Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - Brian Stack, Todd Levin, and Brian McCann: An Inside Conan Holiday Special

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

Brian Stack, Todd Levin, and Brian McCann join writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell to discuss classic Conan holiday moments, including Minty the Candy Cane, the Human Centipede Menorah, Conan’s Christmas Ghosts, and more. Got a question for Inside Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone] and e-mail us at [e-mail]

And now, it's time for Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. I have a little bit of granola in my throat. Oh, it is the holiday season. So you have holiday granola. I do. It was actually a gift. Yeah.

Someone sent me granola as a gift too. I was like, okay, anything goes. They really know our type. It was a bag of oats. I mean, I guess I have to write a thank you note. You do love oatmeal though. I do. Thanks bag of oats. I mean, I guess I have to write a thank you note. You do love oatmeal, though. I do. Thanks for the oats.

Oh, this is a true Inside Conan story. Sweeney used to order an oatmeal every morning from the Starbucks on the Warner Brothers lot. Yes. Yeah, I did. And you'd get, I remember you'd get all the fixings. Well. The walnuts. It saddens me that that's worthy of this podcast, but I guess so.

Hey, well, what about you? And I'd see you put stuff in your mouth and eat it. Yeah, yeah. I would also. I don't know what you would nosh on. I just like when people have a routine and you had a really. Right. You had a routine.

You also would eat like, yeah, you wouldn't eat all day. I wouldn't eat the rest of the day. I never ate lunch because I was just like. Too busy. And just stressing. I was going day. I wouldn't eat the rest of the day. I never ate lunch because I was just like. Too busy. And just stressing. I was going on. Yeah. I hate to use the word adrenaline.

I don't think that's the right word. It was some other bad humor created in my body. Yeah, but then I'd like to imagine that you'd go home and eat a whole pot of bolognese. Oh, yes. Well, my wife's an amazing cook and I would go home and have many meals. Anyway, I think that's our intro for this week. We covered everything about Conan O'Brien. Yes. And our oatmeal fetish.

Yeah. I'm Jesse Gaskell and that's Mike Sweeney. Oh, right. We never said our names. It's okay. And we're writers on Conan and oatmeal eaters. And receivers of... Chronic oatmeal eaters. Breakfast oats for Christmas. I love that we both got that. And it's very on brand for us.

You know what? No one gives a shit about anything anymore. It's 2021. Yeah. And people are sending breakfast cereals as gifts. I loved it. I think it's perfect. It's 2021. Yeah. And people are sending breakfast cereals as gifts. That's fine. I loved it. I think it's perfect. It's something I need anyway. It's great. I don't want more stuff.

I'm just assuming whoever sent it to me won't be listening to this. You know what? It's okay if they do. Yeah. Yeah. They know that you were nourished. How about you? My granola was perfectly timed because I got it right before I took a little road trip. Yeah.

Out to the desert. Oh. To Death Valley National Park. Death Valley is one of my favorite places on the planet. It is beautiful. And I love it. It's kind of an underrated national park. Yes.

I feel okay talking about it on this podcast because of our close-knit listenership. Anyone who enjoys this podcast is probably obsessed with Death Valley. I feel comfortable about that. I was obsessed with Death Valley since I was a little kid. And when I finally got to go there, I... Did it live up? Oh, yes. To your dreams.

Had you been there before? I had been once before. Okay. And I decided to go for my birthday, which just felt like a good... That's great. Commemoration. Yeah. Of life.

Yes. To be in Death Valley. That is fantastic. It's the perfect time of year to go because otherwise it's 130 degrees there. Yes. Fahrenheit. And it's awful. But this time of year is perfect.

Yes. And it's a little cold. Yeah. And it warms up during the day and you can visit all the salt flats and there's beautiful painted canyons. It's all so starkly beautiful. And if you love geology and who doesn't, it's all there for you, man. It is. It's a billion years of work being done. It's incredible. By volcanic forces and water. Yeah. Well, in the summer when it's super hot, I think it's crawling with tourists from Europe. Oh, they don't know?

They know, but I think the take is they crave heat and sunlight so much that they decide to go to Death Valley. And get it all in one trip. Exactly. Yes, that is funny. Instead of going to Dubai, they come to Death Valley. Those are the two options. Uh-huh. It was crowded, but it's never, it's one of those national parks that's not that, I just think it's a little under the radar.

It's not as Instagrammed. Well, it's hard to get to. It's a little hard to get to, yeah. It's five hours from anywhere. Oh, we saw Roadrunner. Oh. One morning. Yeah, that was the first one I've ever seen.

He actually was, he jumped on our breakfast table. He? And was sort of. Please, Jessie, come on. You're right. You're right. You're right. I didn't get his pronouns. But the Roadrunner was intimidating us to drop our breakfast burritos.

Yeah. Puffing up his feathers and kind of daring us down. I hated the Roadrunner on the cartoon. I always wanted the wolf to get the Roadrunner and kill it and eat it. And then they could stop making those stupid cartoons. Oh, and it's, I know it was a real,

will they or won't they? Yeah. Me, me, but the real one sounds like just a total dick. Yeah, no, I mean,

he was really kind of intimidating and I was a little bit scared cause I was like, I don't know what they're right. I, yeah, what they're capable of. They could I was like, I don't know what they're capable of. They could be apex predators. I don't know.

At the very least, he's going to paint a hole onto the side of a wall and I'm going to accidentally run into it. On your birthday of all days. On my birthday. Yeah. So, wow, that's great. So you're in Death Valley. I was. I had a birthday. I'm feeling a little prepared for the next trip around the sun. I always tell my wife if she left me, I would move right to a trailer that's like 100 yards back from a dirt road somewhere in your Joshua tree.

And that would be great. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. It'd be great. You could make art out of old tire irons. All along the driveway up to my RV. Yeah, I know. I really want, if I ever go crazy,

I want it to be the kind that makes a big, some giant art installation out in the desert, out of garbage. Yeah, that's what I would love to do. And have it be so big that you can see it from space. And it's supposed to attract aliens and tell them where to land. There's one of those south of Palm Springs. Salvation.

Near the Salton Sea. Yes. I always tell people if you're near Palm Springs and you have extra time, drive around the Salton Sea. It's the greatest. Yes. It's crazy. I do the same thing. It's all these dead fish. Right overly salinated water and abandoned resorts.

There was a place called Sultan City. They wanted to be the next Palm Springs. And so they mapped it out, they gridded it. And when you drive through there, the grid still comes up in your GPS, but there's nothing. Oh, funny. There's nothing there. Well, the streets are all laid out. There's a few houses. Some people still live there, but most of it, maybe that's where I'll end up living. It's nomad land too. I'll move down there.

The way things are going, right? I mean, what the hell, this country. I know. Well, you know what? It's the season, not what a segue celebrating oh my god this is our big holiday christmas episode who has more holiday spirit than us we have a great holiday episode we do we actually really do and this this was such a fun conversation that we had with three really beloved former Conan writers. Yes.

Brian Stack, Brian McCann, and Todd Levin. Two Brians and a Todd. It's a Todd sandwich with Brian bread. And we talked to them because they had a lot of holiday, kind of classic Conan holiday bits on the show that they were associated with. So we thought we'd... Yeah, including Minty the Candy Cane, which is a fan favorite. Who briefly fell on the ground. Get a lot of questions about.

Yeah, I mean, there's tons of stuff we didn't even get to talk about. And then we kind of went off from things on the show to other Christmas chat involving the show. So without further ado, it's our Holiday Spectacular. Well, we're doing a holiday special today. We are. I'm very excited about it. How cute is that? It's so special. We have three guests instead of one guest.

That's how jam-packed this episode is. Yeah, we do. And only two of them are named Brian. Yes. We have two Brians and a Todd. Yes. Three great writers from late night with Conan O'Brien and the Conan show. And we're going to talk about what it was like at the holidays or at Conan. Yeah. We always had really ambitious sketches on Conan for the holidays. It was fun. It felt like a real, a true variety show. Yeah. We had to work sometimes right

up to Christmas and then right after Christmas. So that's another reason we had a lot of comedy about the holiday season. You knew that it was coming and so you could plan ahead. Right. It's always going to be the holidays at some point. And by plan ahead, we're talking two days in advance instead of one day. Well, first of all, let's introduce our three guests. First, we have Brian McCann. Hi, Brian. Hi, everyone. That's Brian's voice.

Great to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to tell tales of Christmas and, you know, talk the show come holiday time. That's great. Thank you for speaking in a complete sentence so we can pull that out. That's one of my strong suits. And we should break up the Brian. So next is Todd Levin.

Hello, Todd. Hey there, everybody. Thank you for that Conan-esque setup. That was needlessly long. It made me nostalgic for the show. Well, first we need to explain what Christmas is. Right, right, right. There's this guy, Jesus.

Go back 2,000 years. The Romans were pissed. And then we have our other Brian, Mr. Brian Stack. Hello, Brian. Welcome back. Hey, Mike. Hey, Jesse. Brian, Todd.

It's so great to see all of you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you too. Thanks for being here. Yeah, I'm glad you guys are here. Well, that was fun. Yeah. We got a lot done. Yeah, I think this is coming out probably in a couple of weeks. So check it out and listen to yourselves. Anything to promote. Well, Brian Stack, we could start with you. I mean, you played Santa so many

times. I don't know if you remember, what was your first Christmas at the Conan Show? And were you already being recruited to play Santa at that point? I don't remember playing Santa that early, but I always loved doing Santa. And I think it was one of the early Christmases. One of my favorite memories from the first few years of of holiday time was do you remember the the other christmas ghosts we did yes but it was um ghost visiting conan like the christmas ghost and christmas carol but they were uh one was like ghost of christmas shark attacks and um that was rob corddry by the way and i remember uh dorf was ghost of christmas likes people to

watch him work out right just lifting weights lifting weights, listening to ACDC. And it was just, I remember rehearsal being kind of tense and a little uncomfortable. And then it was one of my favorite bits to watch. So I love how it turned out. Yes. And you and Brian McCann were both in it. Brian McCann was the ghost who's afraid of other ghosts oh that's right i was the ghost of christmas sweaters i was right the early i was the early beat to get it going and

then uh we mentioned this sketch a few weeks ago as examples of like a sketch that conan just hated in rehearsal and didn't want to be a part of and i'm glad you brought it up because i remember that rehearsal too he was like oh i just lie in bed yeah there wasn't enough for him to do right he's like the scrooge character and he had to lie in this for post bed and just wait for different because i just sit here and and different ghosts come up and do their bits and then they go away and we're like well, well, yeah, that is it. But why is that so bad? Well, there was always extra stress

because you'd come in there heavy with beats to be cut. And so there would be a lot of lame, lame, and questionable performances from people that weren't really actors that had been brought in because their relative work there i was just thinking is this the only show that was designed to have beats cut like that we would right it turned into that coming with a volume of jokes that we knew were going to get cut sacrificial lambs right santa and the elf i always felt bad for the kids because it was so hard to explain to kids that sometimes beats just got cut and it wasn't their fault and uh you'd have to explain

to the kids and their parents that that we just write more beats than are going to get through and santa and the elf was always a really fun bit too uh but i always felt terrible for the kids that got cut because we're used to getting cut you you know, but yeah. And Conan started getting sick of doing that bit too. That's where Conan would play kind of like a department store Santa, but live in the performance, what we call a performance area. And kids would come and sit in his lap and he'd grant their wishes. And so it was just a joke delivery system. A lot of those kids did get cut because they were bad.

And I think enough time has passed now that. They're 30 years old. Yeah. Oh, man. And some of those parents. Oh, man. Oh, boy. I remember. Yeah, they've driven from Arizona, like spent all night in the car.

Yeah. I remember one parent made their, they got cut from this bit And they made the kid Go over to the writer and apologize And you saw the mother like Hectoring the child and then like pushing them And then it was like I'm sorry I didn't do well please give me another chance Seven year old kid

The worst The worst And you had to explain no we just wrote that bit So that Conan would have something to cut to make him feel good about himself. You're just a pawn in a three-dimensional chess game, kid. So sorry. There was one kid, I know, Sweeney, you'll remember it, and I don't know if it was quite Santa and the Elves, but I'm sure we brought him in for it. And he

thought it was funny to wring his hands, or he had been coached to wring his hands like an evil, an evil. And he was like, oh, yeah. And it was just so, and you could almost see the parent like in the wings sort of miming. Thumbs up. Yeah. Thumbs up.

That's it. Keep going. I want to hear those hands scraping. If you want to eat dinner tonight scrape those hands so brian that was your first christmas at the show was that i don't think that was the first christmas i'm trying to remember the early it was an early it was in the first few years though i remember andy blitz was in it too and uh so it was probably a few years in but i do remember um playing uh santa a few times i remember one where where santa was hanging around after christmas and just wouldn't leave he was like a guest that wouldn't right he was awkwardly hanging out i remember conan tossing in the line of like oh and now that you're done with me i just

get the old baltimore boot and um i remember that was such a Conan line, like the Baltimore boot. That was a line I think he tossed in at rehearsal. But I just watched one of those. And yeah, it was literally done the day. We did a show the day after Christmas, and that's what horrified me. I don't even remember. Like, wait, we didn't get the we didn't get Boxing Day off. Like, what the hell?

It was just. Yeah, I remember we would do it up till the 23rd a lot. And I remember once Conan and Andy were going to run down and see the presents at the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, and they came down in their pajamas and they came running down. And I had to be a security guard telling them they couldn't see the presents and they knocked me over. And I remember having to run from that to catch a plane to get to Chicago because it was we would literally oh wow that was like December 23rd in the evening right you know and Christmas Eve was literally the next day and so yeah we were always right up till the right up till Christmas yeah and I forgot we'd

come right back the day after and then do the show right through New Year's Eve, which is also like, you know, now it seems ancient evil labor laws. Yeah, now everyone takes the whole month of December off. And for when we did the Central Time Zone countdown, didn't we once send you to Chicago to stand out in the cold shirtless? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I was on the shores of Lake Michigan at midnight. Right. Right. For no reason. Like it could have been so easily green screen. You could have been in New Jersey. That was the funniest thing to me was I was like, when I was watching it, I'm like, oh, it's so dark. Brian shirtless and genuinely cold.

He could have been in the studio with it. There's no faking those hard nipples. Thank you. Yeah. But we had so much integrity, we had to send them. Verite. Yeah, that was the other thing we do. It was like, oh, what do we do for a joke

countdown? So it was like, oh, we're on, you know, at midnight for the central time zone only. Because normally we came on 1230, the East Coast. So that was our big comedy bit every year was the Midwest Countdown. One of my favorite bits, and I think it might have been

Thanksgiving though, instead of Christmas so I apologize to the particular listener that's upset about that. But I always love the unwanted relatives drive where you'd parade out all these just miserable sort of family relative archetypes that were just, you know, the guy who did the crazy, lame Jack Nicholson impersonation.

And they were just like horrible uncles and cousins no one wanted, and we were trying to get them booked for holiday dinners i remember tom riley our editor played the jack nicholson first name he had to hold up his hair his hair with his hand going i'm not gonna hurt you or something he was just doing this and it was we were like tom will you do this he's like why me and yeah how did you cast him i think it was partly because we liked Tom so much and also we knew that it wouldn't be an impressive Jack Nicholson impression.

That it would just be... What if he had done one that was too good? But you knew he wouldn't. You knew he would not come through with that. Yeah. He was a wonderful guy.

We were glad to get him on camera for once. A little extra holiday scratch. Exactly. I just remembered the Masturbating bear sketch where he was put in the money booth and Brian, Mr. McCann here, was the guy on the phone who was hoping the bear would grab money so that he could get money for his family for the holidays. That's right. So however much money the bear grabbed, Brian's character on the other end would get it for his for his family and the bear of course grabs no money and just masturbates the whole time and in the cash booth and i remember brian's line at the end very very heartbroken he goes that bear masturbated away my kids christmas

that was our take on the holiday right well that yeah i mean it was kind of a good excuse to bring back old characters too that uh could just be recycled oh yeah it was a dumping ground i remember the turkeys once getting killed uh for thanksgiving godfather style so it's a montage like in when michael corleone does all the murders during the christening right the montage there's a turkey going through the revolving door and he gets shot by a hitman and it was just all the turkeys getting killed godfather so that was very fun too because we had these two great turkey puppets that they made when the show started because i think the writer- They were beautiful.

They were. They really looked like real turkey. Yes. And the heads turned and they went up and down and one even had, you could shoot stuff out of its bird nostrils. Like I think once it laughed so hard at a Conan joke, like milk came out of its nose.

That was always fun. So we just started using them again every year for different thanksgiving stuff yeah that that godfather montage was great were they built for the kiss ass turkey is that why they have them yes so that was dino stamatopoulos's bit i think from like the first year he was the king of large bird humor turkeys and tamari the ostrich that wonderful high-pitched cackling laugh right you know which is always fun i will say though the bit i hear about the most is the one todd created that brian got to play minty and yes i was nice enough to have me sing the song which

was such a a treat for me to get to do but brian coming out as Minty and Todd had the, uh, the, the concept and, and, um, very grateful to him for asking us to do it. Cause that that's one that I hear about a lot. And I remember I came in to do a Poseidon bit the next week that got cut a rehearsal and Conan even made me sing the Minty song in my Poseidon outfit. To get the bad taste of that sketch out of me. Exactly. I remember standing backstage dressed like Poseidon and Roger Waters from Pink Floyd was being brought on and I was like, oh, I got cut because Roger Waters is coming out. That was the only way I knew. Because Conan wants to look cool in front of Roger Waters. I remember, I think you and I wrote that and the Poseidon thing. Why was he Poseidon? Why were you Poseidon? Just because we had water in the back.

Is it because of the backdrop? I think it was because the backdrop was water. So it's like, you know, like, we need a bit with the water. Use every part of the buffalo. Exactly. I wish I could. I don't have any memory of why or what that sketch was supposed to be. I just remember having to sing Mindy and come out as they were taking my tail off. Yes, you were like shirtless in a long wig while they were removing your costume. That's one of my favorite memories, though. One of my favorite memories was singing Minty in that outfit.

So it was great. Yeah. I think that's a scrap, right? Scrap moment. Yeah. It is. Yeah. I'm so glad someone that they rolled on that because that was really fun to see.

You know what else? That song's really catchy. Well, you know, when I first pitched the thing to you and I think I sent you lyrics, I remember this. I don't remember exactly what the lyrics were, but I remember sending them like on a Friday at the end of the day and they were really terrible. It was like a completely different kind of song.

I feel like it was like sexual in nature too. I feel like it was like sexual in nature too. I feel like it was like a slow, like it was like originally a slow jam or something. And then I think I kind of felt like you were sort of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we'll get to it. And I could tell it was terrible. So I think, I think I just, over the weekend, I came up with the other version of it. And I think it was more like in my car on the way to work, I sort of came up with the other version of it. And I think it was more like in my car on the way to work. I sort of came up with the melody for it. And it was just a totally different song. It just ended up working.

Oh, cool. I love that evolution story. Well, yeah. Do you remember, Todd, if it was, I mean, did that come out of like, we need to come up with some new holiday characters or was it just- I mean, every holiday is like that where it's just, can you dump a bunch of holiday crap on us? And we just sort of sift

through it and see what works. So it was just, I mean, I'm sure it was just filtering through whatever news is happening. Like anything that's interesting on that day is something to use for the show. So the holidays were always, I guess, sort of a gift for the first couple of years you write for the show. And then for the next seven years, it's a curse, a terrible curse. We're doing that again? Yeah. That was how I felt about the human centipede menorah. Yes. Oh, yeah.

Which you also came up with. Yeah, which I think was the very first holiday thing I did for the show. Oh, really? Okay. It was a big one. It was right after The Tonight Show. There might have been a holiday thing on The Tonight Show, but I don't remember anything about that show. Right. I know. It's a blank.

As a Jewish person, I usually find Jewish humor really cringy and uncomfortable. I just don't like it. Right. I don't know if it's self-hating, but I never liked, like, you know, it's not the Super Bowl. It's the Matzah Bowl. I just always hated that kind of thing. That was my joke. It was always funny when you did it.

I just remember the first time Brian asked me to play Frankenstein in a bit, it was Frankenstein lighting the menorah and he becomes scared of the fire and like freaks out. But he comes in solemnly to light the menorah, like really, like it's a traditional thing, and he immediately becomes terrified of the fire. That was the first time I ever played Frankenstein, so thanks, Bri.

You're very welcome. The menorah human centipede thing, that was right at the top of the human centipede craze, so it was... Yes. That was an inspired bit of genius. Right. The performers who were the segments of that centipede still reach out to me occasionally.

Like it's this weird, like a Stockholm syndrome. I was candle number six. It's almost like, yeah, it's like a little bit of a Stockholm syndrome. There's one guy in particular who talked to me a lot and he was trying to, he had been in touch with a lot of the other segments and they, he was trying to make a documentary about them being the menorah, like it was that traumatic for them. I felt, I really did feel terrible about

that afterwards, but it's a very impressive visual. Scott Cronick did an amazing job. Did they really have to eat each other's asses? They didn't have to. They chose to. Oh, okay. They were in very, very close proximity. Mouth to ass. Like, it was. Yes, they were.

They had all these sort of codes of conduct that they engaged in. One of the guys told me. Like, yeah. Like, they wouldn't eat before the segment. Oh, wow. Out of respect to each other. Yeah. Oh, I never thought about all they had to go

through. Oh, every time we rehearsed that, I would, like, I couldn't make eye contact. Most of them, you could only make eye contact with the front body. There's only one face. That's right. I was just like, oh.

But think of the laughs. If we can just look past what we're watching right now and think of the big yucks. Wait, so they came up with their own code of, like, they're like, if we're going to do this. Oh, they're going to make it civilized. One of the most amazing things about that bit was that at least like seven or eight of the nine guys who were the segments in the menorah would come back every year. Because we did it four years in a row, five years in a row even. No, did we really? Wow. I feel like we did.

I mean, it was one of those things where by the end I was hiding out. I didn't want to do it. Todd, where are you? Todd! I was like, I don't think we need to do that again. Now, can you explain to me the logic of why they wouldn't eat before if their face is just going to be, you know, as Jesse said, in an ass? So they wouldn't, like, pass gas in each other's faces. Like, they're trying to keep it clean.

That was the idea, I guess. And that's a great acting tip for anyone, you know, playing a human centipede going forward. No burritos. Sarah Silverman at one point came out to light the human centipede. She did. I think that might have been the last year we did it. Was that the last one? I was able to make the argument

that we weren't going to do better than that. We're not going to top that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're always trying to find reasons we can't keep doing a bit. Here's my argument. Like, you presented that in January. Here's my argument. Like you presented that in January. Here's my argument why we shouldn't do this again 11 months from now.

Fred the suits. Well, and that's another question to bring up. I mean, it's tough sometimes if you come up with a successful bit and then you know it's going to get refilled year after year and you have to keep heightening it. I mean, would you start thinking about those sometimes earlier in the year and, okay, I'm going to have to start coming up with a topper for this? No. I think sometimes people would be in denial, like just like, they're not going to bring it back. There's no way they would ask me to do it again. I mean, did you guys ever, like there was so much other stuff to think about every day for the show.

Yeah. Right, right, right. I would always just pray for a blizzard or some large moose. Or a school shooting. Yeah, any 12, 11. Yeah. I remember, Brian, didn't you fly back to do Minty once? You flew all the way across the country.

I found out, my wife told me it was twice I was flown out for that. Really? Oh, wow. I remembered one time, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Because we wrote it into the script one time. I remember it was literally two days after my my son was born and I was just like yes, I will absolutely

Did you email, don't you guys want to use Minty this year? It's that time of year, you guys. If you want to do a week of Minty I can stay for the next ten days. One show, Los Lobos was on and they were so excited to get their picture taken with Minty.

Oh, that's so cool. That made my day. Oh, that's so nice. They did the song in Spanish, didn't they? Did they? Yeah. I feel like they recorded it for us in Spanish. They did the Slipknot song in Spanish. Right.

Where they did part of the Tribute on Nuts thing. I remember they did a version of Don't Worry Baby where they uh just turned it into a slipknot song in spanish that's great yeah will our engineer is saying that that is true most lovers did do minty in spanish as well how cool that's pretty great i love when you find out musicians are big comedy fans like jack white or yeah i remember john mayer mentioned a bit brian was in with blazer called t copywriter cage match which is one of my favorites. Oh, I love that bit. Just that John Mayer remembered it and was like, hey, were you in Tea Copywriter Cage Match?

I'm like, I said, no, but it's one of my favorite bits, and I can't believe you remember it. That's awesome. He's a big, Danny Harrison was a huge fan of the show. Oh, that's right. Remember, he'd come on and he'd be like, oh my God, it's Brian Stack, it's Brian McCann. That's unbelievable. Is that in the Beatles documentary? Yeah, that's right. Remember, he'd come on and he'd be like, oh, my God, it's Brian Stack. It's Brian McCann. That's unbelievable.

Is that in the Beatles documentary? Yeah, that's in Get Back. I love that he liked inappropriate and stuff. And like, just that, yeah, that's just surreal to me. I love the version of Minty where there's a whole pre-tape of him, like, waking up out in the grass and getting the ants to climb aboard. Oh, right. I forgot about that. Oh, yeah. It's like the origin story, like stop motion animation. Was that with Jack McBrayer?

No, that was the last time we did. I think that was one you did fly out for, right? Yeah. We did, maybe it was like the second year we did it, we did like a stop motion animation where you're waking up in the grass. Yeah. And then all the ants hop're waking up in the grass. Yeah. And then all the ants hop aboard and. Get on guys. Yeah. And Todd is in that one too.

Yeah. Yeah. You get stuck to the bottom of my shoe, I think at one point. The ants, the design of that costume, like it'd always be when McCann would leave after he whipped canes at Conan's head.

He'd throw canes, candy canes at Conan's head. He'd throw candy canes at Conan, but then he'd turn and leave, and you'd see the back of the costume for the first time and see the ants climbing up it. I was always like, oh, that's a great touch. I love that. Yeah. Well, it was one of those bits where each department

really kind of brought their A game and made it fun. Good music, good costumes. That's very true. I was always amazed by every department. You'd ask them for something, and it was always even better than you dreamed it would be. Like, Scott Cronick would come in with hats for bits or costumes. There was always an added thing you didn't think of that made it even funnier. They did that for when we do the holiday,

was it the Christmas sweater contest? Yeah. They would just get so involved like chronic, but also like special effects and everything, graphics, everybody was wild. That's a bit we did three or four times maybe, or five.

Yeah. That was a hard one to tell. That was your bit too, right? You want to describe it? Please do. You know, it was just a dopey, the premise is that sort of dopey like office holiday sweater,

you know, your ugly holiday sweater contest. But it was always the same two people who were like the top competitors. And they were like these people who would go really gung-ho and make these really elaborate holiday sweaters. one of them like one had like a i remember one year they there was like a whole ski hill on like a ski mountain like people skiing down her sweater and like actually little skiers yeah yeah little skiers like actually moving on the sweater and like a ski lift and stuff that went across her arms or something and then like a cloud came up behind her head that had snowed down and i think cronin dan cronin one of the writers on the show was always played one of them and he one year he

had a completely edible gingerbread costume that he'd been eating so he we had put him in a fat suit that one year because he's just been eating his costume for for like a month but then it would always the idea was that it was always like these two people, Andy was judging the contest. Is it going to be this person or this person? And then it would get interrupted by these guys dressed as elves who would always say like, they would always announce like this wonderful costume in like,

like hark I hear in the distance. It was some stupid thing. And then the curtain foot part would be Conan in this like really really over the top costume and he would win every year that was it I remember one where there were live animals coming out of the sweater yeah it was uh it was a major scene it was a major scene and there was like yeah there's a like a mule or a donkey like coming through the sweater and some other animals like a goat or something the reindeer might have been for a different one i do remember there being a reindeer on there was

a reindeer in one of the sketches too where i think yeah it was one of the costumes had a sled built onto it and then there was also a live reindeer attached to it that's right yeah those guys would knock themselves out todd i just, I remember having to get a holiday version of the Basic Cable Name That Tune suit. Oh, man. It was the coolest. A tailor made it in Hollywood. And I couldn't believe they made a special Christmassy version of the crappy suit that I had to wear for that. So we did one or two holiday versions of Basic Cable Name That Tune where, yeah, it was just all the songs were ripoffs of real songs.

Right. And I remember Conan always enjoyed hating the characters yeah what was the name of your character again brian lafontaine todd todd named uh named that one again too well we were trying to think of some christmas or holiday disasters and i was remembering frisbee frisbee claws for sure man were you were you there for frisbee claws i might have been right after you left no brian stack voiced it right didn't we also have nog hog the nog hog nog hog it was that was a disaster right yeah but that that frisbee claws was like the whole the whole idea was it was just a Frisbee with a Santa Claus hat. A red Frisbee. That's right.

And it would get like thrown to Conan, right? From off camera. And then he'd do lines. And Santa Claus would always just be going, oh, like he was getting dizzy. He was going to throw up. I think it was thrown in front of him, maybe. It was. It went from side to side like the World's Fastest.

Yeah, it was on a string. The World's Fastest Menorah did that, too. That was an old late night bit where it would zip across the screen. That's one of those where I was like, this is a home run. It just was like we rehearsed it before everyone came down to the studio, and it just seemed hilarious. It was so dumb. It was so funny, though.

Yeah. Yeah. Conan just hated it. it was like he was mad at us you know sometimes you get mad because like it's just it's so obviously lazy like and we think that that's funny that it's that lazy but he'll just resent us for it like we can do better we know we can do better. We know we can do better. Well, and with Stack as the voice, I mean, he can improvise himself out of anything. Thanks, Jesse. I think I was, I think that's a scrap, too, where Prisby Claus is being rehearsed, right? Like, where. Yeah. I think so, yeah.

He clearly isn't into it. And I'm just like. Yeah. It's just his, like, dead eyes just staring straight ahead. It's just, Prisby's going by. Not since Christmas ghosts, by the way, if you watch that episode you were talking about, I think it's online.

You can see like knowing that he hated it. It's funny. It's funny to watch. Cause he's just glare. He's glares through the whole sketch and it's just barely, he's like doing a monotone version of all his life. Oh, I wonder what the next ghost is. Oh boy.

What was Noghog? I don't think I've seen that. I vaguely remember. Yeah. I don't remember. It was just an actual hog out there, right? Yeah. A very large hog with like tons of nipples.

A very large hog. Right. You know, speaking of Andre, Andre Dubichet, he had the very first holiday season of the TBS show was when we did Gravy Boat Lighthouse. Oh, yeah. Right. That was Andre's idea. And it was so fun to do. And I remember thinking it was so fun to do something that insane.

And how can you not love something that the first line of the bit is, you an insane person anything that starts with are you an insane and then we we brought back at christmas we brought back the mistletoe toe missile which was another right it was a a toe a missile that shoots down mistletoe i don't even remember yeah i don't know well i remember mccann speaking of pre-taped Christmas bits, did the Christmas potato specials. Oh, my God, yes. Do you remember those? Oh, I love the Christmas potatoes.

Well, the Christmas, first there was some just sort of the late night potatoes. Right. And that was more or less a success. Stop animation of a potato in some exciting ski chase, and then at the end it crashed through a chain link fence and turned into french fries. Right, which is great. And I think I had for like a second there like,

oh, this is Mr. Stop Motion Animation. He can't do any wrong. Right. And then so they're like, do a Christmas potatoes, and no one liked it. And I remember it was so insane. It's funny. I remember it.

Santa potato and he barfs mashed potatoes all over a tree. It's like this really hardcore barfing sequence. I just remember him being like a samurai with like a sword and he cuts. And then he sucks up the potato guts and then vomits them onto the Christmas tree. That's how he. Yeah. So it looks like snow on the tree. It was way off the rails.

And I just remember Jeff Ross, the producer, just looking at me just like, what the hell? I like that you became like Coppola in the jungle. It was one of those things like the show was about to start and the editing was taking so long and we had to have a special viewing of it like two seconds before show time. And it was like one of those, oh, he's vomiting. All right, let's go with it. I was like, why is he a samurai? But I love it. Don't ask.

There was no thought. Why is he sucking up mashed potato Santa Claus? He chopped up the little potato babies. I think he chopped them up and ate them and then puked them on the tree. It's actually pretty good if you go back and look at it. It's a classic. I loved how we would do claymation. We would just roll on something, and you'd move everything with your hands,

just shoot the whole, you know, it'd be like a 40-minute video, and then go in editing and just take out all the shots of the hands. And that was the claymation. It looks so good. Early on, Tommy Blacha and I worked on a claymation christmas special where saddam hussein shows up for some reason uh for some reason there are clay it's christmas time yeah there was a clay saddam hussein and i remember andy's little clay character going saddam hussein why and he just and it just shows a huge like round mouth on andy's claymation it was super

primitive and like made no sense and that's why it's a class i just shows a huge, like, round mouth on Andy's claymation. It was super primitive and, like, made no sense. And that's why it's a classic. I just remembered a holiday thing that I really loved that is not Christmas, but it was a Halloween idea that Jose had. Jose Royo, yeah. We had come back after a break. And the idea was that we were supposed to do this fun Halloween sketch with a bunch of kids trick-or-treating.

And it got cut for time and then we forgot about it. And the kids had just been, they'd been in this area in their costumes for like weeks or something. And they ate one of them, I think. Yeah. I think like they'd eaten one of like there had originally been four kids and now there were three or something like that. Yeah. Right. I just remembered the lighting of the pagoda too. It was a pagoda. It was like a Christmas tree. And they went and found him in someone's yard, and they brought him in and lit him up. And David Cassidy sang a song for it.

That was great. And Nancy O'Dell co-hosted it with Conan. Oh, wow. Yeah, that was fun. I remember we had a mini Rockefeller ice rink built in the studio, but it was, it was like five feet by four feet. And there were two people ice skating in it. I remember David Cassidy was introduced as Grammy eligible recording artist.

I think that was Michael Coman. Yeah. He wanted out when he showed up, he was like, Hey, I can, I can sing this. I can sing that.

We're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then he saw the script and he's like, I'm not doing this. I can sing that. We're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then he saw the script and he's like, I'm not doing this.

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So we had to sweet talk him in the green room. And it's like, look, you came all this way. You took the elevator up. You had to buy him groceries. You get to meet Abe Vigoda and buy him groceries. It's hard for anyone these days to understand how huge a teen idol he was like at one point

and uh it was just surreal to have him come in and uh yeah but when i was a little kid he was like huge deal justin bieber yeah he really was well you brought up i mean this wasn't on the show but you all worked at 30 rock during christmas which i just sounds idyllic. I mean, was that, do you have any memories from being in Rockefeller Plaza? But it wasn't idyllic at all. It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. This is back pre-COVID.

There was just every single person in the tri-state area would come there and walk around that tree. And then just getting home took an extra 30 minutes of just pushing through angry crowds. It was just the worst. Getting home took an extra 30 minutes of just pushing through angry crowds. It was just the worst. The best part was Tony Bennett coming by and like kind of sitting through his sound check and just kind of that was that always kind of kicked off the holiday for me. I do like Jesse imagining that you guys just took breaks to go sledding and throw snowballs. It was a magical time at conan it was it was incredibly beautiful in midtown you know with like radio city lit up and everything but i remember once the night of the tree lighting

my wife miriam had come by with our older daughter who was just a baby at the time and she couldn't get out of the building you know there was absolutely no way to move it was like new year's eve and it's completely insane the other awful day that we would do shows on thanksgiving day oh yeah that was the thing thanksgiving parade would go by a block away that was also an awful day wasn't the deal that ratings were higher on thanksgiving day i think they were that particular day of the show would do well that's what they told. That's what they told us. That's what they told us.

I always remember eating a lot of pumpkin pie in my office. Like, I would just be like, well, this is cool, at least. I would eat, like, an entire pumpkin pie. Free pie. Yes, exactly. That's how sad I was. I've got to call my family and tell them about this pie. Do you remember, we never actually did it, but we looked into it and we had the whole thing mapped out.

We were going to do Christmas windows. Do you remember that? Right, yes. And we had found this whole empty row of storefronts and we were going to make our own Christmas windows. It became just too cost prohibitive, but it was like, to to me, it was the most exciting bit we were going to do. That's such a cool idea. Yeah. And it was going to make all the departments have brain hemorrhages from the work, but it was going to be so cool.

And it was going to be a store, I think, in Westchester, right? Wow. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It was going to be the way Saks windows were thematic. They were all going to be... Were they Conan-related or they were just funny? They were just funny windows, but they were all going to be were they conan related or they were just funny they were just funny windows but they were they were just insane yeah would you reveal that it was conan or just have them there i think the idea was to do them and then have him maybe be up there when we reveal them like a remote or something and then just leave them up there

for the season yeah like a banksy yes exactly yeah yeah uh yeah i totally forgot about that that it's always one of those things where it's like oh well you know maybe we can do it next year and you're like yeah we're never doing this ever we're never discussing it ever again mike one of the craziest ones i remember was we built all those christmas floats we made a bunch of joke floats this was the craziest one where thanksgiving yeah they had stayed up all night the set design people built all these floats and the next day i remember we're sitting in the office there's like eight of them yes like or more and i remember getting a call and you get off the phone and mike goes jay leno's been doing this for seven years oh no we had no

idea no one had no one watched the tonight show we didn't no one even knew it was someone on the crew someone on the crew was like yeah you know uh this works well for jay so i see why you guys are doing it and we're like oh no wait it was like what did you just say and then like yeah he does it every year. Oh, man. Oh, I'm sorry I brought that up. And so we had to totally trash the whole idea and just come up with something new the morning of. And it was a 2 p.m. taping, too. So we had like two hours to, oh, that was awful. This pie will make you feel better.

I deserve that. I deserve that. But there are so many things like that. I always thought that the writers would feel worse than anybody else about when something big and elaborate got cut. Because every time I would, and this would happen a lot for me, at least, I would apologize to all the departments for having it get cut. And their attitude was always like, that's just the show, you know? Yeah, they're like, I get paid either way. Yeah, yeah.

They had a much healthier attitude about it. Yes. You could almost feel the eyes turning toward you when it's like, it's cut. And then just the department heads like, Yeah. I think Andrew Weinberg once said that there was a direct relationship between the

amount of work put in and the likelihood that something would get cut so like it was always much more likely at the more effort yeah except for frisbee claws i was thinking that about uh minty because it reminded me just how often we would create songs around a character and that that sometimes would indemnify it like okay now you've you've crossed the threshold where now there's enough effort that has been put in that this will be safe yes but yeah i mean a few of these things we've talked about had had theme songs because minty i mean do you know why why did you want it to have a theme song todd Todd? Was it just... I mean, I wanted it to be like a holiday thing.

I wanted it to be like a kind of classic-ish holiday character. You know, and I wanted him to be a little bit gross, because I like gross things that are sweet, if that makes sense. Like, I like lovable monsters. Yeah, yeah. And so him being kind of like filthy and with a cigarette butt stuck to him seemed funny to me. And it was, I don't know. But yeah, I genuinely was like, well, if it's a holiday character, it should have a holiday song attached to it.

It just seemed, it made sense to me. Right. That juxtaposition of gross and sweet was so perfect because Brian's voice in it like, did someone say my name? That's right. He was so sweet because brian's voice and it like did someone say my name he was so sweet you know so sweet yeah and then he wouldn't talk for the rest of the bit i was also still kind of new to the show then and i remember jimmy recorded the song initially jimmy vivino our band leader yeah who arranged it who did an amazing job arranging it and really understood right away what what i wanted like the whole like, you know, speaking, singing to a megaphone kind of thing. But he recorded himself doing it. And I didn't know that I could say, I don't want you to sing it. Like I didn't, you had to tell, I think Sweeney had to tell me that it was okay to get it

the way you wanted to. Cause I had always, I had imagined Brian Staxing it. Right. I didn't know that I could say no. Yeah. So I was just going to let Jimmy do it. I mean, you can say no. You have to deal with the consequences. That's true. The phone calls in the middle of the night.

It's so funny because Jimmy is so cool about all that stuff. Because I remember recording it in the room with him. And it was funny too, because we were like, how do we make it sound extra old timey? And they had a little cone on the shelf that was not even for musical stuff, I don't think. I think it was like a sports type cone. Right, right, right. Like a fan cone. And he goes, why don't you sing through this?

And I was like, and it just had that perfect echo, you know, that old timey echo. Well, also, you had done the old time crooner ghost so you'd already established that you could do that kind of yeah old kind of 30s ben crosby-esque oh thanks voice which was perfect for it i just remember i think i did a christmas version of of the crooner ghost too where it was like christmas should be only for the rich you know that kind of thing which was just horrible like it was extra horrible lyrics for the holidays. So it was like, he was already a monster. And then a monster at the holidays makes them even worse.

I love every character has to do their Christmas for, for like, I know we had to run, drag them through the Christmas filter. Right. Like McCann did prep preparation. I was just thinking that too. Did you actually do that?

Yeah. Oh, that's great. I just had thinking that, yeah. I was just thinking that, too. Did you actually do that? Yes. Yes. Oh, that's great. I just had, I think it was a pretty cool-looking Santa sort of outfit, but like with plaid pants, and it just looked really cool. Right. But then it was the same old just, you know, shrink your rectum for the holidays. For Santa, yeah. And then it was Santa. For the holidays, dot, dot, dot, for the holidays. For Santa. And then it was Santa. For the holidays. Dot, dot, dot. For the holidays.

You were giving out gifts because Santa had roids and wasn't going to be going out this year. Yeah. Didn't you guys say on here in your interview, Bri, that Preparation Aid treatment was, when they sent all the Preparation Aids, they were like hoping to get some plugs for it. But then they were really upset about your character. Yeah. They didn't really acknowledge that it existed. Right. But then they were really upset about your character. Yeah. They didn't really acknowledge that it existed. Right. I think Conan had done a joke about Preparation H and it's sometimes companies are like, oh, we're in on it. You know, we get it. Here's. Oh, yeah.

And so then that's how that character came up. Right. Just because we had a huge skid of Preparation H. Exactly. You were a fan. I remember Lorraine Bracco from The Sopranos when it was on, was on the show, and she loved Preparation H. Ram, and she's like, I want to see the Preparation H man. You know, she was like,

it was such a surreal thing that, you know, celebrity guests would see this insanity. Right. We'll send them to your dressing room. Yes, exactly. And then you brought me out live on the air. And I came out as preparation age. And I'm like, oh, hello. I sat down next to her.

Oh, that's right. And then it goes to like, we'll be right back. And then she turns to me and is like, so do you work on the show? And I'm like, I don't know. I just was brought here. And she's like, her eyes, just her whole face sinks. And she goes, oh, you're going to stay in character? I just withered.

It was the worst. I was like, yeah, I think I am. And I kind of walked away. It's better that way. The worst. I love that she wanted to meet the man behind. I need to know the man behind Preparation H. Raymond. Drop the facade.

Yeah. So we're done. I guess we're done. Can you just insert the Nog Hog song over those? Oh my God. It would be nice to play some of the Minty song. That's a good idea. Play us out.

Oh, maybe an acoustic version to play us out, Brian. When the holidays come round. I wish I had a cone. Okay, we'll get Jimmy to do it. When the holidays come round, you can hear the sound. That's great. Of Minty, the candy cane who you can hear the sound. That's great. Of Minty the candy cane who briefly fell on the ground. Minty fell on the ground, now Minty's covered in goo.

Because Minty fell on the ground for just a moment or two. Yay. It's becoming evident. He landed in excrement, but never fear, cause Minty's here to make Christmas excellent. Minty fell on the ground, now Minty's covered in poo, cause Minty fell on the ground for just a moment or two. Wow. Yay.

God bless us, everyone. Stack, that was impressive. Yes. Especially since you sang it once, you pre-taped it and you still know all the lyrics. It's one of those things where some stuff just sticks with you you know it's just like i just always love that love singing that yeah well does anyone have any final christmas memories anything we didn't bring up the the office was always very dedicated yeah i was gonna say oh secret santa we've had some

pretty fun secret santa sweeney was always the king of the elaborate Secret Santa last minute full office makeover sort of thing. Yeah, he was always good at that. Yeah. And then I just went cold turkey from it, and that was great. I was like, oh, thank God. Just retired. I don't have to do this anymore. Well, what were some of the things you did?

I mean, I know I've heard them over the years, but. You totally made over someone's office. I forget in what. There was Debbie Wonder's smoke. She had to go outside to smoke. So I made a smoking lounge for her. There's an empty office. And I had like stacks of, I got cartons of cigarettes and I had a page, a velvet rope. She could invite other

people into smoking there. John Glazer had me one year and there was a sketch. It was a pre-tape I did for somebody where I was a ballet dancer. I was in a black leotard and I was dancing the performance area and I had to act like my back hurt and i don't even remember what it was but it got cut and it was really embarrassing you know whenever you get cut it's like oh my especially in a black when you're costumed yeah right so that was like in july or something i don't know so um john glazer had me a secret Sanic and, you know, I went to my desk. I didn't know who it was from. It was just a VHS tape.

I opened it up. I put it in the machine. I was like, what is this? And it's Glazer and like he had a gimp hat on. It was in a darkened room. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, Sweeney, yeah. And he puts on a VCR, and it's me dancing from that cut bit. And he starts, he's like, oh, yeah, Sweeney, go, yeah, Sweeney, yeah. And he's jerking off to me.

Oh, no. And then I'm just like, oh, my God. And then just when I stop dancing, he's like, oh, no, no, no, I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. And he rewinds it and plays more of me. He's like, oh no, no, no, I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. And he rewinds it and plays more of me. It's like, oh yeah, that's it.

Yeah. Sweeney. Yeah. Oh man. Again, he would be in prison. Yes. He would be in prison too.

This was fun. So fun. You guys, that was really fun. Yeah. Thank you. We'll do it for our groundhog Day comedy next in February. We'll reconvene.

I've got stories. St. Patrick's Day. Thank you so much for coming on, guys. Thank you so much and happy holidays. Thanks for having us. Great to see you all. Yeah, thanks. Happy holidays.

Happy holidays. Bye, everybody. Nice to see your faces. Okay. Thank you to Brian Stack, Todd Levin, and mccann for joining us oh yes we're very special inside conan and if you like the show you can support us by rating inside conan an important hollywood podcast on itunes and uh leave us a review it would be such a nice gift better than granola and uh we have a listener question yeah we do take do. Take it away. I like this one.

I like them all, but I also like this one. Yeah. Dear Mike and Jesse, I need your help settling a bet with my husband. Ooh, I like this. When Andy Blitz hailed a cab to Canada, did your team find a willing cabbie in advance of the shoot, or did Andy really try his luck on the street until he found a willing guinea pig who didn't mind being on TV? I think you guys found the driver organically on the street, but my husband is too cynical to believe that. If you have time, I'd also love to hear some of your favorite stories of when bits are meticulously planned, but look spontaneous or vice versa.

Thanks, Alice from New York. I love people still make bets with their spouses. And here's one, I guess you can't settle on Google. I think that might be some people's primary income source. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Spouse bets. It was at one time. Now that's all gone away. Now you just have to bet on sports.

Well, Andy Blitz was a writer on Conan, but he also appeared on the show quite a bit, mostly in the early aughts. And in 2004, we did a week of shows in Toronto in the freezing cold in February, which was a great week of shows. And one of the bits for the week was Andy Blitz taking, I think he missed, the idea was he missed the plane

and he had to run out and hail a cab. So he literally got a cab driver to drive him from Manhattan to our theater in Toronto. And he filmed a little remote covering his three or four day trip with this cab driver. Wow. So to answer the question. Yeah. How did they find the cab driver? Well, I don't, you know what, I think this might be a draw because we went out on the street and hailed down taxis just before he was going to leave.

And we were offering a big cash bonus on top of the stated fare. So we thought it won't take that long. And I think it was the second or third cab driver said, I'll absolutely go. So the cab that said yes was hailed down a moment before Andy jumped in and went. Yeah. So it sounds like it was spontaneous.

It was spontaneous, but not 100% spontaneous. But not total verite because there was also more money being exchanged. Exactly. Is that right? Okay. I would say it's 75% Alice and 25% her husband. I see it totally the opposite. I think 75% the husband, maybe 80% the husband.

Okay. We'll give Alice some bonus points for sending in the question. Also, I love the name Alice. You don't meet a lot of Alice's husband. Okay. We'll give Alice some bonus points for sending in the question. Also, I love the name Alice. You don't meet a lot of Alice's nowadays. Certainly not from New York. They're all from Wonderland. Right. Are there other instances we can think of?

I feel like usually when we do remotes, it's mostly verite. Yes. I will say we will often interview a person, if we're doing a remote specifically with one person, like Conan's going to, like if he's getting a dance lesson, we would interview the dance teacher in advance. And make sure they're not too like, oh, don't, you know, I got a hundred jokes I'm going to tell, you guys are going to love me.

Like we learn quickly. Right. You don't want you know, I got a hundred jokes I'm going to tell. You guys are going to love me. Like, we learn quickly. Right. You don't want hams. Some people are real hams. You would think the opposite. You don't want that. And a lot of times these places, we'd call up, they'd be like, we've got the guy for you. And that's your tip off.

Yeah. Yes, that's a red flag. You talk to different staff members and always you want someone who's not overtly trying to be funny. Someone who's just going to be themselves, yeah. You know what? I really like this question for another reason because a lot of times people would comment about remotes going, oh, that's all staged. And it's like, no, nothing was staged in terms of what happened on the remote. No.

I mean, in terms of what happened on the remote. No. I mean, in terms of dialogue. I'm flattered that they think that Conan's that good of an actor. No, it's all ad-libbed in terms of dialogue. The thing that people don't see is that if something's not working, that usually gets cut. I mean, if we meet somebody and it really doesn't work, that doesn't make it into the final edit. So we overshoot everything i mean you

might shoot right especially if you for instance are doing like a triumph remote you shoot for many many hours and it gets whittled down to exactly 10 minutes so you're not seeing all the stuff it's unlike the get back beatles special we actually would would edit yeah no but uh edit yeah or you know like a travel show we we do a string out or a fat we called a fat version and you know it'd be like 12 hours and then we'd have to cut it down to 40 minutes and you just start whacking away well no but i love i mean i think so many things come up in remotes and that's part of what's magical about them like in the when conan was delivering chinese food right in new york city and he ended up falling in love with a woman that was from argentina right i mean that's

all yeah that all just happened and you know then conan decides to spend more time there yes absolutely and then sometimes the writers are you know like if conan's on a journey from yeah going from place to place and you're about to go into a new place the writers have their antennas up for people that seem like they'd be fun to talk to yes yeah And it's not always the people you think. A lot of times people just inject themselves into thinking of like when Conan went to Harlem, we did a week of shows in Apollo. This woman just came in and started singing on camera ABBA songs. And she was so great. We were just like, can you, like right away, we're like, can you hang out with us? And she's like, yeah, you know, I think she had to call work and say, you know, I might be a little late or something like that. But you just kind of, when you have some of the, where the chemistry's that great, you just want to keep your options open.

And so then Conan decided to go, you know, shopping with her. Bring her along to the next part of the bit. Yeah. I love that. And I think that that's what's so much fun about producing a remote is that you do have to kind of keep your eyes open and be willing to let go of what you had. Maybe thought you were going to, the direction you thought it was gonna go and instead just fall go with the flow and follow the new thread it's like that that war analogy where you know you have to prepare have a plan and a plan of attack and we're gonna do this and we're gonna talk to that person and

but then also be once it starts once you're shooting you you need to just be open to like okay this if a better option comes along we follow that and you just go you just follow what's working yeah which is always exciting i i yeah i think that's everyone kind of gets off in the adrenaline of that of not knowing what's going to happen next at that point right and just having to be ready for anything and have the cameras rolling, basically. That's the key. Oh, man. Yeah. Sometimes, man, we'd be on breaks because the cameramen, they're lugging this incredibly

heavy equipment and we're shooting, shooting, shooting, and then we take a break. And then someone, you know, it's Conan on the street resting and someone will. Right. Great. We'll come up and start talking to him. And he's like, are we getting this? And it's like, well, no, we. No, this was the one. Yeah. Minute that we weren't filming.

Right, right, right. And then we, you know, run up to the camera guys and. I'll hold your sandwich. Yeah. Oh, they want to murder us. I know. And then later trying to piece together that footage in the edit and be like, okay, well, you know, we have footage of the person's shoes. Yeah, I know.

I mean, a lot of times it just, it wouldn't be salvageable into a bit. Yeah. How sad. The ones that got away. Well, thank you, Alice. That was fun food for thought. Please send us more arguments. And thank you, Alice. That was fun food for thought. Please send us more arguments. And thank you, Alice's husband.

Yes, please do. Or bets. It's just a bet. It's just a friendly bet. It's just a bet. If it leads to an argument, that's not really our problem. This might lead to an argument. Our answer.

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