Mike Birbiglia Once Interned For Conan's Jordan Schlansky

In this clip from Tuesday night's Conan, comedian Mike Birbiglia shares tales of when he interned at Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and reported to Jordan Schlansky.

Schlansky is a longtime production manager on O'Brien's late night shows who became a fan favorite after O'Brien started featuring him on the show specifically to make fun of his aloof manner and general pretentiousness. He's such an odd character that people often ask O'Brien if Schlansky is even real, so O'Brien was very much interested in any weird stories Birbiglia had to tell about working under him.

"What I liked least about Jordan is it always seemed like he didn't like me," Birbiglia explained. "But in the end, on my last day, he goes 'if you ever need a recommendation, here's my number.' I go 'oh, I guess he did like me? I don't know, I can't read this guy.' What I liked best about Jordan Schlansky — and I asked if I could say this on air because I thought this was sensitive material — is that he'd come back from these very social weekends, and everyone would go ' Jordan, what'd you do over the weekend?' and he would go 'well, me and my friends, we went into the mountains and we all got completely naked and we all sort of jogged around for a little while.' And everyone would be like 'what?' And then he'd be like 'well, we got completely naked and jogged -' and we'd go 'what?' Literally, the 'what?' and him explaining it again kept happening over and over again for about 40 minutes." 

"So many people have seen the videos I've done with him and they think that it's an act and that he's a character," O'Brien said. "It's not. He really is that guy, and I can totally see him saying... He talks like Spock! 'The body is beautiful, it is natural. There is nothing sexual at all about these encounters. We just like our bodies to be free. We like our bodies to be in nature. So we like to move through space and time using our bodies, and we don't want to be encumbered by clothing.' What a weird guy."

Conan airs weeknights at 11:00 PM ET on TBS.

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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.