Mike Sweeney
Appearances
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
It's a documentary cruise style.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
They said, would you want to host the Oscars? Why were you laughing? Because the timing of it. We were so busy. You got really sick in Spain along with a few other people. And also, it just seemed random out of left field. It was not on our brain.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
That was so cool. It was really cool. They had a trap door, an Oculus had opened to reveal the orchestra. It was neat.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Yeah, kind of. And they had a Bond tribute for no good reason other than I assume it was for you, Matt Gourley. I have some notes.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Who works on, man, he's, he worked on every award show. It's incredible. He's working on one right now, I'm sure. He is, he is. The Soul Train Awards. He's working on the Mark Twain Awards. I said Soul Train. Okay, but I'm just- I'm a stickler for accuracy.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Not on the radar. And that's why it hit me funny.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Yeah, that's true. Right, but... Yes, this... So it's like, oh, well, okay, you know how to do that. But then, I don't know, they're just... It was a different level of getting scared before something.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Well, after... I wondered, I'm like, why are you so out of your mind and waking up at 3 a.m.? And then afterwards, you're like, oh, that's why. Because it really is highly scrutinized.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Back into the tent with the writers.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
We were. It's kind of a black duvetyne kind of roped off area. And we had monitors and we had a, you know, we had the scroll of the script. And so we would like after Flo won, Brian Colley had a joke about. You know, it's the first one for Latvia. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
There was this... producer named Rachel was right in the room with us, and she really helped with the script along the way. She's great. During the show, our script guy, John Croteau, who we could not have done any of this without. Yeah, he's a hero. He came out from New York just to work on the show, which was amazing, because he worked on the world show. He walked the whole way.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
He walked the whole way. Because we wouldn't give him bus fare. Right, and he's right now only in Iowa. He's still on his way back home. Yeah. But she so we tell Jot, you know, OK, let's do this. And then she talked to the prompter person and it would come right up and he'd read it and be like, OK, you've got 10 seconds to get out. There was one a couple of times.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
I mean, you were very loose, you know? I had a few pills in me. Well, whatever. They worked. Yeah. Because you were as loose as a goose, and it... It was perfect.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Michael Bearden, the conductor, the musical director. Great, who worked out the song with me. He was a great collaborator, right?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Like, oh, okay, let's try D flat.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
And then I kept putting off ordering it up. I'm like, I'm like, is this, we're going to have a sandworm. First, the sandworm was sitting in the audience and I'm like, uh, all right, a sandworm.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
And then we realized that- Then it was going to come down upside down and talk to you.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
But when he came out, the first time we rehearsed that song, rolled out on the panel, it was such a great reveal. Such a great, almost as dramatic as you coming out of Demi Moore's back. It was just like, whoa, that's a great tableau. Because you're singing in the foreground and there's this... A worm is pounding away at the keys.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
I heard they had to get rid of the shark from Jaws to make room for the Sandworm. The Sandworm. Priorities. But I think they have the right. The sandworm ate the shark because he's above it in the food chain. We mentioned Scott Gardner. He directed The Substance. We did an ad parody, Cinema Streams. Did a great job of that. And then he shot our two Jeff Bezos arriving at the Oscars.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
And yeah, Matt Schar, our travel show editor.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
We were working on the travel shows during, well, like we had to come in on the weekend and edit and I didn't even tell you because I thought you'd be like, what do you do? Why are you working on anything other than the Oscars?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
different writers managers because initially it was often funnier than the writers yes the managers were very they got great ideas they're great to chat with in Salzburg yeah and that was all coming together over there yeah But then we ended up, you know, we reassembled our old team and it's the best move. They're the funniest. Yeah, it was so much fun. It was great.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
No, you were on your feet the whole time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
You know, while you were gone, you left Austria and we had to stay there another few days.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Sure, of course. Very quickly. So the first thing I learned about is everyone's replaceable. What's next? So you better show up to work.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
That must've been tough for you. Well, yeah, we had to go on to Vienna.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
And you're Hindi and you're Chinese.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Yeah. I've got to say. Well, great job. I know I haven't said that until now. No, you really nailed it. Fantastic.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
There's work to be done. There's work to be done.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Can I talk to you for a minute about you?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Yeah. Just so you understand, it wasn't just you that had a difficult journey.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
So then... The van was kind of cramped. But we shot... We were like, what do we do? So we... I don't even know if we talked to you about this.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Amazing writers. We just laughed. I missed being in a room with this crew and we all assembled downstairs in this building. It's a big conference room there and we just would laugh all day.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Jesse Gaskell and Jose Arroyo, who also work on the travel shows. Yep. Skylar Higley. Yep. And did we mention Brian Kiley? Oh, and by the way, yes, twice. Brian Kiley was also there. And then also Brian Kiley.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Scott Gairdner was a writer, yeah, on the TBS show. Josh Comer's? Josh Comer's? Josh Comer's, fantastic. Did we mention Kylie?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
For halfway through the Oscars.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
We had so many ideas that you can't get too attached to any idea because you just know that things are going to get cut. For example, we had a whole big That we loved. It was not the substance cold open that we ended up going with. No, it was a different one. And it was basically hammered out before the fires, the idea of it before the fires happened. And then even after that, we...
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
kind of honed it, and it would have been like three or four minutes long, and it was you starting out in Wicked, so you're in a scene from Wicked.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
said we're opening because of the fires with this big yes that's true musical tribute and that we were like wait you you can't go five minute musical tribute and then go into a five or four minute so we needed something quick we needed something quick so i was obsessed right always obsessed with coming out of demi moore's back right since i was a child
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
That was incredibly helpful. And I think also just, you know, for just confidence in that, oh, no, these jokes are good.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Well, the other landmine, which I didn't think about, I wasn't really aware of, is like I've heard the term award season, but it never – I was like, what award season? There was a different award show. Once we were going to go to a club and they're like, oh, sure, you go on after so-and-so who's hosting the – You know, Judd Apatow's hosting the DGA Awards. He's going to do his monologue first.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
And you're just like, wow, there's so many award shows.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
It's gone, so... We had a couple of areas where we're just like, ah, no, we can't do that now.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
Promos. Promos to run on ABC.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
And we tried to put an apron when it was serving you leftovers. And they're like, no clothing on Oscar.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
The day we met them, they were so nice. I was like, oh, this is the classic. Rope-a-dope. Yeah. This is a trick. The first time we asked for some, you know, and they were amazing, right? Yeah. Every step of the way.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
It was the day after we got back from Spain.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Conan Recaps the Oscars with Mike Sweeney
I talked to a few others, some of the writers, and I was waking up at three thinking of things that either were still up in the air or that I forgot to do that day. They came to me at three in the morning. And then I couldn't go back to sleep until this week.