List of Late Night With Conan O'Brien Sketches - Late Night Sketches - Former Sketches

Former Sketches

• Assassination - Conan invites a guest who supposedly is privy to an upcoming, well-kept secret, who suffers a simulated death before he can reveal what he knows. For example, shortly before the final episode of Seinfeld, an actor appearing on the show began talking about what the final episode would be about; a few words in, an assassin shoots him in the chest. On another occasion, Conan introduced a man who claimed to be a high-ranking executive with Coca-Cola, who was going to discuss the soda's secret ingredients. As the interview started, the "executive" fell dead after getting hit by shuriken, and a group of ninjas with the Coca-Cola logo on their backs were shown running away from the stage. These sketches have not appeared on the show for several years.
• Awful Sports Chanter - In response to an upcoming sporting or other spectator event, Conan advises that you should keep chants short and easy to follow. As an example of what not to do, Andy Blitz is then shown in the show's audience, and begins a standard chant for that event while clapping each syllable (such as "Let's Go Mets!"). However, instead of repeating the line, he expands it into a very long chant that begins supportive and usually ends up as a narrative of some sort, occasionally asking the audience to chant along as if it's easy to follow. Conan interrupts the chant to go to commercial as Blitz continues to chant up to the break.
• Car Chases - Conan explains that television shows' ratings go up when they cut to a car chase in action. He tells the audience that Late Night will begin doing this, however there are no car chases in Manhattan due to traffic congestion. So Late Night stages their own "car chases". While played as if they are real car chases, they are executed using Matchbox style vehicles, and model buildings in the hallways of the show's backstage area. The toy cars are pulled by fishing line as a camera gets a shot appearing to be from a helicopter. More recently, car chases have been shot when celebrities have encountered legal difficulties, including Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton and O. J. Simpson. The sketch has not been seen since early 2008.
• Conan O'Brien College Band Search - For a few years, Late Night held an annual college band search.
• Conan's Legs - Conan explains how the show is trying to reach out and collect more viewers by taking a page out of the Today Show handbook. He explains that many Americans tune in to the Today Show just to see Katie Couric's legs. The front of his desk is removed, revealing feminine legs. He continues by doing a few camera tricks such as moving his legs, bouncing a ball, and even shaving them. In actuality, the front of the desk is covered by a greenscreen substituted by a shot of a woman's legs recorded live offstage. The audience is presumed to understand the special effect, leading O'Brien to attempt to sync more complex actions with those of the offstage actress, or sometimes to intentionally fool her. The sketch stopped some time before Couric eventually left Today to anchor the CBS Evening News.
• Continuity Errors - Conan and Andy review a recent broadcast for errors, discovering inconsistencies that no one seemed to have caught, such as Conan suddenly having a receding hairline or wearing a bib while eating a giant pie.
• Frankenstein Wastes A Minute of Our Time - Frankenstein's monster (played by writer Brian Stack) appears by one of the doors leading from the main set, acting excited about something, and inviting the cameraman (and the audience, vicariously) to come with him to take a look. He makes a long trek around the backstage area, stopping along the way to wave the cameraman to keep following. Invariably, what he finds is extremely mundane like a spatula, although it is usually near something that is considerably more interesting, and Conan assumes that is the item Frankenstein led the camera to. Frankenstein once found Tom Hanks (who was not a guest on that night's episode) during the sketch, and pushed him out of the way to show off a light switch. (Hanks then immediately reentered the frame to join in pointing out the light switch with great enthusiasm.) The joke format is extremely similar to a shaggy dog story. Since NBC owns Universal, the Frankenstein monster looking like the one from the movies and sharing the same logo in the sketch title as Universal's monster is no coincidence; neither is the sketch also appearing shortly after the buy-out. While this sketch has seemingly been retired, Frankenstein continues to be a regular character.
• The Hole In The Floor - There is a hole in the floor in front of Conan's desk. Conan throws objects through it and generally hassles an office worker below. The hole is created using bluescreen technology.
• Jerry Butters - Jerry Butters (played by Brian McCann) is a talentless talk show host with his own early-morning show down the hall. His set is bland and reminiscent of a 1970s talk show with fake palms and dull brown colors. Jerry will interrupt Conan's show in the style of a suburban neighbor who initially wants to just have a friendly chat, but eventually needs a favor or some advice for a particular problem he is facing in his current show. Such problems in the past have included Abe Vigoda dying midway through an interview (after Jerry had asked him which was a better experience, his part in The Godfather or the children's comedy Good Burger). He also invariably promotes his own show by addressing Conan's audience with the line "It's on at four in the morning... so check it out!".
• Krunk - During the first two seasons of the show, beginning in early 1994, O'Brien encouraged guests to insert the word krunk, a fictional expletive with multiple uses invented by the show's writers that "the censors don't quite know what to do with yet", into their conversations.
• Mick Ferguson, The Guy Who's Awfully Proud of his Bullet Proof Legs - long-time staff writer Brian McCann, in a mock-Vaudeville dance, sings "Oh I got bulletproof legs, I got bullet proof legs, oh ya can't hurt me cuz I have bullet proof legs! Oh they cost me a fortune but ya don't...." Invariably, a shadowy figure pulls out a gun and shoots him in the chest, which apparently is not bulletproof. In the second incarnation of it, the same man is standing on the screen and Mick implores Conan to get rid of him because he shot him before. Conan has a security guy come out and check the figure over stating that he does not have a weapon. Relieved Mick begins his song and dance again, only to have the Security guy pull out a gun and shoot him in the chest. Another incident has the security guard and a search dog guarding Mick. After Conan calms Mick's fears of the security guard by vouching for him, the search dog pulls a gun and shoots Mick in the chest. The camera then switches to Conan, who looks into it and says, "We're gonna get to the bottom of this." Discontinued due to complaints from gay rights advocates claiming that the sketch encouraged violence against gays.
• The More You Know - These are spoofs of the famous NBC public service announcements. They were used frequently in earlier years, especially when Andy Richter was still Conan's sidekick. These sketches would begin seemingly innocently, but would quickly devolve into parody, usually involving dark themes. For example, in one such sketch, Max Weinberg commands: "Sometimes condoms break; deal with it, missy!"
• Staring Contest - A famous skit held while Andy Richter still served as O'Brien's sidekick. An homage to the game show Make Me Laugh, Richter (unlike O'Brien) would be subjected to a series of purely physical-comedy skits taking place behind O'Brien, usually insulting and disgusting, which would eventually force Richter to look away. On the last episode Richter served as sidekick, the show subjected O'Brien to the skits instead; this was the only time Richter ever won the staring contest. The two tied after one competition in which, as a distraction, Albert Einstein was inspired by a large-breasted woman in a bikini to add the "squared" to his theory of special relativity, and Andy and Conan joined them in a celebratory dance.
• Tomorry the Ostrich - During the break between the first and second guest, Tomorry the ostrich would come out to deliver the blue card with a list of tomorrow night's guests. Tomorry would lay an egg containing the card. Tomorry was a large ostrich with a long, solid neck that members of the audience often pulled on as Tomorry passed by.
• Nobody's Watching - This is a series of sketches that ran over the course of a week or two during the summer of the early years of the 2000s. NBC still had the rights to the NBA Finals which would air during primetime hours and subsequently push back the late night programming depending on how long the games ran. On some occasions, Late Night would air as late as an hour after it is normal time. In these cases, Conan would explain to the audience that it was currently 2 A.M. or later, keeping with the running joke that his show was live and not recorded earlier in the day, and therefore, "nobody's watching." The host would use this an excuse to show low-budget commercials of spoof products that were supposedly sponsors or local businesses. No longer continued.
• Conan of the Night - Seen limitedly in the early part of the 2000s these sketches began with Conan putting on a fake mustache, using a cheesy Spanish accent, and playing out a film noire-style sketch in which a murder was inverstigated or caused. One such sketch ended with the mustachioed Conan "throwing" a knife into Max's chest.