David Remnick

I'm David Remnick, host of the New Yorker Radio Hour.

There's nothing like finding a story you can really sink into that lets you tune out the noise and focus on what matters.

In print or here on the podcast, the New Yorker brings you thoughtfulness and depth and even humor that you can't find anywhere else.

So please join me every week for the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

Please welcome four-time Oscar viewer Conan O'Brien.

Hosting the Academy Awards is not an easy gig.

Everybody delights in panning it.

It's always endlessly long.

And it's often a parade of self-congratulation and sanctimony, and the musical numbers are Busby Berkeley on acid when they succeed.

And yet, as host of the Oscars last year, Conan O'Brien really nailed it.

O'Brien's resume starts out as president of the Harvard Lampoon and goes right through writing for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons.

And then, of course, he was host of The Tonight Show.

The years have gone by, and now he's one of comedy's wise elders.

Ironic, self-deprecating, zany.

His sensibility translated perfectly to podcasting, too.

On his show, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

And yet you can still imagine Johnny Carson or Bob Hope delivering some of O'Brien's best lines at last year's Academy Awards.