The Stars of Upright Citizens Brigade

UCB co-founders Matt Walsh, Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, and Ian Roberts perform a long-form improv-style sketch on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (original airdate: August 13, 1998). The four performers address a fictional crowd of ordinary Americans who harbor intense, irrational hostility toward astronauts. The group tries earnestly to educate the crowd about the value of the space program, but their reasonable arguments are met with increasingly absurd objections and escalating mob mentality — from chanting to outright threats. The sketch is a showcase of UCB's signature style: deadpan commitment, escalating absurdity, and ensemble chemistry, and it helped introduce the comedy troupe to a national television audience ahead of their Comedy Central series.

This appearance was promotional, coinciding with the launch of the UCB Comedy Central sketch series (1998–2000). The sketch is often cited by fans as a classic early UCB performance and helped introduce them to a national audience. The YouTube video (uploaded by Team Coco in 2019) has amassed over 128,000 views. The epguides.com episode guide for Late Night with Conan O'Brien is incomplete and does not list the August 13, 1998 episode; season/episode number could not be fully confirmed.