Late Night with Conan O'Brien/Show 2163

Show #2163
Season 13, Episode 56
Airdate	December 20, 2005
← 13x55 Show 2162	13x57 → Show 2164
Late Night with Conan O'Brien — Season Thirteen

Show #2163 is the fifty-sixth episode of the thirteenth season of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and the two thousand one hundred sixty-third episode overall.

Guests: Jim Carrey (Himself), Isaac Hayes (Musical Guest)

Episode Breakdown

• Monologue: Despite being in the middle of the transit strike, Conan is amazed that they have a crowd and that Max is present, since he lives in New Jersey. He talks a bit about how New Yorkers are forced to "talk to their neighbors" to get a carpool together and how Donald Trump drove into the city with three chauffeurs to get around the 4 person per car rule. He moves on to celebrity gossip about Jessica Simpson divorcing Nick Lachey but getting confused and filing the papers in her toaster and a rampage of men dressed as Santa in New Zealand. Finally, Conan shows off Britney Spears and Kevin Federline making a gingerbread trailer in response to the gingerbread white house made by the White House chef.
• Transit Strike Remote: In order to help out strangers during the transit strike, Conan grabbed a van and a camera crew to pick up people in distress. He starts off explaining that he made "the black beast" as much like a subway as possible by urinating on the seats and getting a weird hobo to sit in the back. Soon enough, he finds Aaron and Sarah and convinces them to take a ride with him up to 34th Street. He loads in their luggage, talks to them through a megaphone to sound more like a conductor on a PA and inspects their luggage, particularly Aaron's boxers. Eventually he literally carries a woman named Reesa into the van and inspects her bag, applying lip gloss as he pokes through her stuff. He also picks up an Irish couple headed to Chelsea and sings "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues with them until he drops them off at an Irish Bar called The Blarney Stone. He also shows them his old apartment, makes fun of a guy on a Segway from the future and chastises Aaron and Sarah for holding out on him with the hot chocolate. Later, he decides to buy a Christmas tree and, instead of bringing his passengers to their destination, brings them back to Late Night with the tree.
• Jim Carrey Interview #1: Comedic actor Jim Carrey comes to the show in order to promote his new film Fun with Dick and Jane, but immediately sets to criticizing Conan's string dance. He claims that the cutting of the string during the dance is impossible because of the physics involved. He says that if you cut the string below the hand then your hand flies up, assuming that the string is coming from the air when in actuality the string is from the hand to the hips. He accepts his mistake and moves on to Fun with Dick and Jane, which he describes using the plots of The Da Vinci Code and King Kong. He also pitches the idea of "Tiny Ape" and talks about how he bought Moviephone in order to beat King Kong at the box office. Conan calls Moviephone, which advertises Fun with Dick and Jane and tells people wanting to see Cheaper by the Dozen II to go fuck themselves. Conan asks if Carrey is woried about Kong, but Carrey keeps saying that "the ape will fall" directly into the camera (implying that he clearly isn't worried). While he's saying this, "King Kong" is mocking him from a large building in the background. Carrey runs off to fight Kong, but they both stop to dance with the gay cowboys from Brokeback Mountain.
• Jim Carrey Interview #2: After the commercial break, Conan returns to the interview with Carrey. He asks about Carrey's pursuit of happiness, which boils down to the fact that he's pursuing "expanded consciousness" to increase his happiness. He claims that he's everything and everyone, so nobody can take anything away from him because he's everything. They lastly show a clip from the movie of him trying to rob a convenience store and failing. After the clip, Conan starts to wish Carrey a happy holiday, but Carrey one ups him by wishing him a "Christy Christy Good Time." Conan asks him if he likes to sing Christmas carols, which he does but he gets really emotional when he sings them. He tries to sing Silent Night twice, but bursts into tears both times. He tries one last time and succeeds by singing a punk rock version of the song reminiscent of "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones.
• Shaft: Isaac Hayes song.

Notes

Music

• "Shaft," performed by Isaac Hayes: Isaac Hayes, along with his band and the Max Weinberg Seven perform a version of "Shaft" with slightly different lyrics. The song was used as the them to the movie "Shaft" starring Richard Roundtree. The song won a slew of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Song, which marked Hayes as the first black man to win an Academy Award outside of acting. The lyrical content of this version of the song, however, is altered to be about Conan O'Brien.

Lyrics

Who's the dude who's tall and skinny
That hosts late night from New York City
Conan!
You're daaaaaaaaaaaaamn right.

Who is the man
That's got Late Night in the palm of his hand?
Conan!
Can you dig it?

Who's the cat that won't cop out
With competition all about?
Conan!
Right on.

They say this cat Conan... yes.
Shut yo' mouth
C'mon, man.
We can dig it.

He's a complicated man
And no one understands him but his mother
Conan O'Brien!

Trivia

• The Band: Along with the Max Weinberg 7, Isaac Hayes is accompanied by James Wormworth, Max's usual replacement for when he goes out on tour with Bruce Springstein. He can be seen playing the tambourine in the background.