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This issue is about Conan’s favorite ‘Late Night’ segment, bad animated spin-offs, franchises, ancient artifacts, the influence of ‘Spinal Tap,’ and much more.

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Rob McElhenney’s ‘Mythic Quest’ Spin-off ‘Side Quest’ Proves Once and For All That Too Many Things Have Been Franchised

I’m not the first to note that entertainment studios’ terror of gambling and losing on original stories has made it so that nearly every project that makes it in front of our eyes — including literally all 10 of last year’s biggest movies — belongs to a franchise. We all know the big ones, but this goes beyond the MCU, the DCEU, Star Wars, Star Trek and the Disney princesses: We’re now living in a world where The Big Bang Theory is about to launch its third spin-off. Even shows on AppleTV+ — a platform that, famously, no one watches, and that we just learned is losing its parent company more than $1 billion a year — are becoming franchises: as Mythic Quest spins off the anthology show Side Quest, I think we can officially say franchise fever has gone too far.

An Oral History of Conan O’Brien’s Favorite-Ever ‘Late Night’ Segment

Conan O’Brien ended his 16-year run as host of Late Night in February 2009 with a remarkable send-off: one final wild and memorable week of shows for his most dedicated fans. It included several “best of” reels as well as tributes to everyone from the Masturbating Bear to announcer Joel Godard. Then, on the very last show, Conan ran his “personal favorite” clip from his time on Late Night, saying, “When I leave this Earth, at the funeral, just show this because this pretty much says (what) I’m all about.”

In the remote segment from 2004, Conan ventures out to Old Bethpage Village Restoration, a museum on Long Island that sponsors an old-fashioned, 1860s era baseball game in which players use period-appropriate uniforms and sports equipment and play by mid-19th century rules.

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