The Early Days of Late Night

Talk about things that make you feel old. The other day, it was brought to my attention that Late Night with Conan O’Brien has been on the air for 15 years. Seriously, 15 years. It’s hard to believe that the host, who has long since become a household name, originally debuted his talk show in 1993 to very little fanfare and general disinterest.

Trying to even figure out what time Conan was on back in those days was something of a guessing game, as the 12:30 post Tonight Show slot was more of a loose guideline than a definitive airtime. Depending upon what part of the country you lived in, Late Night was on anywhere from 12:30 to 3:00am, and often changed week to week according to the whims of local affiliates.



While this was an obvious setback to the success of the fledgling show, it was also a creative boost – some of the greatest bizarro comedy bits ever to make it to network television appeared in these early years. This was the kind of stuff you could only get away with when your program was being shown in timeslots usually reserved for infomercials and re-runs of Cops.

Undeniably, the comedy was hit or miss, but that’s what made it fascinating. You never knew what you were gonna get with Conan, but it was probably something you weren’t going to see anywhere else. These were the glory days of PimpBot 5000, a robotic pimp who spouted lines like, “All the bitches think I’m pretty, bought my face at Circuit City,” as well as the masturbating bear, which was, well, exactly what it sounds like it would be.

Clive Clemmons Inappropriate Responses to Everyday Life, an oddball parody of the type of network found in the outer recesses of satellite TV was another wacky gem, and though apparently no one in the world remembers this, I will forever assert that Conan O’Brien was the first person to broadcast the term “crunk,” first used in a skit about the need to invent new curse words.



While some of the original characters, like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, endured when the show gained popularity, others (Wherefore art thou Robot on the Toilet?) disappeared into the comedic ether. But I will always have a fondness for the early days of Conan and the envelope-pushing sketches that in many ways paved the absurdist comedy road that shows like The Colbert Report would travel years later. There may only have been a handful of people watching, but those who were up at 2:00am in 1994 saw some truly great stuff. Viva la PimpBot!

- Amirah