OT: Last Episode Of Conan Airing At 11 Eastern
Conan O’Brien, the last great late night host, is airing his last episode tonight after 28 years.
The guy directly and indirectly inspired a generation of comics and TV shows where weird became not only acceptable, but cool.
He will be starting a new show on HBO in the coming months, but by all accounts, this will be the last of him in the traditional late night format.
If you have time, take some time to watch the finale, and check out old clips of his hundreds of classic bits - from the “Masturbating Bear” and “Triumph The Insult Comic Dog” to “If They Mated,” and the Walker Texas Ranger Lever.
Nope
Late night tv is for pr0n
Yes indeed....
I started watching Conan when I was around 16 (2003), and have done so religiously ever since. His bits, especially the remotes and what he does with his staff on camera, were outstanding. I am very sad to see him go. If you haven’t checked out his podcast, it’s well worth a listen. He’s had some great guests, and the ones with Dana Carvey in particular were great. Looks like I’m going to be re-subscribing to HBO at some point….
Walker Texas Ranger-lever was fantastic. So damned funny, every time.
My personal favorite (and so bizarre, I can't imagine even without the context of watching the actual show that that scene isn't straight up, weird):
I used to catch a few episodes of Walker when I’d stay home from school as a kid. Between that, the Paul Rudd 25-year “Mac and Me” bit, when he’d make fun of La Bamba (Then they’d cut to him), and when he took his green Ford Taurus to a car show in New York and told people his stick shift was called “The Cone Bone”, I was hooked. I’m going to end up down a rabbit hole of old clips at some point in the near future.
That was funny but what happened next?
B-Nut-GoBlue, i had to look that one up. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Not catching the kid jumping off the ladder gets me every time.
One less ginger to kick around, I suppose.
You can’t make fun of Ginger.
Putin can
And so can Chuck Norris.
28 years?!?
A friend of mine went to college with him and said he was quiet and reserved. I never really got into him, but always thought he was funny.
Of the current late-night guys I think Seth Meyers is top, but we'll watch Colbert, Kimmel on a regular basis and occasionally a bit of Fallon. Because they do the news they'll regularly make the same/similar jokes.
Conan did a masterful job making his staff part of the work. He knew a fact easy to forget in sports, that the one who gets all the attention is still part of a larger team, that the star, the QB, the award winner requires the team to accomplish what they do.
In the spirit of people working together, here's an article by Jason Zinoman in the NY Times on Andy Richter and the late-night-show sidekick.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/arts/television/talk-show-sidekick.html
Conan will forever have my respect because he paid his production staff during the writers strike.
Conan got absolutely drop-kicked in the junk when NBC ditched him for Leno, after Leno retired. I never really like Leno before that, but doing what he did cemented, for me, what a complete asshole he is. It essentially ended his career by getting him punted to TBS. NBC also force-kept a lot of his property (especially Triumph, but other bits as well). In general, NBC just kicked him to curb and didn't let him clean out his office. It was complete bullshit...
Absolutely my fave late night host ever. Like OP said, he helped make weird comedy mainstream. I'll miss him ripping on Jordan Schlansky.
I can't really watch any of the other late-night guys anymore. I can only take so many "Trump bad durrr" jokes (this is coming from someone who hates Trump). Conan's skits were always so original and out there. None of the other guys have that weirdness and originality.
10.1.1I use to stay up past when I was suppose to be asleep to watch the 90's Conan. Not just far and away my favorite talk show host, but one of my favorite all time shows period. Influenced my weird and goofy humor probably more than anything. Conan was the original Adult Swim with his sketches and characters.
I only catch him here and there lately and tend to catch more of him watching youtube clips than the live show. Still really sad his late show is ending. Probably won't follow to HBO at this point as Im not interested in giving them more money. Hopefully he keeps putting clips on youtube.
Conan going abroad is probably the thing I'm going to miss the most about the show. I know they've said he may do more of those as one-off specials and/or part of the HBO Max deal, but the fact that he could go to Armenia, Israel, Germany, Italy, Korea, etc, and be himself and also tackle some heavy-duty subjects instead of ignoring they exist was pretty cool.
Also, his staff interactions are hilarious--but hey, you know he loves his staff he decided to do trips to Armenia with them (Sona his assistant) and Italy (Jordan).
Well you’re in luck, because they will continue to run episodes of Conan Without Borders on TBS moving forward in the months (or years) ahead. Not sure when the next one will air or where it will be, but this was definitely mentioned as something they’d continue on TBS for the foreseeable future.
After airing, I assume they’d be posted on HBO Max (where you can find other episodes of CWB) shortly after airing then.