Jonathan Groff has spent more than three decades shaping TV comedy. His credits include showrunning Black-ish and Happy Endings, executive-producing Hulu’s This Fool, and co-creating NBC’s Andy Barker, P.I. with Conan O’Brien. But his most formative stint came earlier: five years as head writer on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, helping to define the show’s oddball, high-wire style.
Groff joined Late Night in 1995 after writing for Short Attention Span Theater and The Jon Stewart Show. His sketch in his packet packet—featuring a doo-wop group roasting O’Brien—hit the air before he was even hired. Within a year, he was head writer, giving shape to a 12:35 a.m. show still discovering what it could be.
On this week’s episode of LateNighter’s Inside Late Night podcast, Groff breaks down how the writers’ room worked: Conan leaning toward structure, the staff pushing toward absurdity, and the show landing somewhere in the middle. He recalls Brian McCann improvising the FedEx Pope, Brian Stack crafting quiet mini-plays, Greg Cohen delivering cinematic sketches, and Tommy Blacha arriving on a simple “trust me” from Andy Richter.
Groff also revisits some of Late Night’s wildest on-the-fly pivots the Circle Line boat broadcast, the ice-rink show after a studio fire, and sketches re-engineered when guests objected. Through it all, he says, O’Brien excelled when the pressure spiked: “When he had his back against the wall and had to improvise and had to deal with adversity, he was incredible.”
The conversation tracks Groff’s rise from 30 Rock to network showrunner, his time writing for Norm Macdonald, and what he learned navigating the creative world around Lorne Michaels.
Click the embed at the top of this post to watch now, or find Inside Late Night on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
