A Farewell to Late Night

This blog posting is a tribute to Late Night with Conan O'Brien who's last show airs tonight. Some of you are wondering why are you being so sentimental over a comedy show. I guess it's because I've been a viewer for 14 years and I sort of grew up watching it. This is a warning. This blog post might be longer than that popcorn one you guys kept complaining about.

One evening during grade 8, I managed to stay up past 12:30am and to my surprise there was another show on after the Tonight Show. It was some low budget show (everything looked cheap on the show) hosted by this tall pasty white guy with a sidekick (Conan had Andy Richter as a sidekick from the shows inception in 1993-2000). I decided to stay up cause the guest that night was Chris Farley and as a big SNL fan at the time, and I wanted to see what he was up to. I do not remember much about the show except that the humor was so offbeat and it seemed to get away with more wackiness since it was on so late.

Whenever I could stay up I would watch Conan. He was on week to week contracts for the first couple years he was on the air. Critics also loathed him. He was a nobody. But I loved his self deprecating humour, and the risks the show took to make the audience laugh. No show was ever really the same. On Conan however, there was always something new. One night you could be watching Pimpbot 5000 calling Conan "white bread", the next night you could be watching the Masturbating Bear and Vomiting Kermit go at it on the show (Click the link to see a clip of it). The Masturbating Bear is exactly what the name of the character suggest it is. It's a bear that frantically goes at it on the set. The most famous of his characters was of course Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. It was juvenile and brilliant at the same time...and it worked.

As a Harvard graduate and a former writer of The Simpsons and SNL, Conan's show was a show that was filmed with sketch comedy and witty writing. Some of the jokes just fall flat because they were so outrageous (S&M Winnie the Pooh), but he continued to push his comedic prowess and wasn't afraid to try new things...something that Leno and Letterman isn't willing to do (How many times do we have to see Jay Walking or Will It Float segments?). Conan's remotes (skits filmed on location - please see the videos below as examples), In the Year 2000, Celebrities with talking lips, Satellite TV, Conebone69, the string dance and of course, the Walker Texas Ranger lever, were some of his best work in comedy. The zaniness and comedy of his show and the fact that Conan was wacky on stage but intelligent and articulate off it was something I can relate to. Well, perhaps not the intelligence part.

I hardly missed his show throughout high school, then I got a life and didn't tune in every night like I used to, but I still followed his show throughout the years. Conan's ratings shot up big time in the past few years and he's become more 'famous' but he never let his fame get to him (He still drives his '92 Green Ford Taurus - He often jokes about it on the show). The critics who were once very harsh on him adores him now, but really his humour never really changed. Sure he was a nervous performer in the early years but his comedic genius was always present, he just had to refine it.

Tomorrow, after 16 years as the host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, he is ready to move to the 11:30pm time slot and take over the Tonight Show in June. There is no way he can get away with the things he does at 12:35am (Masturbating Bear and Pimpbot 5000 are now gone the way of the Dodo bird), so his comedy I am sure will be more toned down. His show will no longer have a low budget feel to it, which was a part of the appeal, but like all good things, it must come to an end. I will regret not getting a chance to see him live in NY but I look forward to his take on The Tonight Show.

Comedy itself has to continually evolve and mature...a lesson in life in which I am also learning.

I look forward to seeing Conan tonight night as he broadcasts one last time from Studio 6A.

Cool. Just got word that Andy Richter is joining Conan on the Tonight Show.


This is my favorite remote he's done and one of the first I saw back in the day (filmed in '97)...when no one really knew who he was or watched his show. Please take a look:



Conan going to Chinatown to celebrate St. Patrick's Day:



Conan visits FAO Schwarz - The perfect balance of intelligent comedy and juvenile humour.



Old Time Baseball Remote



Highlights from the past 16 years





Update - Conan's Final Goodbye on Late Night