The End Of The Tonight Show?

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Why is He famous

Conan O'Brien may have won the rank of No. 16 on AskMen.com's Top 49 Most Influential Men of 2009 list, but he also thinks he holds the No. 3 spot on our list of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2010. Proof? Check out this segment of The Tonight Show.

Before we get to why Conan might just be one of the sexiest women alive (by the way, he puts Shakira to shame when he does his invisible string hip-dance -- Conan's hips won't lie), let's start from the beginning. In 1993, no one knew who Conan O'Brien was when he was handed the keys to his own NBC talk show. Though he had industry respect as a comedy writer, he wasn't a familiar face in front of the camera. Almost 20 years later, he's one of AskMen.com's Top 49 Men of 2009, and there's no one in North America (or Finland) who doesn't welcome the humor of the red-haired funnyman. Once an unlikely success story on Late Night, Conan O'Brien is now the poster boy for The Tonight Show.

In January of 2010, NBC made plans to push The Tonight Show back to 12:05 a.m., making room for Jay Leno to return to late-night TV in a 30-minute show set to air at 11:35. O'Brien released a statement regarding the time change on January 13, 2010, insisting that he did not wish to go along with NBC's plan to move The Tonight Show's timeslot.

Conan O'Brien Quote

" “When all else fails there's always delusion." - Conan O'Brien"

81 Magnetism

Conan O'Brien often pokes fun at his own physical features, especially his lanky frame and hairstyle. A Finnish audience member even compared his facial features to those of Finland's president, Tarja Halonen, which led to a long-running gag and a visit to the country. Though Conan O'Brien would like to have everyone believe that the extent of his sexual experience was kissing Rebecca Romijn during a drinking game gone amusingly wrong on Late Night, he's been involved with women ever since he first became a man while a classic album from The Who played in the background.

Before he entered the ring of late-night talk show hosts, Conan O'Brien once enjoyed a relationship with Lisa Kudrow, which began when they met in an acting class. That didn't last, but he has moved on and found love and marital bliss with Liza Powel, a woman that he met during a segment on his show. Although he's married, Conan O'Brien maintains a soft spot for Gisele Bundchen, who he considers to be the world's most beautiful woman. There are a lot of men who would share that sentiment.

87 Success

Conan O'Brien really wasn't supposed to make it this far. A talented comedy writer for shows like Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, he was the surprise choice to replace David Letterman on Late Night after the talk show host's much discussed departure from NBC. Expected to fail, Conan O'Brien did the opposite and became an underdog favorite instead. He brought youthful enthusiasm to the late night talk show circuit, winning the approval of younger audiences by making offbeat characters like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and The Masturbating Bear part of everyday entertainment culture.

Now an Emmy-winner and ratings success story, the Harvard-educated Conan O'Brien has followed his late-night success all the way to the coveted The Tonight Show hosting duties that David Letterman once vied for unsuccessfully. A visible figure on other pop culture staples like Robot Chicken and The Office, Conan O'Brien is one of the entertainment world's most recognizable funny faces with a loyal following to back it up. While he's been a late-night talk show host for more than 15 years, Conan O'Brien has yet to lose his youthful charm.

Conan O'Brien Biography

The son of an attorney mom and physician dad in a closely knit Irish Catholic family, future funnyman Conan O'Brien learned about comedy through writing first and performing second. He got an early start at Brookline High School's school newspaper where he held the position of managing editor and still found time to graduate as the valedictorian of his class. Later accepted into Harvard where his father taught, Conan O'Brien pursued studies in literature and history while also writing for the Harvard Lampoon, the university's highly regarded humor magazine. Conan O'Brien became the president of Harvard Lampoon for two years and orchestrated a humorous public theft of TV star Burt Ward's vintage Robin costume, which was worth upwards of $500K.

After finishing at Harvard, Conan O'Brien switched coasts. He arrived in Los Angeles and found employment as a writer on the HBO sketch comedy show, Not Necessarily the News. A regular writer on the series for two years, Conan O'Brien also joined The Groundlings, an improv comedy group that would also launch the careers of Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon and Cheryl Hines. From there, he was hired in 1988 as a writer by Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of Saturday Night Live. In more than three seasons on the show, Conan O'Brien wrote sketches for Mike Myers' bizarre talk show personality, Dieter, and also for guests hosts like Tom Hanks. As part of the SNL writing team, he would win a 1989 Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series.

conan o'brien hosts late night

After leaving Saturday Night Live in 1991, Conan O'Brien teamed up with Burt Ward's famous costar, Adam West, as the writer and producer of the failed television series, Lookwell. Though the show about a TV sleuth who believes he can fight crime in real life was canceled early on, the pilot episode would become something of a YouTube favorite many years later. Following the creative failure of Lookwell, Conan O'Brien entered television animation and pop culture folklore by taking on writing and producing duties for The Simpsons. His most memorable episode as a writer would be "Marge vs. the Monorail," a highly rated episode in the show's fourth season that satirized the classic musical, The Music Man.

In 1993, Conan O'Brien got his big break in front of the camera when he was chosen by Lorne Michaels to replace the departed David Letterman as the host of NBC's Late Night. As the breadth of Conan O'Brien's work experience had been as a writer, his hiring as host was completely unexpected and not exactly endorsed by the network. Early on, his contract was revisited on a weekly basis and his show was canceled once but reinstated when there was nothing else readily available to replace it. Slapped with the title of late-night underdog, Conan O'Brien, along with his trusty sidekick Andy Richter and band leader Max Weinberg, proceeded to turn the tables on skeptical NBC execs and stuffy television critics. Staring contests, psychic predictions for the year 2000, the animated superhero duo Pale Force, and repeated references to the fake website hornymanatee.com rubbed the collective funny bone of college audiences and Late Night suddenly became a late-night contender instead of a pretender.

conan o'brien hosts the tonight show

Having become a hit with audiences, Conan O'Brien gained recognition from the Emmy Awards for his work on Late Night. He hosted the Primetime Emmys on three occasions in 2002, 2003 and 2006, and reached his peak by winning the Emmy for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series with his writing team in 2007. That same year, he humorously lent his voice to two Star Wars-themed episodes of Seth Green's Robot Chicken. It was there that he played the character of Zuckuss, a bounty hunter who doubles as a talk show host.

In 2009, Conan O'Brien signed off from Late Night to take over for Jay Leno as the new host of The Tonight Show. In his capacity, he promised to be just as edgy, self-deprecating and uproarious as usual. So far, he has delivered, with the exception of an ill-advised pratfall alongside Teri Hatcher that left him with a concussion. One of Conan O'Brien's most entertaining moments in 2009 came when he picked a fight with Newark mayor Cory Booker, which resulted in Conan O'Brien getting banned from New Jersey. The feud resolved amicably (and humorously) on the air. O'Brien was also named one of the Top 49 Men of 2009 by AskMen.com, which he alluded to on the show. Conan O'Brien gives underdog entertainers everywhere a hero to root for and looks to leave a lasting imprint on the history of late night television.

conan o'brien versus jay leno

In January of 2010, NBC made plans to push The Tonight Show back to 12:05 a.m., making room for Jay Leno to return to late-night TV in a 30-minute show set to air at 11:35. O'Brien released a statement regarding the time change on January 13, 2010, insisting that he did not wish to go along with NBC's plan to move The Tonight Show's time slot.

conan goes to tbs

On Monday, April 12, Conan O'Brien announced he'll return to the late night scene on TBS with a talk show, which will hopefully get underway in November.