Conan busts on Buffett

[PARROT HEAD MIKE]

First I say FV@K Conan even though he is from Boston. I would rather watch Rosie O'Donell. Who has had a more successful career, Conan or Jimmy. Lets see what Conan is doing when he is 57, Conan who?....How bout them apples Conan.

[jollymon]

Conan's a dope! Plain and simple.

[daddymention]

I couldn't figure out the following for Conan. I've tried to watch him when he's had interesting guests and I just think he sucks. He doesn't interview well and isn't funny. The only reason the show was ever funny left a few years back and now the show really stinks.

I've always thought the same thing...When I'm flipping through to see who's on the show....he never really has any good guests either.

Plus....there really is no musician out there today that is making as much money as Jimmy without the chart success...JIMMY RULES!!!

[ph4life]

Conan may come up with a hysterical bit every now and then, but ever since Richter left, its all just fluff. I liked his cameo in the South Park movie, when he killed himself

[ZeroDuval]

Plain n simple...the man is a MORON

Love Ya {{{{{ PG }}}}}.... but the a$&hole is somewhat correct.........

[changingchannels]

oh come on,it is true though.and thats what makes Buffett great!not alot of "radio hits" but countless adorring fans and one hell of an amazing catalog of music.you tell me whats more important?

[Air M'Ville Cap'n]

I've always thought the same thing...When I'm flipping through to see who's on the show....he never really has any good guests either.

Actually Conan gets lots of good guests. He used to not but does now. (not music guests though, I usually have never heard of his music guests, but I don't stay up late enough to watch the music performances anyway)

And I think Conan is funnier now that Richter is gone.

[captainjoe]

To those who think Conan is not funny, this is speach to Harvard:


Commencement Speech to the Havard Class of 2000
by Conan O'Brien
I'd like to thank the Class Marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious. I'd like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.



Students of the Harvard Class of 2000, fifteen years ago I sat where you sit now and I thought exactly what you are now thinking: What's going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? I still have 24 hours and my roommate's Mom is hot. I swear she was checking me out. Being here today is very special for me. I miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square - it's so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a ------- bookstore. Hey, I'm just glad my dad's working.



It's particularly sweet for me to be here today because when I graduated, I wanted very badly to be a Class Day Speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to read a portion of that speech from fifteen years ago: "Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic Ah-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold: "I believe that one day a simple Governor from a small Southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority." "I believe that Justice will prevail and, one day, the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule." "I believe that one day, a high speed network of interconnected computers will spring up world-wide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chit chat and pornography." "And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I will use to re-enact crimes and help catch at-large criminals." And then there's some stuff about the death of Wall Street which I don't think we need to get into....



The point is that, although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a kind of demigod, I was actually a student here once much like you. I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived in Holworthy. I was, without exaggeration, the ugliest picture in the Freshman Face book. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was just for their records, so I literally jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue photo. To make matters worse, when the Face Book came out they put my picture next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was accepted to the class of '85 but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of "Dynasty." My photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those days I was six feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model and, according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.


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After freshman year I moved to Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler's bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he'd have shot himself a year earlier. 1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been seven years old. Seven years old. Do you know what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in a fight. And I mean bad. It would be no contest. If any one here has a time machine, seriously, let's get it on, I will whip your seven year old butt. When I was here, they sold diapers at the Coop that said "Harvard Class of 2000." At the time, it was kind of a joke, but now I realize you wore those diapers. How embarrassing for you. A lot has happened in fifteen years. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around our TV sets and watched "The Cosby Show" on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called "Cosby" on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with driver's side airbags, but if you told us that one day there'd be passenger side airbags, we'd have burned you for witchcraft.



But of course, I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day. Many of you are justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard Grad School, a plum job at your father's firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card and then a plum job in your father's firm. But let me assure you that the knowledge you've gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia, or that guy in South America-you know, that guy-will enrich you for the rest of your life.


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There is also sadness today, a feeling of loss that you're leaving Harvard forever. Well, let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard Fundraising Committee will be on your ass until the day you die. Right now, a member of the Alumni Association is at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he had a brass toe ring and they aims to get it. Imagine: These people just raised 2.5 billion dollars and they only got through the B's in the alumni directory. Here's how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you're tired and most vulnerable. A voice asks you for money. Knowing they just raised 2.5 billion dollars you ask, "What do you need it for?" Then there's a long pause and the voice on the other end of the line says, "We don't need it, we just want it." It's chilling.



What else can you expect? Let me see, by your applause, who here wrote a thesis. (APPLAUSE) A lot of hard work, a lot of your blood went into that thesis... and no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis: Literary Progeria in the works of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. Let's just say that, during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn't come up much. For three years after graduation I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car so I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over. (ACT OUT) License, registration, cultural exploration of the Man Child in the Sound and the Fury...



So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.



You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get your head stuck in your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?"



But to really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell you my story because, first of all, my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it's an amazing rush to stand in front of six thousand people and talk about yourself.


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After graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles and got a three week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380 a month apartment and bought a 1977 Isuzu Opel, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that, technically, it's not a car. Here's a quick tip, graduates: no four cylinder vehicle should have a racing stripe. I worked at that show for over a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me they were letting me go. I was fired and, I hadn't saved a lot of money. I tried to get another job in television but I couldn't find one.



So, with nowhere else to turn, I went to a temp agency and filled out a questionnaire. I made damn sure they knew I had been to Harvard and that I expected the very best treatment. And so, the next day, I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. When you have a Harvard degree and you're working at Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose Graduate School. You see their faces everywhere: in coffee cups, in fish tanks, and they're always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man, in good conscience, would ever wear. I tried a lot of things during this period: acting in corporate infomercials, serving drinks in a non-equity theatre, I even took a job entertaining at a seven year olds' birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox Network as a writer and performer for a new show called "The Wilton North Report." I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way, it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when, four weeks later, news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into applause.



Eventually, though, I got a huge break. I had submitted, along with my writing partner, a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live and, after a year and a half, they read it and gave us a two week tryout. The two weeks turned into two seasons and I felt successful. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom and, when the network decided to make it, I left Saturday Night Live. This TV show was going to be groundbreaking. It was going to resurrect the career of TV's Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here's what happened: When the pilot aired it was the second lowest-rated television show of all time. It's tied with a test pattern they show in Nova Scotia.


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So, I was 28 and, once again, I had no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and didn't know what to do next. I started smelling suede on my fingertips. And that's when The Simpsons saved me. I got a job there and started writing episodes about Springfield getting a Monorail and Homer going to College. I was finally putting my Harvard education to good use, writing dialogue for a man who's so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heart beat. Life was good.



And then, an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way . A chance to audition for host of the new Late Night Show. I took the opportunity seriously but, at the same time, I had the relaxed confidence of someone who knew he had no real shot. I couldn't fear losing a great job I had never had. And, I think that attitude made the difference. I'll never forget being in the Simpson's recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a fire lane. But a week later I got another call: I got the job.



So, this was undeniably the it: the truly life-altering break I had always dreamed of. And, I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building that show over the summer, gathering the talent and figuring out the sensibility. We debuted on September 13, 1993 and I was happy with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment and put my very best foot forward. And this is what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post: "O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He had dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever. O'Brien is a switch on the guest who won't leave: he's the host who should never have come. Let the Late show with Conan O'Brien become the late, Late Show and may the host return to Conan O'Blivion whence he came." There's more but it gets kind of mean.



Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive. And it hurt like you wouldn't believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I've had a lot of success and I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good and I've looked bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. That was just stupid.


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I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.



I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.



So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over. If it's all right, I'd like to read a little something from just this year: "Somehow, Conan O'Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever."



Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there's always delusion.



I'll go now, to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought: If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.



Thank you.

[nycparrothead]

Okay so why does level of funniness (is that really a word?) dependent on who the butt of the joke is??? If it's someone we don't like then it's a really funny joke, but if it hits too close to home then it's not?? Come on now people!

Truth is a lot of Conan's (and Leno's and Letterman's for that matter) jokes lack factual information and skate around things for a cheap laugh. THAT'S THE POINT OF THOSE KIND OF SHOWS!! So, take a deep breath, relax, and learn to laugh at yourself and those you like! Cause I thought it was hilarious and if Jimmy had seen it he probably would have laughed too......

[Air M'Ville Cap'n]

You see, in those days I was six feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model and, according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.

In 1985 we drove cars with driver's side airbags, but if you told us that one day there'd be passenger side airbags, we'd have burned you for witchcraft.

[Air M'Ville Cap'n]

Okay so why does level of funniness (is that really a word?) dependent on who the butt of the joke is??? If it's someone we don't like then it's a really funny joke, but if it hits too close to home then it's not?? Come on now people!

Truth is a lot of Conan's (and Leno's and Letterman's for that matter) jokes lack factual information and skate around things for a cheap laugh. THAT'S THE POINT OF THOSE KIND OF SHOWS!! So, take a deep breath, relax, and learn to laugh at yourself and those you like! Cause I thought it was hilarious and if Jimmy had seen it he probably would have laughed too......

Amen to that. p*** me off when I tell a Bush joke to Bush fans and they get p*** off about it . I laugh about Clinton and Kerry jokes when someone tells them

[12 lb. nestle crunch]

i think some of you guys are getting way too upset about this. not everyone is going to say things we want to hear. he didnt make an attack on jimmy as a person, so just move on with life!!

[phwtb]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

3 planes....
humpteen dozen apartments, houses, living places....
first name basis at every resort he ever stayed at....
friends... not just PHANS... all over the world...
the one boat anyone could EVER want...( that I personnally would love to captain)....
enough money to go and do and see and experience and still stay somewhat incognito....

not to mention, phans that follow his every move, stick up for him like the best big brother ever born, (even tho some of us are sisters),every one of us willing to spend money that WE had to work for to STILLLLL listen to, see or read about him and fund his trips to St Somewhere....

why would he NEED another hit???

i'm STILL buying bullets and shootin at the freezer...

[gcraft]

It seems to me that most of the parrotheads need to get a life or chill out. It's just a joke people, damn! I like Conan and Jimmy, some people are just too damn obsessed with Jimmy. I'm a Bush fan, and I laugh when people do jokes about him, even though Clinton was a bigger joke in office. I'm sure Jimmy wouldn't get offended by it, he would probably laugh at it too, so lighten up people. It seems that some of you aren't listening to Jimmy's music that much, because if you were, you would just sit back and chill, instead of ranting and raving! Come Monday, it'll be alright.

[captainjoe]

even though Clinton was a bigger joke in office.

Perhaps the people who got upset about Conan are not the only ones who "need to chill out"!

[phwtb]

even though Clinton was a bigger joke in office.

Perhaps the people who got upset about Conan are not the only ones who "need to chill out"!

LMAO... aaaaa... wonder who should start the chillin????

just kiddin.... ain't it great to live in a FREEDOM of SPEECH country!!


time to change the subject i'm thinking..... but for the record I do have to admit I never voted for Clinton. I just had to work with him....


Next subject????

[gcraft]

Ah yes, it is great to live in a freedom of speech country. And no, I don't need to chill out, just thought it was kinda pathetic how many people get so upset with a little joke, just like they did when Horatio Sanz made fun of Buffett on SNL. I thought that was funny too. HAHAHAHA!!

[PalmettoSon]

Two things.
One. Why has nobody mentioned 5 O'Clock Somewhere. Big hit, last year, still in pretty decent rotation.
Two. I believe it was last year that Conan made a joke about Huey Lewis, though I can't remember the exact joke. The next day Lewis called the show only to find out that Conan was in fact a fan. He invited Lewis on the show for both an interview and performance, and reminded everyone that these are just jokes.
It's just a comedy show, and Conan seems to be a really good guy. Maybe this will lead to a Buffett performance on the show.

[Tiki Bar]

My 1st thought was 5 o'clock somewhere.
My 2nd thought was, ok it was just a cameo, but a VERY STRONG cameo.
My 3rd thought was that wasn't especially nice, but it WAS just a joke.
My 4th thought was any publicity is good publicity.

This being his 2nd Buffett mention in recent times just enforces the fact his name is out there, and at it's core is giving Jimmy respect. Unknowns aren't worth joking about.

[Blonde Stranger]

I'd bet dollars to donuts that if Jimmy heard it, he would have laughed. Damn, people, lighten up. A great deal of Conan's humor is self effacing. Plus, he wrote for the Simpsons when it was at its best - 'nuff said.