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by Chris Packham on
Mon, May 17, 2010 at 12:31 PM
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Conan O'Brien
The beloved accretion of tics and self-effacement known as Conan O'Brien performed live at the Midland last night. While it's possible to discuss last night's show while avoiding the elephant shit in the room -- Tonight Show host Jay Leno, a man whose talent and ambition long ago vanished in the rear-view mirror of his 1938 Phantom Corsair or whatever -- one ends up looking kind of ridiculous for ignoring said unsightly pile of elephant shit. Suffice it to say that in dislodging O'Brien from his Tonight Show hosting gig, this unbelievably boring late-night fan-favorite of Liberty Medical subscribers and Jitterbug phone users cemented his reputation as an outright villain.
Contractually precluded by NBC from performing on television until the fall, O'Brien has mounted "The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour," a series of live shows in 32 cities. The Legally Prohibited Band took the stage to some tectonic applause from the standing-room-only crowd at the Midland, priming the room for the entrance of ginger headliner O'Brien, who was introduced via the screening of the first of many pre-taped sketches.
O'Brien opened with an extended stand-up monologue ranging in subject from his recent career woes to mockery of the giant shuttlecocks at the Nelson-Atkins ("It looks like some gay giants were just here!"), and announced his new job: "I'm the new manager at the Country Club Plaza Banana Republic." He capped it with his recitation of the Eight Stages of Mourning the Loss of a Late Night Talk Show, and sang one of many parody songs before introducing long-time collaborator and star of Andy Barker: P.I., Andy Richter.
Richter entered lip-syncing the now-famous Trololo song-with-no-words and did a hilarious fake commercial for renowned Kansas City gentleman's club The Shady Lady: "Our depression-era dancers give new meaning to the term 'flappers...' The next time your friend says 'I'm feeling more creepy than horny,' head for the Shady Lady!" It was one of many, many well-researched Kansas City references that included the aforementioned shuttlecocks, Daddy's Back Deck on Main, Boulevard Wheat beer, barbecued meat, our national sporting teams, David Cook and an appearance by actual Kansas City native Jason Sudeikis of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock fame, wearing a Record Bar T-shirt and publicly drinking a Natty Lite just to show you just how damn comfortable he is in his own skin.
Richter's presence helped Conan duck backstage to reset between bits and even indulge in some costume changes. In one of the show's many brilliant bits of meta-comedy, O'Brien took the stage mid-show wearing an exact replica of the ridiculous purple leather suit Eddie Murphy wore in the concert film Raw.
Late Night with Conan O'Brien fans were indulged with a pre-taped monologue by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the on-stage transformation of the Masturbating Bear to the less copyright-infringing Self-Pleasuring Panda ("... a gift from the Chinese government!") and the Walker: Texas Ranger switch, with which Richter and O'Brien mocked clips from the Chuck Norris series, culminating in this unbelievably bad conversational segue by a young Haley Joel Osment:
O'Brien's persona has been honed by years of performance, twitchy and only seemingly insecure. He's confident, funny and, unlike certain other large-chinned, denim-clad late-night talk show hosts, brings a range of musical and comedic skills ato the table. The show inlcuded a parody of "On the Road Again," in which O'Brien subbed in the lyrics, My own show again / on any network, even Oxygen. The show's musical climax, a cover of Cake's cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," culminated in curtain call by all the show's guests and and the inflation of a giant, ridiculous bat, purportedly from Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell tour.
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