As the late night comedy shows remain on strike, former late night host Conan O’Brien joined Kara Swisher of New York Magazine on her podcast to discuss the future of the format. During their long discussion, O’Brien argued that Trump and the angry reaction to him from current comedy hosts “hurt comedy.”
Swisher began the political portion of the episode by observing, “You don’t do political humor. Is that something that’s eroded?”
O’Brien responded by arguing that political humor isn’t good for joke telling, “For me, it was always what serves the comedy and what’s funny to me. The truest, most visceral comedy to me is always going to be Warner Bros. cartoons that were made in the 1940s and ’50s. That’s the stuff I grew up on that was shown in reruns. So I liked that kind of comedy. I was never as comfortable with comedy where I needed to make a point about something because to me that—”
After Swisher interrupted to add “Trump gave the people the opportunity to do that,” O’Brien continued, “I just never wanted … It didn’t serve comedy well. I actually think Trump has been … Whatever people say, all kinds of, he’s committed all these different horrible acts. But I think one of the worst is I think he’s bad for comedy because it’s so —”
Swisher again interjected to ask why to which O’Brien responded by blaming both Trump and his critics. First, on Trump himself, O’Brien claimed ‘what you can never do is parody the National Enquirer because the National Enquirer cannot be parodied. If you go and buy a real National Enquirer, it says 'Elvis sighted in, you know, UFO; he has tentacles for arms. Ghost baby turns into vampire and attacks Michael Jackson’s ghost.’ There’s no way to parody that. You can’t parody something that already has that crazy irregular shape. It’s not possible.”
However, O’Brien, while not naming names, also blamed the current crop of late night hosts for letting their hatred for Trump cloud their comedic judgement, “So I always thought when Trump came along, what a lot of people have to revert to is: ‘Doesn’t he suck? I hate that guy. He’s an asshole.’ And those aren’t jokes. And so I think it’s just, you know, I’m really going on a limb here saying: That’s his greatest crime, that I think he’s hurt political comedy by being so outlandish himself. I think the January 6 thing is a blip compared to how much he’s hurt comedy.”
O'Brien is correct. When Jimmy Fallon messed with Trump's hair, he was viciously attacked for it. If you watch Jimmy Kimmel, you get a steady stream of the "doesn't he suck" quips while Stephen Colbert audience spends more time cathartically booing Trump and applauding his misfortunes than they do laughing and such jabs are not restricted to Trump.
When Swisher asked about Fox’s Greg Gutfeld, O’Brien pleaded ignorance, not out of any sort of reflexive anti-Fox bias, but that he simply doesn’t pay attention, comparing it to being a bus driver who longer rides the bus in his retirement. Problems of political bias notwithstanding, O’Brien also alluded to the problem streaming and the internet presents to the late night time slot.
Here is a transcript for the September 11 podcast:
New York Magazine On with Kara Swisher
9/11/2023
23:24
KARA SWISHER: Yeah. You don’t do political humor. Is that something that’s eroded?
CONAN O’BRIEN: For me, it was always what serves the comedy and what’s funny to me. The truest, most visceral comedy to me is always going to be Warner Bros. cartoons that were made in the 1940s and ’50s. That’s the stuff I grew up on that was shown in reruns. So I liked that kind of comedy. I was never as comfortable with comedy where I needed to make a point about something because to me that —
SWISHER: Like Trump gave the people the opportunity to do that.
O’BRIEN: I just never wanted … It didn’t serve comedy well. I actually think Trump has been … Whatever people say, all kinds of, he’s committed all these different horrible acts. But I think one of the worst is I think he’s bad for comedy because it’s so —
SWISHER: Why is that?
O’BRIEN: Because years and years and years ago in another lifetime, when I worked on the Lampoon back in college, what we always knew is that you can do a parody of Sports Illustrated. We would parody magazines. You can do a parody of Newsweek magazine. I wrote a parody of George Will where he’s defending the feudal system. You know, it was like, you can parody things, that you can parody People magazine about its superficiality, and it’s put Brooke Shields on the cover holding a fish. You can parody those things, but what you can never do is parody the National Enquirer because the National Enquirer cannot be parodied. If you go and buy a real National Enquirer, it says “Elvis sighted in, you know, UFO; he has tentacles for arms. Ghost baby turns into vampire and attacks Michael Jackson’s ghost.” There’s no way to parody that. You can’t parody something that already has that crazy irregular shape. It’s not possible.
So I always thought when Trump came along, what a lot of people have to revert to is: “Doesn’t he suck? I hate that guy. He’s an asshole.” And those aren’t jokes. And so I think it’s just, you know, I’m really going on a limb here saying: That’s his greatest crime, that I think he’s hurt political comedy by being so outlandish himself. I think the January 6 thing is a blip compared to how much he’s hurt comedy.
SWISHER: Yeah. Okay, good. I’m glad you’ve gone out there and said that.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, it’s about time. Everyone’s thinking it.
SWISHER: It’s about time someone told the truth about Donald Trump.
We’ve talked a little bit about how late night is problematic or how it’s not doing as well. But I still like a lot of it, or some of it. Make a case for it as an art form — or is it going toward someone like Greg Gutfeld, who’s getting great ratings over at Fox at 10 p.m. doing mostly political humor on what is a microbudget, it looks like, in a non-union shop? What does his success say about the state of late night? What do you like about it?
O’BRIEN: Well, I’ll first admit I haven’t seen … and it’s like anything else. I drove a bus for 28 years and then I retired from the bus company. And so I’m guilty of: I don’t ride the bus much anymore. I will walk rather than get on the bus. So I don’t watch a lot of — I see little things here and there, but I don’t really know Gutfeld. And that’s not me just being a knee-jerk “Fox! And I’m not going to watch that man.” It’s more like I honestly am not aware of what’s happening. So I don’t really know. I just think that the bigger question isn’t what’s the future of late night, because we all know that time itself is becoming irrelevant, meaning the time of night.
