Preash Repost: Conan in Charlotte - No Big Deal

To show solidarity with Conan as he takes a high and hard one from NBC/Leno, I am reposting the post I made when he came to our station in Charlotte in February of '09. Conan is a genuine, kind, creative, hilarious dude. Good luck, Coco!

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So today was the much awaited day that Conan O'Brien came to our station in Charlotte.

Click to enlarge pics

A scratch of anticipation

He arrived at about 10:15 through the back studio door with his producer, Jeff Ross, his NBC handler, and his own photog. He was remarkably cool considering the situation he was walking in to. Half of the people in the building were packed into the studio awaiting his arrival. Everyone just kinda stared silently in awe, snapping pictures and waiting for him to make the first move.

He was super cool and just immediately started introducing himself to everyone individually and shaking their hands. He started with a few of our photogs, then moved to Work Dave. He made fun of how quickly Work Dave said his name. "You said your name really fast," he said. "HiI'mDave."

After shaking Mike-and-Ike's hand, he shook mine. His hand was soft and cool. Sorry if that description creeps you out, it's just a fact.

Conan kinda walked around and made small talk with a few folks, including our weather man, Larry Sprinkle. He was still so mellow considering a roomful of people were just silently watching him shoot the sh*t.

His handler told him he needed to go get in makeup so he made one of his trademark self-deprecating jokes about how frightening he looks without it and excused himself.

Conan and his small entourage came back in about 15 minutes later with a different script from what Money Marc wrote. We all kinda expected them to change it up, so it was no big deal. He is the comedy genius here, after all.

We all stood around for a few minutes preparing to shoot while Conan did the same natural, funny, friendly riffing you see him do on the show. He wasn't even slightly different than what you see on TV. I positioned myself close to him and signaled to Mike-and-Ike to snap some pics.


Positioning myself creepily behind Conan


I think I've angered him


Confidence manifested

We shot the promos in a hurry. They did the bit where the anchor woman, Sonja, pronounces Conan's name wrong (like Conan the Barbarian), Conan sneaks into frame and whispers the correct pronunciation, then slips back out of frame. Conan kept joking about how we were going to have to cancel the 11 o'clock newscast because there was so little time.


Damn, I look good in that shirt


I can't think a clever caption for this one

Once the promo shoot was complete, we hurried upstairs to shoot the one-on-one interviews. Our morning show anchor, Colleen Odegaard (who happens to be one of the nicest, coolest women in the building) would do her interview first, then a bunch of reporters from nearby markets would do theirs. For all of the interviews, I was running the camera behind Conan, focusing on the reporter, and Stevie 3-Times was running the opposing one.

But this was, by far, the best part. During Colleen's interview, she asked Conan what kind of music he had on his iPod. As you'll see later in the video, the first band he mentioned was Vampire Weekend. Impressed by Conan's very trendy, tasteful answer, I unknowingly gave an approving nod. This must have caught Colleen's eye, who said, "You're saying yes, Ryan? You know...OK." Conan immediately picked up on this and said, "Yeah, there's some nodding going on behind me? OK, I'm getting the thumbs up from the 25-year-old, which means I said the right thing." BADASS!!! I just had a humorous interaction with one of my comedy heroes!!!

Conan did the rest of the interviews over the next half hour or so. Of course he had to answer the obligatory hair question about five times. The impressive part was his answer was never the same. One reporter asked how many answers he had for that question and he replied, "As many as I have hairs on my head." Deep, man. I noticed that he would only refer to the Masturbating Bear as "The Bear." He did once call it "The Self-Pleasuring Bear" when forced to expound. Throughout the interviews, again, he was witty and down-to-earth and friendly.

At some point during the interviews, Work Dave somehow weaseled his way into becoming Conan's temporary handler. Mike-and-Ike said he even escorted Conan to the bathroom at one point. He was running around all over the place in a determined pomp, looking like an undercover Secret Service agent who bought his disguise in a furious rush at The Gap. Sounds about right. (Listen to him introducing Conan to Chris in the last shot before "Pics" to get a feel for what that scene was like.)

After the interviews, Conan was scheduled to rub elbows and take pictures at a client meet-and-greet in our break room/conference room. I figured it would be a pain to try to get a picture with him in there, so I tapped him on the arm just before he was going inside and asked for a picture. As you'll see in the video, Money Marc was rolling video and both Conan and myself were waiting for him to take a picture. It made for a slightly awkward, delicious delay. But I got a website plug in.


Mission accomplished


Mike-and-Ike thankful he decided not to wear the exact same sequined snake-print shirt


My naughty smile, teeheehee


Stevie 3-Times up in the mix


Tressel being coy

Conan talked to everyone and took pictures with everyone. He was very accomodating. He then came back down to the studio to shoot some custom lines for stations and clients. After all this, he was still cool about having to read asinine lines in front of a green screen directly to clients. Sh*t like, "Hey Jim at Reynolds Toyota, it's me Conan. You better make budget this quarter or else your sales team is gonna be replacing you...with me. That's right, me!" I felt bad for him. But I guess it's part of the job.

Even after that, he volunteered to go say hello to everyone in the newsroom. He went through and talked and took pictures with all of the producers and photogs and so on. Nice guy.

I went back upstairs because I had already gotten my Conan high. Didn't want to overdo it. So that was it. Conan was nice and funny and easy-going. I really hope he isn't forced to kowtow to his new Tonight Show audience and that he's allowed maintain the same quirky personality that made him so popular amongst us younger folk.

Today was awesome. So now please enjoy my video summary of the exciting day. (Make sure you watch it in High Quality by click the HQ button from the bottom right corner of the window.)

***A Preash Original***