It probably was the hardest we ever have laughed at Conan O'Brien.
It was during one of his end-of-year specials for Late Night. After he had resolved that in the coming year he would not use his TV show to work through the painful memories of his youth, the scene cut to a supposed flashback.
There was a "youthful" Conan, badly dressed in ill-fitting nerdy clothes, greasy hair pasted to his sweaty forehead, staring enviously and mournfully through a window at what looked like the last dance at a high school prom.
Separated from the blissful slow-dancing, a warbly voiced Conan quietly sang along with the final few words: "My .... end ..... less .... loooovvve."
We just about split a gut.
For the past 16 years, Conan O'Brien fittingly has positioned himself as the outsider at the late-night TV dance.
But now that he is wrapping up Late Night with Conan O'Brien tomorrow night (A, NBC), he is on the verge of becoming the ultimate insider at the late-night prom.
On June 1, Conan O'Brien will become the host of The Tonight Show (A, NBC).
Okay, just as an aside, we have to say this:
In the grand scope of late-night TV, it still seems weird that the list of hosts for The Tonight Show is about to read, "Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien." And the most influential late-night comic of the past 25 years -- David Letterman -- is never going to appear on that list.
That just seems wrong on so many levels.
But we're fans of Conan O'Brien, so do not take our lamenting over Letterman as any kind of swipe at Conan. In fact, we're going to give Conan a lot of credit for something.
Back in 1993, after NBC picked Leno over Letterman for The Tonight Show and a devastated Letterman bolted NBC for CBS, it was Conan who had to step into an almost impossible situation.
Late Night with David Letterman had been ground-breaking television at NBC. Late Night with Conan O'Brien couldn't help but pale in comparison, right? And that is not a reference to O'Brien's famously translucent skin, by the way.
What O'Brien did was this: He bravely made Late Night his own. It was not a Letterman copy.
The critics didn't really know what to make of O'Brien initially. And those who did know what to make of him hated him. Viewers in Canada actually caught on to O'Brien faster than viewers in the United States.
Nonetheless, O'Brien stuck with his goofy, quirky brand of comedy and eventually, by the turn of the century, he had become something of a critical darling.
Predictably, there has been a bit of an anti-Conan backlash since NBC announced in 2004 that it would be handing him The Tonight Show in 2009.
Every time Conan gets edged in the ratings by CBS rival Craig Ferguson, it's deemed newsworthy. And some have taken NBC's decision to give Leno a Monday-to-Friday talk show starting at 10 p.m. (in most markets) to mean the network is hedging its bets with regard to Conan taking over at 11:35 p.m.
We prefer to look at it another way.
The Tonight Show still is special. And O'Brien has earned this. Those who know him well say he truly is not competitive with other late-night comics, but he is intensely competitive with himself. He's his own man and his own rival.
As with all categories of television in this splintered environment, late-night TV isn't quite as influential as it used to be. But this is perhaps the biggest compliment we can pay O'Brien -- and please consider how ridiculous this would have sounded 16 years ago:
When you think of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, you do not even remotely think of Late Night with David Letterman.
That is an incredible achievement, Conan.
And whether you like Conan or not, we have no doubt he will make The Tonight Show his own, too.
