Steven Ho's Blog – Deconstructing Fighting and Stunts for your enjoyment

I had a contest on my Facebook Page for one of the shinai swords used in on one of my stunt segments with Conan on the former Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Pierre Bernard and Alison Flierl were kind enough to select the winner from our three finalists (Heidi McCarthy from Chi Town, Tiina Niukkanen from Helsinki, and Sara Iha from New Mexico).

And the winner is…

History of the sword…

Click image to see Conan stunt segments

Youtube is restricted for housing the NBC/Universal stunt segments with Conan (from the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien episodes).  But I was able to upload them at Funny or Die for now….and btw….we’re working on ideas for Asian Conan, episode 2.

CONAN STUNTS ON FUNNY OR DIE

Hopefully I didn’t show it, but this was a seriously extremely stressful moment for me.  For my appearances on former Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, Conan and I didn’t spend much rehearsal on our opening stunt bits and interaction so it would all be organic and fresh for the actual taping.

But the “main stunt” would always require rehearsal for obvious safety and insurance reasons. Rehearsal would start around 3pm and the actual taping would go at 5pm.  So it’s all pretty run and gun after lunch with no cushion for error.

On this particular episode our “main stunt” was sliding Conan on his butt with the use of a high-powered wench pulling him through a cornucopia of funny props that Conan had specified (picket fence, chicken coop, guys walking with mirror, and giant bowling pin).  As usual, I ran through this with my stunt crew the night before and everything was completely copacetic.

However, on the actual day we ran into major computer problems.  The wench is operated by a laptop…and the laptop kept freezing on us.  Of course this didn’t happen until Conan and his entire staff of writers and producers showed up for rehearsal…along with cameras rolling.

But Coco kept his cool and no one really freaked out (on the outside at least) although there was a very solid chance that the bit was about to be canceled. We got it to work once in rehearsal….and left it at that.

I assured everyone that we’d have the system figured out by showtime, and Conan and company decided to keep it on the books.  But literally until the moment that I yelled action on the actual show, I had no idea if it was going to work or not.

Here’s some rare behind the scenes footage that Aaron Bleyaert had put up on his Tonight Show blog.  There’s also footage somewhere in a hardrive of Aaron wearing a football helmet and me spin kicking him in the head…I hope that didn’t end up in NBC possession because Aaron sacrificed his neck for that shot.

You can also catch more behind the scenes on the ConanVids youtube channel.  Not sure how long they’ll be up there for…so get em while they’re hot.

I’ll work on getting the actual show footage up here or on my Facebook page shortly.

I AM CONAN Facebook Contest Rules:

Post a picture of yourself (or friend or family member) as Conan on www.facebook.com/IlikeStevenHo. The image doesn’t have to be a direct impersonation, it can also be your personal version of CoCo.  So in other words, don’t stress about looking like Conan…focus on capturing the spirit of #imwithcoco.

It’s as important is to be creative with your location and scenario.  Photoshopping is not prohibited, but keep in mind that a “grassroots” spirit is encouraged and will be rewarded in the Finals.

ROUND ONE:

All posted photos will be stored under “fan photos” of www.facebook.com/IlikeStevenHo. The top 3 images that have the most “likes” by April 1st, 5pm Pacific time will be entered into the Finals. So it’s best to post your pic up as soon as you can to give yourselves time to get those “like” votes.

THE FINALS:

Later that month (date TBD, based on judges availabilities) a panel of Conan-insider judges will subjectively deem one winner. We’ll do our best to put up a vid of the process and results.

THE PRIZE:

The winner will get a sword from this Conan stunt segment:

VOTE:

If you’re not competitive type and prefer lurking instead, feel free to vote for your favorite.  Join Steven’s Facebook Fan Page and vote for your favorite pictures under “Fan Photos.”

If you missed this crazy stunt episode and want to check it out, here it is below in HD:

Thank you in advance for playing nicely – we reserve the right to disqualify mean people and inappropriate submissions at our sole discretion.

You Conan fans have been incredible during this blackout period.  If you’re interested in winning Conan’s shinai sword from one of our episodes, deets are on my Facebook Page.

In case you’re not up to date on events with the Asian Baby raffle, put down the phone…you don’t have to call child services.  It’s not a real baby (kinda). The Asian Baby (“AB”) was first seen on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, where COCO dove through a window to save him from a huge pyro explosion.

Since then, AB has developed a little following.  Through my Facebook page, we held a free raffle to 4,800 contestants and announced the winner on March 1st.  Thanks so much to Suzanne Marques, Aaron Bleyaert, and Mike Mitchell for being such a big part of this.

Here are the result of the raffle…

A little about the winner:

Linda is a creative geek with a passion for web design and helping companies create a Social Media strategy to grow their business and network. Professionally, she leads a team of experts with her company, Social Media Works. She helps Networkers, Bloggers and Entreprenuers both locally or remotely. In her spare time, she loves using the web to share wacky & tacky stuff and just have a good time.

“I love wacky and tacky things, Conan O’Brien and Social Media. I’ve been posting weird stuff online since 1997 so I guess it totally makes sense that my name got picked from fans on a Facebook page and then posted on a video on YouTube.  If I were on the Lost island, my storyline would be one of fate.” – Linda

(The raffle Gods were really with us on this selection – I couldn’t imagine a better babymomma to run with the ball on this)

Linda has already launched a website dedicated to Asian Baby and should be receiving him via UPS in the next few days!  Congratulations Linda!

Check out Linda’s new webpage for our lil guy (with links to AB’s new FB and Twitter): www.conansasianbaby.com

Check out Linda’s company Social Media Works: www.socialmediaworks.net

Here’s the full HD stunt segment where Conan kicks ass, then saves the Asian Baby from a pyro explosion.  I dare any other late night host to try this.

More Conan stunt clips filed under COCO HD STUNT FOOTAGE on this blog.

You can view more Conan & Steven Stunt Footage on Funny or Die

This was the first “big stunt” (usually the closing act of our segment) I did with Conan.  All our banter is ad-lib and I can’t even begin to explain how much fun this was.

You can view more Conan & Steven Stunt Footage on Funny or Die

This was my first appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Although the ratchet stunt was prepared, we didn’t really go over any of the beats for this first section, so the majority of what we did here was spontaneous. Regarding the punch to the stomach, people ask me all the time if it was real…and yes, the sucker punch was real. I actually hit him pretty hard.

You can view more Conan & Steven Stunt Footage on Funny or Die