Conan’s Distinctive Coiff Gels with Late Night Audience

Sometimes things aren’t exactly as they appear on television. No, the hyper-sexualized and overly pontificating young things on Grey’s Anatomy aren’t actually doctors. Those dying-off Oceanic Flight 815 survivors Lord of the Flies-ing it up on some mystical uncharted island? That’s actually Hawaii. Even with the purported reality of a show like The Hills, rumors abound of “re-stagings” of a fight or two—or, you know, every single one. And yet, with all of this stark cynicism fresh in my TV-addled mind, it still came as a shock to me when I finally walked into the almost pathetically small set of Late Night With Conan O’Brien—a room that‘s probably no bigger than 501 Schermerhorn.

After calling up NBC’s ticket office, requesting four seats, and waiting just six weeks, I was in the studio. Once the initial shock subsided, I soon felt a sense of intimacy, if not coziness, stemming from the confined space. The small set helps to create a surprisingly personal atmosphere that you wouldn’t expect from such a well-established show, now in its 15th season. A Conan clip reel got the audience laughing before the taping began, their hopes presumably building for a water-cooler moment—like the ones upon the screen—to occur in front of their very eyes. A warm-up comic came out, cracking jokes about how the show would start once Conan was done snorting coke backstage. Everyone assumed it wasn’t true. But still, little nuggets like this make you feel that, as the audience, you’re getting privileged information—what happens in Studio 6A stays in Studio 6A.

Finally, O’Brien came out to greet the audience, swirly-hair coiffed as ever. There seems to be no “off” switch to O’Brien—he is as vivacious off-camera as he is when the cameras are blinking red. At random, he picked one audience member and asked to hug him, then sent another one down to embrace Max Weinberg, the drummer and leader of the show’s in-house band, The Max Weinberg 7. O’Brien even accepted an odd trinket—some sort of button—from a most likely deluded female fan.

As the afternoon went on, I got the feeling that Late Night is not simply performed for the viewers at home. The band even plays for the audience during commercial breaks, for no other reason than to keep the people who attended entertained. There’s an impressive amount of showmanship, despite—or maybe because of—the fact that the WGA Writers’ Strike has left the show in uncharted territory. Conan is forced to fill time that had previously been occupied with written monologues and sketches. The Late Night taping I attended on Thursday, Jan. 31 seemed, for the most part, like business as usual. The guests—Dr. Phil, David Borgenicht (the author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook series), and musical act Les Savy Fav—were entertaining enough, but their appearances probably would have played out the same way whether or not there had been a strike. The show’s first act, though, was something different and new.

In his opening bit, O’Brien explained that since the show always favors the audience in the front, he was going to do the opening of his show not just for the back of the audience, but from it. Perched at a desk behind the top of the audience balcony, O’Brien involved the crowd in a variety of ways. Donuts were served, beach balls were thrown, a life-size Conan doll was sent downwards first to body-surf and then to be quickly mangled and violated by the crowd’s eager hands. Even though, as luck would have it, I was seated near the very front, I could still feel the electricity of an audience who earlier that day probably hadn’t imagined they would be so directly involved with the show, or that they would get so much camera time.

Upon walking out of the show, I ran into a page who looked curiously like 30 Rock’s eternally buoyant Kenneth, played by Jack McBrayer. I couldn’t resist myself. No, it wasn’t actually him. No, he does not idolize Kenneth. Yes, he does get that question a lot. No, he does not like it. I guess, in the end, I was at least partially right—things on TV aren’t always as they seem.