Conan O’Brien has gotten an impressive amount of mileage out of a blubbery, slow-moving aquatic herbivore.

The “Late Night” host has presented a recurring character dubbed “the Horny Manatee,” who accidentally stumbled into Web stardom last week.

On the NBC program, the Horny Manatee mostly stretches out on the stage, arousing a member of the band – or on one show, “Inside the Actors Studio” host James Lipton. Lipton last week read “Ode to a Manatee” before dancing with, as he said, “that sultry seductress.” Watch it here: http://www.nbc.com/Late-Night-with-Conan-O’Brien/index.shtml

On the Dec. 4 show, the manatee appeared in a skit about college mascots as the “FSU Webcam Manatee.” As it ended, O’Brien ad libbed a reference to “HornyManatee.com” – and thus a Web site was born.

The next evening, O’Brien informed his audience that after the previous night’s show, he was contacted by NBC Standards and told the network would have to buy the rights to the then-fictional site. NBC purchased rights to the domain for $159 for 10 years.

The quickly formed site includes “Manatee on Manatee” action, as well as pictures of a “Manateen” and a “Voyeur Manatee.” It’s all a harmless spoof of Internet pornography, and O’Brien claims it has received over three million hits.

He’s encouraged fans to submit their Horny Manatee creations to conanhornymanatee.com – and has been flooded with responses of graphic novels, paintings and photos of people in manatee costumes.

It’s only the latest instance of a late show using the Internet to attract viewers and interact with their nightly watchers. Clips from CBS’ “The Late Show with David Letterman” and “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” have been rising up the charts on YouTube, and NBC’s “Last Call with Carson Daly” runs a “It’s Your Show” site (http://www.iystv.com).

This all makes sense because comedians like Letterman, O’Brien and Stephen Colbert (the TV king of online interaction) easily trump the overwhelming majority of amateur humor on the Web.

Late night shows are no longer confined to the wee hours of the night – nor is online manatee erotica so hard to find anymore.

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YouTuber OF THE WEEK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v(equals)9Nj7hHdg-kc

The Japanese director and graphic designer Nagi Noda (who also filmed a memorable Coke commercial soundtracked to a song by Jack White) here choreographs two dancing eyeballs. It’s an idea that owes something to the experimental band the Residents, but the prancing pupils are enjoyable, especially when they come into focus.

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READ THIS: Slate.com’s “TV Club”

Slate, the excellent site of political and cultural commentary, has led the charge of deep critical analysis of HBO’s gritty urban drama “The Wire.” The series wound down its fourth season on Sunday, capping off what could reasonably be considered one of the finest seasons of dramatic television ever. (Slate’s Jacob Weisberg made that very case a few months ago: http://www.slate.com/id/2149566/.) The site’s “TV Club” has kept a weekly column reacting to each new episode, written by documentarian Steve James (“Hoop Dreams,” “Stevie”), author Alex Kotlowitz (“There Are No Children Here”) and “Wire” writer David Mills. To see what all the fuss is about, watch the show (starting with the first season) and get your fix for “Wire” discussion at Slate.