Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 13, 1993 TAG: 9310150348
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Ask Chevy. After one week on the Fox network, his ``Chevy Chase Show'' has all the vital signs of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
But what about that famous nobody Conan O'Brien, who takes over NBC's ``Late Night'' starting at 12:35 a.m. tonight? The 30-year-old former writer for ``The Simpsons,'' perhaps the best-written series on television, wants to rewrite the rules of TV hostmanship.
``I'm in an unusual situation,'' O'Brien told a dress-rehearsal audience during a monologue last week. ``A lot of comics start out in clubs and they work for years and years, struggling, and finally get to do TV.
``Not me,'' he went on, getting a polite laugh. ``My plan is to start on TV, then claw my way down into the clubs. Ten years from now, I'll be in high school.''
Trouble is, as a freshman late-night host, he may already be flunking.
As late as Friday, official details on ``Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' remained scarce. All NBC would swear to was the identity of the musical director (Max Weinberg, longtime drummer in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band) and the first slate of guests (tonight: John Goodman, Drew Barrymore and Tony Randall).
But now that opening night is here, what else should viewers know?
1. Conan is a nice guy.
2. His band is great.
3. He shows few signs of being cut out to host a talk show, and the show he's hosting simply doesn't cut it.
This is the regrettably unanimous reaction from a number of audience members, including several AP staffers, questioned after attending ``Late Night'' dress rehearsals the last few weeks. (Reporters have been barred from these previews.)
``I feel bad for him,'' said one pained witness after O'Brien's final run- through Thursday. And after Wednesday's test show, an audience member said what he'd like to say directly to Conan: ``I want to like you, I'm pulling for you, I'll laugh if you'll be funny. But you're not.''
O'Brien had virtually no performing experience when he was signed last April to fill the NBC slot that CBS convert David Letterman had carved out 11 years earlier. This instant celebrity then was introduced to scores of reporters, photographers and video crews at a news conference at Manhattan's legendary Rainbow Room.
NBC had staged quite a spectacle. Yet the gangly, carrot-topped Conan, his sense of wonder in overdrive, somehow was able to cut through the foofaraw. He was heroically poised, instantly likable ... and not very funny.
After that unveiling, his handlers mostly kept him out of sight. But in TV commercials for his new show and in a few interviews aired by other NBC shows, O'Brien still cheerily exudes his who-the-heck-do-I-think-I-am? humility.
Judging from his rehearsal shows, this will be part of his ``Late Night'' persona, too.
For instance, in a pre-taped piece you might see tonight, an apparently carefree Conan sets off to work on his first day. Along the way, he faces reminders of the pressures and pitfalls awaiting him.
Retreating to his dressing room, he pulls out a rope and throws it over a beam. His head is in a hangman's noose when he hears a rap at the door. ``You're on, Mr. O'Brien.'' Off comes the noose. On with the show. Tragedy averted.
But is it really? Or is this host's suicide about to happen on-camera?
Interviewing such stars as Lorraine Bracco, Peter Boyle and Mercedes Ruehl, Conan was described by audience members as ``stiff,'' ``strained'' and ``lacking rapport with his guests.''
The monologue? ``He looked uncomfortable.'' ``Like a college kid stuck in front of a camera.''
And what of the sketches, which last spring O'Brien envisioned as ``playful'' and ``light''? As ``The Laughing Genie,'' Conan, costumed in a turban and vest, simply laughed demonically for 60 long seconds.
Who else is laughing at ``Late Night'' is the question.
``Did you like the show?'' inquired an NBC page taking down an elevator full of audience members after a recent taping.
``Very shaky,'' said one member, and the page sighed.
``Is that what you've been hearing all week?''
The page nodded. Then she added bravely, ``I guess the early Letterman shows weren't that hot either.''
But they were. And Letterman, even then a seasoned performer, never made it look hard.
Or hard to look at.
by CNB