"Where were you in 1993?" the official "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" Web site asks.
"Fumbling my way through late elementary school," many of Conan's younger fans can answer. Few were allowed to stay up late enough to watch the Conan era begin.
Conan O'Brien began his graveyard-shift odyssey Sept. 14, 1993. His 10th anniversary prime-time special will air this Sunday, celebrating the progression of his program from a small-time production with a cult following to one of the high points of late-night television. He now has a small army of bleary-eyed fans who have boosted his ratings to the top of the almost-coveted midnight time slot.
With an orange pompadour sliding up and down his forehead, Conan's zany behavior is more Johnny Carson than David Letterman or Jay Leno. When he first started the show, he was a self-described unknown, goofy, freckled Irish guy with an oddly appealing personality. A cherubic unknown named Andy Richter sat next to him at the desk. My first time watching, Conan was performing his "If They Made it" (OK, "If They Mated" as I discovered later) sketch, in which he displays morphed photos of celebrities that are supposed to represent their potential children.
I thought it was silly and changed the channel.
Later, I reluctantly returned and saw Conan talking to a monitor showing a still photo of Bill Clinton with a moving mouth superimposed on it. This Robert Smigel ("Saturday Night Live") segment is known as the Clutch Cargo sketch, in Conanese. The Clinton image was making "whoo-whee" noises and talking about "getting it on." I was hooked.
And now that Conan is married and expecting his first child in October, which he recently discussed on his show, "Late Night" is appropriately maturing into one of the best talk shows of our time.
A brief history of Conan
Conan is a Harvard-educated writer-turned-comedian who got his start as a president of the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine, according to his NBC official biography. After briefly writing for an HBO show called "Not Necessarily the News," he joined The Groundlings, an improvisational comedy troupe known as Lorne Michaels' farm team for "Saturday Night Live."
Michaels picked him up to write for "SNL" and after later writing a failed pilot for a failed series called "Lookwell," Conan was off to write for "The Simpsons." From there, he was picked up to host "Late Night" and remains there today, er, tonight.
Max Weinberg, the leader of the show's band, The Max Weinberg 7, was better-known than Conan when the show began. The drummer for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, he periodically leaves to go on tour while Jimmy Vivino leads the band and a substitute drummer takes his place.
The first season of the show was awkward. However, Conan made it through the hard times. Carl "Oldie" Olson, a recurring old man funny mainly because of his age, died and could no longer appear as a guest. Later, Andy Richter left the show and Conan had to go solo. As the year 2000 passed, the old "In the Year 2000" sketch the two of them performed together seemed like it was moot. However, every once in a while, Conan whips the old routine out with a guest star in Andy's place, and things somehow fall into place.
Recurring characters such as the Masturbating Bear, Pimpbot and Foam Rubber Andy have entertained viewers over the years. They have witnessed a collection of sketches ranging from "Desk Driving" (taking Conan's desk for a "drive" through New York using a green-screen backdrop) to doodled pictures of very grown-up things supposedly drawn by children who visited the studio on a tour.
There are numerous other sketches too numerous to mention, such as humorous state quarters, sample SAT questions, actual items (a fake version of Jay Leno's headlines sketch) and that hemorrhoid guy with the big ears. Conan's 10th anniversary special is a big deal because a man who people thought didn't have a chance has amassed a history of meaningful entertainment, and he's big enough to appear in prime time.
Triumph, the insult comic dog, has also been a frequent guest on the show. He has brought down the egos of Jennifer Lopez, Fabio and other celebrities. The rottweiler puppet shares an accent with the Clutch Cargo Saddam Hussein that often appears, although this resemblance is entirely coincidental.
Expect to hear about two special shows if you watch the special. There was the show in which Conan invited an entire audience of children, and the May 15, 2003 special remaking of an old episode (Mr. T and David Bowie were two guests) entirely in clay stop-motion animation.
Whether you laugh at Clutch Cargo Arnold "Ah-nold" Schwarzenegger and Don King, or sympathize with the jabs at Fabio's man-boobies, John "Frankenstein" Tesh, William Shatner and Al Roker, you will want to celebrate this milestone in late night history. Only this time, you won't have the caffeine-induced jitters from staying up so late.
Nicole Saidi is the Content Editor of the Web Devil. Reach her at nicole.saidi@asu.edu.
