Conan O’Brien credits The Simpsons for 'saving' his life after leaving Saturday Night Live

Conan O’Brien credits The Simpsons for "saving [his] life" after leaving Saturday Night Live amid being in a "bad place".

The 63-year-old star quit the NBC sketch comedy show in 1991 after three years as a writer because he suffered burnout, and joined Fox's long-running animated sitcom as a writer and producer that year, notably penning the 1993 fan-favourite episode, Marge vs. the Monorail.

Speaking to The Simpsons' creator Matt Groening, 72, on a recent episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, the comedian said: "You are a big part of my life changing in this amazing way.

"My origin story for people that don’t know is I was working on Saturday Night Live. I was in a funk. I loved that job, and I loved everyone there, but I thought, 'I need to go. I’m just in a bad place in my life.'"

Conan continued: "So I walked away from SNL with no job, and two of your writers, I think it was [Mike] Reiss and [Al] Jean, heard that Conan O’Brien might be loose and available.

"So the next thing I knew, I was submitting, I don’t know, some of the sketches I had written on SNL, and then I was told, 'You’ve got a job on The Simpsons, and you need to be here in four days.'

"And it really saved my life."