Conan O’Brien Reveals His (Rejected) Original Title for Late Night

Conan O’Brien was a staple in late-night TV for many years. The comedian hosted Late Night with Conan O’Brien on NBC from 1993 to 2009 before briefly hosting The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien from 2009 to 2010. He also hosted Conan on TBS from 2010 to 2021. Now, he hosts a podcast called Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell also have their own podcast called Inside Conan, and O’Brien recently appeared on the show (via Deadline) and revealed his original title for Late Night was Nighty Night with Conan O’Brien.

“We thought was just really cartoony and funny,” O’Brien explained. “We had a meeting [with former NBC late-night chief Rick Ludwin] in this office in 30 Rock that Rick had, we told Rick we wanted to meet with him, we were worried about being compared to Letterman and we said that we were thinking of changing the name Late Night. Rick said that [NBC] owns that name, it is a popular franchise, and wouldn’t get rid of it unless there was a spectacular new one and we said we wanted to call it Nighty Night with Conan O’Brien.”

O’Brien explained that Ludwin was a “very proper exec” and a “wonderful guy,” but that he was “tearing flesh” at the idea, and told them the show was “going to remain Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” However, O’Brien admitted he was not under much supervision while they were putting Late Night together. 

“If someone had told me they picked a guy who was 29… and has no experience and they picked a producer [Jeff Ross], who’s done some work with Kids in the Hall and much of his work has been in music, there’s no way that they’re not all over them. But we were in New York and most of the people were in LA,” O’Brien explained.

Harrison Ford Roasts Conan O’Brien:

While promoting Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Ford paid a visit to Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. While recording the podcast, Ford saw that O’Brien had “Han Solo” in his notes, and gave the host a hard time. The duo got into a good-natured argument about Ford’s ancestry, which caused O’Brien to pull out his notes, and they caught the eye of Ford.

“I refer you to this piece of paper right here,” O’Brien said. “That says, ‘Born and raised in Chicago to an Irish/German father-‘” Ford interrupted, “Well if that’s a quality of your research, and I imagine it is because right there it says ‘Harrison Ford’ and then you had to write ‘Han Solo.’ You can’t f—ing remember that?”

“No, I can’t. I can’t remember Han Solo,” O’Brien quipped. “I wrote it down because I heard that you were in some of the Star Wars films and this was news to me because I’ve seen those films and I don’t exactly think that you ‘pop.’” He added, “I’m sorry. But I mean, I remember Chewbacca, I remember the bad guy with the black helmet and then… there’s some people.”

“How come you’re not still on television?” Ford hilariously shot back.