When asked on the YouTube interview show “Hot Ones” what he hopes people get out of the new streaming travelogue series “Conan O'Brien Must Go,” the former late-night TV host said his usual I answered in a comedic manner.
“My mission is not to learn anything about this country,” he tells “Hot Ones” host Shaun Evans. My job is that after I finish my job, I know less about the country than when I started. ”
Perhaps the best headline of all the reviews for this show is, “Painfully ridiculous.” But silliness has been O'Brien's trademark comic style ever since he left writing for Saturday Night Live in 1991 and took over late-night TV duties a few years later.
Whether he's with Andy Richter by his side, sparring with a host of guests, or appearing on his weekly podcast, “Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend,” O'Brien traditionally… It has relied on second-rate, self-deprecating humor that even Jerry Lewis would emulate. He could have avoided it.
The late Lewis was never self-deprecating.
But making himself the butt of jokes is one of O'Brien's great strengths. O'Brien can make many of us laugh, even at our youngest. And with his new show, the first season of which is streaming on Max, he's as funny as ever.
This is not the first time he has appeared on a travel show. In 2015, he began filming Conan Without Borders (also available on Max), traveling through his 13 countries from Cuba to Ghana in each episode over two seasons. Production of the series was forced to stop due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Now he's back, and the first four episodes of the new series take him in turns to Norway, Argentina, Thailand and Ireland. In a touch of madness, every episode begins with German filmmaker Werner Herzog preaching about how beautiful the Earth is.
It is so beautiful, Herzog argues, that the only way we humans can truly appreciate it is to desecrate it. He then introduces O'Brien as the perfect “defiler,” a man with “badly painted doll-like eyes.”
One of the show's standard gags is O'Brien featuring people who appear on his weekly podcast. Among them are Norwegian rapper Jarl, Argentinian artist Sebastian, Anna, a Thai woman who is into indoor rock climbing, and his biggest fan, Irish-Pakistani Mohammed.
With or without fans, O'Brien explores four countries wearing local costumes and looking ridiculous (due to jet lag) like a dumbfounded American . He also engages in local customs, such as pretending to be a Norwegian Viking or an Argentine gaucho, and fantasizing that he can defeat an entire team of Muay Thai fighters. He also sings live on TV programs in Bangkok.
And while some may consider O'Brien's actions an insult to the culture he explores, once again, the eternal clown himself is always the focus of the joke.
Herzog says in his trademark Germanic drone. This is madness. This is chaos. “Conan O'Brien Must Go.'' ”
Finally, I would like to end on a note that will make you laugh. But that would be unnecessary. My laughter is real.
