Conan

I generally like to label years as "_______ is the Year of Xmastime!!" but 2023 really has been the year of Conan O'Brien; I can still remember watching his first show while living at The Attic on Oak Street in FArmville, VA, I never loved Leno or Letterman so Conan was immediately my guy, particularly the more he showed off his silly-for-silly's sake brand of funny; now 30 years after his "wait, what?" show started here's an oral history in Vanity Fair, and this is fucking brilliant:

SMIGEL: I had sort of a “Let’s fuck with the old talk show setup and just have things happen at any time during the show.” One of my ideas was that I wanted to have fake guests come on in between two other guests.

One week, O’Brien announced economist Woodrow Thomas on Monday night’s show. Thomas was bumped Monday, but O’Brien promised that he’d be back very soon. He was then bumped Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When he finally appeared on Friday, he went off on O’Brien and became unhinged. Only thing is, there was no such person as Woodrow Thomas. He was an actor.

O’BRIEN: In order to appreciate that joke, you’d need to watch all five nights. You have to be watching at 1:35 when we wrap up the show. This was a conceptual sketch that was meant for two people in America. And we didn’t care.

Late night tv needs much more of this and a lot less of "oh wow your flight to LA was whacky? Tell us the story! Let's watch a clip of your movie nobody gives a shit about including yourself!"

Oh yeah AND he gave longtime Xmastime buddies and one of the best bands ever, MARAH, their national tv debut!