Conan O'Brien/"In the Year 2000"

 

In early August, I paid a visit to Chicago's very own Museum of Broadcast Communications, armed with my old off-air recording of 2001's Bozo: 40 Years of Fun for their staff to digitize and host on their YouTube channel.

Their summer exhibit was a history of late-night talk shows, from Jack Paar and Johnny Carson all the way to Stephen Colbert. One of their exhibits, behind glass, was a copy of a book called In The Year 2000..., a tie-in to Late Night with Conan O' Brien.

The late 80s and early 90s saw a veritable boom of late-night talk shows: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Into the Night with Rick Dees (whose intro1 was a favorite of mine at two or three years old), The Late Show with David Letterman, The Arsenio Hall Show (which memorably saw Bill Clinton play the saxophone on-air, virtually clinching the victory for his Presidential run), and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, a show that had many recurring sketches, one of which is most pertinent to the Museum's interests: "In the Year 2000," which had host Conan and sidekick Andy Richter jokingly predict things that would happen in the year 2000. After the year 2000, Conan declined to update the number.

After coming home from the museum, I went through a long and arduous process at my local library to find it, because no library in the state of Illinois had it.  This volume came from the Onondaga County Public Library in Syracuse, NY, and it took a few weeks for Evergreen's library to receive it.

This book, originally published in October 1999, is a collection of those humorous predictions. I will post here those which are safest for those reading at work.

IN THE YEAR 2000...Singer Meat Loaf will become the spokesman for a company that makes meat loaf. Vanilla Ice will become a spokesman for a company that makes vanilla ice. And M.C. Hammer will be arrested for stealing a bike.

IN THE YEAR 2000...It will be revealed that the only reason the mitten was invented was because something cute was needed to rhyme with kitten.

IN THE YEAR 2000...The Pope will shock the world when he abruptly changes faiths, declaring 'I'm a Zeus man now.'

IN THE YEAR 2000... Iraq will once again be accused of chemical warfare after spy photos reveal that they've been stockpiling Michael Jordan cologne. (Writer's note: A quick Google search reveals that, as of 2026, it's still being made.)

IN THE YEAR 2000...Scientists will discover the secret ingredient in Starbucks Coffee: a chemical that makes people forget they're paying four dollars for a cup of coffee.

IN THE YEAR 2000...The Internet will be so overcrowded that most people will make their living strictly through refunds from America Online. (Writer's note: America Online still sort-of exists, but it's nowhere near as relevant as it was in the 90s and early 2000s.)

IN THE YEAR 2000...The four-day workweek will become standard, though most employees will be required to work one day each weekend--usually Friday.

IN THE YEAR 2000...Congressmen will be limited to two terms of seven minutes each. (Writer's note: Term limits in the Senate and in Congress are now more relevant in 2026 than ever.)

IN THE YEAR 2000...Policemen will be replaced by robots. The aluminum donut industry will go through the roof.

IN THE YEAR 2000...The government will finally change the word "orange" to a word that's easier to rhyme.

IN THE YEAR 2000...Man will sometimes write '1999' on his checks.

Now, Bear With Me... (Part 3)

 Another bear I found at the Salvation Army Thrift Store on 87th and Cicero. I would have ignored it completely had I not noticed that it was originally sold at K-Mart. "Now, there's an idea," said I as the light bulb lit up. "You had room for the now-defunct Factory Card Outlet earlier this year; why not make room for the now-defunct K-mart?"

                                             

This bear is supposed to play music, but there were no batteries, and I didn't have the money at the time to buy it. Still, the "Joy to the World" tag pictured above would seem to suggest that it plays a take-off on the Three Dog Night song, known for its "Jeremiah was a bullfrog..." line.

So. As they used to say, "Attention, K-Mart Shoppers..." 

HISTORY

K-Mart started out in 1912 as a department store called S.S. Kresge. I primarily know about Kresge thanks to my Tomart's Action Figure Toy Guide, which had a section on Mego's "Mad Monster Series." Along with licenses such as D.C. and Marvel superheroes, Mego produced figures such as the Mummy, Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein's Monster as part of a subset of their "World's Greatest Super Heroes!" line. The book mentioned a highly sought-after variant of the monster figures, sold exclusively at S.S. Kresge. If memory serves, their card-backs were slightly narrower than the typical Mego card-back. 

In 1969, S.S. Kresge became K-mart. Thirty-five years ago, we still had the "old" style of K-mart on 94th and Pulaski, where there now stands a Home Depot. It had the familiar retro signage of a red "K" and a light-blue "MART," and it stood until about 1997-98 or so, at which point the Venture store across the street took its last gasp, allowing the "new" K-mart to take its place. It enjoyed its position in town from then until around the 2010s-2020s, and I must confess that I have very few memories of either outlet. It's all sort of pushed to the back.

Now, Bear With Me...(Part 2)

 I have yet another bear! This one was found at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. I have far too much stuff right now, so I simply took a picture. 

Like Harrods and many other high-end department stores,  the legendary F.A.O. Schwarz sold special-edition teddy bears for Christmas. 

F.A.O. Schwarz was the name in toys for over a century. In 1862, German immigrant Frederick Augustus Otto Schwarz opened Toy Bazaar in Baltimore, Maryland, and he opened a New York City outlet in 1870. 

Readers of a certain age may remember Schwarz and its famous "walking piano" from the movie Big, in which Tom Hanks danced Hoagy Carmichael's "Heart and Soul" across its black and white keys, but I remember going to the Downtown Chicago outlet when I was about five or six. The one thing I definitely remember is the wonderful, whimsical store clock with the animatronic face, and its jingle that played every so often: ♪Welcome to our world, welcome to our world, welcome to our world of toys!♫ There might have been a replica of the keyboard from the New York one, but for the life of me I cannot remember whether or not it actually lit up. Two toys that pop up in my memory are a set of teddy bears that were called The Honey-Spooners (as their name suggests, they were dressed up to look like Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, and the rest of the cast of The Honeymooners) and a set of spinning tops that had felt-tipped markers as their points. You spun them on a sheet of paper, and their random motion would create interesting patterns and spirals. Again, though, I only went there once or twice, so it's entirely possible that I'm conflating one or two other things. 

I also remember F.A.O. Schweetz, a Schwarz-branded candy store that had an outlet alongside the WTTW Store of Knowledge at Chicago's Water Tower Place. Though my memories are hazy thirty years on, a very well-stocked Willy Wonka display sticks out in the memory. 

Fortunately, F.A.O. Schwarz still exists as a brick-and-mortar store as well as a brand name unto itself. Schwarz-branded toys are available for sale at Midway Airport and my local Target on 95th and Pulaski. Schwarz primarily sells simple, early-childhood fare such as teddy bears, activity boards and puzzles, and even "air soccer," a larger version of air hockey.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno/Headlines

 NBC's The Tonight Show has been a television institution for decades. Beginning in 1954, it has been hosted by Steve Allen, Jack Paar, the inimitable Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brian, and, latterly, Jimmy Fallon.

I was a Leno kid as of the early 2000s, starting with high school, and the highlight of the evening was always the opening monologue and banter between Jay and guitarist Kevin Eubanks. It's also how I came to develop my impression of then-President George W. Bush, which greatly annoyed my mother--Bush was played on The Tonight Show by a gentleman who sadly passed away many years ago.

The biggest laughs were heard on Monday nights with "Headlines," a collection of badly-worded headlines and advertisements, dumb criminals, marriage announcements that were worth two or three entendres, and many others. It's kind of sad to think how, twenty-six years ago, our print-based monoculture seemed indomitable; now, it's a shadow of itself. 

Here, for your viewing pleasure, posted to YouTube by RoundingThird, is a collection of Headlines from 2000.

The Hallmark Millennium Time Capsule Ornament

 

At last! I've had this on my radar ever since the Museum opened for business back in 2012. 

This is the Hallmark Time Capsule ornament, found just last night at Goodwill for $2.

It's beautifully designed with holly sprigs all along its surface, and I love how it's tapered in the middle. At first, I thought it was nothing more than just a trinket...and then I opened it up to discover the two-sided list, one for 2000 and the other for 2001, presumably once again to appease the "the 21st Century actually begins in 2000-and-1" set. 

Once again, I'm dying on the hill that the more poetic beginning of 2000 is the true beginning.

Now, Bear With Me...

 

Where shopping is concerned, there's no institution more quintessentially British than Harrods Department Store in Knightsbridge, London. It began as a grocer and wholesaler in the 1830s, and from there, it expanded and grew until its profile became comparable to Marshall Field's in Chicago, or Macy's in New York. 

Per Wikipedia, notable customers included Beatrix Potter, Dame Agatha Christie, Charlie Chaplin, and A.A. Milne, who bought for his son Christopher Robin the teddy bear that would go on to inspire Winnie-the-Pooh.

Almost every department store has had an annual Christmas teddy bear. This is the 2000 edition of Harrods', and I found it at a secondhand shop in Ford City Mall, which is set to be demolished some time this year. Sad, really--I remember when it was a big thing, back in the 90s...

A Plushie from the Elks Lodge

 

(I apologize for the smudge photos. I just had my phone outside in the cold, shoveling snow.)

The Elks Lodge is a fraternal order, not unlike the Masons and the Knights of Columbus, that has enjoyed more than 150 years of service throughout the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the Elks engage in community outreach and drug awareness programs, among many, many other acts of charity. 

As an interesting side note, I found out on Wikipedia that their anthem is the signature tune of New Year's Eve: "Auld Lang Syne." Which brings us to this plush elk, which I found at the Family Discount Outlet on Milwaukee Avenue. He's all dressed up for the big night, when the clock strikes midnight and the date changes from 1999 to 2000. His cummerbund bears the Elks logo with "2000" underneath it, as well as the slogans "ELKS CARE, ELKS SHARE" and "SAY NO TO DRUGS." 

I assume these were given out at some kind of a kid's event.