I always loved samurai movies, and I wanted to incorporate that whole level of elegance and just the code of the samurai to 'Conan.'
Prescription: 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, til end of course.
Once when Larry the Cable Guy was on Conan's show, Conan O'Brien was so offended by Larry's material, he had to walk away from the desk he was so offended.
Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.
I had some jokes that were dirty. And some of it is when I started making appearances on Conan and Letterman back in the late '90s, I think. You had to remove the curse words, or you couldn't do some of the more explicit jokes.
We made our Moriarty very different to [Conan] Doyle's. He's Irish, and he brings all his charm, his twinkle and his humor to it while he's also terrifying.
I watch Jay. I watch 'Letterman'. I flip back and forth between 'Conan' and 'Letterman', especially the top of the show for those guys.
I worked a lot on 'Conan' as an actor, and when I moved to New York, a lot of my friends were on the first staff of that show. I started doing bit parts, which was the first thing I'd done on camera in front of a live audience.
I never saw a man fight as Conan fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before they overpowered him the dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they dragged him down, a hundred against one.
Connan Mockasin from New Zealand. I met him a little while ago, I love his music.
The first home system we had was an Apple II, and I remember playing a game called 'Conan.' It should have been called 'Tarzan' because you were essentially Conan running around a forest with a boomerang, but it was obviously Tarzan.
Some mechanism in my sub-consciousness took the dominant characteristics of various prize-fighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers, and honest workmen I had come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian.
Because I do so many action-oriented films, I started working with stunt people doing fight training, then I found it to be just great exercise. Also I like to be fit, so I've continued on with fight training. Right before I got to do 'Conan,' I was fighting off four guys. Its great fun. And strange.
I dug up some old John Buscema 'Conan' comics. Man, when Alfredo Alcala was inking, that was some of the most beautiful black and white comic art ever published. The stories are good, too, though early '70s comics based on Conan is a festival of sexist, racist stereotypes.
I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.
For 'Conan,' I had to eat boiled chicken breast and work out all the time and basically eat like a bird every two hours and stay ripped.
I assumed, "Well, I must've sounded like Conan O'Brien, or a reasonable facsimile or something." And there I am in the movie [South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut ]. I was very lucky.
Leno, Conan. They are both really funny. They really know how to land one.
