Conan O’Brien Was Nearly Upstaged by the Priest at Bob Newhart’s Funeral

Conan O’Brien has befriended a number of comedy legends over the course of his career, one of the biggest being the late great Bob Newhart. The Newhart star appeared on every single one of Conan’s talk shows — from Late Night, to The Tonight Show, to Conan on TBS, to the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast.

But perhaps their most memorable collaboration was the 2006 Emmy Awards, when host O’Brien ensured that the show would come in on time by placing “beloved TV icon Bob Newhart in an airtight container with exactly three hours-worth of air.” As Conan warned the audience, should the event go even a second over its allotted time, “Bob Newhart dies.” 

While promoting the upcoming Academy Awards, Conan recently guested on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the first ever time. And he told his former late-night competitor all about his friendship with Newhart. After interviewing Newhart, Conan invited the comedian to his annual Christmas party, and was shocked when he actually showed up. “I was just nervous the whole time, because it’s Bob Newhart,” O’Brien confessed. “It was really incredibly meaningful to me to get to know him.”

So when Newhart passed away in 2024, O’Brien was asked to participate in the memorial. “The Newhart family, sweetly, said, ‘Would you speak at Bob’s funeral?’ And I said, ‘I’d be honored to do that,’” Conan recalled. “And I was real nervous and I’m working on what I’m going to say, and I get this call, and the call is from – I won’t say his actual name – but it’s Father McGwire on the phone.”

“Father McGwire” was the priest in charge of Newhart’s funeral service. “He’s probably going to want to talk to me about what the readings are going to be and what the themes are going to be. And is it New Testament,” O’Brien reasoned. 

“Father, how can I help you? Please tell me how I can help you,” Conan answered. “Yeah, I’m going on before you, and I’m doing a telephone bit. And I want to make sure there’s no bumpage,” the priest barked. 

“‘Bumpage’ is a word only people in comedy use,” Conan explained, a way for comics to make sure that there’s no joke overlap during the same show. And by “telephone bit,” the priest was of course referring to Newhart’s trademark one-sided call routine.

“I went, ‘Um, no I wasn’t going to,’” the host told the priest, who immediately responded, “Good because I’m doing a telephone bit. Yeah, I went to a prop house in Burbank, I got a fake phone and everything, it’s going to be killer!’”

And, apparently, it was. “He did it. And it was funny, Bob would have loved it,” O’Brien added.

Although it should be noted that working a comedic fake phone call into eulogy probably wouldn’t work anywhere other than Bob Newhart’s funeral.