Conan O’Brien’s complete late-night TV archive will be posted online in January

Enlarge / Late Night with Conan O'Brien's very first episode began with a lengthy skit about how much pressure he faced as David Letterman's replacement. (credit: Team Coco)

Exactly 25 years ago today, NBC gave one of its coveted late-night hosting slots to a complete Hollywood unknown, with only a few TV series' writing credits to his name. That man, Conan O'Brien, celebrated the milestone on Thursday by posting his debut NBC episode on YouTube in its entirety-and promising more to come.

The 38-minute video, scrubbed of its original ads and apparently dubbed from NBC's master tapes, includes a brief caption that hints to a huge archive project. "Coming January 2019: The complete online archive of Conan's 25 years in late night," the caption reads.

The announcement does not include clarification of exactly where this video archive will be hosted, which could prove slightly complicated since that 25-year span includes work for both NBC (a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast) and TBS (a wholly owned subsidiary of Turner). Whether that means the full archive will land on a network-specific video hub, on YouTube, or on O'Brien's own Team Coco site remains to be seen, as the announcement didn't include further details. [Update, 11:13 a.m. ET: O'Brien has since added that the archive will land on "a brand new web site."]

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