Watch Conan O’Brien Go NYC Apartment Hunting in 2001

With the release on Team Coco of 25 years of show clips, we took a look back into some of our favorite bits from Conan O’Brien’s past. One of our favorites is this one, where Conan goes alongside show writer Andy Blitz (you may remember him as one-third of the Slipnutz, the group of guys that slipped on nuts). It’s a funny look at how apartment hunting in cities is generally a painful experience…and how much prices have changed in New York.

“One of the hardest things about living in New York City is finding a place to live,” O’Brien tells his audience in the 2001 sketch. “It is almost impossible to find a decent apartment. When you do find an apt in NYC, it costs a fortune and its really tiny and cruddy.”

In the clip, O’Brien and Blitz are shown a series of New York apartments. First up, a studio priced at $1,600. Seeing as this was 2001, we’re very curious how much this same apartment is going for today.

“$1,600 a year?” Conan asked, noticing the small size of the place.

They even hit a Hell’s Kitchen walkup, where the stall shower is located in the kitchen. They building also seems to have a bit of a tilt to it.

“The building probably settled a bit, which is why it’s a little bit slanted,” the realtor tells Andy and Conan.

“Settled?” Said Conan. “That’s a nice term for ‘the building is collapsing.’

In the follow up video, Conan is shown helping Blitz decorating the apartment he settled on.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I helped him decorate his apartment? So we might as well film it,” O’Brien told the audience.

The clip then heads into Blitz’s barren apartment, filled with very little except a TV on the floor and a naked table with a sad, unplugged keyboard.

“The first thing we do is we try to analyze what the qualities are,” said the decorator that Conan brought in. “The best thing about the apartment is looking out. You’ve got good light.”

“The best thing about this apartment is when you don’t look at this apartment,” Conan chimed in.

Next, they show Andy’s bedroom, a sad, lonely spot that’s just parquet flooring and a mattress on the ground.

“I see this room, and the term self loathing comes to mind,” says Conan.

The group then hits up several home decor stores, trying out everything from recliners to bidets. They eventually fill Blitz’s home with said recliner, as well as a grandfather clock, candles made of rocks, a Golden Girls poster, a large photo of gyros, and some sort of gold statue.