Conan O'Brien bid farewell to David Letterman with a touching, hilarious monologue on Conan Wednesday night, and later urged his viewers to change the channel and watch the longtime host's final episode of The Late Show. O'Brien said,
"There are no words that can encapsulate the sheer magnitude of what Dave has achieved these past 33 years." While O'Brien tried to explain Letterman's influence in an essay for Entertainment Weekly, on Conan he recalled a crucial moment in his career: In 1994, he was four months into his new gig as host of NBC's Late Night ? Letterman's old job ? and floundering. The show was riddled with poor ratings and bad reviews, and O'Brien cracked that his face had broken out for the first time since high school; at that point, he felt he was destined for cancellation.
And then, Letterman asked to be a guest. "Dave wasn?t just the biggest late-night star at that time, he was the biggest thing on television," O'Brien said.??