What was 11-year-old John Mulaney's favorite Conan bit?
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00:00Conan, I'm going to talk at you for one second.
00:03OK.
00:04Congratulations on the Mark Twain prize.
00:06Oh, thank you so much.
00:07I was very honored to be a part of that night.
00:13You came, and I mean, everyone was hilarious.
00:16The funniest thing is they led with you,
00:19and you completely destroyed.
00:20And I saw everyone, every other comic there,
00:24just basically shit their pants.
00:26I did go first, and it was an amazing crowd.
00:28You know, Washington, D.C. is just a fun place.
00:31And so.
00:32Especially now, yeah.
00:32Especially now.
00:33No, but it was such a nice night.
00:35And I did the show, and then I came back here to my weird show,
00:39which I will tell you is enormously indebted to yours.
00:41Now, that may embarrass you.
00:44But I was 11 when Late Night with Conan O'Brien came out.
00:49And it was a huge moment for me.
00:52And there was one runner you did where you guys were trying
00:56to locate the actor who played Grady on Sanford and Son.
01:00Sanford and Son, yeah.
01:01And the actor's name was Whitman Mayo,
01:03and you were trying to locate him for a week's worth of shows.
01:05And on that Friday, you located Grady,
01:07and you brought him out.
01:08And I was sleeping over at a friend's house.
01:10I was 11.
01:11And I realized my friend wasn't going to watch Conan.
01:14So I raced home in the night to my house
01:17to watch a 70-year-old character actor come out on your stage
01:21while Whoops, There It Is played.
01:22Yes, yeah.
01:23And that moment is on YouTube,
01:25and I'm proud to say it has over 900 views.
01:27Oh!
01:35It's really sweet to think about that
01:36because this is all pre-internet.
01:38This is the 90s.
01:40And so we were doing these weird things
01:42and mostly just getting scorn from the network,
01:46which didn't like it.
01:47We had no visible proof that anyone was watching.
01:50And if anyone had told us
01:51there's an 11-year-old John Mulaney
01:53that approves of what we're doing,
01:55I would have been so delighted.
01:56But we didn't know.
01:57We had no idea.
01:58A couple weeks before your show premiered,
02:01I went for my 11th birthday
02:05to see Frank Sinatra, per my request,
02:08with my dad at the Aurora Riverboat and Casino.
02:12Frank was 77.
02:14I was 11.
02:15We were both double numbers.
02:17And if NBC had known that your key demo was boys
02:22who go to see Frank Sinatra,
02:23I don't think it would have helped.
02:24No, that would not have helped us.
02:26You're a weird little kid.
02:27Yeah.
02:28I picture an 11-year-old with a fedora watching television.
02:31I couldn't pull off fedoras, but I had a Newsy cap.
02:34Oh, there you go.
02:45There you go.
02:46Yeah.
02:47You're a weird little kid.
02:47I just ran the brush and I know what to do.
02:51I want a leaf and I could look for it.
02:52I'm a weird little kid.
02:53I just ran the brush and I can wash me off.
02:55You're a weird little kid.
02:55You're a weird little kid.
02:56So I was like, yeah.
02:57Yeah.
02:58Okay.