Conan O’Brien, one of the legendary comedians, known for his sharp wit and humor, was taken aback during one of his earlier interviews. The 60-year-old television host has been a staple of the late-night comedy scene since he took over Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 1993, and has held the title of best.
O’Brien consistently conducts some of the funniest celebrity interviews because of his uncanny ability to make celebrities laugh and be clever while making fun of them. One such encounter he had with actress, producer, and businesswoman, Jennifer Garner.
In a famous 2003 interview, the Time of Your Life actress corrected the host’s grammar with a snarky remark.
When Jennifer Garner Corrected Conan O’Brien’s Grammar
It was just another funny, lighthearted episode of Conan O’Brien’s hugely popular talk show. Jennifer Garner spoke about the specifics of playing a spy during a 2003 appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien to promote her television series Alias.
During the conversation, O’Brien questioned Garner about whether she had ever applied any of the spying skills in real life. The host, 60, used the word “snuck” as the actress was recounting her incident.
Garner then interrupted, trying to correct O’Brien’s grammar and making a joke about the host’s well-known academic background while temporarily pausing his story:
“I sneaked into the room. Snuck isn’t a word Conan, and you went to Harvard and you should know that.”
Often hilarious, O’Brien then made a joke:
“You should know I went to the Harvard driving school. They didn’t teach me much there but I can parallel park like a b*stard.”
Conan O’Brien Wanted to Rename His Show?
Conan O’Brien has been one of the most well-known talk show hosts throughout history, having hosted Late Night with Conan O’Brien (1993–2009) and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (2009–2010). On the Inside Conan podcast, he once had a conversation with Jeff Ross and Robert Smigel about the early days of his cherished talk show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
At one point, as O’Brien recalled, they debated renaming the program something more whimsical and appropriate for his sillier sense of humor. The host remarked:
“The funniest thing was, I remember it was Robert [Smigel]’s idea, he was like ‘We should change the name of the show so it’s not Late Night.’ So we were thinking, I was like ‘yeah yeah yeah.’ So we started planning and then we came up with the name that we wanted. Which was ‘Nighty Night.” Yeah, Like ‘nighty night!’, which we thought was funny, like, cartoonish.”
After settling on a name, he pitched it to an NBC executive who insisted on keeping Late Night rather than “Nighty Night”. The host gave a hilarious account of the meeting, saying:
“We had a meeting in like this office in 30 Rock, I’ll never forget, not in our offices but a special office that Rick [Ludwin] had. We told Rick we wanted to meet with him.[…] So we went up and were like ‘You know we are worried about being compared to Letterman’ and Rick was like ‘Well I have to tell you, I think you’ll be compared to Letterman much to adieu.’ And I was like, ‘Well you know I think we’re gonna change the name from Late Night.’ And he was like, ‘Well let me tell you something, we own that name, Late Night, it is a franchise, it is a very popular franchise, it has been very good to us, since 1983, or ‘82. For 11 years it’s been a benchmark and we own that, and I don’t think we’d get rid of it unless there was a spectacular new name.’ And we went, ‘Well strap yourself in. Are you sitting Rick? We want to call it Nighty Night with Conan O’Brien’.”
Prior to beginning his hosting career, O’Brien wrote for the Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons from 1991 to 1993 as well as the NBC sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live from 1988 to 1991.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Garner was last seen as Hannah Hall in the thriller television miniseries, The Last Thing He Told Me, which was adapted from the same-titled novel by Laura Dave.
You can stream The Last Thing He Told Me on Apple TV Plus.
