It's never occurred to me to watch a Conan compilation before but here is 2 hours of things going wrong on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. No real reason, just a fun video if you're looking for entertainment.
There are lots of these types of compilations and I may have to explore more of them.
And now here's where I get pedantic...
It seems to me that the animal expert segments where the animals do unpredictable things can't really be counted as bloopers. There was no script for the animals so they can't make mistakes. However, if we're allowing "blooper" to mean anything unplanned/unexpected happening, it seems to me the animal expert segment where Conan gets peed on is a must:
In an interview with Howard Stern, Conan talks about the rough experience of his early Late Night days and identifies the specific moment when he was at his lowest:
"The one that comes to mind is... we were just on the air for 2 or 3 months and things weren't going well and then I did Charlie Rose's show when he went, 'Well, you're probably aware of what came out in the Washington Post today... The top TV critic in the world just wrote this piece and here's what it says- and it goes...' It was a brutal take down of me, Andy, everything..."
This is a story Conan had told before, though the way it was told and the location in which it was told obscured its gravity. In 2003, Conan recounted the Charlie Rose episode to Charlie Rose:
Rose: I remember at one point you, early, were on my show--
Conan: Yes.
Rose: And it was during the difficult time.
Conan: It was the beginning of the difficult time, I think, you- you informed me of one of my worst reviews when I was first here. It was about 2 months into the show--
Rose: I read it to you?
Conan: And you said I don't know if you're aware of this and you started reading and it had just come out that morning...
Now, through the magic of Youtube, we can watch the original 'offensive' interview from 1993:
Here is what Charlie Rose actually said:
"If in fact you're doing the show you want to do and critics - I just saw a piece by Tom Shales, I think, saying, 'Look...', you know, it's not working for him as a critic - does it bother you or do you say to those critics, 'I'm doing the show I want to do. If you don't like the show I want to do, then sorry. I can't please everybody but this is what I want to do, I found my voice, it's the show I want, it's the combination I want, we are approaching what I want to be."
Quite a difference. Quite a difference. It isn't Rose reading the hit piece to a horrified Conan on national TV. It's briefly mentioning the review and using a phrase - "it's not working for him" - is arguably the kindest and most sanitized summary of the article possible.
It's amazing how wrong Conan's memory of it is. But this isn't uncommon - memory is not as reliable as people think. It's quite a problem of History. If you were writing the story of Conan, who would you take as more reliable to talk about his own experience than Conan himself? And if a person recounting the major events of their own life are unreliable, how do we trust the things passed down through indirect accounts?
That aside, I accept Conan's answer to the "lowest point' question, outside of Charlie Rose. Conan got a bad Tom Shales review during a critical point in the show, it was devastating to him and that was his lowest moment doing Late Night. And I suppose, some time after that, Charlie Rose's part grew from announcing the review to reading it.
One point that I can pretty much confirm from Conan's story is where he stresses the importance of critics back then. It does seem silly now, but they did have a great deal of power in shaping public perception, for whatever reason.
Here is that Shales review, by the way, if you'd like to revisit it. And it's worth noting that 3 years later, Shales did another review that reassessed the show and was much kinder to Conan. Shales noted that the late night landscape had shifted drastically and essentially called Conan "The New Dave".
10 years after the original review, Tom appeared on Conan to promote his new book. Conan confronts Shales about the bad review (though within the bounds of the playful interview shtick).
Another aside about memory and history. In this interview, we have both Conan and Shales agreeing that the phrase "white Irish shark coming at you" was used in the review when it doesn't appear at all. 10 years after an event that directly affected them, they agree on a hallucination.
A final aside. I always found it creepy how Shales sounded so similar to Roger Ebert. It was disconcerting. How is it that the top film critic in the world and the top television critic in the world are both fat men with glasses and similar voices? I don't know but I also never heard anyone mention it.
To Conan's great credit, he seems to have handled the whole thing with great grace and, of course, seems to have a great sense of humor about it all. Shales passed away in 2024.
I saw the title of this video and tried to think what I thought Conan's worst interviews were. I came up empty. When interviews went bad, Conan was always good at pointing it out and making comedy out of it. And so when the bad interviews were the best interviews, coming up with the worst ones becomes an odd, mind-bending exercise.
With that in mind, I think this guy has done a good job of identifying the worst, and so I thought this was worth sharing.
And don't be put off by the fact that it starts with Jennifer Garner. Fortunately, the video is better than that nonsense. Fake conflict to promote a movie (or whatever it was), in my opinion.
I mentioned earlier that I was interested in seeing "Downey Wrote That" and now I have.
"Downey Wrote That" is a documentary about the comedy writer Jim Downey, who is most famous for being a long-time writer for SNL - including specifically writing for Norm Macdonald's Weekend Update - but was also head writer for Late Night with David Letterman in the early 80's. He's also particularly responsible for the most famous political sketches - the 2000 Presidential Debate is probably most noteworthy.
In short, you don't need my review. If you're interested in comedy writing and/or SNL, you'll enjoy this documentary. If not, you probably still will enjoy it but you probably have better things to do.
There is some of the regular "writing for SNL, is so stressful" blah blah blah, we get it. Fortunately, that's kept to a minimum. The movie impressively includes interviews with David Letterman, Lorne Michaels, Conan O'Brien, Adam Sandler, John Mulaney, Bob Odenkirk, Robert Smigel and the list goes on... it's crazy.
A small complaint is that in the "he played small parts in movies" section, they don't show his part in "Dirty Work" - a masterful performance. His part in "Billy Madison" is more iconic, of course, but show both.
My main complaint is that there are a number of montages where we see quick clips or shots of SNL sketches and I think the implication is that Downey wrote all of them but I can't be sure if it's that or they're just giving a flavor of the era. I would have loved to have a more comprehensive understanding of all the skits he wrote. Would I have been happy if this documentary was replaced by an Excel Spreadsheet? Yes, basically, but that's probably just me.
Who is that in the thumbnail, is that Estelle Costanza? No. Is it Jim Downey's mom? No, that's Jim Downey.
Apparently there's a new documentary out all about Jim Downey. It's called "Downey Wrote That" and it apparently covers his time as a writer for Letterman and SNL. I'm not big on movies anymore but I'm gonna have to find this one.
I posted the full Harvey Pekar/David Letterman collection a while back, but I know from firsthand experience that that's not for everyone. If you want just the highlights as well as humorous commentary, Blind Mike takes you through Harvey Pekar's appearances on Letterman.
And in case anyone's wondering, I'm fully on Letterman's side in this. The "you're a guest in my house" paradigm is 100% correct. But while I don't fully agree with the thrust of "American Splendor," it is quite a good film.
Conan's youtube channel has officially released this classic appearance by Norm Macdonald.
There are a number of mysteries with this particular clip.
I had every beat of this interview memorized and I don't remember where/how I watched it originally.
Why does the video start whilst coming back from commercial? There's a first segment that's omitted. You can watch that here.
It's now 2025 and so we should be able to find and watch the MTV appearance Norm describes. Norm was actually on for a week of shows, Days 1 through 4 are online, the incident should be found on Day 5 which did exist on the internet at one time, but has been thoroughly scrubbed from the internet. If you find it, let me know.
Revisiting Arcade Fire's performance of "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" on Conan. Of all the musical performances on Conan's "Late Night," this is my #2 all-time*. Perhaps I'm too easily impressed by chaotic percussionists and cute violinists. You decide.
Having loved this version, I listened to, and was disappointed by, the album version. The main key is this version's Talking Heads style vocals vs. the album version's distant bullhorn vocals. Plus, this has the live energy. The good news though is that the rest of the album is superb.
In 1957 the Russian space program launched a stray dog into space with no possibility of return. The dog's name was Laika.
Dave recalls Bob Dylan coming on the show to perform "Like a Rolling Stone."
And here is the performance itself.
Dave's explanation that maybe Dylan was upset to have such a grand setup doesn't make sense to me but I don't claim to know what Bob Dylan is thinking in any way. My own interpretation is that this is what Bob Dylan usually does.
Dana Carvey is one of the few surefire talk show guests. This was released today apropos of nothing, as far as I know... wait a minute, did Dana Carvey die? No, Dana is still alive. Phew.
Incidentally, 49ers vs Bengals in 1989 is the first Super Bowl I remember. I was rooting for the Bengals but was completely distracted by what debuted during the commercials that year - The Bud Bowl.
