What goes through a curator's mind as a brilliant but highly subversive moderator is essentially hijacking a panel discussion he had spent nearly a year trying to put together?

A little panic and a lot of joy, as it turns out.

Let me explain: On Saturday, in partnership with the New York Comedy Festival, the Paley Center presented a panel with the cast and creator of Archer, the peerlessly twisted (and I mean that in a good way) animated spy show on FX. The panel included Adam Reed, the creator of the show, plus three members of the voice cast: H. Jon Benjamin, Chris Parnell, and Amber Nash.

We had first approached FX VP John Solberg about an Archer panel a full year ago, during the 2010 comedy festival, when John was in town for our tribute to Louis C.K.  John was enthusiastic from the start, but that was no guarantee we could pull it off—schedules had to be arranged, and certain people had to be flown to New York from Atlanta or LA.

Miracle worker that he is, John delivered. Reed—without whom there would be no panel—was the first to confirm. The second huge "get" was Benjamin, who voices the title character and is a titan in the alternative comedy scene in New York. Parnell (a Saturday Night Live alum who also portrays Dr. Leo Spaceman on 30 Rock) and Nash followed.

All we needed now was a moderator. Arthur Smith, a member of the Paley Center curatorial team, ingeniously suggested David Cross, a brilliant comedian in his own right (Arrested Development, Mr. Show with Bob and David, The Ben Stiller Show), but also a long-time friend and collaborator of Benjamin's. Benjamin asked; Cross accepted. We, of course, were thrilled by this stroke of good fortune.

In seventeen years at the Paley Center, I've never experienced anything like the event Cross moderated on Saturday. First, the good news: it was totally hilarious. Now, the less-good news: it had almost nothing to do with Archer. Rather, Cross led us all on a surreal, far-reaching journey encompassing everything from Sharkey's Machine to barbecue restaurants to Atlanta high schools to Occupy Wall Street to Centrum vitamins to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. His first question—about an Arrested Development reunion—was for Jessica Walters, admittedly an Archer cast member, but, alas, not one who was present (this was after he had called for a clip from Parnell's new show, Suburgatory, which was not only off-topic but also off-agenda, as we had no clips from that show). Sample conversation:

David: "Jon, take me through a typical day for H. Jon Benjamin on 9/11."

Jon:  "I slept ‘til like 5:30 p.m., so I missed the whole thing. And then like I went to a bar. And, uh, everyone was like completely bummed out."

David: "Everyone? It seems like a broad generalization, Jon."

Jon: "Well, I didn't meet anybody who was happy about it."

Adam: "I think part of that is you give off sort of a negative vibe, though."

I should mention here that Benjamin, having walked out of the theater in mock boredom no more than fifteen minutes into the discussion, wasn't even on stage for this exchange, participating instead as a disembodied voice emanating from our control room (perfectly fitting of course for a man whose bread and butter is voice acting). Benjamin did eventually return, but only momentarily, to pick up his jacket, before exiting again, this time followed out the door by Cross, leaving Reed, Parnell, and Nash alone onstage for a few awkward moments before Cross and Benjamin finally reappeared.

The audience Q&A segment was equally deranged, with Cross insisting that anyone wanting to ask a question had to first whisper the following information to a Paley Center usher, who would then relay it to the panel: name, high school, question, and favorite pig-out food. One particularly valiant woman—who certainly won my admiration—refused to play along, as she persisted in inquiring directly of Reed whether Archer's season-two DVD would include any special features; she wound up in a "shouting match" (all very good-natured, judging by the video) with Cross, who "scolded" her thusly: "I'm sorry, I don't want some crazy Upper East Side New York literary Jewess yelling at me about her vagina, all right? That's not why we're here. We're here to have a good time."

In the end, Cross was exactly right: we were here to have a good time. My sense is—and the Twitter feeds seemed to confirm it—most people did. I think it is an event people will be talking about for a long time.

And I mean that in a good way.