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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Meredith Vieira announced her departure from “The Today Show” this morning, leaving Matt Lauer to co-host the nation’s top morning show with Ann “Good Morning Good Morning” Curry.

“This is a difficult day for me,” Meredith said in an emotional announcement on TODAY Monday. “I’m going to try to hold myself together here. But after months of personal reflection and private conversations between my family and my friends, I’ve decided to leave TODAY in June. [MSNBC]

Vieira will remain at NBC in some capacity at NBC News, but she’ll always be remembered best on “Today” as “whatsherface, you know, the one who replaced Katie Couric?” And also for the time she hit on a Navy pilot and announced that she was “an old, horny woman”:

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When the “Today” show isn’t busy televising Kathie Lee Gifford’s morning wine binges, it delivers HARD NEWS like this story from Long Island: a raccoon got its head stuck in a peanut butter jar. The Pulitzer committee has convened early to declare this the greatest “animal head stuck in plastic container” story since Squirrel Stuck in Yogurtgate 2009. Video below (via videogum).

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Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning, which means that thanks to a weird, dated religious ritual that is one does of sexual magic away from being The Wicker Man, Winter is almost over. The Midwest is still elbows-deep in snow and the East coast is still trying to dig their way out, but somebody inferred a decision from this rodent so praise Jesus and here we go ’round the Maypole.

The best part of Groundhog Day, besides literally every person on my Facebook posting the “don’t drive angry!” clip from Groundhog Day, is the reaction of “Today Show” host Matt Lauer:

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Ordinarily I shy away from buttcam videos like this, but this absolutely has to be shared: in a 1994 episode of “The Today Show,” Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel stumble through the minefield of a nascent Internet and the difficulty of translating the “@” symbol into the spoken word.

Gumbel: I wasn’t prepared to translate that… That little mark: the “a” with the ring around it?
Lady on the right: At?
Gumbel: See, that’s what I said. Katie said she thought it was “about,” but I’d never heard it said — I’d seen the mark, but never heard it said — and then it sounded stupid when I said it.

Really? Jesus. I mean, come on: it’s called the “at sign.” It doesn’t get much more straightforward than that. And then there’s this:

Gumbel: What is the Internet, anyway? … What, do you write to it, like mail?

Haha, no, silly. You use it for pornography and to share pictures of cats.

I adore videos like this. It’s like going back in time and seeing people terrified by the first cars. “A horseless carriage? But how does such a beast operate?”

[via @mikeryan]