The Masturbating Bear has a long and storied late-night history. Perhaps the best symbol of the unique zaniness of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” the Masturbating Bear got shelved for being too edgy for an 11:30 p.m. audience when Conan moved to L.A. to take over “The Tonight Show.” The bear would later make subtle cameos during Conan’s brief tenure in Leno’s spot, but when Conan negotiated his bitter departure from the network, NBC claimed intellectual property rights to the bear, leading Conan to fill the void with characters like Self-Pleasuring Panda.

Last fall, in an interview with Rolling Stone, O’Brien claimed that he’d find a way to bring the bear on his show. “What I really wanna do,” he said at the time, “is be sued over the bear and then appear in court with the Masturbating Bear. ‘Your Honor, this bear can’t help himself!’”

Sure enough, last night the Masturbating Bear returned for Conan’s second of four shows filmed in New York City (video below). Conan presented him as the reformed NON-Masturbating Bear: a hard-working insurance salesman who commutes to Manhattan from the suburbs where he lives with his wife and children. But you can probably figure out how it ends: you can’t keep the Masturbating Bear from masturbating. I mean, it’s right there in his name.

So now I guess we wait to see if NBC is willing to sue over ursine onanism. I’d follow that sh*t like the O.J. trial.

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Conan O’Brien’s old “Late Night” show on NBC was always at its best when he did remote segments, something that doesn’t work in L.A. because that city doesn’t have pedestrians for Conan to interact with. But with last night’s show in New York, he aired two different remotes I enjoyed (see below).

The first is a short segment in which Conan returns to Rockefeller Center in disguise as a “hipster pedophile Chargers fan” who he stands in the audience while “The Today Show” films. The second, longer segment has Conan filling in as a delivery guy for a Chinese restaurant, and it has some really great moments. Watch and mourn the loss of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” all over again. (R.I.P. 1993-2009)

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To celebrate one year of shows with TBS, Conan O’Brien is returning to the city where he made his name in late night TV. O’Brien will tape this week’s shows in Manhattan’s Beacon Theater, and I’ll probably tune in because his energy and humor are better when he’s in New York. And part of it’s nostalgia, too — I prefer to think of Conan as the wacky New York-based “Late Night” host, not the guy who moved up to L.A. only to get his dreams shattered and land at TBS.

Anyway, if you’re a sucker for Conan the way that I am, you’ll likely enjoy the video below, a montage of his first year at TBS. It’s edited really well, and at four minutes long it’s way easier to sit through than a full year of “Conan.”

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Awww, Paul Rudd and Anne Hathaway are just the best. They’re human golden retrievers. Rudd’s like the unassuming cool handsome friend you’ve never had, and Anne Hathaway is like the hot girl in drama club who never stops singing and performing and is actually kind of annoying but you still want to sleep with her.

Anyway, Rudd and Hathaway teamed up with Dennis Haysbert to do a little sketch on “Conan” where they auditioned for “Jersey Shore” (video below), and as much as I love human golden retrievers, I have to say that Haysbert steals the scene. Damn right the president from “24″ ain’t jumpin’ on a grenade for The Situation.

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In order to promote “The X Factor,” Nicole Scherzinger put her huge fake tits on display and then called out Conan O’Brien for looking at them instead of her dead eyes (video below). You go, girl! Men are such pigs!

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