Conan O'Brien has become the master of recurring segments

Slate

Recurring characters and conceptual jokes are usually the scourge of sketch television shows, says Matthew Dessem. "Pure comedy," he adds, "has been more or less abandoned by late night for the duration of the current emergency—which is fine, and probably necessary!—so it’d be refreshing to see a show still interested in humor for its own sake even if it was terrible. But doing recurring segments without making them boring is an unprecedented breakthrough in television comedy."