SFist Goes to Conan O'Brien
We have never seen the filming of any TV show before. Not a sitcom, not a talk show, not even a public access show. The only thing close to seeing something filmed live was one of those PBS pledge breaks and who really cares about them? All of this means that we were pretty excited to see the filming of Conan's first night in San Francisco.
Now here's the thing we discovered about the filming of a talk show-- there's a lot of standing around. A lot. The show isn't filmed continuously and then edited to make it look like there's a commercial break; they film it with breaks as if there are commercial breaks. During that time, the band plays, a few crewmembers take the stage, and a makeup person or director talks to Conan. A few times Conan turned to the crowd and tried to get the crowd to cheer, but for the most part, everyone just stood around.
Actually, Conan probably spends more time standing around than actually performing. If you include all the times Conan just came out to introduce somebody and the one video segment they ran, the amount of work Conan did during that hour was, what? Ten? Fifteen minutes? Not a bad days worth of work.
Not that we didn't have fun or it wasn't a great experience because it was, it was just something we were surprised about. We were so into it and there was so much standing around that we didn’t want to see it end when it did. We would have loved two hours of show or a comedy routine from Conan or sneak peaks at what he was going to do for the next couple of nights, but that was it.
Wait, we did say it was fun. The reasons why after the jump
Most of the fun came from the fact people were psyched for this. The line just to get into the show stretched from the Orpheum Theater down to UN Plaza. And when the show started, Whoa Nellie, it was loud. Like rock concert loud. The Orpheum Theater just rocked. The audience gave standing ovations, cheered the sound crew before the show even started, and got chants of "Let's go Conan" started. Hell, they even got a "Let's go Warriors" cheer going.
The crowd inspired everyone in the show. The band was fired up, the performers were fired up, and Conan was fired up. When he appeared on stage to a standing ovation, he did a few leaps in the air and during interviews or during breaks, his foot constantly tapped he had so much energy to expend. It even affected the show as the audience became just as much of the show as the actual show. During Conan’s interview with Dana Carvey, Carvey riffed on something (we think it was a Schwarzenegger impression) and kept it going. When he was done, he turned to Conan and told him that he knew he overdid the bit, but the crowd was into it and it was hard not to play to the crowd. During one little bit, "San Francisco Small Talk," Conan and drummer Max Weinberger Weinberg (we're psyched to see Max as we can now see we've seen at least one eighth of Springsteen) discussed routes to get from here to there and the audience laughed so loudly and were so into it, we couldn't hear half the skit.
We also have to admit that we had some of those provincial feelings that we alll occasionally have and that added to the fun. It IS great to have them come out to San Francisco. It is great to see the city's skyline in the back of the set and for everybody to say how much fun they are having. And it is great to see video skits where Conan drives around our beautiful city. We may not watch Conan regularly (or more like ever) but we're totally Tivo'ing this week.