Formula for the Late Night with Conan O’Brian
Intro music:

Here comes Conan!

Conan acts weird

Conan jumps near end of song and stays in the crouching position

The music ends.

Jumps. Then turns after music ends to drums.

Conan comments on the news. He likes to make fat jokes about Star Jones and Rubin Studdard, make gay jokes about Clay Aiken, and make pedophile jokes about Michael Jackson, but hey, who doesn’t?

Sometimes he walks off camera and jumps back onscreen looking scary. Sometimes he hisses like a pussycat. When he walks up really close to the screen, you see all the lines on his face, and it’s scary. Sometimes he pretends strings are attached to his hips and pulls the strings while his hips move in tandem until he cuts the string with imaginary scissors. He could be a mime if he wanted to.

If a joke bombs, he says it bombs, except in a more comical manner, which usually gets laughs.

Conan ends the monologue by saying something along the lines, “I don’t really say this that often, but we have a sweet show tonight. I really mean it this time. Blah blah and the lovely and beautiful blah blah are here, and our musical guest is blah blah!”

Conan points to Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg Seven. They play a retro song.

Conan sits. Max finishes playing. He holds his drumsticks and points to Conan.

Conan wonders what the music was that just played. Sometimes Max and Conan awkwardly stare, while the audience feels an undercurrent of gay sexual attention.

Conan does celebrity analogies, fake phone calls, if they had kids, and other such bits. He basically makes fun of celebrities. Sometimes there are people wearing silly costumes to be funny. Sometimes a planted person in the audience contributes to the humor. Often Conan interviews a static picture of a celebrity whose mouth is replaced by an actor’s mouth. However, the actor can never keep his head still, so sometimes you see his chin. For some reason, even female voices are done by a male actor. Maybe that’s because females are always funnier when they’re played by men. Once Conan interviewed Martha Stewart, who turned into a spawn of Satan. So true. Commercial break.

Introduces guest. Kisses or/and hugs or shakes hand with guest. It’s a great opportunity to hit on chicks and gain the respect of the male guests with a firm handshake. Conan invites him/her to sit.

They talk. Somehow the celebrity always has something funny or interesting to say to Conan’s carefully orchestrated questions. Conan makes use of every opportunity to make fun of his Irish ancestry, poofy hair, paleness, and his “out-of-shape”-ness. Sometimes he dances, like when he slow-danced with David Duchovny to Stairway to Heaven. That was funny. Good times. He takes every opportunity to make an ass of himself, but that makes him likable and not as scary to children.

Commercial break. Conan leans close to his guest and continues to talk while the camera zooms out, so they’re not awkwardly sitting there.

And they return. More talking.

Commercial break. Comes back with some intermediary bit. Sometimes this incredibly bad neighboring talk show host comes to visit because he hates his show.

Second guest. Same antics as the first guest. However, this guest is not as famous as the first.

Musical group or comedian comes onstage. Sometimes it’s Jim Gaffigan, and that s’awesome. “I’m a manatee!”

Conan makes sure to shake ALL the musicians’ hands. If there’s time, the comedian or frontman of the band comes and talk to Conan for a moment. Conan says who’s on the next night. Conan says goodbye.

Time to see what’s on Adult Swim or see if The Colbert Report is playing on Comedy Central. That’s another good show. Yeah!