Talk:Late Night with Conan O'Brien/Archive 1

message: I believe actual items predates jay leno's headlines, therefore its not quite a parody
:Are you sure? This has been a staple of Jay's comedy on The Tonight Show for a very long time, and Jay even published a series of books in the early to mid 90's containing real "Headlines" from his show. In addition, Conan almost always starts the bit by referencing Jay's show and doing his own Jay impression. Something else to look into...  Telestylo 21:38, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I recently saw Conan's first episode, and Actual Items was one of the bits. At this time, I don't recall if he mentioned Leno, but it does prove that he's been using the bit since 1993.Mshake3 05:10, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The bit in the first episode was titled in full: "Actual Small Town Items". When Conan explains the bit, Andy replies that it's a "really innovative and groundbreaking idea", to which everyone laughs. There is no mention of leno at this time, but it's clear that the idea is a parody of the "headlines" concept - but it doesn't prove that it's specifically Leno's incarnation. I don't think Leno was the first person to show typoed headlines or articles. They also use the still-common catchphrase "you can't make this stuff up" during the bit. As well as "It's gotta be real, or it's not funny"
Jay Leno's "Headlines III", the third book in his series (I believe all three were released at appx the same time as a 3-part set, not a new book released every year, for example. It lists 'first printing' as Dec. 1991; well before Late Night began. All author royalties are donated to charity as well. What I don't get is what the 'source' of these books are. I assume if he wrote 3 books of these, he must have been known for the bit already - but he didn't start hosting the Tonight Show permanently until '92. TheHYPO 08:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Actual Items" as a parody of Leno's "Headlines" 

message: This list is good and far-ranging into the show's history; I have to say it's much better organized than the "O'Brien's comedy and mannerisms" section of Conan's article. However, there are a couple I must take issue with: first, the unqualified entry for New Reality-TV Formats, a skit I can't even remember seeing, and I've seen nearly every episode of the show for the past 4 years. And the Hole In The Floor sketches were a flash-in-the pan sort of thing, and IMHO, not very comedically successful, either. If there's no objection, I'll probably remove these entries soon.
I'm also making a couple of minor changes immediately: Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage segment isn't exactly "long-running"; I'm deleting that phrase. Also, Andy Richter was NEVER the co-host of the show; he was the sidekick. I'm also italicizing the titles of any television shows I find.
Are there any other famous sketches we're forgetting? Weren't Triumph's sketches fairly regular in the old days? What about Preparation H Raymond? We can't forget him. Telestylo 07:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Famous Sketches... 

message: OK, I corrected the title of the O'Jays song: it's "For the Love of Money," not just "Money." I also added more detail to the Late Night Cat subpoint, and added a subreference to the Misc. Pantomiming subpoint. In addition to adding some wikilinks, I corrected the grammar on a few subpoints. For any "digressions" that Conan or the show have given a title to, I added quotes to the name of the subpoint, e.g. Conan calls himself "The Late Night Cat" when he does his catty hissing, so I made that subpoint "The Late Night Cat" accordingly. I also alphabetized the section. Telestylo 21:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monologue digressions... 

message: According to Wikipedia:External links Wikipedia is not a directory of fansites. I have removed a lot of them leaving only two.  I wasn't sure about removing the newsgroup link, but probably will shortly.  --waffle iron 00:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links and fansites 

message: Wasn't there a recurring skit involving Andy Richter's adolescent sister, played by Amy Poehler?  If I remember right, she had ridiculous-looking braces, fussy hair, and acted generally annoying and inappropriate.
:Yes, this was one of many recurring sketches. She would usually be in the audience watching the show and Andy would mention her. She had a crush on Conan TheHYPO 08:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Andy's Sister 

message: When I clicked on the "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" link at the top of the profile page for Conan O'Brien, it brought me here, but with a note saying that I'd been redirected from "Late Night with Conan O'Brien".  There were no capitalization changes.  The punctuation of his last name was correct.  There wasn't a problem with the spelling of "Brien"  I'm not sure what I'm missing here...
--216.46.89.186 16:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This was due to the hyphen being artificial, created by computer code, not a single character typed from a keyboad. If you click on the click on the word which redirected you, it becomes more clear. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:27, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Redirected from Late Night with Conan O'Brien" 

message: Should we mention the falling kayak/train/bike skits on Conan recently? --Blue387 08:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suicide and falling kayak/train/bike 

message: This subsection appears in two sections: Famous Sketches and Annual Sketches. I think it should be removed from the annual section because it's not really an annual sketch, but rather a seasonal or "whenever the hell we feel like it" sketch. Mshake3 05:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Characters 

message: The article is way too long, so I'm going to move the lists of sketches to their own page.
Dans1120 08:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length of article 

message: I took out the trivia section - these two points seemed like they didn't belong in the article (feel free to disagree and put them back in):
*One person who is actively campaigning for the job of replacing Conan when he leaves in 2009 is The Onion veteran Joe Garden.
*During the May 11th, 2006 episode of his show in Chicago, Conan accidentally messed up the phrase "city of Chicago" and said the words "shitty of Chicago". The audience roared with laughter while an embarrassed Conan commented, "Looks like we're on Cinemax tonight!".
And I worked these three into the article:
*The first musical act to ever perform on the show was British band Radiohead.
*The first guest ever was John Goodman, who then received a "First Guest" medal.
*Although aired at 12:35 A.M. in most areas, it is filmed in New York at 5:30 P.M.
- Bamos 00:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To expand on why I don't think the first two points belong - with the first one, unless we can get a citation claiming that Joe Garden's campaign is getting any support, it's nothing more than a fan site, and should be moved to the "External Links", perhaps.  The second one is a non-notable anecdote.  Conan screws up and improvs all the time - why is this special? - Bamos 03:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Might want to calrify that Radiohead wasn't on the first episoed (were they on the second episode?) as the first episode had no musical guests. I'd add  "on the show's Nth episode", with whatever episode it was; clarifies that it wasn't on the show's first episode. (which contained Goodman, Drew Barrymore, and Tony Randall, who griped about not being the first guest himself. The first desk bit was Actual Items (some of the same taglines that are still used today, but still, far more awkward) TheHYPO 00:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trivia section 

message: This page is pretty heavy on pictures. I think title frame pic beneath the infobox would work better inside the infobox. If anyone has any objections, then feel free to change it back. - Zone46 04:42, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture Overload 

message: Is there a useful purpose in updating the episode count on a nightly basis? Wouldn't it be more plausible to update it at the end of each season (I know he doesn't have a summer break, but there is a date when the new season starts). Just wondering. It seems tedious to update it on a daily basis every time a show airs. TheHYPO 05:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Episode count? 

message: Someone just reverted an edit that Mondays are never live shows. While accurate, the original poster meant well. On typical weeks (even special weeks like the shows in Toronto), Monday night episodes are reruns. I don't know either if it falls into 'trivia' but it bears mentioning that typically, Late Night airs a rerun on Monday nights, making for a 4-day taping schedule. TheHYPO 00:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monday Episodes 

message: Do we really need to bring up things like "We have a great show" and that he describes female guests as beautiful and talented? I think we're verging on tedium here. The section should really be for extraordinary things. Not things that any good host would say on any show, IMO... TheHYPO 04:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are we gonna be pedantic about this? 

message: Having just returned from a taping of Late Night myself, on Monday, October 9, 2006, I thought I should reflect that Conan is now taping on Mondays too in this entry. --Gdickinson 02:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a pedantic point that needn't go into the article, but I should mention that Late Night has always taped the occasional episode on Monday but this has typically, if not always, been pre-tape for Fridays which are holidays or where they can't film a new show or whatnot. TheHYPO 04:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mondays 

message: "After seeming to take the comments without a second thought, he arrives at his dressing room and cheerfully prepares to hang himself; though a warning that the show was about to start causes him to abandon his plans."
Forgive me if I'm missing the obvious, but isn't this totally nonsensical? It looks like vandalism to me. If I'm missing an inside joke or something, somebody can fix it, else it should probably be removed. —Lantoka ( talk | contrib) 01:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you be more specific? Where was this statement found? Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh. That. Did you happen to read the context? It was joke as part of the segment. Parhaps I could rewrite it to be more clear. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, alright. Just making sure. I've never watched Conan and this is my first time reading the article, so... I missed the joke. ;) —Lantoka ( talk | contrib) 21:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this make any sense? 

message: I edited this to say the lack of chemistry here is "perceived", because I think it's intentional. If the two really didn't have any chemistry then it wouldn't be funny. POSTED PREVIOUSLY BY: RomeW
::Actually, I think that the lack of chemistry is real (of course, it depends on your definition of "chemistry"). It's just that Conan and the show plays off of that really well, and turns it into a humorous moment. Eventually, they started to have skits which played off of this lack of chemistry between the two, like Conan and Max going to get a beer or going to the NBC store. I don't believe it's perceived; but it's definately capitalized on. 24.23.51.27 00:20, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My take would be using the phrase "on-camera chemistry" or "on-air chemistry". Besides this, I don't think it is really about chemistry though Conan does use that phrase. I really think it's about Max's abrupt brisk deliveries - not chemistry really, just Max's awkward composure when ad libbing on camera TheHYPO 08:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Response to Lack of Chemistry 

message: Ever since I've started watching Late Night, I've always thought that usually during Conan's monologue, the first parts of his jokes (usually the set-up) which have to do with recent news, have always been true or fact based; of course, the second part will then be fake and it's where the "joke" part comes in. But there were two jokes about recent news I've heard on his show which seem to be false (both the set-up and the latter part of the joke), namely that one joke about CBS's Survivor, and how the producers have "decided to not seperate the contestants by race". However, I checked Wiki, and it still states that there is racial segregation. I can't find anything about producers changeing their minds. So are his jokes SOMETIMES fact based, and sometimes not? There was also another joke in which during the set-up of it, he states that "scientists have now claimed to have proven that being gay is genetically based". Again, I tried to look this up on the web, and couldn't find anything. Can anyone shed some light on this? 24.23.51.27 00:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's always factual, but perhaps less clear on occasions. To the Survivor: Cook Islands thing, I'm sure that's factual. However, the show was already underway, so yes, it was still originally divided by race. What they did, ultimately, was switch the players around so the teams were no longer exclusively one race. Normally, I believe team shows don't mix up members unless one team is significantly largest/smallest and it's later than, say, three episodes into the game. Can't speak to the homosexual stuff, but I'll look into it. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The producers didn't "decide" to un-segrigate the tribes, but the tribes merged. He's just taking poetic licence with the fact by saying that the "producers decided". Survivor would have been taped months earlier, and the producers would have no method to respond to critisism which hadn't yet occured. TheHYPO 00:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Criticism began the moment the idea was mentioned, which was long before the show aired. Closer to when the previous season ended, I think. Also, the very fact that the merger was this quick and thorough long before they could have responded to criticism of aired episode implies Conan's assertion: they didn't like the idea anymore. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, the series is already filmed before the previous season's finish. When you see the 'next season on...' clip, filming has already wrapped. The point is, the producers did not adjust the teams to respond to critisism because the 'segrigation' really lasted only 2 episodes or so - which would have only been, like 9 days into shooting. Long story short, Conan was referring the merge during that week's episode, not to the producers changing their mind's that week and altering the show. PS: Survivor has been re-grouping teams like this since season 3, and has eventually merged the teams since the very first survivor. It was not a response to critisism. Last season's first episode had four tribes: younger men and women, and older men and women. It was 'gym-classed' down to 2 tribes in the second episode. Palau (3 seasons ago) began tribeless before the second day when they 'gym-classed' into tribes. It was also the only season without a true merge because one tribe was eliminated before the merge would have occured. TheHYPO 16:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The possibility of a false—not inaccurate—monologue scares me. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 17:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monologue are Facts? 

message: The article was starting to get slightly bloated with fair use images that don't really illustrate anything, I think what SHOULD be added, if someone had the resolve to do it, would be, perhaps, a recent shot of Conan doing a monologue in the 'production' section, perhaps a recent shot of Max and/or the band and/or Joel in the talent section (the images in the max/band articles are good, but the max image has too much empty (wasted) space on the sides.
And I think that there should be either a current shot of Conan sitting normally at his desk, (or the suggested monologue shot) near the top of the article, so the first screenshot of the show in the article isn't his audition. Thoughts?
I'm also thinking that either the Conan/Tarja poster, or the grant wood bumper should be killed. Don't need two fair-use images to demonstrate that they look similar. I think the poster is a better demonstration of the impact that the Tarja campaign had than the bumper personally TheHYPO 08:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Better pictures of the band, replacing the audition picture with the monologue/desk picture, and removing the bumper are good ideas.  I also think most (if not all) of the set design pictures should be removed.  They don't add a whole lot and account for a larger portion of the images. DiscordantNote 22:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

text: It was done by Late Night during the taping/broadcast. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 00:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: Well, this whole "Manatee" thing sure has grown. Originally, I thought it was just a little skit, but the news articles and repeated mentions show that it's clearly grown. While I don't think it yet warrants a section on the main page, I'd like to write something up on the sketch page. So far, all we have is a blotted bullet point note on the List of Late Night with Conan O'Brien characters, and I never that that was truly appropriate. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 19:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it's not really a character.  It may have spawned from one, but it evolved into something greater.  I also think the character page should get cleaned up a bit too, but that's for another time.  DiscordantNoteCntrbtns 02:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, actually, there's no better time. I think I've fixed the sketches for the most part. What suggestions do you have? Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 03:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like the whole page, really.  I think narrowing it down to the most used would be best since quite a few of those have only been used once or twice. DiscordantNoteCntrbtns 22:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. From there, we could also use sections instead of bullet points. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 04:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manatee 

message: I've started an article on Rocket Me Nowhere, the band that played the HornyManatee.com tribute song. I would really appriciate any help I can get, as this is my first article I've made. Thanks. -Saint Ryan 09:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rocket Me Nowhere 

message: DEAR GOD!  Is that interminable section really necessary?  24.0.97.119 06:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Set design 

message: This [site] seems to be a great reference for citing specific tidbits that occurred at specific moments in the show. Shrumster 08:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: You know, he intersperses these things within the words from the song. It sounds something like "shabadabalada HEEEEEEEEEE" and so on. That must come from somewhere, some singer or style. Does anyone know what that is? --Howdybob 18:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is that thing he does when he sings? 

message: How has no one mentioned Conan's use of the phrase "buddy boy"?
He says it in the style of edward g. robinson.
Conan's been using it a lot recently and following it by saying "it's going to catch on". (The joke being it's never gonna catch on, lol)
He's also gone so far as saying (jokingly) "One day there are going to be 'buddy boy' t-shirts in the NBC store". Jacobtaylor1987 16:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Buddy Boy" 

message: WHO DELETED that page?!! Please bring it back! --82.176.160.13 05:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A quick search reveals the answer to your question: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Late Night with Conan O'Brien characters -- TheHYPO 05:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Characters on Late Night 

message: Not sure if this is the right place, but my friend made a cool Late Night userbox, please use and enjoy it:
:
Code                                                     	Result
	
Xihix 23:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Userbox