Last night's premiere of the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien had a lot of video segments which translates to gigs for actors, in particular for improvisers! Last night had a great roster of ex-Chicagoans popping up in the segments:
- Brian Stack (staff writer) did the voice-over radio dj at the very beginning.
- Kevin Dorff (staff writer) was the Amish man.
- Ali Davis was the propietor of Victorian Dolls shoppe.
- Andy Richter returns as the new Announcer!
- Kate Lee was the Hot Girl with Garden Hose.
- Joe Nunez was the Driver of the Rival Bouncing Car.
- TJ Jagodowski & Peter Grosz as the Sonic Guys!
Fun show, great start.
Jason R. Chin
ps- and how can I forget "I'm A Celebrity! Get Me Out of Here!" not only did the NBC reality show have Patti Blagojevich, it had two Chicago Second City veterans! Frangela (Angela Shelton and Frances Collier) is also on the show! (do they both get voted off as one, or separately? I don't know. I only made it through the first 10 minutes.)
For a more in-depth look at both shows, check out Show Patrol!
(Circle! Circle! Circle! Circle! Circle! Circle!)
Tags: celebrities, conan, tv
I recall Kevin Dorff from Paradigm Lost in the mid-90s (what a cast that had), and remember when he first went to write for Conan. I'm glad to see him getting facetime on the Tonight Show already -- he's a real asset for them.
Hey Jason--I'm curious what your take of his initial show was. Jimmy and I watched the intro clip this morning (I think it was his third time seeing it) and I thought it was great--and quite pricey to produce!
But I've read some reviews and it seemed mixed. Thoughts?
I really enjoyed it... it didn't reinvent Conan or the Tonight Show... but it wasn't meant to; it's a transplant. Conan has a different audience from Leno so it just may be Letterman that benefits. As always, the pre-taped (which is an archaic word nowadays since the new Tonight Show is all digital) segments were the funniest parts of a Conan O'Brien show and that makes sense. He's a writer by nature and playing to his/the shows strengths on the first outing is logical.
I think it'll be fun just how far they will push the envelope of "network" humor on the Tonight Show (Masturbating Bear? Vomiting Kermit? Hell, even FedEx Pope might be offlimits.)