To promote his new special Conan Without Borders: Made In Mexico airing tonight, Conan O’Brien fielded questions from fans in a Reddit AMA today and dropped this bombshell about The Masturbating Bear:
In 2015, The Masturbating Bear died of autoerotic asphyxiation alone in a Motel 6 in Flagstaff, AZ. He was buried with full military honors.
For the uninitiated, The Masturbating Bear was a longtime recurring character on Late Night, and when O’Brien moved to TBS he risked getting sued by NBC by bringing the character along with him. “If there’s something we did for a long time that we’ve established as ours, we’ll figure out a way to do it. I won’t be denied my Masturbating Bear!†O’Brien told Rolling Stone in 2010. Unfortunately for O’Brien, The Masturbating Bear’s tragic death means the below 2011 clip was, unbeknownst to us all, one of his final appearances on the show. (He last appeared in 2014 on his deathbed after Stephen Colbert jokingly took credit for being the first host to ever show a masturbating bear on TV, but the video is no longer available on the Team Coco website.)
Another comedy legend gone too soon. Head over to Reddit to read the rest of O’Brien’s AMA, where he talks about working on The Simpsons, “Clueless Gamer,†filming his new remote special in Mexico, and more.