Conan O’Brien Must Go Writers Roundtable

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, Walkin blues, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Hello, I'm Conan O'Brien. Today's a little unusual. Normally, this is the slot where I talk to someone in the world, a fan, and have a nice chat, and I really do enjoy those conversations. Today's a little different. Today is April 18th, which, first of all, happens to be my birthday. So far, no gifts.

Interfering in their lives.

Interfering? Yeah. So joining me today are some of the people that were instrumental in helping me build this show. Mike Sweeney, hello.

Happy birthday, I can't believe you forced us together, so we could just say happy birthday to you. Very clever.

Anyway, thanks for your help on the show and I'm looking forward to my present.

Hi Conan.

Thank you for being here. And Matt O'Brien. No relation. And then, of course, Jason Chalemi, we call him Chills. These are the people that were sort of the nuclear core of helping me make this show. And now I'll let you all speak freely about what a genius I am.

We'll go in order of height.

Let me say up front. These are people that I've been working with for a number of years on my shows, and they've worked with me before on travel shows. And when I put this project together, I wanted them to join me, and I was very lucky that they did. We are here today to discuss the show, talk about it and give you a little insight into how this program was made. We go to four countries, the first one we went to was Norway and then the second one we went to was Thailand.

They're in L.

Or just don't feel like being on camera?

Yeah, so we had to. Mike, maybe you could explain how we figured out the way? To let them know that we might need them as a follow-up to their podcast interview, but not let them know that I was coming.

Well, Jason was kind of.

Chills, chills, chills.

I apologize, chills we'd have to. Each fan was different, so some were like, I'm going to be here.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'd send out feelers, make sure they're going to be around. Then we came up with a construct that, oh, you know what? We might be doing, kind of a behind the scenes of some of our fans. And we would just send a cameraman there to shoot you for the day.

Shoot some b-roll? Yeah, shoot some b-roll. We'd love your podcast interview with Conan. We want to shoot some b-roll.

And we'd leave you out of it.

Right now, the problem is, and that worked for the most part. Occasionally, I would show up in a country and it would show up on their social media that I was around, right? But then, you know, Jason would probably have to put out the word that....

Chills.

Sorry, wrong of me. Chills would have to get out the word that no, no, Conan's in country, but he refuses to meet with me. Because he's an absolute prick. And that, you know, just to sort of really throw them off the trail, he's blocks away.

And no one's ever bought one, no one's ever.

Until that day, no one, ever.

They were so delighted, thanks to you.

They couldn't believe someone came into their shop, like, Really no, and so I bought one.

Everyone there was very straightforward.

Very straightforward, refreshingly, matter-of-fact. Yes, yeah.

Not hamming it up.

And we had a really good time. The fans to a one were great, the fans were. Yes. Because one of the things that I've noticed, too, is there's that second where they're happy, excited to see you.

They were all funny.

They were all funny.

And smart, yeah, they were just great to play with.

And I think meeting them on their turf makes them feel a little more comfortable. Well, often, I mean, I think almost every time I go into their homes, with one or two exceptions, I surprise them, and then I go right into their homes and start finding things.

Emily Topper is our director of photography.

Yeah, and she's fantastic, and Emily Strong's doing sound, and Brenda, Brenda.

She was unbelievable.

We're kicking ass.

She's like, I've done this before, she goes, I'll just sit backwards and follow the lead horse.

I'll just ride the horse backwards and shoot you with no hands.

And we're all like, because we were like, Do we need a truck, a flatbed? Meanwhile, she's on the horse. Yeah, she's already up there, and we're you who?

Yeah, I'm over here solving the problem, you idiots.

Yeah, and it's a great look, I mean, the-.

The drones, drones, I mean, drones, were a do.

That's a guarantee.

It removes knowledge.

Yes, if you had knowledge about the country beforehand and you watch my show, I do think you'll laugh, but you'll have. It will erase any useful, real knowledge about the country.

I love the drone operators in Norway. It was two guys.

Oh my God, they were great.

And they're like, they just did succession, and we're like, Wow, because a lot of succession.

One of them is in succession, yes.

That's what I was getting, yeah.

When we came back in, just to remind people, the last season of Succession, half the season takes place when they go. And Skarsgård's character? Yeah, Skarsgård's character, I meet with him and they're in Norway.

There's this climactic scene and big scene in succession, this big yard, this giant party by a river. And I'm watching it. And then I see the drone guys and we're like, Oh my god, they made it in.

And they're playing drone guys in the show.

But, you know, what was great is that they were salivating for us to come up with comedy ideas where they could pull off something really amazing. And so that was a joy. There was just a lot. I have to say, it can be very tiring. It's a lot of work to fly so far and then we usually have to hit the ground running right away.

Yeah.

Oh man, yes, there are some hilarious people you spoke to in Ireland. The other cool thing in Ireland was you were walking down the street and people were just stunned it was you.

I ran into people in Ireland who were listening to the podcast as I ran into them, and then this made me really happy. We were shooting something on the River Liffey, which is the river that bisects Dublin. It means cuts it in two, Matt.

It lives on ah.

The O'Briens come back. There's talk of Gerbils, I tell you.

Believe it or not, that came full circle.

Yeah, it really did.

I can't go into details.

But it was fantastic and the other thing that I think was an elevation. I hope people, I think people, will like these, but because we got to up the ante a little bit with these, have this nice budget. We could do these set pieces with real costumes and go to real locations. So there's a lot of improvisation and me walking around in my regular street clothes, being me. But then there are these set pieces that we wanted them and we really wanted them to look like this could be from a movie, it's very cinematic.

Fake Mustache.

Yeah, fake mustache, I mean, I carry some with me, but the TSA is always a pipe, a pipe for every occasion.

What a tower.

No, but just getting to recreate some of those do those cinematic moments, which we haven't really had a chance to do fully before. You get to do some acting well, I don't know if that's what it's called.

I remember that Viking makeup woman, it's like a two hour drive to this Viking reenactment.

Oh my god.

I'm just thinking like, Well, well, you know, she can maybe start stuff on the bus, and she's like, No, no, no, I need. We need to be in a separate room.

I need to plug in for the lights.

I need all this space.

And she was a real professional and she was like, get away from me, I'll make it happen, get out of my way.

But I'll tell you something, let me do my job.

I'll tell you something, it's the difference between all those years when we would do remotes and run and gun quickly. And it was. I would be. The mustache would be in my back pocket and I'd be in a van, and then I'd like, slap it on and get out there. And, you know, makeup was done very quickly, if at all.

And it's, you know what, it's going to take 50 minutes to an hour to do it. But then when you got out of that chair, it was like, Oh, my God.

Yes.

Oh yeah, so worth it. I know that was a big swing that whole day because we had really insisted. We always worry when we've insisted on driving for two hours to get somewhere.

To make it worthwhile. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's always the pressure.

Oh, the pressure's going up.

There's always the fear.

And it's also freezing cold, right?

Well, it's the same adage of the longer the story, the more pressure on the punchline. Right? And if someone's telling a really long story, or sometimes one can get caught and you realize this story I'm telling is really going on. God damn it, this punchline better. And that's exactly how it works when you're shooting a remote. If you have to drive for three hours, it basically is how much in Europe? How much petrol did you burn?

But especially sometimes you roll out of your hotel with a crew and you're getting all this great stuff on the street. And then it's like, all of a sudden you're in a band for two hours, it's like, Wait a minute, why are we doing this again?

Your muscles are cooling, right?

Right?

Well, you need.

Matt Shaw was our head editor, and basically he had one other editor working with him. Which I think is very unusual for something of this scale.

It looks unbelievable.

Brad Rowland Unbelievable work Brad Rowland.

Incredible. I was thrilled about the mystery narrator we got for the show, who we have a gentleman's agreement not to discuss, but most people that work with me don't want it mentioned. He was insistent on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, there's often a mission there, too, because people have been sharing things about their lives with you on the podcast. And then you show up and it's like, Oh, I'm going to. I'm going to help you achieve this goal or fix this problem for you, and then you maybe don't, yeah.

Or just waste time with you?

Do you remember that dinner we had where you could choose from a prefix menu, and it was all appetizer was CoD, and then the entree was CoD?

They have a lot of. There's a lot of cod in Norway, they're very, very proud of it, and you specifically have to ask them not to put cod on your ice cream cone. You have to say it's an allergy, yeah.

And we had something made in Ireland that I just saw turn up this week in social media.

And um, there's a sequence in Thailand that I really love, where, um, I'm, I'm roaming the streets at night. That was a very cinematic sequence. Uh, where I've I've ingested some street food and then I have a fever dream. And I'm not giving anything away. Because you need to see that. It's quite, uh, quite strange. It feels like a weird, gorgeous foreign film.

Yeah, well, and that one my favorite part of that shoot was that we, um, we were going against Jeff's wishes because he wanted us to get back.

Oh, jeff Ross, Jeff Ross, yes.

We had a dinner reservation, We had a dinner reservation. He's like, Uh, you'll be out there for like, five hours.

And there was this one thing we wanted to get. And he was like, we have a dinner reservation. I'm like, Jeff, Jeff, we'll go and grab it and then we'll go to dinner. The dinner reservation's at six 30. It took a long time to get.

And Matt, Matt's very calm. He's like, we'll be done in 25 minutes. Yeah, He's like, Oh, okay, I'll set my watch.

I've never seen that before, anyway. He was disappointed when we walked into the restaurant on time, you could see him deflate.

Oh yeah, the restaurant hadn't opened yet.

Yeah.

We're not open for four hours.

It was like, It's nice to sit here, it's a nice place, they have air conditioning. It was, um, I think we were, we were shooting. Um, sadly, with global warming, uh, this record will probably be broken soon. But it was like the hottest it had ever been in Thailand, and we were shooting and we were out on the street. And there's a there's a part where I'm kickboxing and we're not inside in an air conditioned gym.

I'll make it a smaller reservation.

And uh, yeah.

Oh, that works, let me know.

They don't have a table for five, but they have a table for four that works out great.

We, we got enough of the boxing right to, at least, Oh my God.

The funniest thing is when, because writers always want, can you do something again? they always want it again. Can you give it another shot? What if we do it from another angle?

Because I mean professionals, sure.

Yeah, professionals, obsessive, compulsive professionals. But if you're doing something, it's always cracked me up. When I'm, when I'm doing something, uh, especially at my vintage. And I'm just wailing and kicking and punching. And it's 108 degrees. And, uh, I've been. I'm, you know, I'm jet lagged and I'm wet and people are like, that's great, okay?

And there are a few times, too, where it's like, no one's yelling cut. And it's just kind of, you know, just going through a training session and you finally just go, Okay, I think we got it.

Yeah.

That was, uh, we put you through the physical ringer in Thailand.

Thailand was, uh, was was a workout. But um, I do, I have to say I do come home from all these countries, was specifically, uh, Thailand. With. Because in, in, in some of the in some of the setups I'm getting, uh, you know, I'll go to someone who makes great, you know? uh, original, um, Thai costumes, custom, and they're gorgeous. And I put them on and they're in the show and then I, they come home with me and they're mine. Yeah, oh. And then I'm thinking, I'll sometimes look in my closet and I have, like, oh, two pairs of chinos, two pairs of jeans, some t-shirts, some of the nicest silk suits. And I don't know where to where can I wear these? I don't know where to wear them.

You're dressed like a Viking today, yeah?

I remember you bought those um knit pajamas in Norway, it was like a full body.

Oh, I've worn those.

Have you worn those?

It got, cause it does get cold in L.A. And I put them on once and I came downstairs and it's so funny. I just look like a giant stuffed animal. It was, uh, boy, those, uh, they're beautiful.

They're hand knit.

They were hand knit and they're the warmest, most comfortable things I've worn in my life. But you know, you know what, uh, those sock monkeys, you know, those they? I look like a sock monkey when I put them on with a red pompadour. Not even, cause there's actually a cap you can put on too that just isolates your face. I should just wear that and walk around L.A. until someone photographs me.

Yeah, they'll think that you're....

I've lost my mind.

Kanye Yeah, do you?

Yeah, exactly, I should wear that and then go up when Kanye's next out with What's his lady?

Right, what's her name?

She dresses in a very provocative manner anyway. The next time, the next time those two are out together. And she's, you know, wearing something with with, with no butt on it. And he's just wearing an Rei tent. I'm going to run up along, I'm going to photobomb them dressed as a giant sock monkey, and put my arm around both of them and see if I can get that photo out there. Kanye's taking a second breath.

Oh, that'd be a great promo for this show.

Yes, got to get the word out. We need stunts, publicity, stunts. Conan, what are you going to do?

You already have all of Kanye's fans in your pocket, you're right.

Talk about redundancy, total overlap. You like Kanye, you'll love this show.

Do you get to enjoy yourself on these trips? Oh, great question, because it is work.

Hey, thanks for finally, someone asked me a question, which makes my job a lot easier. Yeah, thank you, happy birthday.

I wanted to give you a chance to talk. My gift. Yes, here you go. No, but seriously, because it is, you know, we let we, like you said, before we hit the ground running, and then it's nonstop till boom, we're back to the airport.

If I think that what we're making is funny. I'm like a kid at Christmas and I'm very happy and I really do love the camaraderie I like. I have to say Jeff Ross is not wrong. When we have worked hard all day and I think we have good stuff in the can and then we go out to dinner. I love that, I love that feeling of, I think we've found something today and I'm happy with it. And now we can debrief and we can sit and we're in this exotic country.

We're eating Italian food.

Yeah, no matter where we are. Remember, we went to Armenia once for a travel show, for a travel show years ago, and Armenian food's really good. But it's, you know they, it's a there's a lot of like, it's a lot of chicken, it's very good, but it's. We kept going, yeah, things like that, and so we kept having that over and over and over again, and it was really good. But then I remember there was one night where I was just like, Well, we got to break this up. We found out there was like a small mall in Yerevan and an Italian restaurant.

There was basically the grove, yeah.

We went to the Grove in Yerevan.

The one in Glendale, yeah.

And then ordered pizzas and we were just like, Oh, this is we're being the ugly American. But for the most part, when we're in country, I have to say, talk about. We shot something in Dublin, where I go looking for Bono, I'll just tell you that it's called searching for Bono, and I go looking for him in a park. And it's a I don't think I'm giving away too much, but it's basically a wildlife section of the documentary. And we had so much fun shooting that I was giggling the whole time and then everyone had great ideas. And Jesse, you were an impetus behind this, Jesse Gaskell. And then we all started thinking of different, and I just kept thinking of fun ways to make it sillier and stupider.

And it's in the series.

No, the New England Journal of Medicine wants them. But we had such a good time, for the most part on these that those I find those moments just drift away. I completely forget those moments and what I remember is the fun, and I remember the fun of and everywhere we go. I mean, the people were in each country were uniformly just so much, such a great sense of they seemed to be happy with what we were doing.

Yeah, that's my favorite thing.

And they seem to like that. I don't know, the joke is usually on me, and they're they're cool with that, and they seem to understand they. It's fun to just go and explore the comedic rhythm in each country, and it's different in each country. But they're all funny in their own way and they're not afraid to give me a hard time, which I love.

It's amazing that you can go outside of Los Angeles and there's just hilarious people everywhere. I mean, we're working at, there's more.

Yeah, because, guess what, they're not in L.A.

That's why you go on these trips.

But there are other places and they have normal jobs. And they're just, you know, happy to meet somebody, meet a stranger and have a nice interaction. Or maybe they know you from TV.

They're very.

It is amazing how everyone.

I think I could take him.

Yeah, and that was an old lady, that was an old lady in a wheelchair, I could take him.

We'll be over to him.

Yeah, it was really fun to make and it's an interesting process because we go and we shoot them, then we come back. You guys do these rough assemblies, you know, Matt Shaw does like these rough assemblies, and then you guys go in. And it's, I've always said, the way we approach these. Whether it was a remote for the old Late Night show, or the TBS show, or travel shows, it's like a chef doing a sauce.

It's all flavor.

Yeah, ooh, it's burned at the bottom.

Well, I didn't say it was a good sauce, all I meant was that it was short. In my analogy, it's just that they're shorter.

It's broth.

It's still broth dense, still dense, very salty. Your doctor recommends you don't have it. It ruins the taste of the food you're eating.

It is fun to see the number of hours you start with of footage and then know that you're cutting it down to under an hour.

And then, even when you think you can't cut anymore, there's still something you can cut. And yeah, it was. Even in the finishing room, when we would watch the final finished cut, it was like we all had, like, oh, just one little second here, you know, I think that....

Oh, I was showing a clip, I went to South by Southwest, and I showed a clip from a segment in Ireland in the gas station. That got this big laugh in this giant room and I was very happy, and then I just saw it. The clip went on for a couple of seconds afterwards and the crowd was like, uh-huh, okay, and I'm up on stage. I'm up on stage thinking, why is that still in there? And it's like, no, no one, no one was thinking about it.

It's a palate cleanser for the home viewer before they jump into the next set.

We want people to be laughing continuously, with no pause. You know what I love?

So they can hear the show over themselves, like, I love too anyone listening to this, who checks them out and goes, This is nothing but fat.

Was the stove on?

This should be four minutes ago, there was no heat. Oh yes, leave it on another 10 hours.

I shut the gas off six minutes ago.

There are bits where the joke is that I'm, there are bits where the joke, wherever country I'm in, is that I just keep going and I refuse to stop. And I could see anyone listening to this or any reviewer saying, What are they talking about anyway?

Well, I was. I mean, I think people might want to know how we landed on the countries that we went to.

Oh, ok, yeah, it's, it's interesting, it's. It's like you're looking for, it's like these two circles, and you're trying to see what's the best place where they intersect. Meaning talk to people around the world, and some people seem like, Oh, I got to talk to this person.

Well, there's a lot of other criteria, I mean, just in terms of what. What is it like to get film permits there? And and can you quickly, you know, can you quickly film things?

Yeah, there are exactly there are countries where it's more difficult to get permission. Also, another thing, we've just learned things over time. But sometimes we're more ambitious about traveling within a country, and then you realize you do want to do that, but if it's a vast country. And let's say you went to Australia and you wanted to make sure that you did Sydney and Perth. But you also wanted to go up to the Barrier Reef, and you also wanted to get into the outback. You realize that breaking down camera equipment and and shipping it around, you're burning time.

So you really, it's a cost.

It's just figuring these things out and one of the things that is fun, it's fun and interesting is we sit around and Jason's a big part of this. But we'll sit with, and, you know, we'll talk to Chills and we'll say this is what we're interested in. And then we have these conversations where we have a map of the country and we have lists of comedy ideas we could do. And literally, like a yarn going from one pin to another, and we're like, Okay, so we'd have to go, you know, 210 miles to get this gag? How much do we love it?

And you are onto me, you know, I lie, I always I'm like, I think it's a 50 minute drive.

And you're just like, Fuck you, that's my commute home, that's my commute back to Brentwood, asshole.

Oh, two hours and 50 minutes.

But I love it's the making of these things. I like to make things, I like to make things with smart, funny people and I've enjoyed working with you guys as well.

1998.

I was there for that, too, you were there for that.

Chills went on that, too.

That was two days.

We were there for two days.

We shot everything in two days. We have a good crew here and we get a lot of help in each country and that's important too. And Jennifer and Maritza and Marcella.

That's going to offend people.

Don't do that, that's actually against the law. You can't urinate in that rare book library.

Well, chills picks on you, you get it, you do a vibe check. I talk to three people.

I think this is the one.

And then you make best friends, I mean, you stay in touch with people.

He also has affairs with them. Chills, has children in every country. Whatever it takes, I know why he picks these people. I like this one.

And they're all women.

She doesn't speak English. No, anyway, I enjoy the doing of it. And then it's just extra sweet that we get these shows out of it and I'm excited for people to see them.

I laughed so hard during editing that I went into labor.

That's true.

It's true.

Yeah, and you weren't even pregnant. That's the crazy part. A baby came out, you made a baby and you laughed so hard.

That was my favorite behind-the-scenes story.

People need to be very careful. Yeah, behind-the-scenes stories.

We were all hanging out in the conference room one night.

Yeah, you during the making of these shows, you.

I got pregnant.

Got pregnant, which I think involves sex, and then.

We'll explain it to you later.

Yeah, and then so that was part of, it's crazy, that that was part of this process. Yeah, no, it was.

But and you would have never even known I was pregnant, exactly.

Psych But you? What was really crazy is at one point, we're in editing and you're.

I was 37 weeks pregnant.

Yeah, and we were, you were laughing really hard in the edit, and we were joking that this laughing.

I was peeing my pants, laughing.

Would induce who we were as a joke. And then we all get a photograph in the morning.

7 a.

7 a.

No, I know I was like, they're not going to believe that this is real.

I thought it was a prop, baby, yeah.

Well, I, I really was like, Oh, I'm peeing my pants, laughing, and actually my water had broken.

Right?

At work while we were there.

Oh, wow.

But I've been using that excuse for years.

I just want myself, yeah, a baby.

Yeah, and then she disappeared for two months.

Yeah, no, that was.

Oh, that made me so happy.

Well, yeah, Dottie's the, Dottie's the we got four shows and a baby, we got four specials and Dottie out of this.

Well, we actually got another baby from a fan.

Oh my god, yeah, yeah, well, that's part of the show too, yeah.

Put them down.

Yeah, they're, they're coming out.

Go watch now.

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