Conan O'Brien to Officiate Televised Same-Sex Wedding

Scott Cronick and David Gorshein

America's favorite ginger Conan O'Brien will personally perform a same-sex wedding during tonight's show on TBS. Airing from NYC, the event marks the first same-sex wedding on late night television.

Please note: The wedding is not a comedy bit. It's a "real, legally binding, same-sex marriage between our show's costume designer, Scott Cronick, and his partner, David Gorshein," explains Conan during last night's mention of the upcoming nuptials. The crowd cheers and applauds after hearing the news.

Conan, who usually shoots in L.A., is gracing the Big Apple this week and will marry the couple on the stage of the Beacon Theatre.

"I'm pretty good," he boasts.

Conan continues with his bit, showcasing how news stations nationwide have caught wind of the story.

"Each one is putting its own unique spin on it," he says. The video that follows shows, and we counted, 18 separate instances of media reporting on the event, all introducing the story using the same line, "Conan O'Brien may be about to push the envelope on late night television." There is very little variation in the intros, shaming media outlets on their lack of lede creativity. We're happy we started with a ginger mention.

Conan's funny man co-host Andy Richter reacts to the mashup by suggesting, "We gotta get an envelope!"

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By Lauren Lloyd in Arts & Entertainment on November 3, 2011 2:00 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Thingsushouldknow11

I used www.themonastery.org as well when i became ordained. It was exceptionally easy to do, probably only took about 5 minutes tops and was completely legit. I would suggest that anybody interested in becoming ordained use this website!

Detex

I was at the show yesterday, it was really well done for TV. Conan did a great job! They were so happy!

birdtird

max weinberg and la bamba?

BlueFairlane

Oh, good ... I was afraid the alternate istiverse wouldn't give me my daily does of pointless celebrity clap today.

robingee

Actually it's a pretty important human rights story. SO! THERE YA GO!

BlueFairlane

Yes, we all hope for a better day when television talk show hosts officiate all our weddings.

robingee

Yes thats exactly what I meant.

BlueFairlane

I was basing my read of your comment on the context of the story itself. Now, I might think you were saying the marriage of two gay men was an important human rights story, and I'd agree, but unfortunately that's not the slant of this piece. That's not what makes it newsworthy and isn't why it was posted to my ist. What makes it newsworthy, at least to forward-thinking, progressive laist, is that a TV comedian is officiating a wedding. That's why there aren't a ton of stories every time gays or lesbians marry ... which, it might surprise California to know, actually is happening with incresing frequency in a few less homophobic states. It's just that most of the officiants of these ceremonies don't have publicists and aren't looking for a ratings bump.

(I'm honestly not sure where you guys stand with your whole experiment on statutory homophobia ... here's hoping you fixed that.)