To Conan, he was maybe the most annoying character to ever grace Late Night, but to Late Night fans, he more than deserved such undivided attention, no matter what (or who) he interrupted in the process. Which is why I’ll more than happily allow Stack and Korman to interrupt me now to provide the uninterrupted tale of The Interrupter.
Michael Koman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien writer: One day in 2003, Conan and the writers were having a meeting in head writer Mike Sweeney’s office and Conan said, “I’m a little tired of characters where, I start talking and some character in the audience interrupts me.” Naturally, the first thing I thought was, “What if there’s a character where that’s all he did?” Brian Stack and I wrote together a lot in those days, and as soon as that meeting with Conan was over, I was talking to Brian in the hallway and said, “What about this?”
It was originally just supposed to be a joke that would aggravate Conan in real life, but in rehearsal, Conan liked it right away. I think what made it special was that Brian had picked out this nonsensical costume, and he had this vision of a guy out of the 19th century, with this cape and this long hair and that his personality was a complete mess. It made The Interrupter a more three-dimensional character.
Brian Stack, Late Night with Conan O’Brien writer: For some reason, I ended up looking like an old musketeer. I honestly don’t know why.
