Letterman's ghost

A pickle is the way a new writer would be welcomed aboard Late Night with David Letterman. A pickle is what Letterman's then head writer and now executive producer, Rob Burnett, sent when O'Brien took over.

Letterman's ghost should haunt these halls. He did turn a traditionally losing slot -- one which had crushed Joey Bishop and Dick Cavett -- into must-see time for four million people. Letterman's brand of cynicism and his sniping interview style had never been used in the talk-show format, and they paid off. When he left NBC in 1993, pissed off and passed over, the network had a crisis on its hands. Carson and Letterman had been a dynasty. Leno and To Be Announced were a question mark, at best.

NBC had failed to lure Dana Carvey and Garry Shandling, then decided against such stand-ups as Jon Stewart and Drew Carey. It was NBC executive producer Lorne Michaels, in particular, who made the surprising selection.

Michaels had worked with O'Brien on Saturday Night Live, which he also produced, and he originally wanted him as the new Late Night producer. But O'Brien, then 29, had long wanted to step in front of the cameras.

"I remember always being unsure about what to do," O'Brien says. "I would think, `I don't want to be an actor. I like telling jokes, but not that many. I like to just be myself and present weird comedy, but I also like talking to people. What kind of job is that?' And then -- bang -- this is what it is."

Banking on O'Brien's personality, knowing that he was funny and an intensely likable guy -- more than anything, taking a chance -- Michaels closed the deal. When a reporter at his introductory press conference asked what it felt like to be a relative unknown, O'Brien shot back: "Sir, I am a complete unknown!"

Since graduating from Harvard in 1984, he had written for HBO, Saturday Night Live (where his pleas to appear on camera resulted in a cameo in the "handsome guy" skit), and The Simpsons.

O'Brien knew, as Letterman's replacement, that he'd be under the microscope from the start. (Unlike Letterman, who had almost no pressure when he took over in 1982.) When Late Night with Conan O'Brien premiered on September 13, 1993, everyone was watching.

O'Brien admits he wasn't ready. He felt awkward with guests and jittery during his monologue. A little Irish Catholic guilt poked through: "Do I deserve this? Why should this big celebrity want to talk to me?" He says the struggles were inevitable.

"If I had been the way I am now during my first week, I think people still would have taken the shots," O'Brien says. "A guy comes from complete obscurity, after Letterman, and is like, `Hey everybody, how are you? I've got a good one tonight.' It would be like, `Who is this asshole?' "

O'Brien, Richter, and writer Robert Smigel had a simple plan when they started developing the show in early 1993: do their thing and hope that NBC was patient.

Letterman invented the deconstruction of the talk show -- tossing pencils, bashing network officials, reminding viewers they were watching TV (and not particularly good TV at that). The new Late Night needed something different.

"What we try to do here is more like a sketch show, try to commit to a lot of running characters and don't take it apart and tell you it sucks," says Jonathan Groff, 33, a longtime Boston comic who is the show's head writer.

Even the first show, as awkward as O'Brien appeared at times, had its moments. For the opening, the host, left alone in his dressing room, cheerfully stepped into a noose. To wrap, O'Brien crooned "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music, driving a nun and a Nazi, who just happened to be in the studio audience, to tears.

"Dave's sensibility -- and he's been a genius about it -- is an ironic detachment," O'Brien says. "Dave doesn't put on silly wigs. He would never do a sketch where it called for him to break down crying. He's sort of saying, `This is a TV show, and, come on folks, what do you want?'

"This show is more about taking a full swing. Yesterday I came out in a chariot wearing a toga. We did a bit the other day where it's revealed that I can't read, and I'm crying my eyes out. We'll try anything."

Earlier this winter, they tried a 47-day "search" for Grady, Fred's buddy on Sanford and Son. They set up an 800 hotline, brought in Robert Stack for a full production of Unsolved Mysteries (the highlight was a re-creation of an argument between Fred and Aunt Esther outside the junkyard), and updated a sightings map that placed the sitcom actor somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

When Grady, played by Whitman Mayo, finally showed up, he was greeted by an exploding cannon, hip-hop, and a massive sign that spelled out "Grady" in fluorescent lights.

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