Conan O’Brien at the Chicago Theatre
Conan O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour hit the Chicago Theatre Wednesday and Thursday for what proved to be, unsurprisingly, a pair of rock-solid nights that bested his doomed TV show. Apparently, giving O’Brien free rein to do whatever he wants in a variety-style revue is far more entertaining than trotting out celebrity guests hawking their latest projects. In no particular order, here’s The A.V. Club’s roundup of the stint’s best and most memorable moments.
• Conan’s always been a champion of up-and-coming comedians, bands, and anything else that he thinks has potential. He’s earned an enormous amount of goodwill, especially now that he’s been elevated from TV star to folk-hero status since being fired by NBC. But still: Nobody wants to see an opening act, especially for a hotly anticipated show like this. But the massively afro-ed Reggie Watts won over the crowd with his nonchalant absurdity and questionable accents, channeled through on-the-fly digitally layered songs with ridiculous concepts: “Big Ass Purse” was about the contents of a purse, and “Fuck Shit Stack” was about, well, cuss words and rap videos, apparently. (His songs work well on his recent CD-DVD debut Why Shit So Crazy?, but Watts is best experienced live.)
• The Conan portion of the evening kicked off with a hilarious video that showed his sad life following the Tonight Show fiasco. The memorable opening shot was a close-up of O’Brien’s eyes and hairy nose, which pulled away to reveal him sprawled out on the floor among empty pizza boxes, in black sweat pants with long hair, an unkempt beard, and a comical fat suit. The phone rings and he answers, “Job?” One of the best parts showed O’Brien making a protein shake out of whey powder, but with some added ingredients: strawberry Crush, Doritos, and Crisco.
• Later in the evening, it seemed as though O’Brien was abruptly killing the momentum when he announced he was bringing out his Tonight Show writer Deon Cole, but Cole quickly showed why he deserved a slot in the show. He proudly announced that he was the sole black writer for the show, and then segued into a pastiche of obvious white-guys-do-it-like-this-but-black-guys-do-it-like-this jokes that somehow worked despite their obviousness. Maybe it was because he pretended to be taking notes on how his jokes went over, or maybe it was his theatricality: Cole performed both sides of a bit where a gay waiter was trying to hit on him while he was just trying to order a cheeseburger. Somehow, it just worked. That really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who saw Cole come out on the Tonight Show’s last week to offer a pimp’s perspective on NBC’s shuffling of its late-night hosts.
• Chances are, anyone who came to the Chicago Theatre on either night had little idea what to expect—especially if they’d been avoiding all the reviews of the tour so far. The lack of a desk onstage meant that Conan would be on his feet a lot, but no one could’ve predicted he’d strap on a turquoise Stratocaster and strum away on it for four songs, plus an impromptu jam on The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” Obviously, this is Conan’s show, and he can do whatever he wants, but we already knew O’Brien has a boner for the gritty rock duo: They were his last musical guest on Late Night, had a weeklong stint on his show previously, and he also had a prominent cameo in the band’s video for “The Denial Twist.” The detour into Jack White’s material seemed to exist only to showcase O’Brien’s Guitar Center-style soloing chops. O’Brien’s an extremely talented guy, but even the song parodies of “I Will Survive,” “Polk Salad Annie,” and “40 Days” with lyrics about what he’s been going through—like how he’s so desperate to be back on TV he’d change his gender to be on Oxygen—were amusing at best. When he hopped behind a Yamaha to pound out an early version of his love ballad “The Girl Who Looked Like Conrad Bain,” though, it was great because it was both so unexpected and silly.
• It’s a common understanding that the Chuck Norris series Walker, Texas Ranger was terrible, but Conan’s “Walker, Texas Ranger Lever” (a recurring bit on his show) provided a highlight of both nights. Not only was the crowd treated to a series of hilariously baffling WTR clips (including Haley Joel Osment saying, apropos of nothing, “Walker told me I have AIDS”), but the clips were introduced by special guests. Night one: Brian Urlacher, who received warm applause, and Chicago native John C. Reilly, who received a thunderous standing ovation. (That’s the kind of crowd The A.V. Club can get behind.) Reilly provided the best moment of the night when he went off-book to sing a song about how he’s never going to watch The Tonight Show again. “I’m not legally prohibited from shit! We tell it like it is in Chicago!” The crowd freaked out, and Conan just laughed about it going on YouTube—which it of course did:
The non-disparagement clause of O’Brien’s parting agreement with NBC forbids him from mocking Leno or the network, but O’Brien still slipped in a couple tossed-off Leno mini-impressions, which he insisted were actually of Ludacris, not Leno.
By the way, who pulled the WTR lever the second night? Tim Meadows. Well, they can’t all be John C. Reilly.
• Let’s be honest, even when Eddie Murphy’s live stand-up video Raw came out in 1987, his purple paisley and black leather outfit (rounded out with a black fingerless gloves) looked ridiculous. Seeing Conan wearing the exact same thing on stage? Hilarious, especially as he detailed just how ill-suited his body was to such a ridiculous outfit. “I have no ass!” he yelled, noting the saggy back part of the pants that just hung sadly off of his non-ass. O’Brien used his appearance as the butt of many jokes—especially when a woman yelled “Your hair is ridiculous!” the first night—but judging by loud cheers from ladies in the audience, Conan could’ve Tiger Woodsed Chicago both nights.
This little guy snagged one of the massive beach balls Conan tossed out to the crowd for the finale.
