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Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. Hiley hoo. I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News bonus edition. As promised, I pained Mike Chisholm from The Letterman Podcast to get him on here, and I have one question for Mike and then I’m gonna let him go. Mike, are you prepared to admit to my fans, your fans, Letterman fans, Conan fans, that Conan O’Brien is better at hosting the Oscars than David Letterman.
Man, not as only is he better at hosting than David Letterman, I would say that he is better than hosting than only the upper echelon of best hosts of all time. Conan absolutely knocked it out of the park last night. Oh my god, what a great Oscars that was. I love that you didn’t hesitate at all, because we all know we both love Dave. But it is what it is.
But yeah, Conan was fantastic. I see a note here. This is from comedian Jeff Tweety. I just saw this on threads. He wrote, Conan my be the most beloved crossover comedian of the last thirty years.
You talk about a guy who crushes it with anti comedy, comedy snobs, yep and traditional club stand up fans. Has no real controversies except ones where he’s screwed over by Jay Leno paraphrasing, seamlessly transitioned from TV to full time podcasting and remained hugely relevant. Yeah, yeah, unbelievable. What a great job. Yeah, it was.
It was like he took all of the best moments that he remembered from the Oscars that he enjoyed mixed in his not just his brand of comedy, because I felt Smigel, I felt different elements of like. It was very much a Conan O’Brien Oscars, there’s no question, but where when Dave hosted back in the day, he would take his sensibility and even some of his bits and kept them the way that they were. Conan took things sensibility and again even I would say a couple of the things that happened would be Conan bits, but he elevated them and he really morphed them for that audience so well. And again it was very much a Conan O’Brien Oscars, but also broad enough that the pop culture appeal of it was just absolutely flawless. As far as I’m concerned it was very traditional.
On Saturday’s episode, in my Oscar’s preview, I picked up on an interview where Conan was talking about how he grew up watching the Oscars and watching the host of the past, and I noticed at one point, pretty early in the show, he had that old timey rhythm of you do a chapter, you do a segment, you switch topics, for example, Yeah, and how about conclave joke, audience reacts, pause, and then there’s an aura and you do another chuck. It’s almost the same rhythm as a roast where you goo and Mike Chisholm is here. Hey, he’s wearing his letterman jacket. That’s a shock hot. That’s not a mean joke, it’s just a joke.
And I felt like he had that old Bob Hope rhythm and Hope gets killed for the work he did after age eighty. People go back and watch Bob Hope clips, please. He had the classic Oscars host rhythm. Yeah no, no, no, that rhythm that he had completely the same rhythm that Conan fans have come to the thing about it is, it’s it’s every bit his rhythm as well. But you’re you’re exactly right the way that he would and again you’re right again.
And also nothing is me. I’m not trying to just agree with everything that you just said, but it’s all perfectly relevant. The mood of it was so light. He wasn’t mean about things, like even the opening that he did with the Substance with to be moore that that is such a perfect Conan moment. I remember when he owsted the Emmys and he came through the ceiling of the office and he was in twenty four and he was in when he came in when they started the show with a couple of things, the video montage and then a couple other but the Conan part where he was mocking or doing a mock up or a parody of the substance.
I was expecting that he might do that throughout the show for all of the movies but he all the Best Picture movies, but he didn’t. But he did give homage to a lot of them, very smartly and very uniquely throughout the show. I just yeah, again, I’m gushing all over this thing. But I’m gonna watch it again. I’m gonna go back and watch Power the Oscars again.
It was so good. One of the things I jotted down. I did a substack post this morning, mainly commenting on Hulu screwing the pooch. So if you didn’t catch up on that, Hulu cut out during the Best Actress Award and never came back. So yeah, I had a hop on my ship and head to International Waters to see best pictures, if you know what I’m saying.
But it was like, come on, Hulu, what are you doing. But as part of the substack I mentioned I don’t have much to say about Conan, and that is high praise because the gig and you and I have talked about what the gig is and the seacrest of it all. The gig is once you get past the opening montage and you’ve done your monologue and you’ve done whatever the big stunt is at the beginning. From there on, it’s keep the show moving and stay out of the way. If you and I are having a conversation right now about Conan O’Brien and he did this, and he did that, and I did that, other than just wow, that was really good, really enjoyed it, that’s the wrong conversation to have.
At the beginning of his monologue, there was a part where maybe not at the very beginning, he had a couple jokes out of the way the police sit down at the beginning that was really funny. But there was a part where he was walking around and he even said, I am walking around the stage to show you that I have control of it. It’s almost like he took a note from somebody who might have directed one of these things for a long, long period of time and told him that, and he just goes around and he says, yes, this is what I’m doing. As soon as he did that, I’m like, Oh, this is gonna be that perfect blend of exactly what you’re talking about. He’s doing what we’re expecting him to do, but now he is taking control of the ship and gonna take us for a ride at the same time, and applied the pressure of that pedal perfectly.
He didn’t do anything to overshadow it. All he did was accentuated. So let’s walk through it chronologically, because I think there was a point where his comfort level set in and when he was prancing the stage. I don’t think we were there yet. Yeah, the opening clip the substance parody very conan.
As you suggest, you seem to like it. I didn’t think it landed, don’t. I don’t hate it. I’m not gonna kick a can about it, but I don’t think it landed. I don’t know if it landed or not, but a ditch.
First off, it did for me, but I’m a Conan fan, and I think that needless to say. It may not have landed for the pop culture of everybody else, but it did show. This is a very Conan O’Brien joke, very consistent with his stuff with the Emmys and whatnot. But to me, that’s where you knew that this was gonna have his sensibility all over this program. I’ll compare this performance to pitching a baseball game.
I feel like he may have walked the first batter and went two and zero on the next guy, and I was getting a little nervous, and then he settled in and found his fastball and just crushed it. Because my next note here is there was an early joke about a complete unknown and two other things rhythm of three typical joke, and I could I knew the joke was coming once he said a complete unknown. Now I thought the punchline was gonna be. That’s what they said about me back in ninety four, but I still could tell that it was going to be a joke about him and a bit telegraphed, and at that point that we’re very early here, I was like, ooh, this could be rough because the audience hadn’t settled in yet. A complete unknown, a real a real pain.
They’ll turn out too. These are just some of the names I was called on the red carpet. Yeah. No, there was that nervous energy and the uncertainty, and you’re right, there was a settling. There was a settling in point.
I’ll tell you this. The part where I got really excited was the John Lithgow gag. It seems we’re not gonna pull anybody off the stage, where he’s gonna show John with a disappointed look in the audience, pointing it out, doing it perfectly. That also to me very on brand for Conan, and to me that got the audience excited as well. The way that he would interact with people in the audience.
I think that’s always a hallmark that does transcend host a host playing with people in the audience, and many times you might want to be playing with the biggest movie stars and all of that sort of stuff. Conan having fun with John lithgowt to me was a lot of fun. Let me sidebar there. One of the notes I had for the telecast was they did a great job. It was celebrities that I say that I live on old Man Mountain.
I’m fifty five years old. These were celebrities that even I’ve heard of. They but they were current stars. It wasn’t like, oh yeah, they brought out Mark Campbell from nineteen seventy seven, who they later did you know? It was today’s stars, today’s musicians, not quote unquote my people.
It felt very modern. I have the highest compliments for the production. I’ll jump wayhead to the end when they honored Quincy Jones, So how do we honor Quincy Jones? And I thought picking a song from The Wiz was brilliant? High five whoever thought of that?
Because it ties the Wiz to Wicked, which ties the past to today, and the Whiz is like almost fifty years old now, which is differently scary. Just a really modern feel honoring the past being tied to the past. But an oscars for twenty twenty five. My wife and I we talked at length about Wicked because my wife adores Wicked. This is one of those movies that we saw it twice in the theater and then the moment the digital came out, and my wife was just so excited that they started the show with Somewhere over the Rainbow.
All of the Wizard of Oz connections throughout this telecast I thought was brilliant, and the Wiz. I just wish they would have mentioned Michael Jackson’s name to me, that’s the uh, you know, the script for Oprah and for Whoopy talking about all the different artists that he worked with, But they didn’t mention Michael Jackson’s name, but yet they said he was the helm of we are the world. Didn’t mention Michael’s name, but then they showed the Wiz, which, again, you’re right, perfect tie in there. They’re a better way to tie him to the relevancy of this year than that. But I thought it was very, very safe.
It was a very safe copy that was given to those ladies not to mention Michael Jackson’s name, even though Quincy Jones of course, always will be tied to that body of work as well. That being said, yeah, absolutely there was Wicked was all over this thing. Again, this is what I want to know is how much input does Conan and his team get to come in and they get to callborate with this institution that’s been around forever, does Conan get does he get to say how hard they’re going to press the wicked pedal versus say some of the other pedals that he could press. I’m super curious about that. After I let Mike go, I went upstairs to grab an iced coffee with caramel mil because you know, and I realized I didn’t answer his question about the production of it all, and I do want to just address that because I feel like I have something to say about it.
I’ve produced a few things in my life, nothing on the scale of the Oscars, but I’ve produced a few things. As for Conan’s involvement with the rest of the show, in my experience as somebody who’s produced things on and off for thirty years, what would happen is, uh, so you’ve got a host lined up and then on the suits end, So I’ll put myself on the suit’s end. I would grab my team and start spitballing. Okay, what could we do with host who’s got some ideas? And we would come up with a million ideas, and then the leader of the project, me would contact the talents principal person.
So in this case, if I’m producing the Oscars, I’ve got my team, We’re bouncing some ideas, and now I’m going to whoever Conan’s guy or gal is and saying, hey, do you think Conan would be into any of this? That person, having the position of being Conan’s guy or gal, knows how Conan thinks and is like, no, he would never do that. He might be into that, let me bounce it off him.
And then then that person would go to the host, get some feedback, and then cā¦
I thought the thing with the basketball was kind of fun, and there’s no way he wants to do the thing about geopolitics.
And then from there you would shape the show together.
But that’s my experience. Anyway, back into Mike. Does Conan get does he get to say how hard they’re going to press the wicked pedal versus say some of the other pedals that he could press. I’m super curious about that. Me and Robert Morton are gonna be talking about this.
I was Mexicano, no great messaging him throughout the telecats. I said, if you’ve been talking to Jeff Ross and he said all day? And I was like, oh gosh, I want to know more about those conversations because I really want to know how much input these guys had into the substance of the show, rather than just the acides between the substance that was there. I want to know how much collaboration was there. You know, you get better, guess I get you.
I don’t know if I don’t know if we’re gonna make it a letter in podcast or now we’re doing a phone call and we’re gonna talk about it. But he may he may be coming on for that. But yeah, Jeff Rock Spigel all over this thing. Well, yeah, the chronological thing I think is a good idea. But I want to go back to that the film that they did trying to teach people that the communal streaming service going to the movie theater.
I loved that video so much. I didn’t know if that was the Smigel piece. I felt like it might have been, but again, feels like a cone and piece, but elevated and pop culturized for that audience. I love that segment. No, everything just fantastic.
All right, So going down my chronological so at some point he prancis the stage. Yeah, we’ve covered that. I felt when he started bantering with Timothy Shalla may is when he got comfortable, and then physically, I felt like Conan knew he had the room, now that the room had his back, that this wasn’t going to be Letterman two or whatever other oscars we want to talk about. He knew he had the room. So now he’s more confident and he’s now he’s just throwing fastballs.
Yeah, and again keeping it very very One of the things that I loved about this is that Conan has clearly interacted with these stars and these megastars forever, because he’s got this level of comfort with these people, whether it’s perceived and it’s just because of how professional he is, or because he actually has a relationship with some of these people. Like it was seamless going from the opening Hullabaloo to then bringing out Robert Downey Junior. Again, they really started this thing by throwing fastballs somewhere over the rainbow, but then the main song Unlimited, from which it was just absolutely like, how do you top that? She came in and they absolutely belted it out. It was perfect.
Conan does his opening, he lands it, and then he brings out Robert Downey Junior. I love the best supporting act way that he did, the best supporting actor. How he get to monologue about every single one of the performances. And again, this is arguably you talk about pop culture in the modern times, one of the coolest guys out there generationally. And this is where, again I want to know how much input there was, because it was just a perfect thing to do.
It was like follow this, now, follow this. They started at a very high level. All right, well, come back and we’ll talk about my friend and yours. Adam Sandler. Oh, I’m cool.
I can’t wait to talk to you about this. Yeah, very much a Conan bit. By the way, again, just like lift goal, very much a Conan bit with one of Conan’s people. I know you’re not a huge out of Sadler bit, and I saw your reaction to it last night, so I’m the happy, optimistic Canadian up here. I was charmed by it, I really was.
I thought it was borderline brave to do what they did with Sandler in the audience with the hoodie and the microphone and allowing him to just be Adam Sandler. You didn’t think it landed. I know that I’m in the minority here. I understand the guy has a ton of money. We were supposed to take a break here, hold on, we’ll be right back.
Okay, all right, Mike’s got the giggles here. He apparently really likes Adam Sandler. Look, I’m obviously wrong. Adam Sandler has more money than anybody. He has all these successful films.
In whatever Hall of Fame we’re going to make, he’s going to be in it. I just I think he’s a fantastic dramatic actor. Uncut. Jebs is a great film, and he did that to show off that he can act. So please do more of that.
The recent thing, I don’t know what was called, the thing where he was in the spaceship with the alien. He’s really good in that. That was really good. Do more of that, please, But that bit last night where he’s in the audience and he’s dressed like quote unquote Adam Sandler and Conan’s giving him the business, it wasn’t funny. Now the rest of the Internet found it funny.
The rest of the Internet is gonna go see Happy Gilmore and say it was the funniest thing. I obviously just don’t get it, but you liked it. To me, it was very much a Conan bit and Adam Sandler, like him or don’t like him, A lister like he’s in. He’s one of these. He’s one of these A listers that in previous Oscars hosts have fun with some of these people.
You know, growing up with Jack Nicholson many times is in the front road, he’s smiling with the sunglasses or whatever. This is Conan’s version of that. In my opinion, not saying that Adam Sandler is Jack Nicholson, but he’s an A list star and it’s very much on Brent. It’s a mashup of the Oscars in Conan O’Brien’s sensibility and friends. As far as I’m concerned.
Somebody mentioned I think also on Threads Sandler would be a good choice to host the Oscars. He’s got the chops. We’ve seen he can do the sentimental again. The guy’s talented. I just don’t find some of the artistic choices he makes to be funny.
But he’s got a toolbox. I just wish he would use different tools. I think he’d be fantastic hosting the Oscars. Oh, Adam Sandler could absolutely knock the ball out of the park when it comes to that. He’s got again the collaboration that he has at his fingertips with people.
I think would be really special for something like that to pivot a little bit again, staying in the vein of Conan and his friends and people he admires and whatnot. What point did you notice that Nick Offerman was the announcer for the Oscars. I thought that was I don’t know if it was after the first commercial break or whatever. I’m like, I think that’s I said to Candy, I think that’s Nick Offferman.
And then of course he comes in later for a bit even better.
But what a bold, fantastic choice for the announcer for the Oscars having Nick Goferman there. I think I had the same timeline as you around the second commercial break, because I was like, wait, I know that voice. That’s Nick Offerman, because I recognized his particular delivery as the character of the president from the movie Civil War. He was doing that kind of read and then I couldn’t get that out of my head. I kept picturing that very serious Nick Offerman president doing the VOS so yeah, around the same time, I did Google just to make sure before they did the one minute bit.
I’ll play that here for people who missed it. This is Conan O’Brien’s first time hosting the Oscars. That is true in a culture, it is all about. A lot of pressure. Not really, I’ve hosted a lot of shows, Emmy Awards, Music Awards.
Well nothing this big, Nick, do me a favorite. Please stop interrupting. Okay, okay, guy, just trying to help, all. Right, Fine, the movies we honor tonight, explore the. Challenge this big, coming so late in one’s career, must weigh on a man’s soul.
That’s enough. Just write the script I gave you. He’s one of the great comedians of our time. Conan O’Brien, perfect, Thank you our OSCAR announcer, Nick Offerman, Thank you, Nick. Fantastic clip.
Just so much fun. Right, it was great that. And little nuds throughout the night. Again, I’m a huge Amy Poehler fan, and the idea that Nick got to have a little bit of fun with Amy Pohler was there. Just yeah, again, this is that collaboration I was talking about.
Conan brought our version, that the audience’s version of his people. You think about some of these people that he you would have say with Conan O’Brien. All over the show. People on the internet were losing their mind that the announcer got Amy Poehler’s name wrong, which was doubly funny to me, Just so good. What things you gotta be in on the joke?
Yep? All right. So at the end of the monologue he goes into a musical piece called I won’t waste time. I’ll throw the ball to you. I think anybody who’s been a long time Conan O’Brien fan knows his experience with The Simpsons and the idea of the mono rail song, and I think a lot of people were hoping that Conan would get his monorail song moment he did.
I don’t think it was too long. I think it felt fairly short to me, and I thought that he did a very good job of it, and to me, that itch for a mono rail song type presentation was completely scratched at that moment, and I was grinning ear to ear. I think I suffered from Montareel syndrome that especially because he had some sort of stick cane something in his hands, and my brain was just like Montoreil, Montoreel, and I needed mono rail level and this song was not montail level or boy, that’s a high bar. So I came away from the song a little disappointed. It might be one of those things if I rewatched the Oscars seven times, that it might grow on me over time.
But last night, in the moment, I was like, but it was good. Yeah, oh yeah, but to me necessary it’s again mashing up that cone in sensibility with this time honored tradition. In my viewpoint, the ouscers typically have a presentation like this. Sometimes it lands, sometimes it doesn’t. If you’re gonna stay with the traditional and you’re gonna make that happen, this is a Conan way to do it.
And again, I gotta be very like, I liked the length of it. It felt short to me, and I think that’s very important because it could have been a one note joke. There were a lot of things that could have been one note jokes that surprised me because they flower, they had a blooming and then a second blooming and it actually came out that one actually did for me. It held my attention the whole time. Can you bring Conan back and stay with me here?
So if you went back to say, Jimmy Kimmel, now you’re going down the middle straight host, he does a fine job. Nobody complains that Jimmy Kimmel hostly. Somebody can about everything, but for the most part, Jimmy Kimo hosted the Oscars. People aren’t like, what that’s crazy. If you go back to the Conan, well, now we kind of know what it does.
Okay, he’s gonna come out and he’s gonna do some quirky stuff. I wonder if he’ll do a song. Does the conanness of it wear off if he hosts it two, three, five times? Do you need more of a traditional Kimmel style host? And I wasn’t sure if we were going to jump around or not, but we have a little bit like the when he brought out Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan at the end and he reminded the audience about Billy Crystal’s dominance hosting this show.
You talk with these people who are at the tippy top. Billy Crystal at the very tippy top of Oscar hosts, and how Billy would reinvent himself when he would do it, and he would do it, maybe take a year off and Letterman comes in and then Billy comes back. I think that’s how it went. I think Billy had done it before and after Letterman and the idea that Conan could come back and he’s surrounded with Mike Sweetey and Robert Smigel and all of these collaborators. That’s the beauty of having a late night host do this, somebody who literally did the same thing every night, and their charge was to make it original and fresh and funny as much as they possibly could.
If you got a year in between, with all of the comedy goal that comes from the year of those movies that were there, I think absolutely there’s no question that Conan could come back and keep it fresh as early as next year. Could he do six or seven in a row. It might be like the Billy Crystal thing where he takes a year or two often then comes back. But I think he could do two more years of this, just using the movies of the day as the backdrop for the new comedy that comes out with that same framework. That we’ve been talking about.
I absolutely think he could do it again. Do you think we’re at a peak Conan moment right now? And there’s been a few over the decades, but I think today, on this Monday as a peak Conan moment. Could you see Netflix or more likely in HBO Max taking the millennium route and going pretty good at TV? You want to be way of these here’s some cash?
Or is the guy in the sixties, he’s got a podcast, He’s got enough money. You’re just gonna be competing against your past selves. The same question we had about Dave. Is there even a reason to do it at this point? I remember when he talked about leaving the Late Night Show as not the franchise itself, but actually the genre and what he was gonna do, and the deal that he had signed with HBO or Max whatever it was.
The idea of the travel show made so much sense Conan without borders. Yeah, let’s keep doing those. If we get a few of those a year, we’re satisfied. But then the other thing was the idea of the sketch show. And I mean, that’s been very quiet about that.
That to me would be I was so curious about what that was gonna look like. Would it be you know, Lauren Michael’s new show, or would it be something that is entirely Conan to me and Canadian think the kids in the hall, Like, the kids in the hall are perfect, and they’re so quirky, and there aren’t that many of them compared to say something like Saturday Night Live. I wanted to see Conan do that. And if you’re gonna talk about backing up a brinkstruck and giving him free rein to do something, I love that idea. But once a year to do the Oscars too.
Oh my, you could tell that the Again, I talk about the idea that my wife cooks with love and that’s our intangible ingredient. This show was made with a lot of comedy love. Oh yeah. So I think part of the matrix here is and I’m projecting like in my own career and I’m obviously not at all famous. I’m just some dude, but I’ve had points in my career between gigs where i would feel like, oh, I used to be John McDermott.
People used to take John McDermott’s calls. But being entertainment adjacent when you have a big fancy title. People take your calls and when you were a dude in the basement podcasting, some people take your calls because they were true friends. And some people have no use for you anymore, so they don’t take your calls. So, for Conan, is the podcast enough or is it at?
Oh? At some point I used to be Conan O’Brien. At some point I used to be David Letterman. Now Johnny Carson was fine being its. I used to be Johnny Carson and went away.
Dave seems good. Does Conan need it? Or is once a year enough? Is the podcast enough or never again enough? Or would a Netflix thing be intrigued?
Oh? Look at the name of his documentary, outlining the period between when he lost the Tonight Show and when he started the TVs show. What’s the title of it? ConA. Brian can’t stop.
And I truly believe that he can’t stop. I think he’s at the place now where he’s lucky enough to say, this is what I’m going to do, These are the things that I’m going to be a part of in my infinite energy for these things. To me, that was a guy who was energized, did not need to my as a fanboy, like, oh, wouldn’t it be cool if Kimmel or Letterman or some of these other people who hosted in the past were there were not you know, he could reference some of these things and make that’s the fanboy and me coming out. But then I see the presentation of him going up there and going, oh, no, no, no, no, no, he is I said it. I think I might have said it on this show too.
When he went back to The Tonight Show earlier this year or in twenty twenty four, he came back as a guest of The Tonight Show, and my first response was he seems way bigger than the show. Conan seems way bigger, and his podcasting dominance, I think is one of those things where people will continually pick up the phone because, yeah, you do want to be on Conan’s podcast, like you wanted to be on the late night shows before the dilution of the audience the way that they did. I think people want to be on his podcast for that reason, and that keeps him relevant right there. But I do believe the Conan O’Brien name is big enough that he will always be relevant. Now he is, He’s a giant he really is.
Last night was for many people. I think just like the Emmy’s back in the day. I think that the Emmy’s back in the day when he hosted that surprised a lot of people. I felt like that same level of surprise might be happening to a lot of people out there, going, Oh, Conan’s still around. For those of us who still love this stuff and listen to his podcast, we’re like he never left and he’s only getting better with age.
It’s interesting that you go from being underground and an acquired taste to a day like today as mainstream as it gets. Absolutely absolutely something else. I want to note there was a moment when Kimmel hosted I think it was last year, where he made a real time Donald Trump joke. It was during the performance, and it was something that had happened during and he made a reaction a joke, a reaction joke during the actual Oscars, and I forget the joke whatever. I was wondering if Conan was going to have any real time type moments where there would be stuff that would carry through the show, and the idea of when the Latvian crew for Flow won their first Oscar they talked about that and Cona’s response, your Move Estonia, and then he called back that your Move Estonia a couple of times throughout the show, which I thought kept it fresh.
To go back to that point, the idea that it wasn’t just a canned performance, that it was a live thing where he could also show his improvisation chops as the show moved flowed through. I thought that was a really neat addition to the program as well. It’s hard to make those editorial choices. You want to live in the real world. You have to deal with things that are obvious, for example, the La wildfire.
Yes, if you start getting into American politics these days, you’re going to lose half the audience whichever direction you steer that conversation. If you get into the Middle East, you’re going to lose half the people, depending on which way you steer that conversation. We can get into the ridiculous relationship America and Canada have right now. I’m glad you and I are still getting along. These are just places, much like the Michael Jackson reference, let’s just not go there and do something else.
And I’ve gotten into this in my career. That’s not censorship. That’s choosing differently. I’m going to choose to not ask you about the fifty first state today. It’s not why you’re here.
We’re here to talk about Conan O’Brien. Maybe some other time I’ll ask you about that topic, but it’s not why you’re here. So I don’t need to go there. You possibly have some views on geopolitics, it’s not why you’re here, so I don’t need my audience going. You know, I really like that Mike from the Letterman podcast.
He was really cool, but I totally disagree with his take on X and now everyone or half the people dislike you because it’s not what the show is. So I think it was a smart decision, yep, not to do it now. As for the speeches, if you get up there and you get your time I like when people get up there and use their time to you know, you get a platform, use it. I think that’s a good thing. And I don’t think that’s contradictory to what I just said.
One of the questions I have from the production standpoint is rushing people off the stage. What are we rushing to? Are we we just rushing to the American Idol Special or the eleven fifteen PM News. Let people have their moments, like at some point, okay, you gotta stop, but like forty five second clocks, especially when multiple people have won an award. Let people have their moment.
It’s why we’re here. I the more I see him do things, the more I enjoy Adrian Brody and some of his antics. He does have antics, the infamous snl antic when he introduced the musical guest addressed in Rastafarian with a Jamaican accent, and things like that. During his acceptance speech, the idea where I’ve done this before, I’m gonna keep talking here, do not play me off, and then after the thingk he did actually give what I thought to be Sometimes these socially conscious messages are out of touch. I thought his was actually really good.
It was universal. I don’t think it was walking Phoenix talking about private jets. I didn’t think it was like that. I thought he did a good job with it. Some of the people who would come up and be out of sorts, like it was the winners for Flow.
I think that had the phone and they read the speech and it was Yeah. I like allowing moments like that to unfold and to breathe because they can then become something else, and if they run the ship so tight that it can’t. I don’t even know how over the telecast went. I know we always record the next show on the DVR as well, and I think we watched maybe ten minutes into the American Idol show. I think that was if there was an overrun there.
I think it was only about ten to fifteen minutes. I don’t think it was that long, but they were making fun of themselves all night for it being so long, so I didn’t care. I didn’t mind. They acknowledged it. And when you allow moments like that to happen, to me, that’s a better trade off and it feels like you’re getting something special rather than something canned.
As part of the leadup, Conan actually said he was hoping something would go sideways because that’s where the magic is. He’s so right every time. Why do we love Letterman so much? Because whenever something went sideways, Now it’s a new show. Now it’s something else where, uncharted territory, and nobody knows where it’s going to go, including the producers of the show themselves, And to me, that’s one of the magical feelings that that Letterman brought to us and Conan.
That was one of the ingredients the bones that Conan continued with the Late Night with Conan O’Brien franchise that they took from Late Night with David Letterman, And sometimes they would plan these moments again to go back to a Conan bit, a very Conan bit, the dune sandworm funny the first time, as a Conan bit funny the second time. Because it’s like that thing was so expensive, we had to use it twice and I just, oh, what a perfect Conan bit. And it wasn’t unpredictable necessarily, but at the same time, it was a little bit. It was the him out of Pewe’s Playhouse, I guess I would say, yeah. And it just shows you the when things go sideways, the value of a quarterback, whether it’s Conan or Dave in his element or a Kimmel.
I was speaking with my wife over the weekend about the Will Smith incident and a few years later here in everyone’s mind, I think everybody thinks Chris Rock hosted the Oscars that year. He didn’t. He just happened to be there when things went sideways. And recovered pretty nicely. And I don’t think the trio of hosts that year really stood out when things went sideways.
There’s another situation where the slap happens and now we throw the ball back to Conan. That gets handled a lot differently. I think I could not agree more. That’s somebody that you want to be the host of that show. I remember Chris Rock hosting the MTV Video Awards when I was growing up.
I consider Chris Rocker host that the year of the slab was that was that Amy Schumer? That that was Amy Humor that hosted it. Which which again my audience. So we’ve been talking about Amy a lot lately. If I walked up to you and I said, Hey, who’s hosting the twenty twenty sis Oscars is Amy Schumer?
Wouldn’t you think? What? What? Yep? Yeah, one hundred percent?
And you’re right, that’s a good example of a show being on rails, never mind how the host has reaction reacted. All that show was so on rails that Will Smith Gott could could slap Chris Rock and then be celebrated like an hour later when he went up at That show was very on rails compared to last Night’s did not seem that way. It did seem fresh and unpredictable. And yes we’re acknowledging that it’s long. Conan made a Stockholm joke, a Stockholm syndrome joke about that.
It felt unpredictable, and I think that the late night hosts many times bringing I think Kimmel brought that feeling when he hosted as well. I think Billy Crystal when he hosted the show back in the day and did it such a masterful job of it, brought a little bit of that. But the late night hosts bring a special version of that because that’s their brand, that’s what they do. So last thought for me, I’m gonna hop in the time machine. I’m going to go back to the Wednesday of Conan’s first week as the host of Late Night, and I’m going to tell everybody in thirty years, this guy’s going to the Oscars and crush it.
I think would not be surprised by that. Some of the people who I was just talking to George Meyer this week, and George is a legend comedy legendary comedy writer. We were talking about the Lauren Michael’s book. He talked about the moment that Conan was vying for Late Night, and originally the idea was that he would be might be a head writer, one of the head honchos for it, and nobody considered him host. George was one of the guys that said to him, hold out for the host job.
This is when Conan O’Brian was a writer for The Simpsons. They’ve got the Harvard Alum National Lampoon background together just from different eras a little bit. George saw it because he would see Conan putting on these shows for the other Simpsons writers and how special of a talent he was. The idea of replacing David Letterman. Yeah, I’m gonna be on part of Late Night, this new this franchise that David Letterman built, and we’re going to be continued at NBC.
Somebody actually says to this, not to put any pun into this show, but a complete unknown and saying no hold out for the host job. That’s a ridiculous thing to say to someone like that. But George and people who were around Conan on a small scale back then, I think could say thirty years from now, this guy could be hosting the Oscars. I think that there were elements of him. Again, I think the Conan who was at Late Night that signed the five year deal.
The reason the five year deal existed was because of the Conan we saw last night. That was the Conan that did host the Emmys. Back then, that holding deal that NBC signed with him was because they did not want to lose this giant talent. And how many years later are we go ash he signed that deal and what five twenty years ago? He was that big and people saw it that much twenty years later.
Conan’s a smart investment. Such a bolds pick back in the day. Why not just hands twelve thirty to Gary Shandling or somebody like that. And just kudos to everybody involved in making that decision for being able to recognize the talent he is. And again he’s that.
I listened to his podcast all the time. It’s so natural to me to listen to that show. I enjoyed watching Conan. My golden age for late night television was when Late Show was on, then Late Show with Craig Ferguson and Conan either at the Tonight Show or his TBS show. He transitioned over to podcasting so seamlessly and can do these things.
The Travel Show again a very different kind of a show, so seamlessly and again hosting the Oscars things. I am not surprised that it went that well. I’m just so happy that it went that well. It was a delight to watch. Sometimes these things are a pain in the ass to watch.
Not last night. This was a delight to watch. All Right, if I’m going to work an extra hour, let me take one more break so I can make twenty more backs. Get back with Mike Chisholm from The Letterman Podcast. All right, Mike, thank you for taking the extra time here with me today.
What’s coming up on the Letterman Podcast. We’ve got a couple of it’s up in the air a little bit. I’ll tell you something that’s coming along that. So there’s a I look at him as a legendary Letterman writer. His name Steve Weiner.
Steve wrote for the first year of Late Night with David Letterman, and he is responding for some of the bones of that show. The idea of Dave throwing something behind him, whether it’s a card or a pencil, going through the window and having the glass break. That was Steve’s joke. The other thing that Steve, I would say, and Steve added a couple of things that went the entire run, but one of them was a guy by the name of Calvert DeForest. Larry bud Melman, Steve and his writing partner actually are the ones that discovered him, and they had him in their NYU film called King of the Z’s.
There’s a version of King of the Z’s that’s actually really clean. Steve’s gonna come on the show. We’re gonna talk about the Oscars. Our good friend Rick Scheckman passed away two years ago this week, so we’re gonna talk about him as well. But then also we’re going to talk about King of the Z’s and we’re gonna do a separate episode where we actually go through Calvert to Forest’s one of his inaugural performances.
Together. We’re gonna do I don’t know if it’s gonna be a commentary or mystery science theater, how we’re gonna do it, but that’s gonna be coming out here soon. So that’s pretty exciting. I think Mordy is coming back on the show again soon. We’re gonna start celebrating the ten year anniversary of Dave leaving show with David Letterman.
So lots of good stuff coming up on the Letterman Podcast, and we’re gonna have you back too, because you’re one of my favorite guests. I appreciate that you’re one of my favorite guests and one of the two people that can book if you have you and Larry the Cable Guy, if you have access to Smigel. I’m trying to get to Smiggle for real. I want to find out about Night of Too Many Stars. I want to learn more about what the cause is.
And I explain this on my show that I don’t mean it and a like, so where does the money go? I mean, like, where’s the money go? Like, you guys are doing a cool thing here, tell me more about it. So if you could put a bug in somebody’s ear, I would appreciate that. I like doing these crossovers with you.
I know from seeing on Facebook we’ve both picked up people who didn’t know about the opposite show. So I think this is a good thing. You’re always a great guest. And as soon as I put it together, we were texting about something else that I was like, Oh, I should probably just ask you. Now I’m gonna wind up wanting to talk to you about Codin, so we actually booked it in advance for one So thank you for coming on today anytime.
I couldn’t agree more. I love the crossover shows as well. I do have people who are like, we’re one degree away from Robert for sure. I’ll definitely see if we can get something going there. And yeah, thanks for everything that you do.
Thanks for this show. Actually, I was just talking to the Late Nighter dot com founder about you and your show, and I just I cannot endorse it enough. The idea of catching up with all of the major events within comedy and doing it in a very concise way. It’s so easy to digest your show, unlike mine. So thank you very much for everything that you guys do.
Thanks for coming on. That is a bonus episode. Tomorrow another normal episode, a lot of stuff that got bumped from Monday. South By Southwest chose to announce their comedy lineup in the middle of a weekend of Shane Gillis hosting SNL and Conan hosting the Oscars. A lot to talk about tomorrow, See you then,