I love Conan O'Brien. While I didn't religiously watched Late Night but when I did watch I thoroughly enjoyed Conan's humour. When he became the Tonight Show host last summer, I welcomed his earlier time slot and watched his first week and had plenty of laughs.
Unfortunately, I also didn't religiously watched him on the Tonight Show as I just can't stay up past 11pm anymore.
But when this whole debacle with Jay Leno came up, I was just hoping that Jay Leno would go away and Conan would stay. I was and still am on Team Coco and felt that Mr. O'Brien got the major shaft and Mr. Leno a douche.
Well NBC's lost is Vancouver's and TBS' gain and the rest of the 30 cities that he is going to on his Legally Prohibited to be Funny on Television tour that featured some familiar faces and some brand new material
Now this review will reveal a lot of what happened in his first of two Vancouver show that was held at the very hot and stuffy Orpheum so if you don't want to be spoiled on the jokes then stop reading ....NOW.
First off, we were treated to his warm up act, a gent that goes by the name Reggie Watt. And treated is too kind a word for this "comic." I am afraid to say that he sucked and I didn't find anything funny about his act and drifted off to La La La land until Conan came on stage.
When the lights dimmed again we were treated to Andy Richter reading off some audience notice before the show starts such as turn off all cell phones, heart monitors, Japanese robots, anything that might disturb us from enjoying the sweet honey dripping out of Mr. O'Brien's mouth and also due to unforeseen circumstances the part of Mr. O'Brien would be played by his understudy Sir Ian McKellan.
We were then shown what was happening to Conan one month ago and pretty much showing what has happened to him since he "left" the Tonight Show. We are shown Conan overweight with a Jesus length beard. It was pretty funny stuff and during the course of the video he gets offered the tour and starts to get in shape for it.
The Legally Prohibited Band, featuring LaBamba (but no Max Weinberg), entertained the crowd for a bit before Conan finally appears on stage with a beard and starts doing a monologue that includes a thinly veiled jokes on his situation with NBC, the Tonight Show and Jay Leno (whom he kept denying he was making fun but was making fun of his neighbour Joe).
I am trying to remember everything that happened so let's see. He went through things that he is legally not able to do especially having people that look like him appear on television, radio, Internet and movies so too bad we won't be seeing the girl from Wendy's and Tilda Swinton.
One of the jokes that I thought was pretty fun was Conan walking through Pidgeon Park and seeing a strung out trio of Olympic Mascot in particular Sumi who is having a rough time since the Olympics and Paralympics finished up.
Conan also went through the 8 stages of grief that every talk show goes through.
One lucky guy in the front row kept on wanting to take Conan's picture and Conan happily obliged and this guy was a butt of joke for the rest of the night as he continues to try and take pictures of not only Conan but also Andy.
Conan sang a song up his "rough" childhood as an upper middle class child in Brookline Mass. but the song was hard to hear the lyrics because something was off about the sound.
There was also another video of Conan as a network executive warning Conan that they are watching him and his show to make sure he isn't crossing the line while stroking a stuffed animal cat.
Conan also flashed some pictures of people that are allowed to be on television while he is not such as Kim Kardashian and Snookie.
Some old favourites appeared on stage like the Masturbating Bear but since he might be intellectual property of NBC, Conan renamed him the self-pleasuring panda who looked strangely cute.
Conan would throw to commercials on a couple of occasions with Andy reading ads from local Vancouver establishments like Japadog where Andy said a cart was located on Burrard and Smith not Smithe and another ad was for the Penthouse - a nudie house that's been around since the 1940s and same with the girls.
One of the funnier songs was one about a girl that Conan met in Spain that looked like Conrad Bain (the dad from Different Strokes). He also sang a song about wanting to get back on TV and mentioned his TBS deal in that.
Triumph the Insult Dog also made an appearance and everytime he goes to mention the city that the tour is in, a dubbed over voice would say Vancouver, British Columbia Canada, The Orpheum and I also heard CTV, Richard Brodeur and I think the Blenz on West Broadway.
Andy let us know the things he learned during his time off since the Tonight Show debacle and we got to talk to Conan and convinced him to lick LaBamba who apparently tasted like Funions.
Andy also turned a camera to the audience to find groupies and have to say some of the audience members were quite funny especially some weird guy that was standing behind one woman.
The former Tonight Show writer Deon Cole came out and did some stand-up.
However, the funniest bit that really got me going and I laughed so hard that I cried and my back was killing me was the whole Chuck Norris/Walker Texas Ranger bit -I've never seen this before when he did it on Late Night. But Conan would pull a lever and clips from Walker Texas Ranger would appear.
The gems include Walker getting hit out of nowhere by what seems to be a wing of a glider that Walker really should have seen if he had any peripheral vision -as Andy observed.
The second clip had some man opening a door into an apartment hallway and gets his leg stuck in a bear trap and Walker coming by just to say "Shut up" and punches him in the face.
I really started laughing at the scene where Walker is trying to propose to his girlfriend and when he does and goes to embrace her, he gets shot in the back.
However, the best came last where we treated to a very young Haley Joel Osment talking and out of the blue says "Walker tells me I have AIDS" and end scene. I was howling so much.
He sang one final farewell song and then for his encore he rocked the house down and even rocked in the audience.
I am so glad that I got tickets to this show. It was so funny, I never laughed so much in a span of 90 minutes.
I really hope that Conan's new TBS show gets picked up by a Canadian network or us Canadians get to see it somehow as Conan did say in his show tonight that Canadians were the first ones to get his humour when he first started his talk show.
Unfortunately, I also didn't religiously watched him on the Tonight Show as I just can't stay up past 11pm anymore.
But when this whole debacle with Jay Leno came up, I was just hoping that Jay Leno would go away and Conan would stay. I was and still am on Team Coco and felt that Mr. O'Brien got the major shaft and Mr. Leno a douche.
Well NBC's lost is Vancouver's and TBS' gain and the rest of the 30 cities that he is going to on his Legally Prohibited to be Funny on Television tour that featured some familiar faces and some brand new material
Now this review will reveal a lot of what happened in his first of two Vancouver show that was held at the very hot and stuffy Orpheum so if you don't want to be spoiled on the jokes then stop reading ....NOW.
First off, we were treated to his warm up act, a gent that goes by the name Reggie Watt. And treated is too kind a word for this "comic." I am afraid to say that he sucked and I didn't find anything funny about his act and drifted off to La La La land until Conan came on stage.
When the lights dimmed again we were treated to Andy Richter reading off some audience notice before the show starts such as turn off all cell phones, heart monitors, Japanese robots, anything that might disturb us from enjoying the sweet honey dripping out of Mr. O'Brien's mouth and also due to unforeseen circumstances the part of Mr. O'Brien would be played by his understudy Sir Ian McKellan.
We were then shown what was happening to Conan one month ago and pretty much showing what has happened to him since he "left" the Tonight Show. We are shown Conan overweight with a Jesus length beard. It was pretty funny stuff and during the course of the video he gets offered the tour and starts to get in shape for it.
The Legally Prohibited Band, featuring LaBamba (but no Max Weinberg), entertained the crowd for a bit before Conan finally appears on stage with a beard and starts doing a monologue that includes a thinly veiled jokes on his situation with NBC, the Tonight Show and Jay Leno (whom he kept denying he was making fun but was making fun of his neighbour Joe).
I am trying to remember everything that happened so let's see. He went through things that he is legally not able to do especially having people that look like him appear on television, radio, Internet and movies so too bad we won't be seeing the girl from Wendy's and Tilda Swinton.
One of the jokes that I thought was pretty fun was Conan walking through Pidgeon Park and seeing a strung out trio of Olympic Mascot in particular Sumi who is having a rough time since the Olympics and Paralympics finished up.
Conan also went through the 8 stages of grief that every talk show goes through.
One lucky guy in the front row kept on wanting to take Conan's picture and Conan happily obliged and this guy was a butt of joke for the rest of the night as he continues to try and take pictures of not only Conan but also Andy.
Conan sang a song up his "rough" childhood as an upper middle class child in Brookline Mass. but the song was hard to hear the lyrics because something was off about the sound.
There was also another video of Conan as a network executive warning Conan that they are watching him and his show to make sure he isn't crossing the line while stroking a stuffed animal cat.
Conan also flashed some pictures of people that are allowed to be on television while he is not such as Kim Kardashian and Snookie.
Some old favourites appeared on stage like the Masturbating Bear but since he might be intellectual property of NBC, Conan renamed him the self-pleasuring panda who looked strangely cute.
Conan would throw to commercials on a couple of occasions with Andy reading ads from local Vancouver establishments like Japadog where Andy said a cart was located on Burrard and Smith not Smithe and another ad was for the Penthouse - a nudie house that's been around since the 1940s and same with the girls.
One of the funnier songs was one about a girl that Conan met in Spain that looked like Conrad Bain (the dad from Different Strokes). He also sang a song about wanting to get back on TV and mentioned his TBS deal in that.
Triumph the Insult Dog also made an appearance and everytime he goes to mention the city that the tour is in, a dubbed over voice would say Vancouver, British Columbia Canada, The Orpheum and I also heard CTV, Richard Brodeur and I think the Blenz on West Broadway.
Andy let us know the things he learned during his time off since the Tonight Show debacle and we got to talk to Conan and convinced him to lick LaBamba who apparently tasted like Funions.
Andy also turned a camera to the audience to find groupies and have to say some of the audience members were quite funny especially some weird guy that was standing behind one woman.
The former Tonight Show writer Deon Cole came out and did some stand-up.
However, the funniest bit that really got me going and I laughed so hard that I cried and my back was killing me was the whole Chuck Norris/Walker Texas Ranger bit -I've never seen this before when he did it on Late Night. But Conan would pull a lever and clips from Walker Texas Ranger would appear.
The gems include Walker getting hit out of nowhere by what seems to be a wing of a glider that Walker really should have seen if he had any peripheral vision -as Andy observed.
The second clip had some man opening a door into an apartment hallway and gets his leg stuck in a bear trap and Walker coming by just to say "Shut up" and punches him in the face.
I really started laughing at the scene where Walker is trying to propose to his girlfriend and when he does and goes to embrace her, he gets shot in the back.
However, the best came last where we treated to a very young Haley Joel Osment talking and out of the blue says "Walker tells me I have AIDS" and end scene. I was howling so much.
He sang one final farewell song and then for his encore he rocked the house down and even rocked in the audience.
I am so glad that I got tickets to this show. It was so funny, I never laughed so much in a span of 90 minutes.
I really hope that Conan's new TBS show gets picked up by a Canadian network or us Canadians get to see it somehow as Conan did say in his show tonight that Canadians were the first ones to get his humour when he first started his talk show.
