I'm With Coco

A few months back, Conan O'Brien announced a new comedy tour on Twitter, which sold out within a matter of hours that day. Even though I was unaware of this until several hours after the tour was announced, I was able to score a couple of tickets online as an early birthday present to myself (which was approved by Kim :D).

Tonight we drove down to the McFarlin Auditorium at SMU to experience a night of comedy gold. The show kicked off with a musical medley by his stage band, which included most members of his house band from TV, opening with Curtis Mayfield's "Move on Up" before moving through the crowd with a traveling horn section.

Conan made his first appearance via a video showing the despair and destitution he went through after he lost The Tonight Show. With the aid of a ZZ Top beard and a fat suit, Conan pantomimed the lost months in between his departure from late night TV and the opening of his tour. The real Conan appeared on stage immediately following the opening skit to wild applause from the audience. Even though cameras were technically prohibited, no one bothered to enforce it at the theater. I did not bring one, so the only photos I have are grainy shots from my cell phone.

Conan launched into a traditional monologue reviewing his last few months in exile and sprinkling in a few jokes to appease the local crowd. Throughout the night, Conan and his team did a great job tailoring the show for a Texas audience.

Highlights of the evening included a bit about the 8 Stages of Losing A Late Night Show; a song about his "rough" upbringing in Brookline, MA; a video from a nameless evil TV executive (played by Conan), a "conversation" with the audience where we read words off of the projector screen; a surprise musical set by Jimmy Vaughn; Triumph the Insult Comic Dog appearing for a Mad Libs-style set where he overdubbed his punchlines to make references to Dallas; The Unnamed Chuck Norris Show Random Clip Handle (not Lever), where he brought out 9-Time All Star Dirk Nowitzki for one of the pulls, which featured a clip of Chuck Norris flying a plane over a highway, jumping into the front seat of a moving convertible, pushing the woman driving out of the driver's seat, and then punching her in the face. The last pull of the handle was the all-time classic featuring Haley Joel Osment, which I will play below:



Conan ended the evening with two songs, a cover of "I Will Survive" and an encore of the old rockabilly song "40 Days".

For someone who had never done a live tour before, Conan handled himself admirably well. There were some things in the line-up that could have been tweaked or augmented to play better in the venue, but the production didn't skip a beat from beginning to end. I hope that TBS (and corporate overlord Time Warner) have the good sense to give Conan as much leeway as he needs to put on a great talk show this fall. He's a great performer who deserves, at this point in his career, to have his cake and eat it, too.