As he accepted one of this year’s top Television Academy honors, star Conan O’Brien admitted that the award came at an unusual time. Speaking on Saturday to the audience at the Television Academy Hall of Fame, O’Brien noted that at this moment, “there’s a lot of fear about the future of television, and rightfully so. The life we’ve all known for almost 80 years is undergoing seismic change.”
But, he told the audience gathered at the J.W. Marriot Hotel in downtown’s LA Live district, “this might just be my nature. I choose not to mourn what is lost, because I think in the most essential way, what we have is not changing at all. Streaming changes the pipeline, but the connection, the talent, the ideas that come into our homes… I think it’s the focus. We have proof here tonight.”
O’Brien pointed to the success of recent series “Abbott Elementary,” “Hacks” and “I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson” as a sign that there may still be creative opportunties in Hollywood. Said the comedian: “It’s all electrifying a new generation of viewers. Yes, late-night television, as we have known it since around 1950, is going to disappear. But those voices are not going anywhere. People like Stephen Colbert are too talented and too essential to go away.”
And that’s where O’Brien addressed the state of his longtime late night stomping grounds. O’Brien, of course, spent nearly 30 years in the daypart, via “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” and “Conan.” “I’ve dabbled in other things, but that’s where I’ve lived,” he said. “And for those of you under 40, late-night television was a service designed to distract college students until science would perfect the internet and online pornography. Boy, did they get that right.”
Then, he added about Colbert: “Stephen is going to evolve and shine brighter than ever in a new format that he controls completely. So, technology can do whatever they want. It can make television a pill. It can make television shows a high-protein, chewable, vanilla-flavored capsule with added fiber. It still won’t matter, if the stories are good, if the performances are honest and inspired, if the people making it are brave and of goodwill.”
As for the TV Academy Hall of Fame award, which he shared with Viola Davis, Henry Winkler, Ryan Murphy, Mike Post and Don Mischer, O’Brien added, “This is the honor of a lifetime. It means everything to me. I’m stunned to be in this company. I don’t think I deserve it, but I’ll take it. And my grandfather always said, take what you can and ask for more. And I’m going to do that tonight.”
Also at the Hall of Fame, Murphy touched on the struggles of the moment, as the nation marches further toward fascism and stripping away the rights of all: “I always thought one thing: That if you fought hard and pushed these noisy and vibrant characters to the system, that would that would clear brush,” he said, “and you would make a path for others to follow behind with this flag planting. That land would be claimed, never to be overgrown and hidden again. And now, oddly, in this year of my Hall of Fame Award, I find that I am wrong. And all the things that I’ve dedicated my career to — all of the fights, all the groundbreaking things — are in danger, shockingly, of going away.
“I had a dream long ago, of getting into my profession’s Hall of Fame, so that I could pronounce that I did it,” he added. “I did the thing, and now I can just coast and be all about the money. But a new, darker age that I think none of us suspected has dawned. And so, I am pivoting to continue the good fight, which is to create more work featuring the disenfranchised and the ignored and the marginalized groups.”
