‘Conan’ to pack cozy space

Remember when Conan O’Brien was merely the funniest redhead on the planet?

Now, through some weird twists of fate you couldn’t make up, he’s also the creator and producer of a reality series called “Extreme Makeover: Talk Show Edition.”

You remember the first makeover, the one known as “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien.” That took place at Universal Studios and lasted all of seven months on NBC.

The new makeover, known as “Conan,” is being put together three miles away, at Stage 15 on the Warner Bros. lot.

It’s a smaller stage, which is just as well since O’Brien is working with a smaller budget. And yet, thanks to the relentlessness of the TBS publicity machine and the whirlwind of attention that accompanied his exit from NBC earlier this year, he may actually exceed his “Tonight Show” hype when “Conan” launches Monday.

Since his sold-out “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour (including a Spokane stop) ended this summer, his staffers have been furiously hammering and retooling and rewriting this latest version of the Conan comedy cavalcade.

“We started in July, with a completely empty box,” says executive producer Jeff Ross, who has been O’Brien’s right hand since the launch of the original “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” in 1993.

The new set recalibrates the relationship between host and audience. There are far fewer seats than his Carsonesque “Tonight Show” grandstand held. About 260 guests will watch in a cozy, theater-in-the-round setting.

“Our challenge was creating intimate space in an airport hangar,” says O’Brien, still sporting the beard he grew for his concert tour. “When I worked on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Dana Carvey had this great phrase: ‘comedy compression.’ You want to have the right space so the comedy can bounce off the walls.

“And then we can shoot ‘Step Up 4: Electric Boogaloo’ in the unused space.”

The other challenge was relaunching O’Brien on a cable channel and a cable budget. No one is talking salaries, but TBS didn’t become hugely profitable by handing out fat paychecks.

One cost-cutting solution: Instead of building guest dressing rooms from scratch, the crew tethered a few studio-lot trailers together, with a common area in the middle.

One area where O’Brien is threatening to splurge is the legal department. A recent Rolling Stone article quoted him as saying he planned to bring over as much intellectual property as he wanted to his TBS show – including such icons as Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear – and he dared NBC to sue.

Then again, it was probably an empty bluff: O’Brien knows that NBC’s soon-to-be owner, Comcast, has had amicable business dealings over the years with Time Warner, which owns TBS.

While old pal Andy Richter returns as Conan’s sidekick, Max Weinberg has departed as bandleader, being replaced by guitarist Jimmy Vivino, a longtime member of the band.

At a test show last week, the group played a new theme song, and one person in attendance noticed another important, and welcome, change.

“Conan was having fun,” he said. “I didn’t get the sense that was the case during ‘The Tonight Show.’ ”