I am – Hercules!!




“The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” launches Monday with Will Ferrell slated as the first guest. Word is Tom Hanks will be the guest on Tuesday.

The New York Daily News reports today that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and The Masturbating Bear will both make the transition to 11:35 p.m.

The Max Weinberg 7 is history, replaced by the larger Max Weinberg and the Tonight Show Band (now with James Wormworth as a permanent addition), but the John Lurie "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" theme music will be repurposed for Conan's "Tonight."

And it looks like Andy Richter won’t normally be sitting on the couch like he did in the old days:

Dear AICN,

My name's Asterios Kokkinos, and you once printed my review for a midnight "Norbit" screening on the cinerama dome at the Arclight – the best way to see a gigantic Eddie Murphy I know of! Anyway, today I attended a test show of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien at Citywalk, and here's my review:

"Today I attended a test show for The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien - they're doing a week of test shows before the show officially premiers next week. It was fantastic.

Like many Conan fans, I was concerned the shift to 11:30 might soften the tone of the show. I'm happy to report, its the same show you know and love. He entered to the "Late Night w/Conan O'Brien" theme, did the string dance, and asked us to keep cool, informing us that we were his babies.

He also has a new string maneuver, involving pulling his jaw out on a string and then cutting the string. It must be seen to be believed.

The first segment? "Celebrity Survey", with the classic 11 note theme song. Shots at the ages or weights of certain celebrities? Indeed! An insinuation that a certain celebrity might be promiscuous? You better believe it!

I do not want to spoil the identities of the guests (it wasn't just someone they'd pulled off the Universal lot for a favor, Conan cut some local promos confirming that these two would be guests in the future) or some of the pre-recorded segments they screened for laughs, but I will mention two more things. 1) The warm up guy they hired is LA comedy legend Jimmy Pardo, who's spent over 20 years on the road and even longer working his way into our hearts. 2) Andy Richter has not skipped a beat in his return. Before the show, he and Pardo bantered about how the new studio was haunted (Richter: "We insisted on a haunted theater. The ghosts are actually crew guys who died on break.")

Max Weinberg and the Tonight Show Band were on fire. Pender walked out and sang a number, they played "Come Fly With Me" (a staple of their commercial breaks), and even played the Ray Davies classic, "Better Things", which I was happy to hear live.

Only complaint, and its a small one: Andy has his own announcers podium. He looks pretty cool in it, but the whole time I really wanted to see him sitting next to Conan like in the old days. I hope they move him over to the couch soon, the chemistry between them is classic.

That's it! Can't wait to see what's coming up in future shows."

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Galactica: The Complete Series

Galactica: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)