Nate Silver and Conan O'Brien Have Some Serious Jibber Jabber

Conan O'Brien sat down recently with superstar statistician Nate Silver, the man who predicted the exact electoral outcome of the 2012 Presidential race via his 538 blog on the NY Times website. However, Nate was not a guest on Conan's talk show on TBS. Instead, they had a 50 minute long, non-commercial interrupted wide ranging chat about things like global warming, statistical probability, and the nature of capitalism.  It's a fascinating chat and I've linked the full show below.

This interview is part of Conan's online-only "Serious Jibber Jabber" series of webcasts featuring guests that he chooses personally who he is interested in. Despite the silly title, it's all quite serious. The sidebar show started in September of this year, featuring historian Edmund Morris and a long conversation about Theodore Roosevelt. It seems almost as if Conan is angling for Charlie Rose's job in a few years as the format is similar but also features the same all black set with a table between them.

Billy Eichner Kills It On CONAN With Super Bowl "Interviews"

Billy Eichner, one of my favorite NYC comedians, killed it on CONAN last night as a special correspondent reporting from the Super Bowl.  He basically ran around the parking lot at Lucas Oil Field, asking hardcore football fans if they were excited about seeing Madonna.  OMG--too funny!

Billy's trademark style of being too loud and too enthusiastic worked brilliantly in the Super Bowl setting.  And his insane excitement about Madonna gets some truly incredulous looks from the diehard football fans. Even better is when he gets on the football field at the end of the game and starts asking Giants players who have just won the Super Bowl what they thought of Madonna's halftime show.

In case you hadn't heard, Billy now has his own show on the Fuse network where he runs around New York City asking people insane questions and giving them money if he approves of their answers. Definitely worth watching!

A New York Gay Wedding On Conan O'Brien

Conan O'Brien brought his Team Coco to NYC this week for tapings at Beacon Theatre.  I'm not a huge Conan fan, more partial to Jimmy Kimmel lately (as my previous posts indicate).  But last night, Conan did something truly wonderful on his program; he officiated the wedding of one of his staff members, Scott Cronick, to his longtime partner David Gorshein. I think this may be a TV talkshow first even. And it wasn't done all for laughs either. It is a beautiful and moving little ceremony and I dare you not to cry by the end of it.  Well done, Conan!