ike Buster Keaton, Gene Kelly, and Jackie Chan before him, Conan O’Brien shows his genius in his adaptivity, the ability to insert himself into any setting and incorporate its material into the contours of his act. He gave a tour-de-force demonstration during his recent,, appearance on Hot Ones, where he treated the show’s premise – guests eat chicken wings while answering questions – as a jumping-off point for his own anarchic brand of comedy.
O’Brien has shown a defiant commitment to pursuing his muses down their strangest avenues, then finding success anyway The details of O’Brien’s professional trajectory have ossified into comedy legend, in part for how they imply a defiant commitment to pursuing his muses down their strangest avenues, then finding success anyway. A big-break position on the writing staff of Saturday Night Live in 1988 led him to a spot in the writers’ room for The Simpsons during an unimpeachable early run that still places the show near the forefront of the Greatest Sitcom of All Time conversation.
O’Brien’s early seasons were infamously rocky, his low ratings keeping him on the razor’s edge of cancellation by the NBC suits who constantly played the antagonists in his mad little universe. Complaints from prudish NBC affiliates requesting that he. O’Brien’s flagrant disregard for mass commercial appeal put him at permanent odds with management, a distinctly Gen X conflict between fighting the Man and selling out that spoke to a deeper sense of integrity.