O'Brien
	AUDIO:
Conan giddy to be in L.A. after how many shows? 212k WAV file

November 9, 1999
Web posted at: 5:05 p.m. EST (2205 GMT)

BURBANK, California (CNN) -- Heather Locklear, Denise Richards, Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Love Hewitt on the women's side; Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ben Affleck on the men's. It wouldn't be a bad guest roster if it were Letterman, but this isn't Dave's late-night schedule for the week to come -- it's the list for "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," the show on so late that O'Brien's not usually seen during the daylight hours.

It's his best week ever, in terms of high-profile guests, O'Brien tells Jim Moret of "CNN Showbiz Today."

"We once reunited the cast of 'Diff'rent Strokes' throughout the entire week when we were doing our week of shows from Staten Island," he says. Of course, he's joking. Not only has the troubled cast of the 1980s sitcom not been reunited on his show, but O'Brien's 'Late Night' has never been on the road, not even to make the short hop across the bay to Staten Island.

So when O'Brien continues, "Not since then have we achieved this level of great guests," you know he means it.

For the first time in the show's seven seasons, O'Brien has taken his Big Apple-based show west, taping at NBC Studios in Burbank. The Los Angeles shows are to air Tuesday night through Friday night from a shiny new set built for the occasion. O'Brien says it gives his crew a whole new energy.

"We've all had a lot of sugar. We're hyper," O'Brien says. "We're in Johnny Carson's old studio, Studio One. It's a magic place. We've built a set that cost over $1,800, behind you right now. We went to a rummage sale and we bought most of this stuff. But it looks beautiful.

"And we're going to have fans in the audience. It sold out I think in two days," he says, joking again. Tickets are free, but he says "We charged this time," to help offset the cost of the set.

Andy Richter's planning to pursue new ventures, perhaps even in TV's prime time

The 36-year-old host, who worked on "The Simpsons" before landing his late-night gig, has his straight man in sidekick Andy Richter, the butt of every joke or at least "a willing boob," as Richter describes himself. "I think it's only fair if you're going to do what I do for a living, to make a fool of yourself."

Richter's position on the show has evolved since his first day on "Late Night." "I was hired as a writer," he says, "and then I wasn't writing much. But I had some information on our producer, so he had to keep me on. So they put me on-camera just to get some use out of me." Wink wink, nudge nudge.

He won't be on the show much longer. Richter announced in August that he'll set off on his own this coming spring. His first post-O'Brien role is to be a part in the upcoming Robert Altman film, "Dr. T and the Women," slated for release in 2000. Other stars in the film, about a philandering gynecologist whose patients seek revenge, are Laura Dern, Farrah Fawcett and Richard Gere.

But before that happens, Richter and O'Brien are exploiting one more joint venture, a book entitled "In the Year 2000," based on one of the bits the two do on the show. "This is where Andy and I hold flashlights under our faces and we predict the future," says O'Brien. "It's a nice little stocking stuffer."