It was sophomore year of high school for me when I first saw Late Night With Conan O’Brien, I watched it off an on whenever I could through out that year and the humor was just fantastic, especially to a young up and comer like me. The bit that I remember above all else was the alternative cable channels bit, here is a link to a video of one of those bits. I especially like “The Places I’ve Never Been Laid Channel”.
Freshman year of college brought about the beginning of being able to watch late night TV whenever I wanted and Conan became my go to guy. Comedy had a big influence on me at the time as The Simpsons was easily my favorite show and come to find out all of my favorite episodes were written by Conan O’Brien. My all time favorite episode is in Season 5 “Homer Goes To College”. Here is a quick 18 second snippet from that episode.
When DVR came into being I was finally able to start taping Conan’s show. The way he handled the guests was spectacular, and as I was first getting into improv comedy at the time I would watch his interactions with his guests. Some of his best stuff however was actually during the writer’s strike as his show was contractually obligated to go on even though he didn’t want to, so they made sure to do one thing, they wouldn’t write stuff while it was going on. They interviewed random people in the building, played rock band for a sketch, even used forklifts to show the goings on in the rafters. It even ended in the epic feud between O’Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert about who made Mike Huckabee.
I was watching on a nightly basis when he was having his final three weeks of the Late Show, and one of the great moments of that whole time was how he would tear apart his sets and give them out to the audience. Finally ending his last show with his whole set torn to shreds. I was an avid watcher during his run on The Tonight Show, I became quite surprised at all the talk of ratings considering I had never really heard ratings talk up to that point when it came to late night. We won’t re-hash all that went on in that controversy, just that it was a good run for what he was allowed to do.
After being off the air Conan took his show on tour, a couple of friends told me about his shows and how riotous they would become. He became one of the biggest names on the internet with his Twitter account and the outcry for him to do another show was astounding.
Well last night was the first episode of O’Brien’s late night show on TBS simply titled Conan. It was a big sigh of relief to see Conan back on the air again. Andy Richter was there as well, and the whole band minus Max was there. The jokes were done well, Seth Rogen and Lea Michele were good guests to start the show off. Cameo appearances from Jon Hamm and Ricky Gervais were a nice touch. The final song was just truly epic, a song written and recorded by the pairing of Jack White and Conan himself. The two of them stood front and center with the show’s band behind them and they belted out a really good song. Here is a link to that song from last night’s show but I don’t know how long it’ll stay up so listen to it quick.
Conan has made a huge comedic impact on my life so it’s really good to have one of the best comic writers in the business back on the air.