"Late Night" host Conan O'Brien will be hosting the prime-time Emmy Awards next month on NBC. Which, unfortunately, won't be his first experience with a televised awards ceremony.
"When I first got to L.A. in 1985, I was nominated for a CableACE Award. So I went to the CableACE Awards. Remember those?" O'Brien said.
(The CableACE Awards were cable's answer to the Emmys back when cable programming wasn't eligible for Emmys themselves. Once those rules were changed, the CableACEs quickly became extinct.)
That awards ceremony was O'Brien's "introduction to show business because I was sitting in my seat and a voice came over and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin. The Four Tops will enter wearing space suits and carrying lasers. They will sing a song, then they will fire the lasers. Effects will be added later. Please oooh and aaah.'
"I'm sitting there and this is my introduction to it. Oh, I see how crappy show business really is."
And the bit went off just as planned, complete with fake ooohs and aaahs.
"That's when I learned it's all a big lie," O'Brien said.
FAKE SUSPENSE: Speaking of fake, for several days before the official announcement, reports circulated that O'Brien would indeed be named as the host of the Emmy Awards — reports that NBC officially and sort of vaguely denied.
Which did not mean, O'Brien assures us, that he had to think about the offer for a few days before accepting.
"No, I didn't," O'Brien said. "I think it was just, frankly, people trying to have there be an announcement today."
In other words, it was NBC managing the news so as to have something to distract a room full of television critics for at least a couple of minutes.
"I think it was NBC saying, 'Oh, we have to (address critics),' " O'Brien said, " 'and that's less time we're answering questions about "Fear Factor." '
"But the minute I got a call from (NBC Entertainment president) Jeff (Zucker) saying, 'Do you want to host the Emmys?' I said, 'Yeah, I'd love to. That would be great.' "
WHY NOT JAY? Whichever network is broadcasting the Emmys chooses the host, with the (all-but-foregone) approval of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It's no surprise that NBC went with one of its own late-night hosts, but there may have been some degree of surprise that it's O'Brien and not Jay Leno.
Apparently, however, Leno isn't worried about it.
"I talked to Jay," O'Brien said. "Jay called me . . . and we talked about doing the Emmys. And he was giving me advice."
What kind of advice?
"It was mostly advice about my marriage — 'Talk to her. Spend time with her,' " O'Brien joked. "No, he was just encouraging. He thought it was a great idea. Jay loves jokes, so he just said, 'Make sure you have good jokes, and get a good tuxedo.' Nothing that earth-shattering, but we had a nice chat about it. And he seemed fine with the whole thing.
"I mean, he's the host of 'The Tonight Show,' and I'm sure he's thrilled to have me do it. It's a lot of work."
HOST WITH THE MOST? So, then, how exactly did NBC and ATAS decide on O'Brien as the Emmys host.
"I was told this was the result of a national vote," O'Brien said. "I was the overwhelming favorite."
Well, maybe not.
"Extensive network research did the correlation between hosts and height, and you were very, very tall," said Bryce Zabel, chairman and CEO of ATAS.
As always, the decision was made at least in part because the thinking is that a network can hype one of its own shows by having one of its own stars act as host. (Not that that helped Ellen DeGeneres last year — her stint as host of the twice-delayed Emmys was widely praised, but her sitcom tanked.)
Zabel insisted, however, that ATAS is thrilled with the choice of O'Brien.
"We signed on immediately," he said. "We said, 'Conan is a great choice.' Frankly, he works for NBC. It's great for NBC to have him as a host. But, in his own right, we'd still want Conan to be the host of the Emmys."
Even though the "Late Night" host made at least one unusual demand during negotiations.
"It was a condition of me doing this that I would sing at one point," O'Brien said.
"It almost was a deal breaker," Zabel interjected.
They were kidding, of course. At least I hope so.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com