This May 24, 2012 f Late night talk show host Conan O'Brien speaks during a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston on May 24, 2012. Conan O'Brien is still taking "master classes" from Johnny Carson. Through till the end of the month, O'Brien hosts "Carson on TCM," setting up clips from Johnny Carson's "Tonight" show from 25, 30 or even 40 years ago. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Michael Dwyer

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Conan O'Brien is still taking "master classes" from Johnny Carson.

Through till the end of the month, O'Brien hosts "Carson on TCM," setting up clips from Johnny Carson's "Tonight" show from 25, 30 or even 40 years ago. The short, "couch" segments all feature Carson in conversation with Hollywood legends such as Ronald Reagan, Burt Reynolds, Bette Davis, Mel Brooks, Tony Curtis or Fred Astaire. TCM is showing them in half-hour blocks through the end of the month and then plans to slot them in as interstitials between classic movies throughout the year.

O'Brien told reporters gathered at the Television Critics Association summer press tour Wednesday night that hosting the segments "is a dream gig for me." He spent days watching the interviews and says he learned a lot from the experience.

"The good stuff is timeless," he says. Watching Carson tell monologue jokes from the '70s or '80s, references are often lost, "but when a bunch of people are sitting around and they're talking about life, and people are being organically funny, when it's good it's still good."

Carson, who died in 2005, hosted "Tonight" from 1962 till '92. O'Brien and other late night hosts still consider him the master.

O'Brien does feel, however, that the late night landscape has changed a lot since Carson's day. For one thing it is much more competitive, a lesson O'Brien learned the hard way when he was unceremoniously squeezed out of "Tonight" in 2010 after seven months.

O'Brien, to give one example, feels he could never take so many nights off with a guest host the way Carson did.

"After what I've been through, that's never going to happen," he jokes, his voice cranking into a Jay Leno-like squeal.

Much of the bitterness of that split with NBC is behind him. O'Brien has nothing but praise and well wishes for late night rival Jimmy Fallon, named to succeed Leno as the host of "Tonight" beginning next February.

"I really, sincerely, wish him the best."

O'Brien also believes television moves a lot faster these days.

"The pacing has sped up a great deal," he says, not just in late night but even in the cartoons he watches with his two children.

Carson, however, can still provide valuable lessons for talk show hosts.

"Nothing replaces listening and being present in the moment. Engaging them and really making it about them. Bells and whistles will come and go but doing that well trumps everything."

O'Brien, who turned 50 in April, has gone from being the raw rookie to the savvy veteran in a career in late night that now spans 20 years. Tossed into David Letterman's old NBC slot as host of "Late Night" in 1993, he jokes that he was "covered in afterbirth when I began. I learned to walk on the air. I stumbled out; people were like, 'Look! It's a baby deer!'"

Back in those iffy early days, NBC would renew O'Brien's contract 13 weeks at a time. Things are more secure now that he's on cable, with TBS locking O'Brien up in late night through 2015. (In Canada, "Conan" airs on CTV and Comedy.)

Now he's about to help launch a new career in late night. Stand-up comedian Pete Holmes will get his own late night talk show shot this fall, airing immediately after O'Brien's 11 p.m. show airs.

"He was someone I was hearing about," says O'Brien, whose company produces the new show. "He has a very different sensibility than me; he's really a product of the Internet."

Holmes' "You Made It Weird" podcasts have been downloaded millions of times. O'Brien feels Holmes will be "starting ahead of the game" with his backlog of web videos.

O'Brien says he's surprised at how young his own audience is and credits the Internet.

"I think we have the best web team in television," he says. "While the show is happening they're grabbing little bits and pieces, some of it exclusive to the Internet."

This TV anytime, anywhere concept is certainly different from Carson's day.

"A lot of the young fans don't care how I'm on or when I'm on," he says. "Whether I'm on at 11 o'clock on TBS or they see me on the Internet or on their Google glasses or whether I appear in a drink — it doesn't matter. The mission is just to be funny, to be honest with your audience."

Having short bits from last night's show stream on the Internet has another side benefit, says O'Brien.

"My good stuff gets out there. It's a nice natural selection process. People don't see (the parts of the show) that went nowhere."

As for what he watches on TV, O'Brien singles out "Breaking Bad."

"A very, very special show," he says. "I watch that show the way apostles listened to Christ."

The "Carson on TCM" half hour series continues Monday nights at 8 p.m. through the end of the month.

___

Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2013