conan-string-dance

I try to keep most of the news around here general-interest, if there’s such a thing as a general-interest television blog that enjoys cats and dogs dressed up as humans. But this one’s for my fellow Conan O’Brien fans: I’m ecstatic to report that on Friday night’s excellent show (with guests Michael Cera and Aziz Ansari), Conan was more his old “Late Night” self than any other night I’ve seen since he took over “The Tonight Show.”

In fact, what you see pictured above is Conan doing the “string dance,” one of the unheralded little pieces of his “Late Night” routine that didn’t survive the move to 11:30. He did that on-air on Friday night for the first time since his days in New York — drawing an extra cheer from the audience — and he used that energy to launch into a series of jokes about NBC’s late-night fiasco that included several shots at Jay Leno (videos below). It seems as though the one thing comedy fans are getting from this debacle is what we’ve been missing since the original move: the old Conan.

UPDATE: There’s strong talk of Conan leaving NBC and going to Fox.