Triumph at the line for Star Wars is probably the best ever, and the best moment of that: when the guy dressed as Mr. Spock walks through, giving everyone the finger.
The first appearance of Cameltoe Annie is one of the few times in my life I’ve actually done a real-live honest-to-God spit-take.
And there was a bit they did called “Bobbing for Salmon,” where they tried to find a contestant in the audience. Conan pointed out a completely random audience member, who just happened to be a large brown bear sitting in the audience. Unfortunately, the guy sitting in front of the bear got confused and thought Conan was pointing at him. “All RIGHT! I LOVE salmon!”
This wasn’t the FUNNIEST moment, but there was a sketch in which Max Weinberg was supposedly being stalked, so they hired replacement drummers to sit at Max’s kit in order to flush out the stalker. And one of the drummers they hired was Jon Wurster of Superchunk, one of my all-time favorite bands.
Conan and Mr. T going apple picking had me close to tears. Also, one time La Bamba shaved his moustache, so for the rest of the show Conan made him wear all these ridiculous fakes ones, including a Kaiser Wilhelm esque handlebar moustache.
I know this is totally off thread, but I have yet to find any Conan minute that I didn’t think was absolutely stupid.
Although this line “IMHO, just about anything Conan O’Brien does is genius. He did, after all, graduate from Harvard.” is rather humorous. Everyone who gets into Harvard graduates. It is the most grade inflated school in the nation. The most talented never graduate, i.e. Bill Gates, Matt Damon, some more I can’t think of at 6 am.
That was SO early on, and what totally sold me on the show.
You all are aware that there is now a “Best of Triumph the Insult COmic DOg” DVD out. 2 visits to the dog show, the star wars thing, the canada thing, the eminem thing, and much more.
Anyway, one of my favorites: he did one episode where the whole audience was like 8 years olds, and his guests were people like accountants. If a kid started acting bored, he had security take the kid out of the audience.
The introduction to the 10th anniversary show was comedy gold.
My favorite thing in recent memory though was his visit to some small town where everyone play-acts at being Civil-War era townsfolk. I just couldn’t stop laughing.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned one of the funniest moments of all time. Conan is interviewing Courtney Thorne-Smith. Norm MacDonald, who had been the first guest, is sitting on the couch. Courtney Thorne-Smith is promoting Chairman of the Board, a movie she did with Carrot Top.
Conan (to Courtney Thorne-Smith):
____So what is the name of this movie?
Norm MacDonald (interrupting):
____If it stars Carrot Top, I know a good name for it: Box Office Poison!
*<big laughs>
<Conan reprimands Norm and brings the interview back to CTS>
Courtney Thorne-Smith*:
____It is called Chairman of the Board.
*<very proud of herself for making such a smooth recovery>
Conan (to Norm MacDonald) *:
____Ha! You don’t have any jokes now!
Norm MacDonald:
____I betcha “Board” is spelled B-O-R-E-D.
Conan, the audience, and Courtney Thorne-Smith erupt in laughter. Even though she is there specifically to promote a film she is involved in, she can’t help herself but to laugh as Norm MacDonald tears it to shreds.
One of the “actual items” sticks out in my mind and still cracks me up. It’s an add for a carpet/rug store, and when he zooms in, there’s the face of this stereotypical Prussian, and the wording around his face says, “The Carpet Kaiser says, ‘Damn that Treaty of Versailles!’.”
It was even funnier than that. Conan’s words: “Let’s see you do something with that, you freak!”
Then MacDonald comes up with the B-O-R-E-D line, and everyone goes insane. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.
Does anyone remember, very early in the show, a fake ad for ‘Hello Kitty’, directed by Leni Reifenstahl? God, it was hilarious. But I’ve never met anyone else who saw it.
[QUOTE=SPOOFE-One time, they revealed that the Masturbating Bear was Jim Carrey.[/QUOTE]
Damn you, SPOOFE!
That was the best skit of all time. For those not familiar with the subtle trappings of the Masturbating Bear, let me explain:
He’s a bear, and he masturbates. Furiously.
So Conan (on a night billed having a “special guest appearance” who may or may not be Jim Carrey (I believe Jim just came out with a huge blockbuster at the time, and was a big name to score)) explains that people may have noticed that the MB hasn’t made an appearance lately. Seems he’s gotten in trouble with the censors, and is mending his ways. But tonight, he’s making his first appearance.
So MB comes out, and is acting all sheepish. Conan asks him a series of yes or no questions, which he answers with a head nod. Then all of a sudden, he starts furiously masturbating. All over the place. He’s humping guests, he’s running up and down the aisle - all the while just pounding away at it. He runs up on the stage, Conan’s yelling at him, MB is doing his thing, trying to escape Conan, when all of a sudden, Conan grabs his head, tears off the mask, only to reveal: Jim Carrey! The crowd (and myself) went absolutely nuts.
First of all, can anyone tell me if the Triumph DVD has his visit to the American Idol auditions in Hawaii, along with his visit to the local NBC affiliate?
Anyhow, I have two favorite bits that no one else has mentioned (although I agree with just about everything everyone has said… in particular, I miss Andy’s Sister).
(1) 7 or 8 years ago, he did one of the look-at-all-the-channels-that-the-NBC-satellite-gets bits, and one of the channels was the Flaming Puppets Network, which consisted of an adorable little Panda Bear marionette dancing around, then getting lit on fire by a blow torch and dying a horrible screaming death.
(2) Back when Arafat was trapped inside his compound by Israeli security forces, he did one of those moving-lips interviews with Ariel and Sharon, and Ozzy and George W Bush also showed up. It included W’s mnemonic device to remember which one was Ariel and which one was Sharon, which concluded with “…and mattress sounds like Israel”. Also, we found out that the only food Arafat had to eat in his compound was Bugles and Fluffernutter.
I don’t think it has the visit to A.I. in Hawaii, which I never saw, but I could be wrong.
I’ve only watched the part of the DVD where Triumph goes out the to locations and it didn’t have the A.I. thing.
There is also a music video on it, and something about “the history of Triumph” or something, but I didn’t watch that. Still, it’s funny as shit. I’d seen teh dog show stuff, but I never saw the Star Wars or Canada thing.
The Star Wars was hilarious.
Personally, I found the Quebec thing a little offensive. That poor old man.
I liked Max Weinberg’s one-man show about the life of Thomas Edison.
It starts with Max at his desk reading by a kerosene lamp. He complains that the lamp gives off such irregular light, it’s almost impossible to read his porn. So he invents…the light bulb!
Years later, he’s tired of just reading porn, he wants to hear a woman talk dirty to him. So he invents…the phonograph!
Even more years later, he’s tired of just reading porn and listening to porn, he wants to see moving images of porn. So he invents…the movie projector!
Something tells me this was closer to the truth anyway.
Conan had actually gone to Ireland for a week or so, and brought a camera crew with him to record things to show when he got back. He had evidently tracked down the O’Brien heritage, and went to the town he supposedly is from. It was in the west near the cliffs of Moor (is that right?). He’s shown interviewing a few people, looking around - but later in the day the weather changes, and he’s stuck in the middle of extremely high winds.
Well, if you’ve watched the weather channel (or just an on-the-scene weather report), microphones make wind sound roughly 8 bazillion times louder than normal. So you Conan outside an old abandoned castle, a really, REALLY loud wind sound, Conan’s windbreaker flying over his face, his hat blows off, he’s running around trying to catch his hat, and he off-the-cuff utters, “I can’t possibly imagine why my ancestors abandoned this place…”
