NYCF: Whither Masturbating Bear?

Ask a comedy writer what the gig is, and the answer is likely to be one word — "Conan." Writing for Late Night with Conan O'Brien doesn't tie you to the newspaper or‚Ķanything else, really, except exploring an alternate universe where Ernie Kovacs is your improv teacher.

Seven of the talented bastards who nailed that gig — Mike Sweeney, Brian Stack, Brian McCann, Dan Cronin, Berkeley Johnson, Matt O'Brien and Andrew Weinberg ‚Äì sat down for a panel hosted by Sarah Vowell at the Paley Center as part of the New York Comedy Festival. They talked about some of the not-so-successful sketches (Topless Cop/Bottomless Criminal Dance Party, the Diddle-Doobie-Douche Machine), the changes the move to Los Angeles and the 11:30 timeslot next year might bring ("It's gonna be a game show," quipped Dan Cronin), and some possible insight into the lack of females on the writing staff ("A lot of us are really just‚Ķfeminine," cracked Brian McCann).

Before the panel, I dusted off my press badge, put on my snap-brim hat and grabbed a few minutes with the affable Brian Stack (just reading a wiki-list of his Conan characters will make you LOL, I promise), a man who startled Walter Cronkite while meeting him because he forgot he was dressed in full Frankenstein garb, for a quick chat before the panel (after the jump!):

KL: How is writing for Conan different from writing for other late night shows? What do you get to do there that you can't do anywhere else?

BS: We're quite a bit less topical than some of the other shows, like The Daily Show or Colbert, so in some ways we might have a little more license to be silly than they have, because they're a little more inclined towards dealing with the day's headlines, and they do that extremely well, obviously. Also, being a little bit more low profile than a show like Saturday Night Live, we're also under a bit less scrutiny on a week-to-week basis…it might allow us to try a few more things that we aren't sure are gonna work, just because there's a little bit more of an experimental feel, kind of a "what the hell" attitude where it's like, well, if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. But at the same time we do try to make things work as well as they can, obviously. I think also being on one hour later than a show like the Tonight Show or Letterman probably allows you to try some off-the-wall things, even though they do some off-the-wall things on those shows. I'm guessing that Letterman felt some pressure to tone down the stuff that was really out there when he moved from 12:30 to 11:30, and I'm hoping we can retain some of that when we go to 11:30 ourselves, but I think you have a little more license to be off-the-wall when you're on really late.

KL: Speaking of moving to 11:30, how do you think your show will change when that happens next year?

BS: I don't anticipate Conan's interview style having to change much, or his style on remotes, he's often at his funniest when he's just kinda winging it with people in the field. I wouldn't expect that to have to change much, and I hope we can keep some of the off-the-wall sensibility of the show that I've always loved when we go to 11:30, and I think Conan's all for doing that within reason, but there are some characters that probably wouldn't fly.

[Can you guess what character was mentioned when I asked "Like what?" If not, see the title of this post.]

BS: But when Conan hosted the Emmys, we got a good feel for trying to retain our show's sensibility while also being conscious of a mainstream audience and a wide cross-section of people, and that kind of showed us what was possible. We were still able to do things like Bob Newhart in an airtight booth who was running out of oxygen — some of those things that are very much our show's personality still seemed to work fine with a primetime timeslot. So I think there's gonna be some trial and error, we're probably gonna not go far enough sometimes, we're probably gonna go too far other times, we'll sort of figure out what people will go for. I like to think we'll still write stuff we really like ourselves. I don't see any reason why we won't be able to do that.