. Too hyperactive to sit still."
In 2024, he launched "Conan O'Brien Must Go." Never stop never stopping.