the ninth annual festival included conan o'brien, recipient of the annual tribute award, who was scheduled to appear on january 17, but had to be postponed due to the late night fiasco at nbc. the tribute was done later that summer on july 17 at the herbst theater, where o'brien was joined by andy richter and moderator patton oswalt for an incredible, candid, three-hour conversation. the comedy writing award was presented to author and humorist john hodgman, who was joined in conversation with dave eggers. the festival presented their first monty python member in terry jones, who appeared in conversation at a screening of monty python and the holy grail and monty python’s life of brian at the castro theatre. other film related programming included cinematic titanic (with joel hodgson, trace beaulieu, j. elvis weinstein, frank conniff and mary jo pehl of mystery science theater 3000); waiting for guffman with fred willard; with dave foley; animal crackers with bill marx (son of harpo) and dick cavett; and uhf with "weird al" yankovic. yankovic also joined chris hardwick in conversation. other notable events and performers included tim and eric; an evening with the reno 911! sheriff’s department; the greg proops chat show with robin williams, linda cardellini and musical guest michael penn; the dave hill explosion with dick cavett and the violent femmes’ gordon gano; celebrity autobiography with jason segel, rachel dratch, laura kightlinger, steve schirripa, and fred willard; upright citizens brigade asssscat with ian roberts, matt walsh, david koechner, tim meadows, chad carter and monologist moon zappa; the paul f. tompkins show featuring dave foley, illeana douglas and musical guest grant-lee phillips; comedy death-ray with michael ian black, dana gould, doug benson, natasha leggero, james adomian, musical guest aimee mann and host scott aukerman; the return of facebook improv; game show explosion with jimmy pardo; the red wine boys with todd barry and h. jon benjamin and guests larry murphy, brendon small and musical guests mates of state; invite them up with eugene mirman and bobby tisdale; the whitest kids u’ know; greg behrendt’s bring the rock featuring matt nathanson; the jill and julia show with jill sobule and julia sweeney; ask a ninja live; the big gay sketch show; theme park improv with edie mcclurg, danny pudi, scott adsit, rachel dratch, jessica makinson, janet varney and cole stratton; never not funny live with jimmy pardo and guest dave foley; the benson interruption with doug benson, steve agee, graham elwood and more; doug loves movies and comedy death ray radio live; the shit show with rob huebel; dr. god improv with matthew lillard; my monster with bill corbett from mystery science theater 3000; reggie watts; kasper hauser; killing my lobster; and stand-up sets from nick kroll, jon dore, brent weinbach, matt braunger, kyle kinane, and jamie kilstein.