List of Late Night with Conan O'Brien sketches
The sketch was invented prior to the actual year 2000, but the show's writers decided to keep the named year the same even after the passing of the titular year, in a sort of ironic twist. However, when the sketch was revived on "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien", Richter heaped ridicule upon O'Brien for failing to update the name of the skit nine years after the year 2000 had passed. The sketch is renamed "In the Year 3000", with the black robe (referred to as a 'ratty smock' by Richter) being replaced with a more futuristic-looking outfit consisting of a large metallic collar with a series of blinking lights, which Conan said were very expensive to make and Andy said smelled bad. Appearing on "Tonight" June 3, 2009, it was the first "Late Night" sketch to be carried over to Conan's "Tonight Show". The open to the sketch included narration by William Shatner and, on one occasion, George Takei.
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
O'Brien's inexperience was apparent and the show was generally considered mediocre by critics in terms of the host's ability. The "Chicago Sun-Times" Lon Grankhe called O'Brien "nervous, unprepared and generally geeky" and Tom Shales wrote "As for O'Brien, the young man is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He has dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever." (O'Brien wrote for "The New York Times" a satirical review of the first episode the day it aired titled "O'Brien Flops!", in which he told readers "Frankly, I was not impressed".) The originality and quality of the comedy, however, led by original head writer Robert Smigel, was widely praised. Although O'Brien benefited by comparison from the quick critical and commercial failure of the fellow new late-night "The Chevy Chase Show", NBC only offered short-term contracts, 13 weeks at a time and once for six weeks, as widely reported by the press at the time. O'Brien was reportedly almost fired at least once in this period, but NBC had no one to replace him. According to Smigel, "We were basically canceled at "Conan", and then they changed their minds in August of '94, gave us a reprieve."