From: ddrewc@verizonSPAMBEGONE.net   
      
   On 2007-09-07 6:59 a.m., Vincent verbated:   
   > why is conans humour so predictable?  he does the same thing over and over   
   > again its not funny after the 1000th time ie. conan and max's "no chemistry"   
   > bit at the start of every single show.  and always commenting on audience   
   > reactions.  seriously i like conan and i like the show but repetitive   
   > predictable humour like that is slightly annoying to me.  but im not bagging   
   > him.. im just saying   
      
   I agree that Conan's antics at the top of the show can be tiresomely   
   predictable at times, especially to someone who has watched him regularly   
   for years (or even merely weeks). Once in a while he says or does something   
   new, but most of the time it's basically the same stock lines: "Keep cool,   
   my babies!" "I love you too, sir ... I'm popular with the fellas, not so   
   much the ladies." "I'm a-gonna go to hell when I die." "We've got a   
   [great/fantastic/terrific] show for you tonight ... or not." The visual   
   gags for the camera, the string dance, joking about the lack of chemistry   
   between him and Max -- all these are things we've come to associate with   
   Conan's endearingly hammy top-of-the-show persona, for better or for worse.   
   Having seeing this stuff hundreds of times, I often find that my attention   
   lags during the first few minutes of the show, and I don't start watching   
   in earnest until after Conan's walkover.   
      
   However, the predictability is good in the sense that it breeds a sense of   
   familiarity with the host, which can be comforting (up to a point). Why do   
   people tune in to the same TV show, hosted by the same person, day after   
   day, week after week? I think most of us like to have something comfortably   
   familiar as part of our daily routine, something stable and reliable in our   
   ever-changing lives. And for some of us, watching a TV show provides that   
   comfort. If the show or its host changed drastically from one night to the   
   next for no apparent reason, then our haven of familiarity would be jarred   
   into something strange and unrecognizable. If this happened too often, we   
   would stop watching. This, I think, is why we tolerate, or even cherish,   
   Conan's antics and the other repetitive parts of the show, as long as there   
   is sufficient variation in the rest of each episode to maintain our interest.   
      
   I also would submit that Conan's top-of-the-show buffoonery has evolved   
   over the years. Every so often, he tries out a new gag in front of the   
   camera. Some of these he keeps, some are dropped, and old ones gradually   
   fall by the wayside. For example, these days he doesn't do the string dance   
   as often as he did a few years ago.   
      
   Speaking of which, does anybody know when the string dance made its debut   
   on the show?   
      
   Also, I wonder if anyone out there could describe what Conan's   
   top-of-the-show shtick was like in the first few years of "Late Night,"   
   before I started watching in the mid- to late 1990s. I presume that it was   
   in a greater state of flux back then as he was experimenting with different   
   things.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)