conanRebelRebel Wilson emerged as a larger-than-life star in her comic film turns in “The Bridesmaids” and “Pitch Perfect.” Now she’s about to pounce on the small screen in her “Super Fun Night,” a fall ABC comedy about female losers about to embrace the nightlife.

Wilson got her show with the help of Conan O’Brien, who says at the TV Critics Association press tour Sunday he was inspired when she was a guest on his show.

“Occasionally, someone’s on the show who I haven’t met before, and it’s a revelation,” O’Brien says. “And Rebel was on the show, and she was hilarious, and when the show was over, I stood up and I walked over to the executive producer Jeff Ross and just said, ‘I want her back tomorrow and the next day and the next day. She’s absolutely fantastic.’

O’Brien says he went to “That led to me doing a little research. Someone got me a copy of a show that Rebel had done called “Bogan Pride,” and I loved it, and, again, what I saw was a television star. She is vulnerable, fearless. She’s absolutely one of the most likeable performers I’ve seen in a long career in television.”

“The concept was three girls who lived in Manhattan, who had known each other since they were 13, 14 years of age,” Wilson says.

But, she adds, “the purpose of the show to me is to really inspire girls who don’t think they’re cool and popular or pretty and all that, to get out there and that they can have fun and exciting lives too. And so I think in order to do that, you need to present a very realistic version of what it’s like to be a girl who looks like me and is not the coolest.”