Conan might be just as good as a late night guest as he is as a late night host. His appearance on Tuesday’s Friday’s Late Show was about as entertaining as you could’ve hoped for, likely due to the two host’s familiarity with the format and each other over the years. But Conan also came prepared with some great stories that kept Colbert as more of an observer throughout, peppering in laughter as his fellow late night staple moves through making fun of himself, making fun of his kids, making fun of Harvard, and making fun of Colbert from time to time.
The best bit is definitely the 10-minute odyssey of Conan trying to deal with the “insane” horse that David Letterman sent him as a thank you gift after his retirement. Conan is one of the hosts with a direct connection to Letterman, having taken over Late Night following Letterman’s departure for CBS. To celebrate the legendary host’s retirement, Conan penned a note in Entertainment Weekly and received a positive reaction from his comedy idol. He also received a surprise gift, one that ended up being too big to navigate into the Warner Bros. lot out in Los Angeles.
It turned out to be a horse name Dave and Conan had no idea what to do with it:
According to Conan, his face says it all, but that also means you’re ignoring the look of death on the horse’s face. It’s fitting because the horse turned to be “insane,” throwing riders and forcing Conan to seek out an expensive horse lawyer to cover him legally. He then found out that the horse was very young, setting him up to likely have to care for this crazy steed for years. Luckily he found a horse massage center to donate it to, keeping folks from riding it and also allowing students to practice horse massage, which is a thing apparently.
Later in the interview, Conan talks a bit about his series of travel remote episodes and how he aims to make people in other countries realize that Americans aren’t all bad. As Colbert puts it, he’s a “common fool” heading out into the world to let others know that we’re just as goofy as they are — and probably louder. They end up talking about his most recent episode in Israel and how they just allowed him to go anywhere with his camera crew, including the Church of the Nativity where his boom mic operator caused chaos while they were checking out the spot where Jesus was said to have been born.
After that, Colbert brings up Conan’s time at Harvard and the host tells a story about the Harvard ring his parents gifted him after his graduation. He ends up having his own ring incident similar to Jimmy Fallon, but luckily not as severe, after his finger is jammed during a pick-up basketball game. He makes note that this was in East LA and he went to an emergency room in the area to get the ring cut off before anything got worse, sitting behind people who had been shot in the face, had acid thrown on them, and tried to stop some fighting pitbulls. Safe to say that Conan ends up looking foolish against these other folks, which is a perfect way to end any Conan story.
(Via Late Show)
