By Sean Tuohy and Daniel Ford

Tall, lanky, self-deprecating, and the red-haired beacon of late night, Conan O'Brien is a household name for his whacky off-the-wall TBS comedy show.

O’Brien has been making late night stoners pee their pants and given college co-eds something to be pretentious about for nearly 20 years, but started out as a humble comedy writer. He was born in Boston to a lawyer and a doctor and went to Harvard like any good lad with a proper, erudite upbringing. But instead of rubbing elbows and earning gentleman Cs, the red-headed prankster made a name for himself by pulling off several high-profile pranks, including stealing Burt Ward's Robin costume, and becoming the head writer for National Lampoon.

After college, O'Brien received his first writing gig on a little show that’s about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. It was at “Saturday Night Live” that O'Brien's love for comedy and writing came together. O'Brien was even showcased in a couple of skits early on in his career. He was naked in one of them!

His work on “SNL” landed him a job on a new cartoon show. Oh, you want to know which show? “The Simpsons.” Yeah, the show that FXX is currently broadcasting all 552 (!) episodes of and that is showing no signs of being culturally irrelevant anytime soon. It was with everyone’s favorite yellow-skinned family that O’Brien would stamp his presence on pop culture forever.

"Marge vs. the Monorail" premiered during the show’s fourth season and featured with a slick con man selling the town of Springfield on the idea of building a monorail. How did he do this? Singing and dancing! Who wrote it? Sean did. Wait, that’s not the right answer. That’s what Sean tells his dinner guests. It was Conan O’Brien of course!

And the rest is history....

What? It's not. Shit. Okay, well, um, I guess we'll skip through the rest of this. O'Brien became the host of the "Late Night" after David Lettermen left for CBS to torture Jay Leno. He did this job for 16 years (Oh, yeah, Louis CK worked on the show as a writer. Even more badassery for your buck!)

He then became the host of "The Tonight Show" until Jay Leno pulled a reverse Fredo and convinced NBC his chin could continue dryly reading jokes for another billion years, and sent our fair-skinned badass packing.

Smart and talented people don’t stay down long though. O’Brien licked his wounds, formed Team Coco, started a new late night show on TBS, and won Twitter.

I hope I never discover a genie when I’m really hungry, tired, or unhappy with my cell phone reception.

— Conan O'Brien (@ConanOBrien) August 27, 2014

"Nothing like that's ever been attempted before, and probably never will be again." - #Conan #Scrapisode http://t.co/yA8D8hdyFI

— Team Coco (@TeamCoco) August 22, 2014

There! Done!

BADASS WRITERS OF THE WEEK ARCHIVE

Badass Writer of the Week acknowledges a single badass moment in writing every once and a while. Feel free to makes suggestions in the comments section or tweet us at @WritersBone.

By Sean Tuohy

The Writer

We’ve asked it before, and we’ll ask it again...

Who doesn’t love “The Simpsons,” that belly laugh inducing, yellow-skinned family of five that shows up our television screens every Sunday night?

During its glory days “The Simpsons” mixed topical humor, goofiness, and the right amount of heart into each episode. The show has a large writing staff filled with talented young writers who pump out jokes and stories a mile a minute. Many well-known names have written for “The Simpsons,” but one name rises above the rest is arguably the most responsible for the success of the show: John Swartzwelder. The 6-foot-5 reclusive writer is almost unknown outside of “The Simpsons” world, which is a shame because he has done so much to shape and change the pop culture landscape. Swartzwelder has penned nearly a sixth of all Simpsons episode and during the golden years his name is always in the credits. Swartzwelder is known for his tight-lipped ways and refuses to do audio commentary for “The Simpsons” nor does he do interviews. To be honest, many hardcore fans think Swartzwelder does not exist at all, but a name the writing staff made up to use when they all work on an episode.

I don't believe that.

I know John Swartzwelder is real. Something in my writing bones tells me that he is very much alive. Over the years stories have emerged about him, like the one about him refusing to come into “The Simpsons” writing room because smoking was banned. He loves to smoke while he writes, so he just started mailing in scripts. That’s a badass move.

The Moment

It’s known that Swartzwelder did most of his best writing at a small café in Los Angeles. He would sit in one particular booth and punch out a script while smoking (Young folks, there was actually a time when you could smoke in cafés. It was an awesome smoked-filled time).

Well, sadly the city of Los Angeles banned smoking in public indoor locations. That meant that the café would no longer allow Swartzwelder to do his thing the way he wanted to do it. Swartzwelder did what any smoker would do. He moved outside.

Wait, no he didn't.

He bought the booth from the cafe and had it shipped to his house!

Swartzwelder could not part from this booth. Maybe it was made from a magical tree that gave him powers to become a great writer. Or maybe Swartzwelder just has trouble saying good-bye. Swartwelder went on to write for “The Simpsons” for a while, and helped produce the big screen version of the show, and has penned several novels.

He has yet to give an interview.

The booth's whereabouts remain unknown.

BADASS WRITERS OF THE WEEK ARCHIVE

Badass Writer of the Week: Conan O'Brien

Badass Writer Moment: John Swartzwelder Buys A Booth

The Writer

The Moment