How Steven Wright Writes Joke | Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend

I have never heard or seen Steven Wright laugh out loud before. What a gift.

Steven Wright is undoubtedly a master of his craft and pillar of comedy. One of my favourite jokes of his: "I almost had a psychic girlfriend - but she left me before we met". Love seeing him and Conan make each other laugh 😂

I love how Conan makes the bad scientist joke at 5:50 and when Sona laughs he immediately feeds off of that and rolls right into a bit for 30 seconds. Hearing and seeing Steven Wright laugh is also a rare treat, his dead pan is so incredible when he is performing.

This sea captain look drew me right in

Steven is a peripheral visionary

5:50 - and out of nowhere, completely in the moment and giving weight to everything they've been talking about, an absolutely brilliant bit is born ("My dad's a terrible scientist")

Steven Wright is a icon in comedy. And its so amazing to hear him breakdown comedy. Such a unique voice, Thank you Conan and crew and thank you Steven

The jokes Wright themselves.

Steven Wright and Gary Larson are two artists I’m so happy exist in this world!

Abstract comedy is my favorite genre, Mr. Wright is one of the best at it. ""If you travel at the speed of light and you turn on a light switch, what will happen?." for example. Brilliant. .

In all of the years that I've been watching and enjoying Steven's comedy, I don't think I've ever heard him really laugh. What an excellent interview!

I really feel it fitting that Conan was a great friend of James Lipton and loved having him on the show, and now Conan has practically revived the "inside the actors studio" feel of these long form interviews, but with his own Conan twist.

Nice to see Steven Wright has become a sea captain in his spare time. He's multitalented!

You can tell that Steve is impressed by how quickly and naturally Conan comes up with stuff. I've never heard him laugh out loud that much. The closest to it I've witnessed is when he does stand up and he's about to crack up at his own joke, and he puts his hand on his face to cover it, and he starts rubbing his face with his hand slowly, pretending he's out of wits with something 😂

This is one of the best examples of the genius and intelligence that is Steven Wright. His command of language but also of all forms of art is astounding. And it is clear to anyone who writes and creates what this talent, vision and spontaneous creativity is that separates the good or even great comic from a true artist. Wright is on a whole different plane.

Conan, what does it feel like to make Steven laugh? Pretty damn good, I'd say! You can tell these guys have a mutual love and respect, great stuff.

This episode is such a gem. How awesome to listen to Steven laugh out loud that openly.

Note to self: This is an episode I can't miss.

I cannot imagine how good it must feel to make a legend like Steven Wright crack up like that.

I love that connection between comedy and art. The space between things is called "negative space" and I feel like in Steven Wrights humor, and in folks like Mitch Hedberg, its often the negative space around the words that is funny, not the words themselves... its that unsaid thing. Like that connection between "French" and "the Renaissance"... thats the negative space of the joke that allows us to instantly see something else. Its also the "weight" Conan was talking about... maybe another analogy would be like Dark Matter... we cant directly observe Dark Matter, but we think that there must be something there because we can observe the effects of its weight. Its really cool.