Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Staff Review With Todd Levin

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Conan sits down with staff writer Todd Levin to discuss his trajectory as a comedy writer, Minty the Candy Cane, and making things needlessly complicated.   Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: teamcoco.com/apply Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hey, welcome to a Thursday episode if Conan O'Brien needs a friend. Usually these are fan episodes, but we've been mixing it up a little bit recently.

I'll tell you why. Getting ready for the Oscars, and I have my A-plus elite writing staff downstairs in the building, working hard on concepts, riddles, quizzes, recipes for the Oscars. And I am very fortunate. I'll just come out and say it.

I work with the best writers in the world. And one of them, I want to come up and hang with them. We did this with Brian Kiley a couple days ago. And now we're going to do it with Mr. Todd Levin, about as sharper writer as you will find. You really are. That's really nice. You're crazily talented, and I'm so glad that you're helping me.

with the Oscars. And we've, I think you joined me. Is it, did you say it was 2009? Was when you came on board? 2009, just as you were wrapping up late night in New York. I was wrapping up late night, and I was headed to the, to take over the Tonight Show for a 30-year run. And you had jobs for life. You said, I remember, I hired you and you said, you know, Tonight Show hosts last forever.

And you said, count me in. And you started spending money like crazy. Oh, yeah. Most of it was spent before I even got to California. Yeah. Yeah, he showed up. And the first day he got, he said, I'm buying a Bentley. Oh.

Yeah. And he got a license plate that said, Tonight Show for Life. And I said, I looked it up. It was way too many characters. It was. For a license plate. It wasn't even legal.

It was actually Tonight Show for Life 3 because two other people had gotten the same Benadip plate. Two other writers from my Tonight Show. So, yeah, so you were with me for the end of late night, tonight show, then the TBS thing, and now Oscars. And, yeah, so you will be my writer for life, whether you want to be or not. So let's get into this a little bit because there are different types of writers.

They're the kinds that they chatter constantly. I'm sorry to say I was one of those. What? Oh, my God. Doing bits in the room. dancing around like a chimp on crack. And then, Todd, you're that, I call you, you're like a ninja, an assassin. You're quiet, you're taking things in, and then you'll say something that's really hilarious

and you'll write something that's really great, but there's not a lot of, you know, babbling and, hey, look at me, which I really admire. It's not demonstrative. Because I believe in my work. Oh, I'm kidding. Wow. I am very much like a bad music. magician, and I'm also a bad musician, but I'm a bad magician trying to distract you.

I'm like, whoa, look at this, we, wow. And then, because I'm afraid someone will really look and see, there's not a lot of protein here. I was, I think it's also just because I've never been uncomfortable with that part of, like, performing stuff. Yeah, yeah. Even when I was doing stand-up, I was the guy who just hugged the microphone. I just held it dear to me, and I wasn't like a big app-doubt guy. You'd often try and leave with it. Yeah, exactly.

Todd, you've got to keep that here. Come back with the mic. Well, tell me about your journey a little bit because this happens so often. I work with these really talented people and I get to know them. We're in the trenches together. And I think, hey, I don't really know your origin story. But when did you know, oh, comedy is for me? I mean, I think I always knew it as a kid, but I didn't know.

I think you probably hear this a lot. And I think a lot of people who are in comedy say this. But I didn't know it was a career. You know, I didn't grow up in that kind of environment. You know, my parents were both state workers. in Albany, New York. And so I loved comedy as a kid, and my dad was really instrumental in that

because my dad had, my parents had a terrible record collection. They had very, they had like a couple of John Denver's, a couple of Barbers' drives ends. Right. But then my dad also had... David's saying, what's wrong with that? Yeah, you're like, it sounds great to me.

Not much. I love your parents. When can I come over? David, settle down. But my dad, Dad had Bob Newhart records as well. And so he had, he was my introduction to comedy. So I would listen to his records all the time.

He had Cosby records too. You could say that. But those were also like huge, a huge influence on me. Huge. Yeah. And then my dad also had this rule like we had this really strict bedtime. But if we had HBO when I was growing up and if there was a funny movie on at like nine o'clock, he would let me stay up to watch, watch it with him.

So I'd watch a lot of comedies with my dad. Everything you're saying resonates completely with me because my parents had nothing to do with show business. I'm growing up just outside Boston. I, you know, show business is this thing that exists on Jupiter. It's done by aliens. But my father was very interested in comedy. He was a infectious disease scientist, doctor. And he, but he loved comedy.

He loved Newhart. we had those records. They also had a terrible record. I mean, like no records. But he loved comedy. And when a movie like Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, world would come on once a year. We weren't allowed to watch TV at night,

if it was a school night, if we had school the next day. But he would say, when this comedy came on, he would say we could all watch it. And I mean, this was unheard of. but that was sacrosanct. If there was a really good classic comedy, we could watch that. And I think Newhart,

what a great person to learn from because the jokes and the concept, it's about jokes and concepts. He's like a matador. He didn't move that much. It's all the power of the joke and a stillness to it. Yes, for sure.

And a musical ear. Yeah. Yeah, I loved him. Yeah. So my dad turned me on to Bonnie Python, to SNL, all those things. So I was really into it as a kid and had no idea that it could be a thing you could do for a living. And then when I moved to New York, which was just a place, I knew that I wanted to be in New York eventually.

I didn't know what I wanted to do there. I just knew I needed to be in New York eventually. And then when I got there, I just gravitated toward people who were doing improv and doing stand-up. And I don't even know how or why I befriended these people. But I started to kind of get in with that world. And people, my friend, were just encouraging me to get out. on stage and just do stuff. That's great.

Yeah. So in the beginning, I wasn't even, my, the beginning of my stand-up career was me reading bits. It was very much like a new heart thing where I was just, I would prepare a written bit that depended on the page because I was so scared. And I just was like, I need the words to be perfect. So I would structure it like, well, I got these letters in the mail and I thought I'd share them with you or these, I found these old diary entries. So something that was sort of, it had to be read.

And then as I continue to do it, I just got more comfortable. being in front of people and being spontaneous. And the pages started drifting away. But you have to find a special place to do that because... Yes, you can't go to a club. There are comedy clubs where it's very confrontational and you have to almost fight them to prove that you're funny. Yes.

Which is, you know, can breed a certain kind of style. And then there are places you can go. They're more open to experimentation. 100%. And so where were you? finding those places. So in New York, that was, there was a place called Rafi, which was in the back of a, it was like they showed movies there. And there was also like burlesque nights. It was a really weird place. There was a bar in the front and a little theater in the back. And there was a big

kind of thriving alternative scene there. So I would do shows there, UCB, places like that. There's a place called Luna Lounge that had a very famous alternative show on Monday nights. Marin kind of ruled the roost there. And he was, he was at an older, kind of a generation of comics before me. Yeah. Yeah. So there were all these little rooms you could do that. And then once you got comfortable, there still was an expectation that you do clubs. I never really wanted to do clubs.

But if you're doing, if you're trying to get into a festival or get on TV, then you kind of have to be in clubs. And you have, and it is. It's different. It's like, I have to make you like me. Yeah. Whereas in the alternative rooms, you're kind of like, well, this will make you. Like I, the words I'm saying, well, hopefully make you like me, but like you have to be this person that's approachable.

And it can be combative, but it's just a, it's more of like a struggle. Like, I have to make these idiots like me. You just, my brain. You morons. How are you morons tonight? You working class, scum! Hey, why did the crowd wasn't that good tonight? Yeah, they were.

They were really good until you screamed at them. In your wool suit. You dropped your horn-rimmed glasses at one point. I waved a newspaper at them. Don't you idiots, read? Yeah, everyone has to find their own way. And you do that. And then did you do TV jobs before you came to me?

This was my first TV job. So I had been doing pretty well as a stand-up. And I'd gotten like a TV gig just performing. And I got an agent through that. But as soon as I got an agent, I said, I want to write. like that's what I want to do. I like stand-up, but I love writing. And this late night was my first TV job.

And I almost didn't take it because I thought, well, shouldn't I have a job on a worst show first? Like I had that. That's my own like, you know, insecurity and growing up in this kind of like working middle-class family. I was like, shouldn't I have started on something smaller? Because I was such a huge fan of the show when I got hired that I almost didn't take it. And then the week that, that week I got-

You got the shop and you were like, hey, this show isn't that good. I think I'll be just fine. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what the fuss is all about. I think Conan's on pills. But yeah, so I, that I had gotten a job on another TV show, VH1 TV show, that same week.

And the, and I was, I almost took that job. And then I got a call from Sweeney about this show. Yeah. That's good. I'd love it if you had turned us down and worked on ridiculousness. I know. I would be rich. I would be rich.

I would be rich beyond my wildest dreams. You'd be so rich. You'd refuse to come on this podcast now. How much does this pay? Yeah. So talk to me about some of the bits that you, like your experience working on the show, what were some of the bits that you got on early days or just in general that you were really proud of. Well, the first, I would say the first thing that I got on that, well, there are a couple things.

There are a couple things, Erland, that I liked, but the first thing that I got on that I was really proud of that really kind of broke through was Minty. Yes. Minty the Candy cane. Minty the cane. And that was like, it just made people happy. Oh, it was so great. Now, refresh us to take us through the minty is a candy cane, but not any candy cane. And he's played by McCann. He's played by Brian McCann. I had, basically, I had. so much insurance for that bit, though, because I had Brian McCann, who is an incredible performer, and so funny, playing this candy cane that had fallen on the ground briefly? Briefly.

He briefly fell on the ground. So he had a few things stuck to him, like a cigarette butt and a penny. And then the song was, can you do the song? I'm trying to remember it. Uh, uh, Penton, Minty the candy cane who briefly fell on the ground. And it was done in that kind of old-timey. on the ground. Oh, Mindy.

That's what I remember. It was... Now he's covered in goo. Now he's covered in goo. Oh, my God. But, like, so McCann played him, Stack sang, Brian Stack, also an amazing performer sang the song,

and Jimmy Vivino arranged it. I can't sing. It's a great song. And, of course, near and dear to my heart, because my favorite era of singing is about 1914. Megaphone singing. Megaphone singing. Oh, and, you know,

And it was great. He had just the perfect thing stuck to him. And immediately people loved him. I loved him. I would always dance along with Minty. I think Mindy threw things at people. He threw, he had a little basket of candy canes that he passed out in the audience.

And then he would whip them at me. He would violently whip them at you. And quick shout out to Brian McCann, who I got to get in here at some point because he played, he was such a, that early, early late night show. He was on and,

would just play these hilarious characters that really helped us put our stamp on the kind of humor we liked. And one of my favorites was the man with bulletproof legs. So good. And McCann would come out wearing super short shorts and an incredibly self-satisfied expression.

And he would sing a song about how you can't hurt me because I've got bulletproof legs. Yes, I've got bulletproof legs. You can't. And then blam, he'd get shot in the chest and collapse and dies. And it was one of my favorite things

because he would make his legs elongate. Yes, he was like almost do this kind of beautiful swan walk. Yes, he'd do this long-legged swan lock bragging about how his legs were bulletproof and then he'd get shot in the chest. And it just delighted me. And that's one of maybe 10,000 things McCann did for us. What do you got there, Eduardo?

You want me to play it? Yeah, if you want to see one of these Minty sketches come to life, go on the Team Coco channel. Look up Mindy the Candy Can. Come on, let's hear him. Oh, happy holidays, everyone. The voice he chose. Yeah. You can hear the sound of Minty the Candy Canterbury.

That's it. Just a moment or two. You know, my favorite was, Minty's covered in goo. And it says, goo. Yeah. Oh, that made me so happy. Oh, another early thing. I don't want to talk about this how much,

but was the Human Centipede Minora. Yes. Which was, that was like, might have been the same year. Human Centipede had just come out, which was one of the most horrifying, and still remains, one of the most horrifying movies of all time. Sona made me watch it on the tour bus. I did.

Oh, really? Yeah. I've never seen it. I won't watch it. And it buffered a lot, so it took us four hours to watch it. Yeah. It was really, really not worth it. It was a labor of love.

And so, yeah, human centipede menorah. So did this get you tossed out of any religious affiliations? The two things I remember about it were that, like, Pat and Oswald had tweeted something about how horrifying it was. And I was like, if that got him, that's good. If this horrifies Pat and Oswald and got him not sleeping, then we know we're in the right territory. And then the other thing was that we did it multiple years. And for some reason, they always, I guess because the costumes fit,

they always tried to hire back the same nine guys. And except for like one of them, they all came back. It was like a, like they had Stockholm syndrome. Yeah. Yeah. The one that didn't come back, Timothy Shalame. Yeah, exactly. He just, you know, and he won't acknowledge it anymore.

No, no, he doesn't talk about it. But it was crazy because those guys would, they all stayed in touch with each other. It was like a shared trauma. Oh. And they all kept in touch. And I, if you want to see the human centipede menorah, go on the team cocoa doll site. And then don't look at the clip because it was horrifying. It's so horrifying.

And it's everything you think it is. Yes. Wow. So. But I like to do. That was a thing that I think that I would go back to a lot, which was take something monstrous and make people have to celebrate it. Yes.

Or take something sweet and make it monstrous. which like Wiki Bear was like a sweet thing that Stack and I wrote. That was like you love it when you see it and his voice is cute but he's a monster. Yeah, what was it? What was it? What was Wiki Bear was when I would take the, it was like the bear that they were selling.

Yeah, yeah. There's a real bear that they were selling that you could ask it questions and could it. Yeah, it's based on a real thing. There was a bear that could connect to the internet. Could connect to the internet. It was like obsessed with murder. Wasn't it constantly?

Yeah. Wiki Bear was always giving anecdotes, not anecdotes, but like stories. It would give you facts. You would ask it very innocent questions. It would answer them and then pivot off the question to something absolutely horrible. I'm trying to remember. I know. So you would ask it like, it was always, I wish I could get the example.

I was sorry because it was a cute kids toy. So I was saying, hey, wiki bear, how are you? You know, and then it would, well, I'm fine, Conan. And then it would pivot off that really quickly. Speaking of, blah, blah, blah. There would be like something. And gain. Ed Gein made

Lampshades out of human skin And I'd be like, Wiki Bear. Speaking of bright ideas, yeah, it would be like something like that. Yeah, I was a clever fella. I think one of the reasons you fit in so nicely is that I think my whole life, so many bits were me trying to be the innocent talk show host

who was doing something sweet. Yes. It's almost like we didn't have rehearsal if you followed that logic. I'm going to try out. Yes, Wiki Bear. Hey, wiki bear. And then I'd be trying to try.

to be like, okay, well, let's just move it along, Wiki Bear. Did you know that the second night of the Manson murders, they, you know, and I'm like, hey, hold on a second, Wiki Bear. But if you look through it, that's a theme that runs through the entire show for years and years and years, any version of it is me trying to put on a nice show for you. I'm trying to put on a nice show. And I don't understand what's going on here. But that was a bit that you helped a lot, actually, because the original draft was like,

kind of, it was, I don't think it was. unfunny, but it wasn't focused. And then when we were doing in rehearsal, because the bear would move, like, they could control its mouth, so we could always move. And Stack was in the voiceover booth. And you guys just started talking about the Manson family.

It just became a funny thing at rehearsal. And then Stack and I kind of locked into that. We're like, that's what the bit is. Yeah, you have to find it sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It changed the whole thing. And it was so much fun. So what surprised you,

you went from watching the show to then working on it? What are some of the things that struck you as, oh, this is different? or, I mean, what were your impressions? Well, the thing that, I'll tell you a thing that terrified me at first, but then became my favorite thing about the show, was that the writers have a lot of autonomy and that you're kind of expected to not just write your bits,

but to produce them. And in a sense, direct them as well. And you're working with the editors, and you're working with all the departments. Yeah. And in the beginning, if you've never done that before, it's so scary. Yeah, it is.

Because you're like, there's a thousand ways to mess this up. And, you know, a couple ways to get it right. And then. Well, that is something I, learn from Lauren Michaels. When I went to work on Saturday Night Live with Greg Daniels, it was, I mean, it stunned us. I mean, I was, I don't know, 23, maybe or 24. And suddenly, yeah, I would have been 24, I think. But, you know, we pitched a sketch. They said, you know, I did well at read through. And the next thing you know, you're talking to set designers, wordrobe people. You're

telling them, you know, Lauren would say to me, what kind of restaurant? is this? And I'd be like, I don't know. I just get pizza at the corner around the corner. I get a slice. Are we at Orso? Are we at Lane? Oh, my God. You know, we downtown at Le Bon En Somon. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't go to three restaurants. I've never been to a restaurant. I have two pairs of jeans and a 1973 Plymouth Valiant. Don't ever tell me that again. But, yeah. And so Lauren threw us into the deep end of the pool. And at first it, felt like insanity and then I realized no one's going to care more than the people who thought of it. Yeah, it's a great idea. And so you should be the one that's anal and like, you know,

exacting about what it has to be because it's your vision. Yes. And so, and then you, you just, I think it leads to so many things. I mean, I think you have a really good director's eyes. So many the writers do, you develop that really quickly because you know what you want. Yeah, that's very true. Sometimes even when you didn't think you were that kind of person, you find out really quickly if you have to produce the sketches. I totally agree. And the downside of it is that you also waste so many resources. Like there's so many times because you're in control of it, there's no one to say, are you sure you need all that? And you're like, absolutely. Why is Minty made out of silver? because that's the way I thought of it.

Exactly. Do it for me. Do it. $800,000. Yeah. There would be a lot of times. There was a thing that Dan Cronin and I worked on that was so needlessly ambitious. It was just a parody of a commercial, like a, what was it? It was like El Pollo. Del Taco. That's what it was. It was the idea that it was a Del Taco delivery system.

that it was so stupid on its face. It was a special device on your toilet that when you flushed it, it could recognize when your body had room for another burrito. I knew the toilet was going to come into a play. And then it would immediately provide you with that burrito once you had cleared enough room out of your body for a new burrito. Yes. And we, and it became this. Trust me, this is something Del Taco is thinking about. I think it was off some story about how Nike or Reebok had developed these sneakers that you could press a button and it would get dominoes for you. It was like connected to dominoes. So this was like Del Taco's version of that. Synergy, man. Yeah, yeah. And it was so, it's so stupid on its face and it became so ambitious where

it gets so in sync with your body's needs that it opens up like a third eye and takes you to this like place of Nirvana where it's like everything's perfectly in sync. It was so expensive. But that's what Jim Downey, was really good at this. He loved the comedy of take something very simple and then make it needlessly complicated. But that in itself is funny. So a long commercial about Change Bank where Jim Downey's explaining to you that if you give us $5, we'll give you, you know, this many quarters, this many singles, or we'll also give you this many nickels, this many quarter, and over explaining it. And I think there's something to an idea that stupid that then probably uses animated.

computer graphics to explain how it works. Green screens of like once this area has been voided, then this area is created and this area of your brain. And you're like, this is such a stupid idea. I cannot believe that you would go to this much trouble. And that's where the funny stuff comes from. I think a lot of times. I think the show kind of, for me at least,

taught me some of that too because so much of what I felt like I was trying to do as a writer was to break you. because you've seen so much. You just have seen so much. And that there's always that there's that kind of line between, okay, that'll work for the show. And I want to see that on the show. Yeah.

And I think we're always trying. And I knew you're rooting against us. And you know what? I'm already against you right now. Yeah, this is what I'm, I wanted to say something. You're having such a respectful conversation with Todd. And it's very confusing to me.

Because I don't think. When he was being nice at the beginning, I thought it was an ambush. I know. Oh, it is. This is an IRS sting operation. No, has he ever made fun of you for like a piece not working out? Can we talk about that? Trust me.

Can we talk about you making fun of him? Trust me. Delighting. Can you, Eduardo, can you kill her mic? No, no. That is, I mean, I would have this, there was this relationship with the writers where if something was really tanking, you could see me licking my lips. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yes. This is going to be delicious. And I remember, I think we were doing, I forget, we were doing shows at Comic-Con and one of the writers had come up with, it's R2D2, but he's gone Hollywood, and he's like, hey, make sure you get me a good table at that, you know, and he had like a cigar.

And, you know, yeah, and where's my limo? Yeah, she, she, and it was just wasn't working and felt like kind of an old take. And I, people said they saw me licking my lips and rubbing my hands together. I was so like, oh, we've got to have more. R2D2 gone to Hollywood.

And, um... Yes, you would sometimes interact with the thing more than needed. Yes, tell us more. Archu Ditchu, who's gone to Hollywood? And whoever wrote it was like, okay, fuck you, Conan. But, um, no one is more delighted

by left brain crazy ideas that tickle me. Like those things, that's a religious experience. You've written much more than your share of those. And, you know, let's hope we can do it at the Oscars. Can we? It's going to be so much fun. But yes, I will ridicule you in an hour when I come back down.

I will mock you. Time flattens everything. Yeah. There is no past. There's only the present. Exactly. Time is a loop. But I cannot thank you enough.

Honored to work with you. and get back to work. Thank you so much for having me. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

Take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer Aaron Blair, Associate talent producer Jennifer Samples, Associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Byrne, Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SeriousXM.com slash Conan.

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