t 11:35 p.m. Friday, Conan O’Brien will begin his final Tonight Show. All week, Conan’s been making fun of his abbreviated time with the late-night franchise – joking about the show’s .6th anniversary, listing pop culture fads that lasted less than seven months. But even if Coco’s absurdist version of The Tonight Show never got the chance to grow into itself, we’ll always have some fantastic memories.

The following list of great bits from the Conan Era (June 2009-January 2010) is purely personal. Looking back over these seven months (quite a bit of the show’s run is available on hulu), I’m struck by just how much genius Conan fit into his short run. We may as well start thinking of the O’Brien Tonight Show as one of those brilliant-but-canceled TV landmarks, too strange and beautiful for this earth. Let’s remember just a few of the good times: