You are probably aware of this because you are all very knowledgeable and attractive pop culture experts with excellent taste and winning smiles, but just in case, here goes: Back in 1991, Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel produced a pilot titled Lookwell that starred Adam West as, per Wikipedia, “a washed-up TV action hero — who at the peak of his career was ceremonially deputized by local law enforcement — falsely believes he can solve crimes in real life,” and the whole episode is available on YouTube.
If you’re putting the timeline together, this project falls smack between Conan’s four-year stint at Saturday Night Live and his work on The Simpsons, and two years before he — along with Smigel as his head writer — took over Late Night from David Letterman in 1993. It’s weird to imagine an alternate universe where NBC picked up this show and it became a huge hit, and instead of Conan moving to late night and going through the Tonight Show debacle, he became a big shot showrunner with a convertible and a young trophy wife. That would be strange. I mean, this show is pretty cool and everything, but a world without the Masturbating Bear? No thank you.