Conan O’Brien Closes out Nearly 30-Year Late-Night Career With Star-Studded Farewell, Emotional Fan Response

After almost three decades on late-night TV across three talk shows, Conan O’Brien bid farewell to audiences Thursday night with his long-running TBS series, Conan. With a colorful career dating back to 1993’s Late Night and a brief stint on The Tonight Show in 2009 before heading to the WarnerMedia Studios network in 2010, O’Brien’s made an everlasting impression on audiences thanks to his wry, self-deprecating humor, prompting fans and stars on social media to express their sincere admiration for the comedian.

Starting the evening out with a tribute from Homer Simpson of FOX’s The Simpsons, one of O’Brien’s earliest career gigs, the animated patriarch opened the show by hosting an exit interview. It ended with the pair bonding over their “balding.”

Soon after, O’Brien was joined by Will Ferrell via Zoom, who joked that appearing on the talk show with him was “f—ing exhausting.”

“I love you, Conan, but if you don’t mind, can I pre-tape a few goodbyes, and you can just use them when your next several shows flame out?” Ferrell joked, teasing the number of times O’Brien has had to say goodbye to late-night shows. “We can just get it out of the way.” (Fans can watch that moment here.)

Scroll through to relive some of the other moments of the show and read how fans are responding to the finale.

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Interspersed with memorable clips (and pompadours) from the past 11 years on the TBS talk show, including packages that featured remote clips like him trying out jobs like a Mary Kay beauty consultant, being a commercial actor and modern dancer, his trips to Cuba, South Korea, Armenia, Israel, Australia, Mexico, Ghana, Germany, Japan, Greenland and Italy were also featured as part of his series, Conan Without Borders.

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O’Brien celebrated his farewell with Jack Black as well, who also stopped by and revealed his first appearance on late-night TV with the host, sharing he was “scared as hell” and “petrified” as he had never been in front of a late-night audience before.

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But it was O’Brien who made him feel incredibly comfortable. “You were so smart and funny and kind. It was the best way to enter the late-night television world. I will always feel a special connection with you and worship you,” he said. Black had initially planned for a musical number, during which the actor would fake an injury. However, the joke turned to reality when the actor and musician sprained his ankle for real during a taping.

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“I was so bummed because I wanted to be the best guest of all time for your final episode, and instead, I am literally the lamest guest of all time,” Black said to which O’Brien replied, it was “fitting” for the show. “When all these legends go off the air, everything is meticulous. Of course, we would think of a bit with Jack where Jack pretends to get hurt and while shooting it, Jack gets hurt. Don’t you think we’re the only show in the history of the medium that would ever do that? It’s somehow fitting.”

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Other guests in the audience included his wife Liza, and his long-running assistant Sona Mouvsesian, who surprised him by attending despite being close to giving birth to twins. The episode, taped at the Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles, also included a number of guests over the years Martin Short, Zack Galifianakis, Nicole Byer, Andy Samberg and Lea Delaria in video packages.

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In the last moments of O’Brien’s farewell, he thanked the network, producers, writers, staff, family, and his long-time friend and sidekick Andy Richter. The 59-year-old expressed his gratitude to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels for giving him his start and his friend, Lisa Kudrow, for encouraging him over the years before offering a heartfelt goodbye.

“And now just close with this one though I have devoted all of my adult life, all of it, to pursuing this strange phantom intersection between smart and stupid. And there’s a lot of people that believe the two cannot co-exist. But God, I will tell you, it is something that I believe religiously. I think when smart and stupid come together, it’s very difficult. But if you can make it happen, I think it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. I am so grateful to all my staff and the fans in this country and around the world who have joined me in this really crazy and seemingly pointless pursuit to do things that are kind of stupid but have something smart in there somewhere.

“And then there’s a little tiny sort of flicker of what is a kind of a magic. I think that’s what I believe. So my advice to anyone watching right now, and it’s not easy to do, but try. Try and do what you love with people you love. And if you can manage that, it’s the definition of heaven on earth. I swear to God, it really is. So, a good night. Thank you very much.”

 

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Set to premiere a new weekly variety show on HBO Max soon, O’Brien announced the end of his talk show, Conan, this past November, joking it was a decision that stemmed from former Tonight Show host Johnny Carson’s advice. “In 1993 Johnny Carson gave me the best advice of my career: ‘As soon as possible, get to a streaming platform,’” O’Brien said. “I’m thrilled that I get to continue doing whatever the hell it is I do on HBO Max, and I look forward to a free subscription.”