Late Show UK

After 16 years (2,725 episodes) Late Night With Conan O’Brien ended on Friday 20th February 2009. The final week saw some of Conan’s favourite guests booked on the show – Bob Saget, Stephen Colbert, Nathan Lane, Martha Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld and even an appearance from Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg. The final show saw The White Stripes perform. The final week was full of trips down memory lane with Conan looking back at some of the memorable moments from the past 16 years.

Other guests on the final show were former Late Night sidekick Andy Richter (saying “I told you you’d never last without me”), Will Ferrell with an impression of George W. Bush and John Mayer performing a song with the lyrics “LA’s gonna eat you alive” – a tongue-in-cheek lyric for Conan’s move to The Tonight Show.

In Conan’s final farewall speech at the end of Friday’s show he said he’d “never grow up” – a reference to how some people fear he may tame down his act for The Tonight Show. He said “it’s an incredible, amazing honor to do this show for you people… we’re going on to this next gig, and sometimes I read that it’s time for Conan to grow up because he’s going to 11:30… and I assure you, that’s just not going to happen. I can’t. This is who I am, for better or for worse”.

During his farewell speech his voice cracked a little as he must have felt very emotional leaving Late Night after so many years. Conan thanked David Letterman, who hosted Late Night on NBC before he moved to the Late Show on CBS after famously losing out to host The Tonight Show to Jay Leno. He also thanked Lorne Michaels (Saturday Night Live producer), the Late Night crew and band.

Ratings-wise, the final Late Night saw audiences “up a whopping 44 percent over the show’s season average, NBC said today” according to E! Online.

Conan now moves to LA to host The Tonight Show, which begins at the start of June. Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (which stays in New York) begins on Monday 2nd March.

E! Online – ” Conan O’Brien Takes a Bow on Last Late Night”
The Insider – “Conan O’Brien’s Last Late Night”
TV Squad – “How was Conan’s last show in New York?”
E! Online – “Conan Goes Out on Top; Dollhouse Shrinks”

Click here to watch a video tribute for Late Night With Conan O’Brien found on YouTube

New host of Late Night from March, Jimmy Fallon, appeared on Late Night With Conan O’Brien last week to discuss preparations for the launch of the new show.

They talked about how Jimmy’s been getting into the right state of mind as talk show host by watching clips of old talk shows, and Jimmy also tried out some talk show host openers with Conan – including the famous Conan O’Brien “puppet strings” opening.

Late Night With Conan O’Brien will “Go Bye Bye” at the end of this week with one week of reruns to follow, before Late Night With Jimmy Fallon premieres on NBC on Monday 2nd March.

Click here to watch Jimmy Fallon’s interview on Conan (11th February)

Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report was a guest on Late Night With Conan O’Brien on Monday night’s show (8th December). No Fact Zone have captured some fantastic screengrabs from the interview – click here.

Hulu uploaded the interview – No Fact Zone have it embedded here but if you’re outside of the US you’ll want some of this instead.

No Fact Zone – “EYE CANDY: “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” edition”
No Fact Zone – “VIDEO: Stephen Colbert on ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’…”
No Fact Zone – “It’s a Christmas Miracle for International Zoners!”

I’ve just watched the last Late Night with Conan O’Brien from the week in San Francisco (here it is in 4 mins 30). Foam orange hair, some great guests, hilarious VT’s and the return of the Chuck Norris lever this has to be one of the funniest weeks of Conan yet. Intel got a plug every night (although they’re quite obviously not as good as Sam Wo’s), and on the last show Conan does a tour of the Intel building. It’s a must see for any fan.

The exclusives continued on Tuesday when Conan managed to book a guest every show is after – the piano playing cat. Pender puts away the laptop (showing hornymanatee.com, naturally) for a summer crush, and two lucky kids get an audience upgrade. As mentioned in the exclusive news bulletin, someone closer to home has announced their resignation.

Craig Ferguson (originally from Glasgow) isn’t one to miss a good UK story. Here he discusses Newcastle and Tony Blair. (On both occasions I’ve been there it’s been 8.30am in the morning and there wasn’t a lot of drinking going on.)

Equally important is the news that Paris Hilton may be going to jail. Craig picks up on whether jail will do Paris any good, and David Letterman airs a report from NASA on the news that the brightest star yet has been found, along with the dimmest one.

Although, if you really want analysis on the big UK news of the week, go no further than Jon Stewart. John Oliver was even back on College Green for some reporting with a somewhat Russell Brand feel to it.

That’s all for now. I do realise there’s a show each yet to go out today, and I couldn’t find any Dave videos – shout in the comments if I missed something good!

Cheers – James

Not sure what’s going on with CNBC Europe’s scheduling, but this was the show aired last night.

A special thanksgiving show started with Max going down to Conan’s office and asking if he’d like to get some thanksgiving dinner with him from the conference room. The smiles disappear within seconds of leaving the office as they take the long walk down there, not talking on the way. Once in the conference room some polystyrene takeaway containers are used to pick up dinner around the table. What follows is one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen Conan and Max do as they throw food carelessly in to the containers, including Coke cans and all.

By the end of the table some of the food had fallen out and as they passed the bin it was all dumped. Max looked at his Diet Pepsi before throwing it across the room and dumping the food, whilst Conan binned his dinner, picked up a can of Coke, then instantly threw it casually in the rubbish.

Some interesting photos of what celebrities are doing on Thanksgiving included Laura Bush reading a story to George, and to boo’s before it was even shown in full, Mel Gibson holding a football.

Ethan Hawke spoke about his time working for Burger King where he explained, to Conan’s horror, that the grilled burgers are actually frozen, chipped off the pile, microwaved and put in a gizmo that burns in the “grill” marks. It would have been perfect for that guy to say “No, no, no! That can’t be! There’s no reason to live!” and ultimately disappear in a kayak or choo-choo.

Continuing the food theme Jim Gaffigan spoke about healthy eating, and that if something comes in a bucket portion it might not be too good for you. A trough of swill and a silo of Pepsi anyone? Jim had also brought with him the latest installment of Pale Force which was a brilliant and accurate portrayal of Conan as always.

Conan slips standing next to a time machine and is taken back to 17th Century England where his paleness goes down well. It’s soon to slip him up as he’s thrown in the tower. “You’ll be skin and bones and soaking in your own urine before you get out of here” the guards tell him. Sadly, he already was. Cue Conan with head in hands on desk.

Musical guest Brand New Heavies did a blinding performance from their new album Get Used to It.

Rob Lowe, Rashida Jones, Drake Bell

Hadn’t seen Late Night in a week or two now so tuned in to have a look. What a fantastic show. After the monologue, Conan explained about a sketch they did which included a Manatee in front of a webcam to the Divinyls I Touch Myself, then cutting to Pender to see him watching it on a laptop. Conan said “hornymanatee.com” at the end, although it wasn’t in the script. Later he gets a call from NBC who say they have to buy the domain – apparantly it’s the law. So, for $159 over ten years NBC owns “hornymanatee.com”. Not wanting it to go to waste, they put a website together.

You can send your horny Manatee pictures and stories to conan@hornymanatee.com. Some of the ones received are absolutely brilliant – it’s well worth checking out.

Later on we saw the return of the ghost from the 30′s, who used to sing in the studio when it was used for radio. Only there for three of his songs though, and a special one about the Irish at Christmas.

Rob Lowe (Austin Powers) was brilliantly funny, talking about his recent work on the London stage. Conan’s usual British impressions out the way and Rob detailed the habits of the audience, especially one couple in the Queen’s Box. Rashida Jones (The Office) had some warming stories about her father, Quincy Jones, and one not so warming about putting something nasty in Rob Lowe’s shoe on the way to the Oscars.

Drake Bell finished the show with a track from his new album.