Louis C.K. snuck a dirty joke on air when he wrote for Conan's Late Night

Louis C.K. snuck a dirty joke on Conan&#039;s Late Night

(Image credit: Late Night)

Back when Conan O'Brien was the host of NBC Late Night — before Seth Meyers, before Jimmy Fallon, after David Letterman — Louis C.K. was a writer on the program. After telling Meyers how much the staff writers loathe him — "you'll never know how much they hate you" — C.K. said that his overriding goal at that time was to get his jokes on the show.

Normally you have to go through a head writer, producers, and the network censors, he explained, "but on Conan's show there was an announcer named Joel, and he would say a little joke before Conan's name." C.K. and a fellow writer, Dino, "realized nobody checks those," he added. And then he told one seemingly innocent, if slightly nonsensical, joke they slipped on the air. If you must, go ahead and google "pearl necklace." But you can probably figure it out from the context. —Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.