Conan O’Brien at the 1995 All-Star Game

Did you hear about this Conan guy? Apparently he’s a big deal. In just like seven months he went from pretty funny guy who hosted a show that was on past my bedtime to guy who hosted a show for old people to guy who is such a sympathetic figure for being jobbed over by his bosses that he inspired a bunch of grown men to call another grown man “CoCo.”

C’est la vie.

The whole mess was such a sad display of “crap wins” and “actual funny isn’t actually funny to very many people” that it’s pretty depressing. But the outpouring of support for Conan does at least go to show that there ultimately are a lot of people who do actually enjoy stuff that doesn’t only cater to the mainstream. So that’s cool.

More importantly, here’s some video of Conan back when he was really underground-ish-er back in 1995. He visits the All-Star Weekend going on in Phoenix and chats it up with Dikembe, Shaq, thin Barkley, awkward Scottie Pippen, looks-exactly-the-same-in-2010 John Stockton and David Robinson, who explains that he got nicknamed the Admiral because — and he’s not sure why — people didn’t want to call him “seaman.”

Seriously. He says that. (video via NBA Offseason)