Walker, Slipnutz, and baseball: 11 essential Late Night With Conan O’Brien clips

This article originally ran in 2018. We’re re-running it in honor of Conan’s final episode, which airs Thursday, June 24 at 11 p.m. EST on TBS.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the debut of Late Night With Conan O’Brien. NBC rolled the dice on the veteran Simpsons and Saturday Night Live writer, plucking him from relative obscurity to take over for no less a luminary than David Letterman. But after a famously rocky start, the series became a springboard for ’90s alt-comedy talent and turned its endlessly sardonic host into a late-night legend. To commemorate its 14-season, 2,725-episode run, here are a handful of The A.V. Club’s favorite clips, which are just as surprising, subversive, and silly today as they were when they first aired.

Andy’s little sister

Long before her stints on Saturday Night Live or Comedy Central’s Upright Citizens Brigade, Amy Poehler had a recurring role as Andy’s little sister, Stacey. She didn’t make many appearances, but her few times on the show were indelible, Poehler’s girlish crush on Conan (even in the face of ) slowly escalating into enraged, shrieking mania. Bound by headgear and an irrepressible need to land the great orange-haired whale of her desire, Stacey was a firebrand of psychotic intensity, lashing out the instant things began to turn against her. It’s over-the-top dark and sweetly innocent at the same time, just like the best of Conan’s segments. [Alex McLevy]