In our Pop Culture Lead today, you guys, it gives me great joy to tell you that CONAN O'Brien is returning to television. The award winning comedian, late night TV host and podcaster is now starring in a new travel series called CONAN O'Brien Must Go, which debuts next week on Max. And we should remind you that Max and CNN are both owned by Warner Brothers Discovery. But that's not why I'm doing this. The show is super funny. And guess who's joining us now? It's CONAN. Hey, CONAN is right here. Thank you so much. May I call you Jay? Because I'm happy. You may. You may. Thanks for having me. This is huge. Let's show that show folks, a little clip. This is a part of your trip to Norway. Yes, I went to Norway and really got in touch with my roots, but I don't have there. Anyway, take a look. Let's take a look. I'm CONAN. The Red. Oh, my pants falling. I think my pants are falling down. Yeah. This is a travel show I'm doing. Oh, my. Where is it? My fans from around the world. We must embrace the way people do in this country, which is? I'm supposed to kiss you right? You're making it so weird. That's what I do. It's true, though. I think we do need some weird right now. Tell me how the series came about. Well, I do a podcast called Conor O'Brien needs a friend. I know. I've been on it. You've been on it twice. I just needed to tell you again, because I know you just blow your friends off left and right. And I. And it. It grew and grew. And then we started. I mostly talk to celebrities, but I said, I want to talk to people out in the world. And so we started taking calls from people all over. And occasionally a fan in this farthest part of the world would say, Hey, Conor, if you're ever in Bergen, Norway, stop by sometime. And that gave me the notion, had you ever heard of Bergen, Norway before? I had no. I had heard it in Norway. And but I don't think I specifically heard of Bergen. But I said yes. And so what we do is we use saw it in that clip right there. I surprised my fans, as you. And so that was a kid named Arlo, who's half of a rapping, rapping duo. He looks like Daniel Radcliffe and and it's I'm not as muscular, not as muscular as Daniel Radcliffe. And and he's a very sweet kid and they're actually very talented duo. But I surprised him. So that's me ringing his doorbell. And he and I and I disguise my voice. You can't see it there, but I go back FedEx and then he comes down and he was really excited. And then I proceed to go and tear up his apartment and then get involved in his musical life. And I'm determined to put he and his friend at the top of the charts. That's pretty good. You have a you provide some of the singing the way I thought I should do a bridge, the way, you know, Sting used to sometimes sing the bridge on someone else's song. Yours is about a fjord, though. Mine is about a salmon and a fjord, but it's in my patented Irish falsetto. So you hosted CONAN on TBS for ten years, then you started CONAN O'Brien. He's a friend of your podcast. They give me the spin off. CONAN O'Brien needs a fan. Yes. And I want to play a clip of you comparing your job to a fish farmer in Norway. And here we go. I am not envious because, Guy, what I do is very similar. No, no, I come out here, I don't know if the if the temperature in the podcast booth is going to be 71 or 72. I don't know if my, if the iced tea they got me is going to be completely unsweetened or have a little bit of sugar. So I too am battling the elements in my own way. Absolutely. I'm so happy that I'm up here in there in the Arctic and not down there. It's I'm so glad what you just said. So. So, Kai, you're just very happy that you're that you're you and not me. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's sort of what I'm saying. I can't imagine being able to. I have to say, like, you're so great when you're interviewing celebrity guests and such, but like, you, you really seem to love interacting with normies. I love talking to people. That is a guy, a guy who is a salmon fisherman, salmon farmer. And I, after I meet one of the fans, he's another one of the fans. I go up and I find him and I go out on his boat and try and he's having a difficult time with his partner on the boat who helps him find the salmon or grow the salmon. And so I try and get them to be friends again. And so it's just a joy. It's really fun. I love my favorite thing is meeting people who am I'm constantly bumping into people who don't know who I am. They're not that impressed and I egg them on until they really put me down. And I don't know why, but it makes me so happy. That guy on the street, there's a guy on the street who's criticizing my jacket. He says, That's the jacket you're trying to wear. Makes you you're trying to look too young. And we really get into it and I love it. It makes me happy. So. And you go to Norway, Thailand, Argentina, Ireland, Ireland. Yeah. What were was any one more fun than the other? You know, they're all very different. The one thing that was fantastic and interesting about Thailand, what it was, it was a bunch of months ago. It was the hottest day they'd ever had in Thailand. It was 108 degrees, 109 degrees. And so when you're doing improvizational comedy as you're sweating out your body weight, it's fascinating. But it was really it was fun. And I cannot say I liked one country more than another. Each of the specials is very different, but they were really fun to do. So You also made some history this week. You returned to The Tonight Show. Yeah. 14 years after your time there ended, you sat down with Jimmy Fallon and you reminded him of some advice that was really, really hitting home for you at in that moment. Let's run that clip. You'll have this show as long as you want to. But when you're 98, you'll move on and someone else, someone else will be in the studio. Yeah. When someone else is in your studio, it feels weird. So I walked in and I said, Who's in my old studio? And I said, Kelly Clarkson. Yeah. And I love Kelly Clarkson. Who doesn't love Kelly Clarkson? But still, I felt like it's not right. It's in the museum. In the museum. They should have burned to the ground. What was it like to be back in that scene? It was a great feeling. I didn't actually. Jimmy Studio is across the hall, so he's in six feet. I was in six eight, which was this iconic studio that David Letterman had from, I think 1981 to 93. And and my studio was I went into the same studios. Dave So Jimmy's across the hall. I didn't go in and look, Oh, really? But it felt very nice to just be back on that floor. And there are still some people who came out who are still working at NBC, who were there when I was there. And so it was very emotional. You know, they came out in their gray hair, like with me, and I was hugging people. And it was a very sweet feeling. It was so nice to be back. And Fallon couldn't have been nicer. He was oh, he was great. And he's done an amazing job. And I'm a fan. And I think it all whatever happened all those years ago, it all worked out beautifully for everybody. And so it was a it was a nice return. It really was. Before we go, I have to ask you about something in the news today. Yep. O.J. Simpson died. Yes. And yes, He was a lot of fodder for you and a lot of other late night comics. Yeah, it was that era. It was a huge deal back then. And most notably, he's he's passed on. Norm MacDonald. Oh, my God, You're one of my best guests of all time. And one of the great comedians of all time just told some of the most did, most brilliant, I think, comedy of anybody during that whole lost his job at SNL because it was making fun of O.J. Simpson for being the real killer. Yes. And and the head of the network at the time was was tight with O.J. and Don Ohlmeyer. Yeah. And oh, who can remember these names anyway? Water under the bridge. But yeah, that was a huge moment in in the history, I think, of this country was it was a it was a, you know, massive. And there have been many times in this country where we've needed to kind of stop and reassess where we are in our racial history and where are we what progress if we made. And that was one of those moments and it was such a watershed moment. So he is gone now. Yeah. Yeah. You have no, you're you're not going to make any jokes about. Oh, I never make a joke about someone the day they pass. Okay, I'll hit you up tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow at 6 a.m.. You can hit me up. All right. It's East Coast time. East Coast time as no Central. Central. Okay. I'll hit you at 730. Yeah. CONAN O'Brien, thanks so much. You really must watch. CONAN O'Brien must go. His new series. It's on Max starting April 18th.
