The 2021 Primetime Emmys might be the last time comedian Conan O’Brien is at the awards show as a nominee, at least as a late-night talk show host. Although Conan O’Brien didn’t win any Emmys Sunday night, he managed to sneak into the spotlight. He even walked up onstage when Stephen Colbert picked up an Emmy for The Late Show‘s 2020 presidential election night special, even though he wasn’t involved.
O’Brien’s nomination for the night came in the Outstanding Variety Talk Series category. Conan on TBS was nominated for its last season. The show lost to HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver though. Oliver paid tribute last week to O’Brien when he picked up his award. “No one is funnier than Norm Macdonald on late-night comedy,” Oliver said. “If you have any time in the next week, do what I did and just spend time rewatching clips of Norm and Conan… It doesn’t get better than that.”
These #Emmys bits have been so relentlessly unfunny, Conan O’Brien had to take matters into his own hands and create his own. pic.twitter.com/AOQYb09024
— The A.V. Club (@TheAVClub) September 20, 2021
Although Oliver mentioned O’Brien during his speech, he later told reporters backstage he has no plans to share the award with him. “Conan? No, he can take it from my cold, dead hand!” He said. “I realize I said I appreciated him… not that much!” Oliver later said it was “hard to overstate the influence” O’Brien has had on comedy writers. “There’s a whole generation of comedy writers who look to Conan to see what their sense of humor on TV for the first time,” Oliver agreed. “He’s a monumentally influential figure to a lot of us.”
O’Brien then drew all attention to himself, shortly before Frank Scherma (TV Academy Chairman and CEO) gave his usual speech about television. O’Brien saluted Scherma from the floor and almost stayed that way throughout Scherma’s speech. Conan was not satisfied. He made a surprising appearance later on when Stephen Colbert’s Election Night 2020: Democracy’s Last Stand: Building Back America Great Again Better 2020 won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Live). O’Brien was not involved in the show, but he still jumped on the stage. Even though Colbert attempted to deliver a serious acceptance speech, his laughter could be heard above all.
O’Brien decided to end nearly 28 years of late-night television with the termination of his TBS series earlier in the year. O’Brien, 58, started his late-night show run in 1993 when he took over NBC’s Late Night, which he hosted until 2009. After his brief stint on The Tonight Show, he moved to TBS to host Conan. He said that the series would end in November 2020. O’Brien is currently working on a variety series for HBO Max. O’Brien also still hosts his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and has other productions through his Conaco production company.