Conan O'Brien: Ground Sloth Skeleton, Caviar, and Picasso

For his final Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien did the world's most expensive sketch.

CONAN O'BRIEN: Well, our time here at NBC is just about up. But, and I've been saying this all week. This is interesting. Until this last show ends, we can pretty much do whatever we want and NBC has to pay for it.

So all this week, we've been introducing new comedy bits that aren't so much funny as they are crazy expensive.

Wednesday night we debuted a new character, the Bugatti Veyron Mouse, which was accompanied by the original master recording of The Rolling Stones' 'Satisfaction.' That little beauty cost NBC $1.5 million.

Last night we introduced another great new purchase: 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, wearing a mink Snuggie. There he is watching restricted NFL Super Bowl footage. Total price tag for that one: $4.8 million.

Well tonight, for our last show, we went all out. It's gonna take NBC several years to pay this off. It's a doozy. We just bought this using their credit card from the Smithsonian Institute.

Please welcome a rare fossil skeleton of a giant ground sloth, ladies and gentlemen. And he's spraying Beluga caviar on an original Picasso. Total cost for this bit: $65 million.



...Can I just point out one thing? We've been doing this the last two nights. We did it tonight. There's been some outrage on the Internet that we're wasting all this money. IT'S NOT REAL. OK, I just want to make that clear.

'They've ruined a real Picasso! Well! Dear Internet....'

Dear Internet,

The first night, the Bugatti bit raised legitimate questions.

Whatever the cost was, the concept of the sketch was bad.

Didn't anyone on the show realize how inappropriate it would be to brag about allegedly throwing away such an enormous amount of money?

By the second night, it was obvious that O'Brien didn't force NBC to buy Mine That Bird.

And certainly on the final show, it was clear that no one was destroying a real Picasso.

By that point, there was no need to clarify, but I do think the fact that it even seemed remotely possible that O'Brien would do whatever he could to stick it to NBC speaks to the atmosphere of intense animosity between the parties.

Any believability factor just highlights how poisonous the situation between O'Brien and NBC had become.

There's a problem when a joke needs a disclaimer.

Video here.