From: ddrewc@verizonSPAMBEGONE.net   
      
   Normally I don't watch Conan during rerun weeks, but this week I actually   
   watched some of the shows, and to my surprise I found them just about as   
   entertaining the second time around. The only exceptions were the monologue   
   jokes, which were mostly dated.   
      
   I was especially pleased to have caught this show, with its series of   
   comedy segments pasted together from different shows.   
      
   On 2007-06-01 9:37 p.m., Joseph Nebus verbated:   
   ...   
   > 	+ I *thought* Conologues were getting awfully long   
   > lately, but I remember the days when they were three jokes and   
   > that was *it*.  Letterman used to have them that short too, if   
   > you can imagine.   
      
   Letterman -- really? Was this when he was on "Late Night" or was it after   
   his move to CBS?   
      
   > Celebrity Business Cards:   
   (the rain delay sketch)   
   ...   
   > 	- LaBamba comes out to do his rain-delay rain dance.   
   > ``Let the rain fall down!''  He bodysurfs on the tarp-covered   
   > desk.   
      
   The song played here was "Come Clean" by Hilary Duff, as the closed   
   captioner nicely pointed out. Normally I pooh-pooh Duff's bland, bubbly,   
   pre-teen-friendly pop -- "clean" is about the kindest word I would use to   
   describe it -- but La Bamba's dance made me actually kind of like this   
   song. While it won't ever be mistaken for Gene Kelly's dance in "Singin' in   
   the Rain," La Bamba's routine had a goofy, bouncy-flouncy charm that played   
   well here. (Yes, I know Tigger is the bouncy-flouncy one, whereas La Bamba   
   looks more like Winnie the Pooh. Still, "bouncy-flouncy" sounded right.)   
      
   ...   
   > 	+ This was a really good, imaginative bit.  As often   
   > happens with the ``faux'' sketches -- like Visible Closed   
   > Captioning -- the underlying fake bit, celebrity business cards,   
   > is a viable enough sketch idea, and I wonder if the whole   
   > sequence didn't start out with the attempt to do Celebrity   
   > Business Cards that stalled out after a few ideas.  Similarly   
   > Cotton Candy Don King is a reasonably good idea for disposable   
   > characters, but he doesn't have much to do unless his hair gets   
   > wet, and I wonder if that need didn't inspire the process of   
   > putting rain into a sketch and then making a rain delay sketch.   
   > The lighting and special effects were very nicely done, too; all   
   > around it's a very well-done piece.   
      
   I wholeheartedly agree -- the rain-delay sketch had a lot of different   
   elements that all came together extremely well. I'm glad NBC decided to   
   re-run it.   
      
   Kudos too to Costas for handling the broadcaster part with his usual   
   aplomb. It's too bad he doesn't broadcast real rain delays -- or more to   
   the point, baseball games -- nowadays. Joe Buck isn't bad, but I'd take   
   Costas over him.   
      
   > 	+ Obviously these sketches weren't part of the original   
   > show, and I'm curious what the original sketch was.  Granted it'd   
   > be hard to top the gleeful fun of the iPhone ad and the Studio   
   > 6-A commercials, but they haven't seen fit to do replacement of   
   > sketches on other shows this week.   
      
   Not sure about the original sketch, but I'd guess an upcoming-guests bit   
   was replaced.   
      
   > 	+ I'm also curious how production numbers are assigned to   
   > retrofitted episodes like this, particularly since Conan's   
   > connection between the two was original.  Is it given a suffix   
   > letter to the original episode's production number, the way new   
   > starships Enterprise and Yamato are?   
      
   No, according to the listings at NBC Universal Media Village --   
      
   http://www.nbcumv.com/entertainment/storylines.nbc/latenightwith   
   onanobrien.html   
      
   -- this episode was given a new number, 2424, as opposed to the original   
   episode's 2292.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)