Conan, Jay, and Dave, April-June 1993

On April 26, 1993, the bird network announced Conan O'Brien as Dave's successor on Late Night. That evening, Jay Leno introduced Conan on The Tonight Show. What I videotaped at the time was news coverage the following day of these programs:

1. ABC's World News Now: a brief mention
2. CNN: With an excerpt of Jay introducing Conan
3. WNBC, Ch. 4 6 PM News: With Al Roker on peeking into Late Night's taping across the hall. The clip comes in after co-anchor Carol Jenkins mentions Garry Shandling as a once-possible choice for Late Night host. She also announces that Conan's Late Night will premiere on August 23, but it ends up debuting three weeks later on September 13.
4. E! Talk Soup: With an extended excerpt of Jay introducing Conan

The rest of this collection focuses on Late Night's reaction to the announcement:
5. April 27, 1993: Dave announces Conan as his successor as Late Night host and offers him a Top Ten list of tips.
6. April 28, 1993: Paul tries out a new name for himself.
7. April 30, 1993: Dave discusses Mother's Day with mom.
8. May 4, 1993: Conan appears as Dave's guest.*
9. June 25, 1993: As part of his closing remarks on his final Late Night, Dave wishes Conan well when he takes the show over later in the year.

*In Conan's May 4 guest appearance on Late Night, Dave mentions that he called Conan "last week." Conan recalls the phone conversation here:

New York Magazine September 21, 1998:

The Late Conan O'Brien
By James Kaplan

The summit of the talk-show mountain is strange territory. Among other things, it is a notoriously solitary place. A story Conan O'Brien tells me about David Letterman underlines this.

When I -- somewhat naïvely -- ask him whether he's friendly with the man he succeeded as host of Late Night, O'Brien shakes his head. "I really don't know Dave very well," he says. "When I first got the show, he called me up. There's a formality about him. Sort of an old-world gentility. He said, 'I'm not sure we've met. Have we met?' And I said, 'No, we haven't really met, Dave.' He was very nice. And at the end of the conversation -- I just couldn't help it, because he's such a big influence and everything -- I said the thing you're not supposed to. You know, 'It meant so much to me that you called; I'm a huge fan of your -- ' and I don't think I even got to finish the sentence. He said, 'Well, that's not why I called.'"