Conan O'Brien recently reunited with Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band to perform for the Get Together Foundation, and one of the songs they played also happens to be a song he used to punish his writing staff with when their work was late.
"This is a true story," O'Brien says at the top of the just-posted clip. "For many years, both at NBC and then later on [at] Turner, the band was always there at rehearsal, and I would get impatient if I was waiting for a piece of writing or a sketch to be ready to rehearse, and so what I finally did is I found a song that is so irritating to the writers that if I gave them 15, 20 minutes and the piece wasn't ready, I'd start to play this song. A little something by the Georgia Satellites — by the way, a group I really admire, and I love this song, but the way I do it is super annoying, drove the writers insane, but got me those sketches on time."
They then launched into a version of "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" with some high-pitched screaming that one can imagine doing a number on a frazzled writer's nerves.
"I've wasted so many people's lives," he tagged after the performance.
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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.
TOPICS: Conan O'Brien, Conan, Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band