Matt Lauer Gives Conan the Silent Treatment
Posted: Thursday, February 14, 2008 9:13 AM by Dan Fleschner
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Live from Studio 1A
Yesterday at around 3:50 p.m., my friend Freddie Ballgame called me to say that he had an extra ticket to a taping of Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
I've been a big Conan fan since he first started doing the show in 1993, and although I've worked at NBC for almost seven years, I had never actually been to a taping.
So I met up with Freddie, his sister and our friend Keefe, not knowing who the guests on the show were going to be. While sitting in the audience, we thought maybe Conan would have a movie star (since the writers' strike is over) or a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model or something.
Instead it was...Matt Lauer. WATCH VIDEO and WATCH VIDEO
I finally get a chance to see Conan in person, and the first guest is a guy I meet with every morning at work. I instantly got up and ran to the box office to demand my money back, whereupon I was reminded that the tickets to the show were free.
Fortunately, despite not having a voice, Matt was very funny. He even brought props, channeling his inner-Harpo Marx.
After the show, my friends were really impressed when I called Matt to tell him I had been in the audience. They were especially thrilled when, after I had talked for about 30 seconds, he hoarsely said, "Who is this?"
Needless to say, Matt was so embarrassed about not recognizing my voice that he opted to stay home today (or maybe he just decided that he couldn't host a TV show with no voice).
