If you tuned in to NBC at 12:35 a.m. on September 13, 1993, you witnessed late-night history in the making:
Jay Leno had inherited The Tonight Show from Johnny Carson in 1992, and a deeply pissed-off David Letterman had decamped to CBS. That meant a new host for Late Night had to be found. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels, who tapped 30-year-old Conan O’Brien. When NBC announced the identity of the man who would take over their decade-old franchise, TV critics, audiences, and even Letterman himself had the same question: Who? O’Brien, now regarded as one of the best hosts in the medium—one who spent nearly 30 years on the air—had minimal on-camera experience when he landed the job. As he once quipped to a journalist who’d called him a relative unknown, “Sir, I am a complete unknown.”
To be fair, O’Brien had already been one of the era’s sharpest comedy writers, working on Not Necessarily the News, Saturday Night Live, and The Simpsons, not to mention spending two years as the president of the Harvard Lampoon. Those who witnessed his high-energy pitches in writers rooms were already aware of how brilliant he was. Now everybody in every living room in America just had to agree.
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A House Divided
The Mellon dynasty has long been known for its old money refinement and discretion. But when TIM MELLON became Donald Trump's biggest donor many members of the family were mystified-and not afraid to talk about it
FUNNY BUSINESS
NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE LAUNCHED A REVOLUTION THAT CHANGED COMEDY, TELEVISION, AND THE MOVIES. NOW DIRECTOR JASON REITMAN HAS RE-CREATED THE CHAOTIC HOURS BEFORE SNL'S FIRST EPISODE. LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S 1975!
BAD FAITH
From exiled actors to academics, influencers to intellectuals, VF gets under the hood of the Catholic right's celebrity conversion industrial complex
THE GE NERAL
How ELIZABETH PRELOGAR, America's low-key, high-powered solicitor general, is holding the Supreme Court's feet to the fire
THE BILLIONAIRE'S SECRET
THE GERMAN INDUSTRIALIST KLAUSMICHAEL KUEHNE, BORN IN 1937, IS ONE OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, WITH MORE MONEY THAN KEN GRIFFIN, OR MACKENZIE SCOTT, OR FRANÇOIS PINAULT. WHERE DID HIS FAMILY FORTUNE COME FROM? THE NAZIS KNOW
GIVE AND LET GIVE
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VANITIES
MAISY STELLA knows how to think outside the box
Party PLANNING
Putin wants Trump to win, of course, and he's got big ideas about a new world order. Think Yalta-on Fiji
Boys and THEIR TOYS
Inside the hypermacho, Bible-thumping alt-tech universe trying to take on Silicon Valley-from El Segundo
STRANGER Things
The Democrats' short hot summer of \"weird\"