RIP Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Tonight marks the last taping of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. For those who don't know, Conan will be taking over the Tonight Show (currently hosted by stupid Jay Leno), and Conan's run on Late Night will end. The show has been on for 16 hilarious years, and to see it end tonight is somewhat sad. A lot of the humor on Conan's show will not be allowed when he takes over Leno's show, because of the FCC regulations and such (another example of the FCC ruining everything). Conan's ridiculously zany characters, like the Masturbating Bear and his Walker, Texas Ranger lever (which, when pulled, brings up a random, bizarre and usually disturbing clip from an episode of the show Walker, Texas Ranger) will most likely not show up on his new show. I'm hoping the humor isn't dumbed down to a Leno-type lowest-common denominator.

All this week, the episodes have been different from the usual format (guest, guest, music performance), and have instead been mostly clip shows from the most hilarious moments in the show's history. It's been really funny and a good way to send off the show. There have been a few guests, including Bob Saget, Jerry Seinfeld and Nathan Lane, but for the most part it's been mostly clip-based. Conan has also taken an axe to various parts of the set since NBC is going to destroy the set after the show ends. Conan's been hacking off parts and handing them out to audience members (which is AWESOME). I can only imagine the destruction that awaits on tonight's show.

I'm lucky to have been at a taping of Late Night when I went to New York back in 2006, and it was really fun. Once the initial ticket frenzy for tapings at his new LA show die down, I'll make sure to go again and again to new tapings, as I'm sure they'll also be really fun and hilarious.

So tonight's the last taping of the best late night talk show I've ever seen (I wasn't around for Johnny Carson, so for me Conan's has been the best). I'm sure we'll all miss it once it's gone.

Here are a few clips from the show's history that rank among the best: