Conan O' Brien Gives Insight to THAT Drake Joke & What It's Like Hosting This Years Oscars

TL;DR

Conan O'Brien explains how he prepares for the Oscars by testing jokes at small comedy clubs and reveals the story behind his viral Drake-Kendrick joke.

Key Points

• 1.- Conan's 2024 Oscars Drake joke — 'halfway through the show, time for Kendrick Lamar to call Drake a pedophile' — destroyed the crowd; his producer Jeff Ross bet $100 it would bomb and lost.
• 2.- Conan spent two months testing Oscars material at small, obscure comedy clubs, including a club in the back of a bowling alley in Covina where he urinated in an alley before his set.
• 3.- Conan's core philosophy: he can't control his talent level, but he can control prep and hard work, so that's where he focuses his energy.
• 4.- Conan draws a parallel between comedy muscle memory and athletic muscle memory — extensive reps free up mental bandwidth to improvise when something unexpected happens on stage.
• 5.- Conan reflects that hosting the Oscars is fundamentally the same as performing since age 14; the prestige and production are just added layers on top of the same core act.