O'Donoghue at Harvard?

In the midst of a conversation about Conan O'Brien (specifically my complaint that some of his stuff, like a lot of post-1985 comedy, seems over-refined somehow), I asked pal o' mine and Michael O'Donoghue biographer Dennis Perrin, "What kind of stuff would Michael O'Donoghue have created, had he gone to Harvard and gotten a TV gig within minutes of graduation? Do you think he would've been a comedy writer at all?"

Dennis responded thusly: "O'D would've never lasted at Harvard. Hell, he could barely stay on at Rochester. Too combative. Too intensely creative. That's why he startled the Harvard boys he worked with. They were used to socializing after exchanging a few droll japes. O'D steamrolled them with his intensity and focus. He had no time for niceties, which is why he never finished college. I still feel that he fell into comedy by default. People laughed at his early stuff because I honestly think they had no other way of dealing with it."

That rings true. Could it be that true groundbreakers in comedy are creative first, and comic second, with "comedy" being simply the closest external category to the unique feeling their work creates? It's an interesting question.