Conan O’Brien Exit Interview Sees Homer Simpson Ruin His Last Hurrah Before Leaving TBS

Conan O’Brien’s third talk show, Conan, will come to an end tonight, and ahead of the final episode, he was joined by an old friend to conduct his TBS exit interview. That friend? Homer Simpson. Shortly after breaking into TV as a writer for Saturday Night Live, O’Brien left NBC for Fox, where he would write on The Simpsons. His time there wasn’t especially long, because he would be called on to host his first late night show in 1993, but O’Brien is credited with writing some of the show’s best episodes, including the best-episode-ever contender “Marge vs. the Monorail.”

That episode gets a little tip of the hat in the clip, as Homer suggests it was a pretty preposterous idea for him to have that job. Conan responds that he thought it was a pretty good idea, actually, but neither come right out and acknowledge Conan’s connection to the episode.

You can see the clip below.

Earlier today, longtime The Simpsons writer and producer Josh Weinstein shared an anecdote about the day he learned O’Brien was leaving the show to take over Late Night after the departure of David Letterman.

“Anyone who worked with Conan knew he’d get his own show someday,” Weinstein tweeted. “We were at a Simpsons table read when Conan left to take a call. After the read, Bill Oakley and I went to his office. Conan was resting on his sofa. ‘I got the job,’ he said.”

Oakley chimed in in the comments to suggest that O’Brien had actually been lying on the floor in his office, not the couch, which Weinstein admitted was a better version of the story.

Conan launched on November 8, 2010, and stars O’Brien alongside his longtime sidekick, Andy Richter. After the end of this show, O’Brien will move to a weekly variety show on HBO Max.

This is the first time in O’Brien’s 30-year talk show career that he begins a new chapter that isn’t surrounded by controversy. When he took over Late Night With Conan O’Brien from the departing David Letterman in 1993, Letterman was moving from NBC to CBS after a lengthy battle with NBC, who passed him over to give The Tonight Show to Jay Leno after the retirement of Johnny Carson. With Leno’s retirement, O’Brien got The Tonight Show, but Leno wasn’t ready to retire, and instead moved to a 10 p.m. show, which bombed, creating low lead-in ratings for O’Brien. When the series was cancelled, NBC gave Leno The Tonight Show back, citing disappointing ratings from O’Brien and a desire to keep Leno in their stable. O’Brien stepped away from the show, from NBC, and ultimately took on the Conan show at TBS.