The Late Show with Conan O'Brien has claimed its 17th victim this week as a 22-year-old college student from Buffalo, New York died after consuming a fatal dose of beer. The student, whose name has been withheld, had been playing the Conan the Uhhhh-grarian drinking game, a game where viewers of the show are compelled to take a sip of beer every time Conan says "Uhhhh."
"We didn't think it was possible to reach a fatal level of alcohol consumption with beer," stated Byron Buttoe of the National Association to Prevent Binge Drinking. "But we didn't know about 'The Conan O'Brien show'."
Not too many people know about Conan O'Brien, buried in the 12:35AM time slot following Jay Leno. But the growing popularity of the Conan the Uhhhh-grarian drinking game changed all of that. In the past month seventeen young people have perished playing the game and dozens more have been hospitalized. "We just didn't realize anyone said "uhhh" that often" one survivor lamented.
O'Brien has long been a controversial figure, sparking much debate over whether he was the least adept talk show host of all time or the most inept talk show host of all time. His paint by number monologues, his painfully predictable interviews, and his premise-heavy sketches have resulted in a diminutive 40% follow-up audience from the preceding "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. His meteoric rise to late night prominence has been widely attributed to his lofty status as producer Lorne Michaels's butt boy.
"We knew of the drinking game but didn't think anyone watched the show," an anonymous NBC executive confessed. "We just kept him around as a courtesy to Lorne Michaels to make it look like his selection wasn't a mistake."
While activists have demanded that the show be pulled, NBC has pledged to work with Conan to eliminate some of the excess uhhh's. But one NBC insider warns "We have been trying to cutback on the uhhh's since his arrival. Some things never change." How many lives will be lost before Conan the Uhhhh-grarian is silenced?
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