Quitin Cushner-Record Entertainment Editor
And I didn't hug back.
A girlfriend of a friend of mine had sent in a postcard and received four tickets to the live taping of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which then as now occupies the post-Tonight Show time slot on NBC.
His rating are good and he thrives on a posturing attitude that insists he's just a regular guy who lucked into a talk show.
Which of course is false.
O'Brien is a Harvard man who labored for years as a televisions writer before being hand-picked by Staurday Night Live guru Lorne Michaels to fill the void left by David Letterman when he beat feet to the Ed Sullivan Theater and CBS.
So it was in Conan's Rockefeller Center Studio in NYC that I had my very brief encounter with him.
About 30 minutes before tape time, Conan enters to a gaggle of applause and laughter.
In person, he's a slightly frightening and imposing figure. He's too tall for his weight and his hair's gelled in apompadour.
So Conan's making his rounds and is doing an Elvis impression which basically involves a lip curl and lots of hip gyration.
And I'm not buying it and neither is some of the audience, who like me stop clapping and laughing.
Long story short, Conan notes my lack of enthusiams, pulls me out of my aisle seat and gives me a big gyrating hug.
Frightening. Very.
Makeup caked his pale face so his features were sure to show up under the hot and bright television lights. His hair wreaked of gel. He was wearing buckets of deodorant and cologne to mask his own nervousness.
Like a nightmare version of Proust's madeline, my encounter with Conan's mix of drugstore products immediately evoked the exact smell and sensation of the Junior High Dance.
And I haven't watched Conan since.
But I continue to stay up late.
And for people who lack dogs or live-in loed ones, TV can pass for companionship at 1:15 in the morning.
And that's why I'm a Craig Kilborn fan.
Kilborn (some of his fans call him 'Kilby' or 'Craiggers') is the anti-Conan.
A tall ex-basketball star who played for the Montana State Bobcats, Kilborn got his start in television sports journalism.
First he was a play-by-play guy for the Continental Basketball Leagues' Savannah Spirits. Then he was a sportscaster in Santa Rosa and Monterey, Calif.
His big break came when he landed a gig as a SportsCenter anchor in 1993. This was the peak of that excellent ESPN show. And Kilborn's frat-boy sarcasm made a perfect counterpoint to Keith Olbermann's serious Bob Costas-like take on the world of sports.
He was a big hit, and in 1996 he became the first host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show. That show was an even bigger hit, as Kilborn's looks--sort of blow-dried blonde handsomeness evocative of Nicole Kidman's character in the movie To Die For--served him perfectly.
Here was a guy who could send up the network half-hour newscast by simply looking like himself.
While most of "The Daily Show" took on the fake-news tone familiar to fans of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update segment, Kilborn really shined during the celebrity interview segment, where not quite ready for primetime talent like Kathy Ireland or William Shatner would drop by to plug their latest project.
During this segment, Kilborn would subject his guests to a ruse he created called Five Questions.
The premise was simple: a guest has to answer five questions asked by Craig.
The questions were not: He asked Christina Ricci who sang Dancing on the Ceiling, and asked David Hasselhoff to sing his ode to the Berlin Wall. The gag is that the show-folk would stress themselves out, go bonkers to get these questions correct.
