Sure, this lanky redhead has spent the bulk of his career talking to people from behind a desk, beginning with Late Night With Conan O’Brien in 1993 and continuing now with his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, but his remotes have remained some of the most lasting bits from his run (thanks in part to the popularity of his YouTube channel). Throughout his late-night tenure, he was known to spend a week or so in some new city, or even other parts of the world, to spin globetrotting comedy gold, allowing him to engage in such gags as messing with fans in Finland or playing old-timey baseball, fully costumed, at Old Bethpage Village Restoration. He even toured after his brief Tonight Show gig, which resulted in the documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop. Now, following up on the success of the Emmy Award-winning collection of his international remotes Conan Without Borders, the man gets to leave the confines of his podcast studio for some new adventures in Conan O’Brien Must Go, all four episodes of which drop April 18 on Max.
Straight from COMG’s opening, with its stunning aerial videography and clips of Conan’s antics set to a Werner Herzog voiceover, we see precisely what we’re going to get: freewheeling foolishness courtesy of Conan. There will be obligatory food-tasting, dress-up sight gags galore, and, all the while, our hero will wield the full instrument of his pale, long-limbed form as only he can, to draw laughter or disgust from all who behold him, “the defiler” of “the astounding grandeur of this planet,” as Herzog calls him. For his fans, at home and on screen, this brings clear delight. Each country he visits is home to folks he has “met” before through the “Conan O’Brien Needs A Fan” portion of his podcast. Missed out on those particular episodes? No worries. We’re shown short clips of their initial interactions, the fans’ faces broadcast via Zoom onto mounted monitors in-studio as they chat with Conan and his co-hosts.
In reality-show style, he surprises each fan at their home (or in one specific case, her work at a climbing gym). Their reactions vary in scale, from apparent elation to confusion, and there’s probably some cultural variation at play in their responses. Still, all seem pleased to have him around in the end—even if he’s digging through their cabinets (as we’ve seen him do to Jordan Schlansky, who shows up in the Argentina episode) or working out on their bench press, their mom slapping his cheeks as he lifts. He’s affable, to be sure, and self-aware enough to turn self-deprecating when his bits appear to grate on the nerves of the shopkeepers and well-meaning townspeople who seem to be less in on the joke. However, those moments can toe that line between cringe comedy and outright discomfort. He is, after all, an American, leaning into the stereotype of his ilk being “loud” and “[taking] up a lot of space,” in the words of his Argentinian translator/cultural consultant. That’s not exactly an experience people love to have foisted upon them in their own land, and the show works best when the participants seem into it.
There are also some imaginative, Conan-spiced twists to the travel-show formula that make this a worthwhile watch. In one example, a shot of Norway’s Northern Lights is revealed to be a closeup of a desktop background. (They don’t come out for another three hours, and Conan’s “not sticking around for that shit.) Others include a hallucinatory hot-sauce montage in Thailand during a food scene that incorporates other frenzied footage from the episode, as well as little, staged skits with clever costuming and cinematography, like his black-and-white nod to The Lighthouse in Ireland, which devolves into his mad lighthouse keeper character reciting, word-for-word, lines from the first verse from The Little Mermaid’s “Part of Your World.” There’s even a surreal, Bigfoot-esque Bono hunt at Merrion Square Park in Dublin. In these moments, where Conan seems most confident in the setup and delivery, the show feels like something authentic, special, and distinctly on-brand for him comedically.
But that’s nothing compared to the deep, meaningful stuff in the Ireland episode. As any Conan fan knows, the man is 100 percent, vocally Irish. He has had a lot of fun with this identity throughout his time on air—he has even visited the country before in a previous Late Night episode. This time, though, he makes it a bit more personal and hires someone to discover his family’s origins à la Finding Your Roots, and together, they find their way to the exact location of his family’s former residence. Even when not standing directly on his ancestral land, it’s wholesome to see him connect with people who immediately recognize and highlight his Irishness as well as others who rib him for his American ways. There’s a homecoming quality about it that still has an ever-present absurdity. He only even utters the phrase “I’m home” when eating the Irish delicacy blood pudding, waving his arms in the air in ecstasy, then writhing on the ground, rubbing his thighs.
Yes, Conan stays Conan. He will always be a champion of the silliest, goofiest forms of comedy, with himself as the butt of every joke. It’s tough, when other people are brought into it, to tell exactly how enthused they are about their role in his brand of humor, especially when he’s in a new place and doesn’t speak the language. It’s worth mentioning that the vibes can be a bit off at times, and certain scenes seem to drag, as if he’s willing with all his might to draw comedy from them. But boy is it good to see Conan out there throwing his full, feral self (not just his voice) into the act again.
Conan O’Brien Must Go premieres April 18 on Max