There’s a moment from a 2012 episode of Conan O’Brien’s former TBS show that I think about often. O’Brien’s guest, the comedian Eric André, sits down and grabs a microphone from the host’s desk. “Is this my microphone?” André asks, while trying to figure out a way to attach the desk mike to his shirt. Then he retches and picks up a nearby coffee mug. “What’s in here, oatmeal?” he asks. For anybody familiar with André’s comedy, which relies on the shocking and the absurd, all of this makes sense.

André settles in for a minute, riffing with O’Brien about his own series, a parody of late-night talk shows, which had recently premièred on Adult Swim. Then, as O’Brien is speaking, André suddenly stands up and yells, to O’Brien’s bandleader, “Jimmy Vivino, hit me!” Vivino is on it in an instan

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