Conan O’Brien Returns

The great Conan O’Brien hasn’t stopped by the Stern Show studio in a while, but he made his triumphant return this morning and he gave one of the best interviews you could ever hope for.

Here are the highlights from Howard’s interview with Conan:

When Conan was a young kid at the Harvard Lampoon, he really wanted to meet Bill Cosby. How do you meet a comedic legend (before the fall) when you’re just a kid at Harvard? You create a fake award and give it to him – he’ll show up in a tux!

Conan met Cosby and his entourage in his parents beat up station wagon and Bill had to move a McDonald’s wrapper over just to take a seat.

Naturally, an award is an award and Bill accepted it.

Before becoming a Late Night icon, Conan was an unknown (to the public, anyway) writer on Saturday Night Live. He wrote sketches like ‘Mr. Short Term Memory’ and a favorite of Howard’s, ‘Nude Beach’. He yearned to perform but he wasn’t jealous of the performers on his cast of Saturday Night Live – he couldn’t do what Phil Hartman or Dana Carvey did.

Conan moved onto the Simpson’s after SNL and wrote one of the classic episodes in Simpsons history. Our own George Takei, but he turned it down because he felt the episode made fun of transit and he was on the board of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. The part went to Leonard Nimoy.

Conan harbors no animosity toward NBC, owing in part to the fact those directly involved with the end of his tenure on the Tonight Show are no longer there. He’s reluctant to talk about the Tonight Show situation because he really feels his career has been a lucky and fortunate one and he doesn’t think people in show business should whine.