Many things have changed since the summer of 2012: We’re all a little older, a little sadder, and, if we’re lucky, a little wiser. Also, Donald Trump is president. But thankfully, one thing hasn’t changed: about once a year, Conan O’Brien does a skit in which his director screws up and mistakenly implies a member of the studio audience—in fact, they seem to be plants from his staff—is a big ol’ perv. From peeing on another passenger on a plane to masturbating in the back seat of an Uber, no sexual fiasco was too embarrassing for Conan and company to create elaborate on-screen animations and musical numbers—yes, musical numbers!—that could “accidentally” be deployed at exactly the wrong moment for some poor sap in the crowd. So just in time for Halloween, here are six audience members being unjustly linked with six sexual catastrophes over a period of six years.
“Untreatable Gonorrhea Is Running Rampant!”, June 20, 2012
Although this version of the sketch is very early, the basic form is already there—the initial cut to a stone-faced audience member, increasingly implausible explanations from the booth about increasingly elaborate ways to imply something very embarrassing about an audience plant. In this case, however, the specific details—an outbreak of untreatable gonorrhea, instead of the more esoteric perversions to come—hurt the joke a little. And although the idea that Conan’s director has a button he can push that sends “The Untreatable Gonorrhea Dancers” out into the audience to perform is inspired, their actual song isn’t that funny. But this was only the beginning.
“Pool Toy Sex Pervert Is on the Loose,” July 16, 2013
In this episode, the formula evolves thanks to one key insight: it is much funnier to imply that an audience member enjoys having sex with pool toys than it is to imply that they have an incurable sexually transmitted disease. The song that ends the bit isn’t much of an improvement over “Untreatable Gonorrhea Is Running Rampant,” but the pink pool raft costumes are a quantum leap forward, and the audience member does a much better job of acting amused despite himself, which is probably a function of the fact that it’s more amusing to be accused on national television of humping pool toys than it is to be accused of having an incurable sexually transmitted disease.
“Beware the Chicken Perv!”, Feb. 27, 2014
Here, at last, the accidentally-imply-someone-in-the-audience-is-so-twisted-their-perversions-are-national-news skit reaches its mature form, with one very special addition: Col. Sanders. The costume, the prop bucket of chicken, the rotating roast chickens on crotches of the backup dancer’s outfits (they are, themselves, dressed like chickens, so the idea that they’ve adorned themselves with the juicy, oven-roasted corpses of their fellow chickens gives the whole thing a Texas Chain Saw Massacre feel): this iteration has everything you ever dreamed was possible (in a Conan sketch built around a series of camera crew screw-ups implying an audience member likes chickens, but like likes them likes them, you know?).
“Beware the Tree Perv!”, May 1, 2015
Things arguably got a little too gross this time around, as Conan, in the midst of a serious discussion of a flakka-flummoxed Floridian with a fondness for fucking flora, suffers an “integrated product integration” mishap for an automotive product called “Trunk Spunk” (motto: “Put Your Spunk in the Trunk”). But the use of Synchro-Vox to produce a live shot of the hapless audience member saying “I endorse this product … and I have sex with trees!” is positively inspired.
“Beware the Pee Freak Perv!”, Feb. 23, 2016
It’s not really plausible that Conan’s director has a button he can push to send out a Colonel Sanders lookalike to accuse an audience member of being sexually aroused by chickens. It may not be plausible that Conan’s director has an animation all cued up where an airliner flies over the screen trailing a long stream of urine, while a pre-recorded voice announces, “The captain has turned off the No Urinating light, so you may now freely urinate about the cabin.” But I want to believe.
“Conan Calls Out the Creepy Uber Masturbator,” Sept. 29, 2017
As the world limps its way through 2017, even Conan’s recurring bits have become darker, angrier, more troubling. Before the 2016 election, the show gave the victims of these segments nicknames that were sort of friendly-sounding, like the “Tree Perv,” or the “Chicken Perv.” There is no way to make “the Creepy Uber Masturbator” sound like an affectionate nickname, any more than you can make “President Donald Trump” sound like a real thing that is actually happening. Still: Other people’s embarrassment is always funny, even when we’re a global embarrassment ourselves.
