Some time ago, I launched a section called TV Tickets where I display tickets to TV and radio tapings and, wherever possible, provide little commentaries, anecdotes and historical notes inspired by said tickets. It's a lot of fun and it's inspired a lot of volunteerism. Folks have sent me literally hundreds of scans of old tickets. In a few cases, they even mailed me the actual tickets. Some of them are so fascinating that in response to no less than twenty suggestions, I'm going to assemble and shop around a book of them. (Hey, one of my books got a great review in The New York Times last Sunday. That oughta be worth something…)
Some day soon, I'll add another 40 or 50 tickets to the online gallery but in the meantime, I thought I'd share this ticket which came to me from a devout news from me reader named Jay Shull who attended the evening taping of Conan O'Brien's 10th anniversary special…
As is customary, they did the show twice, then edited together the best moments for airing. Jay reports the following…
The show as broadcast was essentially as performed, even down to the running time. There were a few definite differences, such as: some of the bumpers broadcast were not the ones we were shown that evening post show; and a very few lines were cut, mostly one-offs that got buried in the applause from the previous quip. It was amusing to see the big-screen-TV-as-teleprompter dubbed over with images of the show in the flying camera cut-aways when broadcast.
Robert Smigel was behind the podium hiding in wait for his Triumph bit when the Vomiting Kermit came by and soaked him with liquid. It was obvious that whoever was inside the Kermit cart wanted to get Smigel good as the cart stalled behind the podium and a markedly larger volume of "vomit" spewed forth. When the Triumph bit was through, and Smigel arose to take his bows, he was soaked from head to toe in "vomit."
A sad fate for one of the funniest men in television. I enjoyed the special, though I could have done with longer clips and less audience hysteria.
I really like Late Night With Conan O'Brien and have always been impressed with how solid it was from Day One. It's common to say that Conan was inept for the first year or so while he received his on-the-job training. In truth, I don't recall the show ever being as bad as some now say. He's gotten better but what I find interesting is that he seems to have known pretty much what kind of show he wanted to do from the start and since then, he and his crew have worked at doing that show. Even when rumors were swirling that O'Brien was out and that Greg Kinnear would be taking up occupancy in the time slot, there was no wholesale makeover of Late Night. They didn't start firing bandleaders, adding sidekicks and departments, trying markedly new stunts, replacing the whole staff, etc. They just kept doing the same show. I believe Conan did the "dumb ads" desk bit on his first or one of his first shows…and the routine is still in his repertoire.
By contrast, Letterman, Leno and even Carson retained very few of the ideas they tried in their first weeks. Dave, when he first started, had joke guests (and some too-serious ones) and little vignettes going in and out of commercials. He and his staff soon realized they didn't play and dumped them. Jay had comedy bits like "Celebrity in a Sack" and "The $25 Trapezoid" which were intended as regular routines. They didn't work and he got rid of them, along with his opening, theme song, set and bandleader. The exalted Johnny initially had a little stock company of comedy players for sketches, and a weekly department where he'd go out with a film crew and do some stunt like auto racing or skydiving. It took a few weeks before he jettisoned them and a number of his early departments and sketch characters. Every show goes through those kinds of shakedowns…but Conan's has probably changed less than any of them.
I miss Andy Richter and a few recurring bits have probably recurred too often. (Dave, Jay and Conan now all have running gags about their announcers being perverts and/or getting maimed. Enough, already.) Still, I think it's a terrific show — better than either of the 11:30 shows, as far as I'm concerned — and I'm delighted he got his little prime time victory lap. Hope there are more of them.
[UPDATE, Many Years Later: The TV Tickets section of this site has graduated into its own, separate website. It's called Old TV Tickets.]