Once Upon a Time in Hollywood starred multiple Oscar-winning and -nominated performers, including Leonardo DiCaprio (six nominations, one win), Brad Pitt (five nominations, one win for Hollywood), Margot Robbie (two nominations), and Al Pacino (nine nominations, one win). But Quentin Tarantino wanted one more for the ensemble.
While speaking with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast, Tarantino revealed that he circled Jennifer Lawrence (four nominations, one win) to play Manson family member Squeaky Fromme in the 2019 film. “Early on, in the pre-production of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I flirted around with the idea of — and [by the way], I couldn’t be happier with what Dakota Fanning did, it’s one of the best performances in the movie, she’s amazing as Squeaky Fromme, she becomes [her]. But early on, I investigated the idea of Jennifer Lawrence playing Squeaky, so she came down to the house to read the script cause I wasn’t letting it out,” he said (via the Playlist). “So, she came down to the house, OK, I gave her the script, go in my living room or go outside by the pool and read it.”
Tarantino explained that Lawrence read the script and was interested in taking the role, but “something didn’t work out.” (If Dakota Fanning is the backup option for your movie, you’re doing fine.) She did offer a suggestion, though. “Can I just make a recommendation for somebody to cast?” the mother! star asked Tarantino. “You know that agent guy that talks to Rick at the beginning? Why don’t you cast Marc Maron for that? I think he would be really, really good.” Maron is going invite Pacino, who played “that agent guy,” onto WTF and spend three hours grilling him about this, and only this.
You can listen to the entire WTF episode below.
Today is Quentin Tarantino day on @WTFpod! Being a new dad, being a new novelist, Old Hollywood, old fathers, telling stories, telling lies! Great talk! Do it up! https://t.co/TRZkCfIIIs
A lawnmower beer is exactly what it sounds like. A beer that you crush after (or during!) an afternoon of mowing an expansive lawn. But even if live in an apartment, townhome, condo, or someone else mows your lawn, you can still enjoy one of these thirst-quenching, highly refreshing, and crushable beers all season long.
In truth, the term “lawnmower beer” probably means something different to everyone. Craft beer fans might go for a double dry-hopped IPA or craft wheat beer. Classic beer fans might opt for an authentic, cheap, no-frills adjunct lager like Budweiser or Miller High Life (there’s nothing wrong with that). We prefer to go right down the middle and drink craft pilsners, lagers, and other lighter, refreshing styles.
Since the craft beer world is so massive and diverse, you don’t have to settle for mass-produced lagers from giant conglomerates (unless you want to!) when looking for a nice session brew. There are endless pilsners, lagers, pale ales, wheat beers, and Kölsch- style beers perfectly suited for this job.
Check out our eight favorite lawnmower beers below and click on the price if you want to give one a shot yourself.
If you visit any dive bar in Chicago (or pretty much any bar) you’re going to find the classic, cheap, refreshing beer called Old Style. Revolution knows all about this Windy City staple and set out to create its own version of the iconic “Chicago Pilsner.” They did this by launching Rev Pils, a crisp, thirst-quenching pilsner that’s brewed with Noble hops and all German-sourced ingredients for an authentic flavor profile.
Tasting Notes:
Take a moment to breathe in the aromas of lemon zest, biscuit-like malts, fresh-cut grass, and floral hops. Sipping this beer will make you revel in the notes of lime, lemons, freshly baked bread, caramel malts, and gentle, lingering subtly bitter hops at the very end. It will take you a few cans before you discover all the various flavors.
Bottom Line:
Rev Pils is loaded with citrus and malt flavor, making it very bold yet crushable.
You can’t make a list of lawnmower beers without including a beer that was created to be enjoyed after mowing your lawn on a hot, humid day. This German-style Kölsch is brewed with a whole slew of German-grown Hallertau hops as well as a proprietary Kölsch yeast. The result is a crisp, citrus, and floral flavored hop that is sure to refresh you on a hot, summery day.
Tasting Notes:
Fans of authentic Kölsch beers (as well as German-style Kölsch beers made in America) will enjoy the aromas of lemon peel, orange zest, and slight bready malts on the nose. When you sip it, you’ll be greeted with floral hops, sweet tangerine, lemon zest, and a nice caramel-like malty backbone. It all ends with a slight bitterness that brings everything together.
Bottom Line:
With a name like Fancy Lawnmower, this is definitely the kind of beer you’ll want to crush after a day in the sun.
Threes Brewing Vliet is one of the best-rated (and beloved) pilsners in the country for a reason. Brewed with German Pilsner malt as well as Saaz and Spalter Select hops, it’s well-known for its herbal, sweet, fresh flavor. At 5.2 percent, it’s highly drinkable and thirst-quenching on a sunny, hazy day.
Tasting Notes:
This slight hazy beer begins with aromas of fresh-baked bread, biscuit-like malts, subtle spice, and a healthy dose of floral hops. The palate is swirling with caramel malts, fresh-cut grass, citrus zest, and more floral, subtly piney hops. The finish is sweet, dry, and extremely refreshing.
Bottom Line:
This is an extremely well-balanced beer. Its citrus and floral hops flavors are complimented by bready malts. It’s fresh, clean, and one of our favorite lawnmower beers of all time.
Athens, Georgia’s Creature Comforts has a bunch of beers that could be fit into this box. Its Classic City Lager and Tritonia (Gose) are crisp, refreshing, and delightful. But when we want a crushable beer for a sweaty afternoon, we grab a Bibo. This pilsner is sessionable at 4.9 percent, available year-round and dry, sweet, and perfectly balanced between hops and malts.
Tasting Notes:
The first thing you’ll notice before sipping are the various aromas of this beer. There’s freshly baked bread, wet grass, hay, caramel malts, and subtle resin. The flavor is crisp, subtly sweet, and filled with biscuity malts, floral hops, subtle spices, and very little bitterness at the finish. All in all, a very drinkable, memorable beer.
Bottom Line:
If you’re looking for a low-alcohol and crispy beer, Creature Comforts Bibo ticks all of those boxes. It’s simple, elegant, and refreshing.
With a name like Montucky Cold Snacks, you kind of know what you’re getting into with this beer. This crisp, refreshing, highly sessionable lager gets its name, Montucky, for a nickname for the state of Montana. The “cold snacks” portion of the name is exactly as it seems. It’s simply a classic lager that you can drink all day long (if that’s your kind of thing).
Tasting Notes:
For a beer that touts itself as a simple lager, there’s a surprising number of aromas on the nose. Wet grass, fresh-baked bread, caramel malts, and slight citrus are all present. Tasting this beer brings you more bready malts, sour apples, light citrus, and just a hint of caramel. The finish is slightly hoppy with very little bitterness.
Bottom Line:
This beer was designed to be crushed on the slopes or backcountry of Montana (or anywhere else) and it definitely serves its purpose.
Another aptly named beer, The Crisp is exactly as the name suggests. It’s a crisp, refreshing, zesty beer well-suited for summer drinking. Brewed with a combination of German-sourced Hallertau and Tettnang hops as well as Cargill Pilsner malt, this beer is a hoppy, fresh beer well-suited for summer afternoons.
Tasting Notes:
The nose makes you think that this is an IPA as opposed to a pilsner. It’s filled with the scents of resinous pine, slight tropical fruits, citrus zest, and a nice malty backbone. The flavor is just as hoppy as the aroma with notes of ripe berries, lemon peels, cracker-like malts, and wet grass. It all ends with a nice combination of slightly bitter hops and fresh fruit.
Bottom Line:
IPA fans looking to get into pilsners this summer should use this beer as a bridge. Hoppier than most pilsners on the market, it’s clean, fresh, and bright with floral, piney flavor.
Victory Prima Pils is a perennial summer favorite for a multitude of reasons. It’s bright, fresh, and filled with myriad floral hops like Tettnang, Hallertau, Spalt, and Saaz. On top of that, it’s brewed with German malts to complete the classic, old-world flavor pilsner fans have grown to expect.
Tasting Notes:
A lot is going on with this pilsner’s nose. There are distinct aromas of ripe grapefruit, wet grass, resin, and caramel malts. The palate is swirling with dank, resinous pine, freshly baked bread, sweet malts, and slight, bitter, citrusy hops at the very end.
Bottom Line:
This beer is a great example of a summery beer with a perfect hop to malts ratio. Sometimes pilsners can lean a little far in the malt department. Floral, dank hops temper it well.
If you’re looking for a crisp, easy-to-drink lawnmower beer, there’s a good chance you might at least look at Narragansett and its iconic lager. But we believe that a better choice is the brewery’s Fresh Catch, a golden ale that’s dry-hopped with Citra hops.
Tasting Notes:
Immerse yourself in the scents of citrus peels, lime zest, resinous pine, and a nice hit of caramel malts. The flavor is chocked full of citrus flavors as well as dank, piney hops, bread-like malts, and a nice, subtle, bitter finish that appeals to IPA fans.
Bottom Line:
This beer is only 4.2 percent ABV but is bursting with so much citrusy, hoppy flavor, you might assume it’s much more potent. It’s super sessionable and refreshing after an afternoon mowing the lawn.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
Aaron Dessner played a role in bringing Taylor Swift’s two recent albums Folklore and Evermore to life, and Dessner has hinted that Swift returned the favor by contributing to material from one of his other projects, the Justin Vernon collaboration Big Red Machine. In a 2020 interview, Dessner noted “The Big Red Machine stuff is quite far along — and actually, Taylor has been amazing [at giving feedback]. I’ve shared all of that stuff with her, and she has been really helpful.” He then neither confirmed nor denied that Swift will appear on a Big Red Machine song, but now it’s looking like she just may.
Yesterday, the group shared a teaser of new music via a glitchy video teasing something called “How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last.” Part of an overlay on the clip is some handwriting that apparently looks like that of Swift, according to the dozens of fans who flooded the post’s comments section with excited messages.
Notably, this follows Vernon teasing a Swift collaboration back in April. It seems that Dessner would be eager for the opportunity to work with Swift again, as he previously said of her, “I am constantly humbled by and grateful for our friendship and collaboration. […] You have restored my faith in music and the ways in which it can help me and others. In a year of such uncertainty and fear, I’m eternally grateful for the music we made. You generously shared your songwriting genius with me and others on these records — and made everyone involved feel appreciated and confident in their work. I can’t say enough positive things about you as an artist and a person.”
Cardi B continues to make rap history, racking up an impressive collection of firsts as she expands her catalog of hits, movie roles, and powerhouse performances since breaking out in 2018 with “Bodak Yellow.” Her latest: Becoming a mother twice over, revealing her second pregnancy during an electrifying performance with her husband Offset’s band Migos at the 2021 BET Awards. Popping out in a bedazzled sheer jumpsuit designed to accentuate her belly, Cardi stole the show, with the reveal becoming one of the night’s biggest moments.
At the same time, she revealed her first pregnancy portrait, posting the plaster-clad picture on Instagram and accumulating over 12 million views in less than 24 hours. The photo also garnered thousands of congratulatory comments as admirers and peers alike responded supportively to the reveal. Today, Cardi shared some of the remaining portraits from the shoot, including one featuring Offset, who is seen embracing Cardi from behind while kissing her neck, and soon-to-be big sister Kulture, who wears a matchup dress and headwrap while touching her mom’s tummy (and bearing the expression of an only child who knows her days of being the only favorite are numbered… I feel you, kid).
Cardi and Offset’s family has been a focus of their art for a while, and as it expands, should give them plenty more fodder for adorable social media posts and bars about potty training and sibling rivalries. Check out their loving family photos below.
Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is returning to the world of hot takes, and once again, the famed astrophysicist is putting Hollywood on blast for its less than scientific depiction of aliens. In a series of tweets on Monday afternoon, Tyson dipped into some of his Greatest Hits from the past decade where he’s called out everything from hard sci-fi films like Interstellar to fantastical fare like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy because nothing is safe from Tyson’s withering gaze when it comes to the cinematic portrayal of extra-terrestrial beings.
“Ready to resume the posting of all my Space Alien Tweets since 2009,” Tyson warned his followers, which was actually a nice thing to do because, again, the man has some thoughts. “But some of you didn’t like them. You’re not obligated to, but you can always unfollow me. Or just avert your eyes for the rest of today.”
Ready to resume the posting of all my Space Alien Tweets since 2009.
But some of you didn’t like them. You’re not obligated to, but you can always unfollow me.
In his first reposted “Note to HOLLYWOOD,” Tyson thinks Tinseltown is getting it all wrong when it comes to aliens’ appearances even though nobody, including Tyson, has ever seen an alien before: “A Space Alien with no DNA in common with life on Earth should look more different from life on Earth than **any** two life forms on Earth look from each other.”
Note to HOLLYWOOD:
A Space Alien with no DNA in common with life on Earth should look more different from life on Earth than **any** two life forms on Earth look from each other.
In his next note, Tyson had thoughts on aliens’ senses, which he argues should also be wildly different than humans: “No reason to think space aliens would have the same array of senses — sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell — as humans. They could have more senses than we do. Or all their senses could be completely different from ours.”
Note to HOLLYWOOD:
No reason to think space aliens would have the same array of senses — sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell — as humans. They could have more senses than we do. Or all their senses could be completely different from ours.
However, despite threatening to rehash his alien movie criticisms, Tyson quickly pivoted back to random alien tweets, which he’s still firing off as of this writing. The man has simply had enough. And he needs you to know it. Again.
If a Space Alien landed on Earth and demanded, “Take me to your leader!” I wonder how many people would take it to their head-of-state.
I like root beer. Let me clarify that, I think I like root beer. The traditional recipe for root beer comes from sassafras, which has been banned by the FDA as a carcinogen since 1960. So it’s fair to say that I’ve never tasted root beer in its original form. What I know of this classic soda pop is a mix of flavoring agents and colors. Or, in the case of the newer, hipster brands, retrofitted natural ingredients meant to imitate a different natural ingredient that’s been out of circulation and replaced by fake ingredients since most of us have been alive.
Here’s another wrinkle in my quest for the best grocery store root beer: We are, apparently, in the throes of the great root beer shortage of 2021. Multiple brands I searched for were sold out at the various stores I visited, which led me down Reddit rabbit holes, forced late-night store runs, and ended in a strenuous dissagreement with a Kmart manager about why he wouldn’t sell me the remaining loose bottles from a four pack that someone else clandestinely split up. Seriously, it was a whole thing.
In the end, I had to go to Kmart (2x), Walmart, Target, Vons (2x), Albertsons (3x), Ralphs, Trader Joes, and Whole Foods to gather the complete lineup for this blind tasting. Yes, I realize that this is officially the most any human has cared about root beer for quite some time. I did it for you, the reader, and because every time one of our Uproxx LIFE team members does a blind test, I Slack them incessantly about the need to be absolutely, undeniably complete. So I had to walk the walk on this go around, even though that took 12 store visits and cost me $60 in root beers, most of which I didn’t enjoy all that much.
Therein lies my final caveat. In a lifetime of tasting foods and drinks for a living, I’ve never felt so controlled by my palate and sense memory as I did with root beer. I realized through this tasting that what I want from a good root beer is heavily influenced by my favorite soda on earth, which I’ll reveal a little later. Of course, the root beers I tested aren’t trying to imitate my favorite soda, nor should they. But as I said before, none of us know what traditional root beer even tastes like so it’s all kind of murky — a real Plato’s cave situation.
Below you can see the lineup of brands that I tried blind. I didn’t test any diet iterations because all diet soda is all trash. If you’re drinking sugar water, just drink it unapologetically.
Henry Weinhard’s
A&W
Shasta
Jones
Sioux City
Frostie
Teddy’s
Boylan
Dad’s
Virgil’s
IBC
Route 66
Maine Root
Sprecher’s
Check the blind taste test and ranking below. You might disagree with my picks based on our differening palates, but at least you’ll know a few root beers to steer clear of as we near the 4th.
PART I — THE BLIND TASTE TEST
TASTE 1
Steve Bramucci
Nose is very classic. This has a real “root beer” taste – like earthy and rooty. Since it’s taste 1, I wonder if I’m right that this is some real authentic, organic, classic root beer or if I’m being fooled by chemicals. I don’t have much context yet, so it could be either. Nice pop or “bite” – but lots of sugar.
I wrote the following in my notes: ROOT nose, POP palate, SUGAR finish. Tiny hint of licorice. Great start.
TASTE 2
Steve Bramucci
Good root beer nose and palate and tastes like cane sugar on the finish. Kinddddda mellow overall. For the moment, I’m afraid I won’t be able to differentiate these enough. Okay, this is softer and not as bitey as #1 and the root flavor was mellower, too. Maybe that means #1 is more natural—maybe it means it was pure fake.
I know that Sioux City always disappoints me with how un-bitey it is — it’s always trying to dunk but just can’t get up high enough. This has that same quality.
TASTE 3
Steve Bramucci
This is classic. Dads? A&W? Some rare brand that’s actually been around for ages? Less root here on the nose and palate than 1, which is the winner thus far. This is just… thinner.
Ultimately, it feels like it could be called “generic brand soda pop” and no one would balk and correct it as root beer.
TASTE 4
Steve Bramucci
Huge departure. This tastes like licorice beer. Not a lot of pop and a ton of “root” – does real root beer taste like licorice? Is that what sassafras tastes like? Am I comparing a bunch of super authentic brands to the A&W floats my mom made when I was a kid? Is there some artisan rootbeer maker out there rolling their eyes because I compared them to my sense memories of corn syrup and caramel coloring?
For the record, I actually think that’s exactly what is happening. Regardles, this might be the most authentic, but it’s too smooth and too heavy on the licorice. No bite at all.
TASTE 5
Steve Bramucci
Another classic – but more like soda fountain classic. There’s a licorice-anise-root taste upfront, mellow midpalate with slight astringency, and a cane sugar finish. Not bad. In fact, I could see this having a lot of fans, but I’m slanted toward more pop-bite.
TASTE 6
Steve Bramucci
Ugh. I knew there were a few out there that I would hate because they’re overmellow. I remember that from wasted purchases over the years. This one of those. No pop at all – it’s all flat soda vibes. But no root either. Also, and I’m quite sure that this is cane sugar, you can still OVERUSE cane sugar.
This is too sweet. It tastes like the syrup pre-carbonation.
TASTE 7
Steve Bramucci
Syrupy upfront. Flat. Mellow. This has a great nose but the palate, midpalate, and finish are mostly just flat cane sugar syrup.
Again, this isn’t terrible, but you have to know that you want a mellow, rooty drink and not any sort of “soda pop” experience in line with how mainstream colas and fizzy drinks have tasted since the 1980s or so.
TASTE 8
Steve Bramucci
On the nose, this is clearly an outlier. It tastes like… rootbeer taffy. Which is somehow a LOT different than just root beer. I can’t tell if this is a hipster entry or not. It’s a lot darker and there’s a much different flavor. I can’t quite place it… but I’m also not crazy about it.
On second sip, it does remind me of the coast, though. Briny sea shores. Vintage soda fountains (which were never actually around in my life time but were already a thing people imitated). If this is one of the New England brands, I expect a parade for my incredible palate.
TASTE 9
Steve Bramucci
Finally one with fizz and bite. A nice head. Not much on the nose and palate but after a whole lot with no fizz, this is a respite. This really opens your mouth up with its fizzyness but once your palate is primed, it doesn’t have much to say.
Not a ton of flavor, but god, I was thirsty for fizz.
TASTE 10
Steve Bramucci
This is a departure. Like rootbeer toothpaste, more medicinal, wintergreeny, and sorta… herbaceous. This is probably some purist shit that I’m not sophisticated (or too ingrained in my root beer sense memory) to “get.” Whatever, it’s my tasting and I’m not crazy for it.
That said, it tastes like the old west. This is rootbeer they’d order in The Sisters Brothers. If I hadn’t wasted a lot of money being disappointed by Sioux City root beer in college (their sarsaparilla is amazing), I would have predicted that this was Sioux City, just because I know their old west branding and this tastes “old west.”
TASTE 11
Steve Bramucci
This is the fizziest one yet. Rooty on the nose but mellowish on the palate. I like all the fizz a lot, but man, can you combine it with some root bite? So close to perfect. In fact, I would/ will go back to this happily and if it’s in the top 3, I won’t be surprised.
TASTE 12
Steve Bramucci
Another where the “root” is really unique. This feels full hipster but there is a little soda. DEF cane sugar. DEF designer brand. Good soda balance. But just not a ton of taste. Even if the root is more authentic in some way, it’s not as potent.
It isn’t the first and it won’t be the last time I admit that my palate for these flavors has probably been defined by corn syrup and chemicals, but that doesn’t feel like something I can undo mid-test.
TASTE 13
Steve Bramucci
This is my pick for classic root beer. Again, it’s very sweet. The nose is mellow. But it does have the fizz… If this was a midpoint, I’d be stoked, but I worry it’s gonna land more like the top half because so many are flat and sugary.
I will bet my hat that this is a super mainstream brand that makes no attempt to be artisinal or craft driven.
TASTE 14
Steve Bramucci
Bad note to end on. Flat and sugary. No real root taste. Sugar on the nose, palate, and finish. Candyish sugar – like melted-down fruit candy. I like fruit notes, Cherry Dang! is my second favorite cola ever, but this just isn’t working.
PART II — THE RANKING
Here’s how the 14 bottles I tasted shook out. You’ll note that we’re starting the ranking with #16, for reasons soon to be revealed.
This is how Sprecher’s describes themselves: This legendary Award-Winning Root Beer has the rich, creamy flavor that only comes from using Wisconsin honey direct from the combs. Our brew master skillfully combines a host of flavors in our gas-fired brew kettle. Then ages it just long enough to achieve peak flavor, super creamy mouthfeel and a frothy head.
Sounds super hispter and organic and rootsy, right? Now here’s the label on the bottle:
Sprecher
That seems like a pretty big departure. Glucose syrup is before the honey, so we can assume that literal sugar water is much more in evidence than the honey that is so hyped up. (Also, is WI a honey haven? If so, I’ve never heard that. I think honey is one of those food products where you shout out its origins, regardless of where it comes from — Oregon honey! California honey! New York honey! They all sound about the same.)
Also, 51 grams of sugar? A 12oz bottle of Coke — which is so sugary that states make laws about it — has 39 grams.
Bottom Line:
Here’s what I wrote in the blind test: “This is too sweet. It tastes like the syrup pre-carbonation.” Well, bingo. 51 grams is so much freaking sugar. It can come from WI honey or “pure cane” or anywhere else — it’s still excessive.
From the website: Henry Weinhard’s Root Beer; A substantial, traditional root beer with a hint of honey, vanilla and sassafras.
Bottom Line:
This is my chance for a homer pick (Weinhard’s is a Portland brand) and I’m not taking it. I’ve had a ton of Henry’s and it’s always, always dissapointing in how mellow it is. Tastes flat and low on flavor. It is creamy, but that’s not a huge selling point for me.
From the website: A classic root beer that delivers a smooth vanilla taste, and subtle wintergreen and anise flavor. Enjoy this one over vanilla ice cream for an amazing float.
Bottom Line:
I didn’t get any of those notes — though I got all of them at one point or another with other entries. In this case, all I got was the thinness. It’s too bad, because I had high hopes for Frostie, which was actually making root beer back when sasafrass was legal.
Unfortunately, their current recipe just doesn’t have much of anything to it.
Info: Like A&W, Shasta really posits itself as the “root beer float” root beer with classic but artificial flavors, medium fizz, and lots of creamines.
Since the product is fully artificial and there’s not much to be said about its ingredients, I’d like to mention that when I was a freshman in college, the school hired a comic for our incoming student orientation to do a 45-minute show. Mid-set he sipped a Shasta and someone in he crowd yelled, “How’s the Shasta?!”
I have never seen a more perfect heckle in my life than teasing a random soda brand and therefore the entire chain of life choices of the comic drinking it. It literally shut the whole show down and the comedian couldn’t bounce back. He left early and the person who yelled it was famous across campus for years.
Bottom Line:
I nailed this in the tasting: classic with no attempt to be artisinal or authentic. Trouble is, there still wasn’t much punch. In a blind taste test with A&W, which is mediocre, this still loses every time.
From the website: Root Beer has been a classic amongst American’s since the late 1800’s. First used for medicinal purposes, Root Beer is now enjoyed as a soft drink or as the main ingredient in Root Beer floats. Teddy’s is rich and creamy and goes well with any meal.
Bottom Line:
Even though it comes in a weird plastic bottle, Teddy’s seems to have a strong case for being a “classic pick” — I just didn’t love the mintier notes and found the flavor to be too mellow. Interesting that “creaminess” is being shouted out as a positive attribute by brands, because I guess I didn’t really have that as a parameter.
It’s very hard to get a bead on what’s in any of these. The website reads: “pure cane sugar, natural ingredients, crafted with care” — which is pretty generic copy. I think that’s because none of these brands really cares about presenting themselves as natural since there’s no real natural root beer in the first place.
Bottom Line:
I picked this one out of a lineup cold and could do it again. That’s not a great testament to Sioux City. Its defining characteristics are exactly the same as other “classic” brands, it’s just weaker in every way. That said, this did have the best nose — so if you want to just sniff your frosty beverage, have at it.
From the website: “Although new flavors have been introduced into the root beer category over the past 100 years, the essential ingredients are still wintergreen, licorice, and vanilla.”
Wait, Dad’s. If we’re going back 100 years, wasn’t sasafras the main root? I can’t imagine 100 years ago people were importing vanilla to put it in root beer, but… maybe?
Bottom Line:
I’m proud of myself for calling out the wintergreen, but it’s not that impressive — they lay it on pretty thick. There was a medicinal-astringent quality that I don’t love. Maybe Dad’s used to be a tooth numbing prouct before transitioning to soda?
A few things: A&W is the only root beer with a fast food restaurant. For what it’s worth, I don’t hate the joint. They serve corndog nuggs and Coney dogs with cheese. They also make rootbeer in-house — which realistically means “in-line,” as in the carbonation and syrup are combined fresh in tubes on their way to the taps. That said, is is better there and their floats are one of the most underrated treats in all of fest food.
All that said, I don’t need to give you an ingredients list here. A&W makes no attempt to be “authentic” — it’s all caramel and coloring and carbonation and corn syrup.
Bottom Line:
I confused the mellowness here for a more stylized brand. My bad. That said, I thought this would rank much higher. It just came off as flat. It was the only two liter I bought, so maybe it was stale, but I opened it just for this tasting and you can see the lack of bubbles. Ultimately, if you want A&W, get it from the drive-thru.
From the webite: Brewed in small batches by hand to include the flavor of fifteen different roots and spices. A rich, creamy, full-flavor soda that is deliciously complex and never bitter.
Bottom Line:
I dont disagree with anything about how Virgil’s describes themselves. I certainly got “roots and spices” — particularly licorice root. And it wasn’t bitter — though none of these were. It was creamy, too. It’s just that none of those things really seem to be my personal parameters for liking a root beer. If it was “smooth spice mix licorice” beer, that’s fine.
I guess the real problem here is that some brands seem to read the root in root beer as “any root” and others take it as “flavors selected to imitate sasafrass root.” That said, Virgil’s is one of the brands eperiencing serious shortages, so they must be doing something right. It also gets some uniqueness points.
From the website: Handcrafted soda made with extracts of wintergreen, clove and anise. All our recipes are sweetened with Fair Trade Certified Organic sugar, so you can feel good about it!
Bottom Line:
I predicted that this was a New England artisinal brand and found this to be a nice diverson from the others in the tasting. There was this great saltwater taffy note that I… maybe “loved” is too strong a word but certainly “found myself interested by.”
If you’re looking for something complex and distinct while still conjuring “root beer flavors,” this is a very solid pick.
IBC was my college pick. I loved it back then. It was also the second hardest root beer to find, with multiple stores being completely sold out. It’s ingredients are all the usual suspects — caramel color and cane sugar. No real surprises.
Bottom Line:
Going into the tasting, I predicted this as the winner. Clearly, my preference for this has fallen off since college, but this was definitely solid. It just wasn’t bitey in the way I wanted. Not as bad as two other brands I drank a lot in college — Henry’s and Sioux City — but still, this didn’t punch me with flavor in the way I hoped.
From the webite: A rich sassafras flavor derived from cinnamon, sweet birch, vanilla, and wintergreen.
Bottom Line:
With the ingredient list above, I would have expected this to be one of the more medicinal entries. It wasn’t and I’m dubious about some of those claims (vanilla and birch make sense, but I didn’t pick up the wintergreen). That said, I loved the fizz on this.
No real info — though I do deeply appreciate the company’s commitment to Route 66. It’s cool branding, for starters, but they also really lean into selling their products along the route. So if you travel those areas, you’re likely to see them — which is cool.
Bottom Line:
I liked this a lot. I could have used a stronger flavor but the fizz was present and the nose was classic. This is what I percieve as a 1950s soda fountain root beer and I’d happily reach for it on a hot day.
3. JONES ROOT BEER (Taste 1)
Jones Root Beer
Price: 29.99 for a 12 pack. Individual bottles sold in specialty stores.
Info:
Not much information availible online. “Inverted cane sugar” is listed as an ingredient. That insufferable because inverted sugar is just sugar melted down in water — which is necessary for any beverage, so… don’t be so dorky with your ingredient naming, Jones! I’m trying to rank you highly.
Bottom Line:
This was classic, potent, and nice with the fizz. It was actually disorienting to have this be my first taste. It was the winner of the blind test but it’s not ranked #1 or even #2, which leads me to…
PART III — THE RINGERS
So this is where I name my favorite soda of all time — Coke. Its cola bite and the carbonation overpower the sweetness until you get three or four gulps in, which I love. Seriously, it’s one of my favorite sensory experiences on earth. Definitely top 10. So leaving Barq’s off the list felt like sacriledge (it was purchased by Coca-Cola in 1995). But Barq’s is seriously hard to find right now and has been since early in the pandemic. It wasn’t in any of those 12 stores I mentioned visiting and getting it online only wasn’t going to work for me.
So if you want the winner of the blind taste, that’s Jones. But the same day as the blind test, I flew to Portland for the summer and found Barq’s at a specialty shop. I also grabbed a second bottle because I liked the label and had never seen it before. Turns out they were both spectacular.
Here are my top two grocery store root beers, if you can find them:
The website has a whole novel on this root beer’s orgins, but basically it can be summed up as: was made a long time ago, changed hands a few times, and crafted to taste like the original recipe. That’ belied by the label, which is the same as all the others: sugar, water, natural and artificial flavors. No real surprises.
What did surprise me was the taste.
Bottom Line:
This was like amped up IBC — better in a million tiny ways. It was the only brand that seemed to use wintergreen right — there was a little pepperiness late that I enjoyed. Moreoever, it had bite and kick, which is really all my Coke-loving palate had wanted out of this tasting.
If you don’t want to go mainstream, this is absolutely my #1 pick from everything I tasted.
I’m not even searching for info here. This is Coke with rootbeer flavors. It has bite (that’s the slogan) and I crave that bite because I like Coke.
Bottom Line:
Listen, this is really about palates. I think you could ignore Barq’s as an outlier, because my palate is so perfectly calibrated to Coke, and have a very solid root beer list. That said, if you, like me, just want “Coke but with root beer flavor” — almost like a rootbeer + Coke graveyard from the soda machine — well, this is your brand.
The Atlanta Hawks aren’t in must win territory just yet, down 2-1 to the Milwaukee Bucks, but the way they lost Games 2 and 3 — one a blowout and the other seeing a 7-point fourth quarter lead evaporate into an 11-point loss — it will certainly feel crucial for them to get Game 4 at home to avoid returning to Milwaukee having to get a win.
Getting a win on Tuesday night in Atlanta is going to be very much dependent on the health of superstar guard Trae Young, who stepped on a referee’s foot late in the third quarter of Game 3, rolling his ankle and having to take a quick trip to the locker room to get it looked at and re-taped. When he returned, he did not look like the Young we saw in the first three quarters, struggling to do much off the dribble and his only contribution of the fourth was a deep three midway through the period. Otherwise, he was rendered far less impactful than normal and the Hawks offense collapsed without his creation.
On Monday, Young had an MRI and it was revealed that he had a bone bruise in his right foot, leaving him as officially questionable for Game 4. One would expect Young to do everything he can to give it a go, but how effective he can be attacking downhill is going to very well determine whether the Hawks can get back level in the series. With Bogdan Bogdanovic still ailing from a knee injury, Atlanta is lacking in the creator department beyond Young, and an injury to Young would be a highly unfortunate way for one of the most exciting and fun playoff runs in recent memory to potentially come to a close.
There are countless valid reasons for a person not to breastfeed their child. First of all, having a newborn is one of the most stressful events that one can experience and breastfeeding can be overwhelming.
Some people can’t breastfeed for physical or emotional reasons while others aren’t able to because of commitments to work or school. There is also a socio-economic component to breastfeeding.
A Department of Health report discovered that mothers in wealthier neighborhoods were 1.6 times more likely to exclusively breastfeed for the first five days of their baby’s life than were mothers in poorer neighborhoods.
The problem is that parents are bombarded with the “breast is best” message and want their kids to have the benefits of breastfeeding, so they feel they’re letting their child down by bottle-feeding.
This opens the door to feelings of guilt at a time that is already stressful. The stress associated with not breastfeeding can make someone more prone to postpartum mental health issues and feelings of deep shame.
No one should feel shame for doing what’s right for both themselves and their families.
via Pexels
A new study published in the journal PLOS Medicine should make parents who bottle-fed their children feel better about themselves. It found that breastfeeding has no impact on a child’s overall neurocognitive function by the time they reach the age of 16.
Improved cognitive function has long been seen as one of the greatest benefits of breastfeeding. A 2015 study published in The Lancet, concluded: “breastfeeding is associated with improved performance in intelligence tests 30 years later, and might have an important effect in real life, by increasing educational attainment and income in adulthood.”
However, the new study from PROBIT is the largest randomized controlled trial on human lactation with 13,557 participants and according to The New York Times is “a more rigorous type of study that better controls for socioeconomic and family variables.”
Breastfeeding and socioeconomic status are inextricably linked so it’s hard for researchers to pinpoint whether it’s breastfeeding or other factors such as education level that affect IQ results.
The study found that children who were breastfed had higher IQ scores at the age of 6.5 years. But found that by age 16, there was “little evidence of beneficial effects on overall neurocognitive function.”
That means that although breastfed children do get an early IQ bump, it will diminish by the age of 16. The study did find that breastfed children did receive “a modest benefit” when it comes to their verbal skills.
“Results of our findings at age 16 combined with results at age 6.5 years suggest that long-term effects of breastfeeding on neurocognitive development decrease in magnitude with advancing age, and the persistent benefit seems to be limited to verbal function,” the study says.
The bottom line is that although breastfeeding does provide more benefits for a child, parents who bottle-feed shouldn’t have to worry anymore if it will affect their SAT scores.
The other day I read an anonymous article written by a woman who had been raped repeatedly by her husband during their marriage. As terrible as the story was, the comments on the social media share of it were worse.
I was appalled to read comment after comment of women saying their spouses or long-time partners regularly forced or coerced them into sex. Many of those men basically claimed ownership of their partners’ bodies, believing they were entitled to sex whenever they wanted it. Some pushed ahead even after she had explicitly said no or begged him not to. Some women would wake up in the middle of being raped by the person who was supposed to love, honor, and cherish them. Sadly, some women thought this was normal.
Too many people seem to think saying “I do”—or saying yes to sex more than once—equals a blanket consent for sex whenever. News flash: It does not.
There is no such thing as blanket consent for sex. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a committed relationship. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been together. It doesn’t matter if you’ve said yes a hundred times in a row. If you don’t want to have sex, you don’t have to. Period.
Particularly disconcerting were the women who said they and/or their husbands were taught by their churches or religions that they had to submit whenever their husbands wanted sex. That it was their “duty” to please their husbands and that they couldn’t “deny” them. That they didn’t have ownership over their own body at all.
Others talked about how their partner would guilt them into sex, saying they “needed it” or “couldn’t help themselves.” How they would gaslight them or threaten to go get it elsewhere if they didn’t relent.
Comment after comment. Story after story, some describing outright abuse and others describing incredibly unhealthy dynamics surrounding sex and consent within the relationship.
I was horrified to read these stories—but even more horrified by the statistics that back them up. According to the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, between 10 and 14 percent of married women in the U.S. are raped by their husbands, and one-third of women report “having unwanted sex” with their partner. However, spousal rape also goes largely unreported.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, up until 1975, every state’s rape laws had an exemption for marriage, so legally speaking, married women (or men) couldn’t be raped by their spouses. Thanks to pressure from the women’s rights movement, all states changed their laws to acknowledge marital rape by 1993. But culture often takes longer to change than laws, and there are still far too many people who don’t understand that consent is the standard for everyone in every sexual encounter, regardless of relationship status.
While consent is straightforward, the dynamics of sex are unique to each relationship. In a loving, long-term relationship, sex can be a bit of a complex dance. Different people have different desires, intimacy means different things to different people, and life circumstances (babies, health issues, etc.) can impact a couple’s sexual activity. Each couple has to work out the hows and whens and how oftens of their sex life, but it should always be a mutual thing. A sexual relationship requires ongoing communication, and sometimes negotiations of sorts are necessary to make sure each partner feels heard and respected in their wants and desires.
The key is respect. There’s a world of difference between saying to your partner “I feel like our relationship needs more physical intimacy,” and saying “You need to be ready and raring to go whenever I’m feeling feel frisky.” The former is a conversation starter that can ultimately lead to greater connection and a stronger relationship. The latter is just a terrible attitude to take toward your loved one.
Some might say “enthusiastic consent” is necessary, but as someone who’s been in a healthy, happy marriage for 23 years, I’d say that’s not always reality. There may be times when one partner isn’t super into it at first, but they know they will be once they get started, so they say yes because they want to make their partner happy. (Not because their partner pressured them, but because they genuinely want to.) But consent to even head down the road to funkytown always needs to be there in the first place. Always. Every time.
No one should be made to feel like they’re a bad partner for saying no when they aren’t up for sex. No one should be pushed or pressured into it. No one should be demanding sex or taking it when it hasn’t been freely offered. Why would you even want to have sex with someone who actively doesn’t want to anyway?
No means no. “Stop” means no. Being asleep means no. Yes means yes. It’s really that simple.
I hope both women and men read this and recognize that anything short of that standard of consent is not okay. Everyone deserves a partner who respects their bodily autonomy and understands that sex is a mutually agreed-upon activity—every time, in every relationship.
FYI, this isn’t just a list, it’s an argument laid out in multiple parts that are trying to prove the point that Conan O’Brien is the greatest late-night host of all time. Someone who directly or indirectly influenced more than two generations of comedy writers, comics, actors, and nerds. To be sure, there are originators and other trailblazers worthy of serious consideration — the Carsons, Lettermans, Stewarts — but Conan and his merry gang have gone further, bigger, and bolder, setting a tone that shows it’s okay to stray from classic formats and the idea of what late-night comedy is supposed to be (both on-screen and as a business).
I may be way off base with this theory. I may be biased since I grew up watching Late Night, following from day one. Before you decide if there’s validity to this claim, I’d love for you to weigh the evidence while also basking in the amazing moments and genius characters that have defined these shows.
Some caveats: These moments and characters (and elements) are pulled from Late Night, The Tonight Show, and Conan. I’m trying not to double up on characters, which is why there’s only one Triumph sketch. Also, I brought in ringers. While they are not explicitly co-signing my claim about Conan’s number 1 all-time status (I didn’t ask), we have compiled a few anecdotes and quotes from former Conan guests, comics, and writers that will be sprinkled in here and there.
Now, let’s begin with the 25 best characters, moments, and elements from Conan’s 28-year run. Please know the pain it is causing me to know I’m surely forgetting things and the angst I have over leaving off things like the Year 2000, Conan’s trips to Ireland and South Korea, Clueless Gamer, The World’s Fastest Menorah, and the American Girls Doll Museum, as well as characters like Preparation H. Raymond, and Pimp Bot 5000. I am so sorry, Pimp Bot 5000.
25. The Extensive Cast
NBC
Conan’s writers were perpetually in the mix for on-screen time and many of them are going to get more specific call-outs below. More also needs to be said about the brief merge of the Upright Citizen’s Brigade into Late Night, and actors like Abe Vigoda, Nipsey Russell, and Mr. T. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the other behind-the-scenes players that helped build the franchise without any on-camera experience or aspiration. People like announcer Joel Goddard, bandleader Max Weinberg, graphic designer Pierre Bernard, Conan’s assistant Sona, associate producer Jordan Schlansky, and prop master Bill Tull.
I interviewed Tull once and when I asked him about a specific sketch where they put ET in a wood chipper, he said, “we put a lot of things in the wood chipper in those days.” It remains the greatest sentence anyone has ever said to me.
24. Conan Gives His Staff Their Reviews
TBS
As stated before, Conan has a long history of pulling his staff into the show, and this bit, which follows other peeks into the office culture behind the show, is demonstrates the funny that can be found when Conan lovingly antagonizes the people he works with.
From Mo Mandel, comic and past guest:
“It just showcases how effortlessly likable Conan is because he’s just berating these poor people and being so mean but you totally love him and are on his side the whole time and know he’s in on the joke even though he’s playing it straight. That only comes from a person who is super nice in real life, so much so that even when they play angry you can tell they’re a sweetheart. People always talk about the self-deprecating Conan but he plays an equally good villain.”
23. The Impact On Stand-Up And Comedy
NBC
Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show stood out as the place where comedians met America in his era, and Conan took the mantle, focusing on the burgeoning alt-comedy scene of the ’90s doling out time to the likes of Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman, and others. As time went on, that continued with a new batch of comics in the 2000s and 2010s (Mike Birbiglia, Taylor Tomlinson, Mo Mandel), further establishing Conan as a sort of Godfather for comics. Which is to say nothing of the influence he has had on comedy culture, in general. Here’s Mike Birbiglia — comic, former guest, and former Late Night intern — hadto say something about that.
“The first time I was on the show, I was so nervous because the people who make the show were sort of like my older brothers or sisters or something. My sensibility was raised watching hundreds of hours of the show. And then Conan, Andy, the writers, and the producers have been nothing but absurdly nice and generous. And I feel very lucky to have learned what I learned from watching that show and watching people work behind the scenes on the show and then to have been lucky enough to be a guest on the show. Conan and Andy are just two people who I admire most in this whole insane field of comedy. When Bill Hader came on my podcast, we talked about how influential that show has been to an entire generation of comedians.”
22. The Late Night Debut and The Tonight Show Finale
NBC
Both of these full episodes showcase the defiance that Conan brought to the mix at very different moments in his career when various “experts” were already counting him out. In the first episode — a wall-to-wall cavalcade of wild ideas and comic weirdness that we once dubbed “punk comedy art” — O’Brien leaned into the crushing expectations of his new post and the resulting anxiety, creating one of late-night comedy’s singular hours of television.
As for The Tonight Show, O’Brien stayed on the air through the slow-rolling PR nightmare that was NBC’s horrific handling of the show’s hand-off from the Jay Leno disingenuous in denim experience to Conan and company. And he did it with class, fire, and irreverence, supposedly making NBC pay for ultra-expensive comedy bits (the Bugatti Veyron mouse and its Rolling Stones theme song!) as a means of attaining some hilarious revenge. At the close of his final episode, O’Brien played “Free Bird” with an in-costume Will Ferrell (and his very pregnant wife, Viveca Paulin, who gave birth hours later) after delivering a farewell address that pushed back on the notion of cynicism and showed us all, one more time, what a gaggle of schmucks NBC was.
21. Artie Kendall
NBC
A ghost who used to croon in Conan’s Late Night studio back during the depression played by writer Brian Stack, Kendall warbles on about being in a Russian brothel getting high on Thanksgiving and bashing in the heads of the unemployed (“crackedy skull!”). Truly, Late Night was ahead of its time in reminding us that the things our grandparents watched and listened to were utterly terrifying and often super sexist and/or racist.
20. The Slipnuts Open For Slipknot
NBC
There were probably 18,000 fans at that arena utterly confused by what they were watching. Maybe even pissed when a weird comedy trio came out to open for heavy metal giants, Slipknot. But there were probably 100 people who found out who the Slipnuts were and the point of the bit, and to them, it probably became the greatest thing they’d ever seen. Gone in an instant for everyone else, imprinted for a lifetime on those select few. The power of aiming for the passionate niche over more casual and fickle broad acceptance. The power of not being afraid of confusing the masses to find the ones who get it. Another Conanverse staple.
19. Conan Plays In The Snow
NBC
Similar to the Andy Blitz goes to Toronto moment, this “fishing expedition,” as show writer Michael Koman calls it, demonstrates the recipe for success for so many key bits. Go someplace (maybe a snowy street or to Cuba) with a microphone and the flexibility to go with whatever and whoever you find with Conan leaning on his amazing improv skills to create something genius, random, and real. In this case, the Blizzard of 2003 provides the setting, with Conan goofing off in the snow, climbing massive mounds, and discovering pure gold in the form of a very shouty old man (who would pop back up on the show a few more times).
18. Andy Blitz Takes A Taxi To Toronto
NBC
Conan going apartment hunting with Andy Blitz should be on this list, but I can’t not put this utterly genius concept where Blitz (a longtime writer on the show) takes a cab to Toronto. Ever take a really long Uber ride? Like really long? Imagine going 12 hours with an overnight stop.
“You wanna pull over and do trust falls?” It’s amazing the awkwardness and resulting comedy that comes from two strangers put into close proximity with each other. Nothing is forced, it’s just gentle weirdness and a flash field trip.
17. Late Night Goes Claymation
NBC
The show had dabbled with claymation before (a Christmas special, a Passover special — both as shortish bits), but in 2003 they repurposed a whole episode, spending untold amounts of money and months of production to create a truly imaginative and fun visual experience. The ambition of the show and the “why not?” attitude of the people making it is truly startling when you compare what they’ve done to, really, any other show. That’s no disrespect to Letterman (the only real competition in my opinion) and, in particular, his own version of Late Night which, of course, preceded Conan’s and plowed the field where all these experiments got their start (I’ll note Letterman also used to add neat touches to freshen up reruns). But it has to be said that the scale and commitment to big ideas outpaced even Letterman’s in his show’s prime (in a very different time with different technical capabilities and budgets).
16. The Rockefeller Center Fire Special
NBC
The Rockefeller Center Fire episode makes it on this list not just for the show’s willingness to change things up and record outside (with Sam Jackson in a Brookstone massage chair), but for its ability to do that so completely and in an instant when their studio was damaged by a fire. Sure, desperation plays a part, but there’s a supernatural level of confidence at play as well. As close as they got to being canceled in the early going while, at the same time, pursuing a kind of budget bin avant-gardism, the show survived. Maybe it’s a thing where, after a bunch of near-death experiences, they began to believe they were immortal and, thus, could do anything.
14. Christmas Shopping Desk Drive
NBC
There’s an innocence to the general concept of Conan and friends being able to go anywhere they can imagine thanks to a magical desk (and green screen tech). Like it feels fit for a kids show and you can’t help but grin and embrace the silliness of it. Vehicular manslaughter and Tickle Me Elmo theft be damned. But besides that, this is also the best example (alongside the Clutch Cargo sketches from the ’90s) of the inventive lo-fi ways the show used to make their budget work while still standing out and leaning on, in particular, the talents of Conan, Andy,and Smigel.
13. Interviews
TBS
There are far too many that should be on this list but Jennifer Garner and Conan warring over the word “snuck,” Mel Brooks paying tribute to Sid Caesar, and all the raucous and familiar chats with friends like Timothy Olyphant, Will Ferrell, Lisa Kudrow, Aubrey Plaza, Martin Short, and the always-in costume Adam Pally all come to mind as standouts.
Conan didn’t jump into the show as a natural interviewer, but he evolved quickly to find comfort and gain master status. His previous digital series Serious Jibber-Jabber and his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, all free him to have longer, more multifaceted conversations now, joining with the late era of Conan with its longer interviews to prove that he’s now become pop culture’s ultimate defender for the value of a good conversation. Here’s hoping that remains either with the podcast, HBO Max series, or otherwise.
From Joel McHale, a frequent guest:
“He would be just as thoughtful talking to Obama as he would a kid on the street. The first few times I went on, I had to really control myself because I’m such a big fan. I get giddy when I’m on his show. And the last time I was on, they just aired the whole 25 minutes. That’s really how we talk to each other. It’s a heightened version because we’re on camera and we’re slinging jokes, but our wives just roll their eyes at each other when we’re talking. I don’t know how to describe it other than he’s a lovely genius.”
13. DInner With Conan And Jordan
TBS
Conan and Jordan Schlansky are like the Odd Couple re-born, with Conan flummoxed and Jordan barely tolerating the incessant picking at his very specific way of being. And it’s never better than when they take their act on the road, specifically when Conan went with Jordan to the restaurant in Italy where he was a supposed big deal and when Conan took Jordan to an Olive Garden to more or less mock him, burning his nipples with a hot breadstick in the process. I don’t think they’re taking suggestions, but I’ll go ahead and say that at least part of the new show needs to be Conan and Jordan recreating Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s The Trip franchise.
12. Andy In The Wild
NBC
For a time in the early days of the show’s run, Andy Richter was a primary force with remotes for the show, going out to Woodstock, the NBA Finals, the Tonys and other places. And it’s all great. Richter has an approachability to him that masks his killer comedy instincts. He’s like a cherub with a pistol taped to his back. I’m using a couple of examples here. One is a trip working the press line at the VMA’s where he sells a sad-sack routine trying to sell his music videos. And then the bomb drops and we’re seeing an amazing recreation of Eddie Murphy’s “Party All The Time” video. Then there’s this one in a dive bar where he mines laughs in what could only be described as a depressive rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
11. Conan Visits A Sick Writer
NBC
Writer Michael Koman felt bad about calling out of work so he sent in some material for the show, not realizing it would apparently read so weakly that Conan would feel the need to pop in at his apartment to make sure he was really sick. The result is an awkward and real exchange between a boss and a writer who told me he didn’t quite know how hard he could push back.
From Michael Koman, writer:
“Our general dynamic was that he would sort of lovingly anatomize me, and I would bumblingly try to do the same thing to him, but I would usually just say something way too blunt and mean. But I think that basic relationship is why it made some kind of sense for him to go to my apartment to see how I could possibly have been sick enough to justify the horrible page of ideas I had sent in that morning.”
Here’s an interesting detail: in the original episode, Koman makes a remark about his doorman letting Conan up which caused consternation with his Super resulting in him editing out the remark for reruns (at the Super’s suggestion).
If you love Interdimensional Cable on Rick And Morty, allow me to introduce you to Sattelite TV from Late Night, a recurring platform for bite-size bits too weird to live as full sketches. This includes a guy who starts every conversation singing a modified version of Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance,” a court show where a potato judge presides, a golden retriever doing ventriloquism with a dog puppet, Amy Poehler and Matt Walsh as a dysfunctional married couple trying to deliver the news, and Mike Sweeney as Abraham Lincoln in “The Lincoln Money Shot Channel.” Every one of these could be an Adult Swim show. These are just the scraps, proving how next-level talented the show’s writing staff has been.
9. Jack McBrayer and Triumph Go To Weiner’s Circle In Chicago
As Mike Ryan alluded to in his talk with Smigel about Let’s Be Real, the velocity of Smigel’s mind is off the charts. That’s why Triumph is as good and as legit iconic as it is. But in this instance, it’s a whole other type of amazing watching Smigel’s mind work while getting back as good as he gives from the crew of the Weiner’s Circle in Chicago, a spot renowned for talking smack to their customers. It’s not people distracted by the puppet and the situation they’re in at a dog show or on line for a movie (each examples that would place high on any top sketch list if that was all this was). Here, sparks fly and the whole time you are physically frightened for gentle Jack McBrayer’s dear sweet disposition.
Of all the show’s brilliant one-note characters, the Masturbating Bear was the onanist. You knew what he was going to do, and yet, you laughed every single time because it’s the wildest god damn thing that it popped up on NBC just a few short hours after an episode of Wings. Here, the setup is everything. The Masturbating Bear’s mom is sick and he needs to enter a Million Dollar Money Box to save her life. You know what happens… magic.
A few inside tidbits from longtime Conan writer Mike Sweeney, Koman, his writing partner Andrew Weinberg, and propmaster Bill Tull. First, the Walker Lever exists somewhere in storage. Second, this all started because of the notion that the NBC/Universal merger meant the show had free reign to show clips from Walker Texas Ranger at will. They did not. Which is why they stopped eventually. But in its time, god damn was it magnificent. Such a simple premise: pull a lever, get a prize. And the prize was a seemingly random (though painstakingly discovered by Koman and Weinberg through hours and hours of research) clip of Chuck Norris getting dragged across a field or of a pre-Sixth Sense Haley Joel Osment matter of factly telling a group that he has AIDS. “We waited a year before we showed that clip,” Sweeney told me, reflecting on concerns about the censors. It’s not even technically a “lever” clip in the above video, but still a part of the legend. And while the bit eventually came to a close, they tried to walk away multiple times before it was finally shut down. Including after they had Chuck Norris on the show to add a meta send-off.
From Mike Sweeney, writer:
“We thought that would be the end of it. We’re like, okay, we’ve don’t it. I don’t know, 15 times? Doing something that many times, we felt like, okay, it’s run its course. Let’s end it and bring on Chuck Norris and we’ll never do Walker Texas Ranger Lever again. That’s it. It was a nice ride. […] I think nine months went by and we had two weeks off and Conan came back from break and he said, ‘All anyone’s saying to me everywhere I go is you’ve got to keep doing more. We need more Walker clips.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ I had to go to Michael and Andrew and I was like, ‘Guys, sorry to tell you, but you’ve got to screen more.’ They’re like, ‘There can’t be any more clips.’
But it was an endless supply. They went down and found more great clips and we ended up doing it again for another two months. Then we stopped again. The same thing happened again nine months later. Fans on the street were like, ‘Come on, show more clips.’ I think there was a third round of it.”
Save for some of the Clutch Cargo stuff from back in the day and monologue jokes across multiple decades, Conan has largely avoided being overtly political on the show. When I spoke with Andy Richter last year, he had a great line about why not: “Conan actually said to me once, ‘There are all kinds of people doing topical stuff and making political points,’ and he said, ‘It’s so much more interesting to me to just be silly and be absurd and explore the absurd, and ultimately I think it’s doing a greater service to humanity.’”
But with reports that President Trump called Haiti a “sh*thole” country, Conan seemingly took it as a challenge, prompting a herculean effort to quickly do a Without Borders from the country. The whole thing is funny, as per usual with the long, long history of Conan visiting other countries, but there’s an empathy that’s so palpable and paired with a want to cut through the mountains of nonsense. Conan isn’t the first person you think of when it comes to getting heavy and making a statement piece, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done it or that it isn’t powerful. Reference remarks following school shootings, the aftermath of Robin Williams’ death, and the first episode following 9/11 where he plainly talked about not knowing how to do the job of being an ass and making people laugh in that exact moment. But with Haiti, he made more than a statement, he made an impact, taking a camera right to the spot and countering an idiot’s verbal diarrhea with a window into the vibrancy, resiliency, and nuance of a whole country.
You can’t be great at interviews if you aren’t open to going where the guest wants to go. Even if that means not so much an interview as a trip into the woods to “shoot guns and drink hard liquor” in the name of creating art with literary literal madman Hunter S. Thompson. What more needs to be said about this moment?
Much like the Masturbating Bear (which is an. aces way to start a sentence), we always knew what was going to happen when Paul Rudd popped up on any of the three iterations of Conan’s shows. He’d do the usual talk show stuff, everyone would laugh and then the time would come for a clip and you’d kinda forget. It was like setting a trap. It’s the perfect bit, made richer by the fact that it might be late night’s most enduring tradition.
There are times when Conan approaches a situation as something of a blank canvas to see what can be made. Those fishing expeditions. But then there are other times when it feels like he’s trying to either solve a puzzle or flip over the table that it’s on before laughing and pointing. That’s the takeaway from Old TIme Baseball, which might be universally regarded as among the top things he’s ever done. He walks onto the field like an Alien crash-landed and accumulating data: is there an accomplice? What can he learn about these people from their uniforms and how everyone is speaking and engaging like it’s really the 1860s? And then he tries to infiltrate, taking an at-bat, threatening to throw hands, and being scared of technology. It’s playful enough to be a little pointed and pointed enough to be hilarious. And wow, how many times has the show walked that line successfully?
Speaking of, Conan is calling upon many of the same superpowers here but he’s also got no clue what he’s going to find of comic value in Houston late in the night. Enter Buffalo, a big dude who seemed like he might be persuaded to chose violence and who didn’t seem like he’d be down to absorb Conan’s brand of playfulness or pointed remarks. It’s great when things work, it can be even better when they don’t workout and Conan wasn’t afraid to show those moments.
Additionally, going someplace in search of people who recognize you is such a great send-up of Hollywood phoneyness, affiliate relations torture, and a manifestation of the self-deprecating nature of the show and its host.
1. Conan Discovers Late Night Is An Undercover Sting Operation
There was a distinct vibe that the show was always running from the reaper in its early days. Perhaps that’s why this sketch lands so perfectly. Or perhaps it’s in the commitment level and the performances — particularly Richter, who carries the bulk of the story. I could have picked any number of moments or characters to top this list, but while so many favorites come together while they’re filming, there is something to be said for a truly great produced bit and something that is super well-coordinated and choreographed. Like a ballet, really.
The Conan team has, for the longest time (and I’m refusing to use the past tense here since the HBO Max show is coming and will still be late night to me), shown an ability to create comedy from nothing and to find a way to get laughs out of the most esoteric, 2 AM in the morning on a napkin bits of weirdness. All in their pursuit of a challenge, or expressing a wholly new idea, and in that pursuit of the cross-section of silly and stupid and magical that Conan talked about in the TBS series finale. It’s a huge part of their charm, but they are also master tacticians and craftspeople.
From the costumes to the props to the performances and the material, we’re getting an idea fully realized in moments like the above sketch where they refuse to settle for the passing grade. They want to take it to the end of the line and they do here, with an empty studio, Conan robbed of his life’s work, and being made fun of for still believing in his life.
Whether their commitment is for you or for them isn’t quite clear, maybe both? But it’s definitely for the sake of doing the thing right and making sure it sticks with you. And that thing, as well as all the other things expressed here, make Conan a multi-generational talent and, I feel, late night’s greatest host.
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