"I SAID NEE-HA!"
The Late Night With Conan O'Brien Newsletter 02/14-054
Hello everyone! Happy Valentine’s Day, and Happy Chinese New Year too! I have some purdy big news for you this week. Not just how much fun it was to take part in a live web-chat with Max… though more on that laters.
I've arranged a CONAN INTERVIEW for neeha and I thought it would be the coolest thing for subscribers to send in some questions… If all goes as I hope it will, the interview will be on Wednesday morning, so if there’s something (anything!?!) you’d like me to ask him for you please send it to Linzi24@aol.com as soon as you can!
OK, I’m going back to watching "Bill Reilly’s Jump & Choke Channel" … have a conetastic week everyone and let's get it awn!
Late Night Linzi
Editor
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CONTENTS -
LATE NIGHT NEWS
LATE NIGHT POLL
WHY FEB IS FAB By John Costello
A WEEK LIVE@6A By Christina
THE BONE OF CONTENTION by Micah Honees
UPCOMING GUESTS – Feb 15th – 26th 1999
WEEK IN REVIEW By Quinn
FYI
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LATE NIGHT NEWS
MAX CHAT @ NBC’S MYLAUNCH…. Max the Mighty took part in a live web chat from NBC on Thursday (Feb 11) afternoon. He discussed his planned hiatus, the Bruce Tour, and confirmed the long-time rumor that a MW7 album was in production. The eponymous album is expected to be released sometime this summer. No mention at all on whether or not each track would last more than 30 seconds.
You can read the entire transcript of the Max Chat in the interview section of Late Night With Conan And Merv at: http://www.ios.com/~damone/gconan.html
CONGRATULATIONS TO JERRY VIVINO… the MW7 saxophone player’s wife just gave birth to a baby girl. Luckily for her, she won’t be named Conina Vivino.
CONAN AND ANDY @ THIS YEAR'S USCAF… Among productions planned for next month’s HBO-sponsored U.S. Comedy Arts Festival are: Andy introducing a reunion of the original "Ben Stiller Show'' with Janeane Garofalo, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. Conan will moderate a reunion of the SCTV cast with Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, Rick Moranis, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Andrew Alexander. The event takes place March 3-7 in Aspen, Colorado.
BUY WEIRD CONAN STUFF @ AUCTION… Among the usual collectible autographed photos and magazines that went up for auction on the www’s popular Ebay site this week were: A piece of a broken light bulb which the seller, Doubledown Enterprises, claims could once be found in Conan’s kitchen! "It's a 60 watt bulb," he announced proudly, trying to entice you to part with your cash. Wait—I know you’re excited but, there’s more!! Oh yesh there’s more. Perhaps more disturbingly, you could also bid for "a piece of his hair", allegedly plucked off a napkin by the seller, who claims it to be one of his most prized (or maybe disgusting) possessions. He picked up the lust-have piece-of-pompadour after spotting Conan eating at a very well known restaurant, Burger King.
ROSIE'S O'DONNELL had also auctioned a Conan lip print and autograph framed-print from his appearance on her show last Monday. This item attracted 15 bids and raised $210 for the "For All Kids Foundation" charity.
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LATE NIGHT POLL
THIS WEEK’S POLL QUESTION: What’s been your favorite recent satellite TV channel?
Send your response before Thursday to: LateNightPoll@hotmail.com
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LAST WEEK’S POLL QUESTION: Who would win in a Staring Contest, Jeremy or Ira?
I’ve never seen a Late Night Poll so split down the middle. Exactly 50-50 for both Jeremy and Ira. Ali sums it up: "Neither! Jeremy and Ira would stare at each other until the event of a nuclear holocaust. Then their eyeballs would melt and they would die. Still staring at each other though, so I guess I have to say, TIE!"
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WHY FEB IS FAB By John Costello
In September we celebrated a historic event for Late Night with Conan O'Brien, it's Fifth Anniversary. A sign that the once "Always on the verge of being cancelled" show along with it unknown host had made it and was here to stay.
Now, here we are, in the middle of February, a month that has always been kind to our favorite show. The first one, in 1994, brought the former Late Night host, David Letterman, back to Studio 6A for what many consider to be The Interview that saved LNWCOB from an early cancellation.
In 1995, Daniel Baldwin surprised his girlfriend and us by popping the question to her. But maybe the most important and significant month in the show's history happened three years ago.
It was early 1996. The OJ trial was long over, it was too soon to start campaign jokes, and worst of all Conan's first class of writers had just graduated. It was definitely a make-or-break point in the show, which at that time, was still running on 12-week contracts.
Instead of weeding through the sweeps month with their usual trademark pieces, Conan and his new batch of writers pulled out all the stops and put together a truly unforgettable 29 days (it was a leap year). It was only the first episode of the month when Rebecca Romijn would make her first ever appearance on the show.
The month also brought us the search and location of the 70's superstar Grady (actor Whitman Mayo), and all the comedy bits in-between. And after thousands phoned the "Grady Hotline", he made his highly anticipated appearance on February 8th, in one of my favorite Late Night episodes of all time.
Two weeks later, again they put together more memorable shows, this time a week's worth. Instead of just looking into the future, they travelled to it, but not before doing the other 4 shows in the past. A Trojan Horse being pushed down Broadway past the Ed Sullivan Theater, a Civil War re-enactment in Times Square, and Andy sporting a "Frankie Says Relax" shirt, all during the Time Travel Week.
Lastly, three years ago this month, Conan and Andy finally began to win over the most important audiences, the critics and their bosses. It wasn't soon after February 1996 that the host would receive a long-term contract, and the recognition it does in 1999 that we gave it in 1993.
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A WEEK LIVE@6A By Christina
I live in Austria and I had been looking forward to my trip to New York for a long time! I went to see all four shows the first week of February. When I arrived in N.Y.C. on Monday, Feb 1, I went to the NBC lobby to pick up the information sheet about the show, and I was surprised to find out that you can order tickets for Conan 4 to 5 months in advance now (instead of 3 months). I thought: they had to do this because demand has increased, and I figured it would be really hard to get in on stand-by tickets, as I was planning to do.
But it was very easy, very few people showed up to pick up tickets at 9a.m. On some days, the NBC people have to try hard to get the studio filled. On Feb.2, as many as 80 people got into the studio with stand-by tickets.
In that day’s warm-up, Conan picked a woman who was maybe 50 to dance with him in the aisle. He liked her dancing so much that he asked her what kind of present she wanted for her performance. She said she wants tickets for some concert I don’t remember, and Conan said he’s the wrong guy for this, because he has no influence in the business.
Then he disappeared backstage to look for something to give to her, and he returned with a lifesize Michael Jackson cardboard figure, "from the eighties". He makes the woman hug Michael, but immediately he feels very creeped out by that and tells her to stop. After the show, Conan said to the audience: "and come back again, if you want, tomorrow". So I even had his official invitation.
On Feb.3, warm-up guy Mike (Sweeney) proved that he had once been a law student. He got some lawyers/law students in the audience to ask him law questions and answered them like a true expert. When Conan came out, he got a man to dance, but the guy rushed back to his seat as soon and fast as possible. Someone handed Conan a drawing he had brought as a gift. It showed Conan’s head, and Conan joked it reminded him of a police composite picture. Then he introduced Andy as "the man who created me 30 years ago in his lab" and asked him how he felt. Andy’s voice sounded so bad that I thought he should have stayed in bed; but, surprisingly, Andy said later during the show that he was much better than the day before.
Feb.4: During the warm-up, a woman told Mike that she needed a date for Valentine’s day--would Conan be available? When Conan comes out, he asks: "Where is the woman who wants to go out with me?" He gets her to dance which she enjoys a lot, and Conan sings and dances to the music and acts totally crazy, even throwing himself on the floor before the woman a couple of times. Really amazing to see Conan flip out like that!
Of course he gives her the usual growl-flirting-treatment, and when she says she’s a set designer for TV, Conan wants to know if she would redesign his set. I didn’t get her answer, but Conan went "My mother designed that set!", all worked up. And he couldn’t help but flirting with her a little more and telling her how he WOULD like to go out with her. Then Conan pointed to a guy (the one he mentioned in the monologue) and said, "This is the man with the biggest smile I have ever seen!" The smiling guy got a big applause, a dance with the woman and with the MW7.
One joke from the "Buried in the back pages" bit wasn’t aired. Oddly enough it was the one joke that had stuck in my mind-because I thought it was lame; they had done a very similar one in an earlier show. It went: Debbie Matenapoulos disappears-Star Jones: sudden weight gain of 130 pounds.
One funny thing during Friday’s warm-up: Conan got a guy to dance and asked him his name afterwards. The guy said "My name is Andy". Conan laughed and said, in a mocking tone: "Yeah, sure, and I’m Conan!" This show ended 25 minutes later than usual--we had to wait for Pamela... -- it was a great week and I’m happy and thankful that they let me in so often!!!
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THE BONE OF CONTENTION by Micah Honees
I had fully intended to favor our readership with an all-too-fascinating column about the musical performers from Late Night who I have felt compelled to go out and buy their CD after seeing them on the show…but that best laid plan was blown to bits after I finally got around to watching my tape of the show from the previous Friday. No, this is not another horn-dog column about Pamela Anderson-even if she did talk over the host for the whole segment in an attempt to plug her fabulous co-stars from the new (and unwatchable) VIP. Rather, this is more of an exercise in recognizing our first COURTNEY COX NARCOLEPTIC INTERVIEW™ recipient of the New Year, Michael T. Weiss.
Weiss, known to fans all over the world as TV's "Pretender", graced the Late Night set armed with two of the things that make these celebrity interviews go horribly, horribly, wrong. First, the guy tried to be wise-ass funny. Never works. When he made fun of Conan's love life--after our host favored him with a professed love of the names of crime shows like "The Equalizer" and yes, "The Pretender"-by saying those were two words to describe Conan's love life, I immediately got excited. There is simply nothing cooler on God's gray earth than when these guests challenge Conan and Andy to a game of wits. You can almost see a little light go off behind their eyes.
The crowd booed of course, forcing Conan to immediately snap into reflex mode and begin making fun of him. It was great. It was the little retribution game from the playground you all remembered and enjoyed the hell out of from like the fourth grade. Weiss would say something in that low talker voice and Conan would jump on top of him. "The Humiliator" Andy Richter was surprisingly silent. Maybe he knew it was gonna suck. Then his crime-fighting name could have been "The Prognostigator".
The second faux pas (that's French) Mr. Weiss made was pretending to be a low-rent version of the geeky character David Schwimmer plays on "Friends". Didn't all of you see Ross Geller there on the couch doing all his humbled and yet redeeming "Rachel mannerisms"? He worked that Rossian headbob thing to its manufactured perfection and his stories went nowhere. Did we really care what people say to him in supermarkets? Did we give a crap about his range of accents as he let us all know how they say the show's name in France or Australia?
Wasn't it just kind of a strange attempt to let the world know (the 1:15 in the morning world anyway) that the guy could do these dialects in case producers were watching Late Night? Did any of these producers sit up in bed and go "My God! We're been searching for an actor to play an Australian for months! And here he is on Conan!!"?
My guess is no. And as fans of the show know, the real star is that snappy dish Miss Parker. About three minutes into the interview after he had alienated the pro-Pam audience, I was begging for Miss Parker and her stooges to leap out from behind the picture of Steve Allen and bust a cap in his ass. Sadly, it didn't happen. Not even Bill Reilly from the Bill Reilly Jump and Choke Channel made an attempt. Boo.
So there you go. More free advice from a columnist using a fake name. Don't try to be funny if you're not a naturally funny person who talks at levels no one can even hear anyway. I know what you're thinking. It seems so simple, doesn't it? Does to me. And yet, week after week some Hollywoodie tries to pull it off.
Maybe he should have "pretended" to be Don Rickles. Or Chris Rock. Now that I would have paid to see.
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UPCOMING GUESTS - Feb 15th - 26th 1999
MONDAY The 15th (First shown on 11-19-98):
Jennifer Love Hewitt,
Marc Maron,
Kevin Brennan
TUESDAY The 16th:
James Ellroy,
Penn & Teller
WEDNESDAY The 17th:
Rosie Perez,
Joshua Jackson,
John Pizzarelli
THURSDAY The 18th:
Andy Garcia
FRIDAY The 19th:
Myles Berkowitz
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MONDAY The 22nd (First shown on 11-5-98):
Adam Sandler,
Jonathan Taylor Thomas,
Frank Pellegrino
TUESDAY The 23rd:
Kevin Nealon,
Ed Byrne
WEDNESDAY The 24th:
Garry Marshall,
Shannon Hall
THURSDAY The 25th:
Martin Short
FRIDAY The 26th:
Jon Stewart,
Tina Majorino,
Black Crowes
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WEEK IN REVIEW By Quinn
TUESDAY February 9:
Stephen King, Gloria Reuben, Six Pence None the Richer
Autograph book
Gloria shows Conan yoga
WEDNESDAY February 10:
John Tesh, Clyde Peeling, Jeri Ryan
Mono: Max on Max
Chat: Brady Bunch
Patterns
Running of the Olympic Money
THURSDAY February 11:
Rosie O'Donnell, Daniel Stern, Patton Oswalt
Mono: Tinky-Winky
Chat: Teletubbies
Clutch Cargo ("The Final Vote")
FRIDAY February 12:
Bill Maher, Fabio, Orgy
Chat: Trial being over, Valentine's Day
Tape of Senate
Max Weinberg's Romance Tips
Must-see Marshal
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FYI
"NEE-HA!" #54 was edited by Linzi Gallacher with thanks to Micah Honees, Christina, Quinn and John Costello.
"NEE-HA!" is on the web at:
http://www.angelfire.com/ny/lacob/conan.html
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END QUOTE
"It was sort of horror turning quickly to joy..."
- Max Weinberg, reaction to being asked to do the "Max on Max" sketch.
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