When Chuck Norris passed away at the age of 86 in March 2026, the internet was flooded with all kinds of tributes and celebrations of the late actor and martial artist’s life and career. But for some of us, we celebrated Norris’ legacy by watching one of Conan O’Brien’s best recurring bits from his Late Night days: the Walker, Texas Ranger Lever.
Back in the early 2000s, the late-night talk show host with a history of utterly ridiculous bits and gags, gave audiences one of the most insane and niche jokes in the format’s history. However, a year after it started, the Walker, Texas Ranger Lever was no more. So, what happened, and how did it all get started anyway? Funny you should ask, because we’re about to break down the story behind Conan O’Brien introducing one of the most popular ‘90s shows to a whole new audience.
How A Corporate Merger Led To One Of Conan O’Brien’s Best Recurring Gags
On the May 12, 2004 episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, the former SNL and Simpsons writer introduced what would become one of his signature bits upon informing his audience that NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment had merged to become NBC Universal, which allowed him (or so he thought) to use clips from any USA Network show without having to pay fees.
In honor of the merger, as well as the fact that USA was showing Walker, Texas Ranger multiple times a day every day of the week, O’Brien and his team came up with the idea of a lever that pulled “random” and oftentimes insane clips from the long-running drama series. Why this show in particular? Well, as Late Night writer Michael Koman later told Polygon in an oral history of the bit:
I chose Walker, Texas Ranger because it was so the opposite of anything close to the sensibilities of our show. Also, what I found fascinating about Chuck Norris was that, even for an action movie star, he had a total lack of facial expression. His mouth went from a perfectly straight line to one with just the slightest curl up or down. He didn't have time for pleasure and he never really expressed sorrow. I just never understood what I was supposed to be taking out of his expressions.
The whole lever situation became increasingly popular with audiences in the weeks and months that followed, and at one point, Chuck Norris himself showed up to have some fun with the situation. However, it would be the runaway success of the joke that would ultimately lead to its downfall.
Why Late Night Had To Retire The Walker, Texas Ranger Lever
Unlike Paul Rudd pranking Conan O’Brien with the same Mac and Me clips for decades now, the Walker, Texas Ranger Lever was short-lived. But, why did the Late Night crew stop what quickly became one of the show’s staples? Well, it turns out that the whole situation where the merger gave them free use of clips owned by NBC Universal wasn’t actually a thing. As Conan revealed in a 2021 conversation with Patton Oswalt:
It was my favorite thing, and then we were told that you have to stop doing it, and I said, ‘Why?’ And they said, ‘Because all the actors want to get - you have to pay all the actors, and it's a fortune, and if you don't stop immediately, I mean, literally, it would have bankrupted the show, bankrupted all of us. You have to stop immediately,’ and I was crushed, because I loved it.
O’Brien also joked about a scenario where he would have taken the show to court to prove that it wasn’t “acting,” but that plan never went anywhere.
So, that’s how Conan O’Brien got to use old Walker, Texas Ranger clips to create some of the funniest moments of early 2000s TV, and why it all came crashing down.
