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Now, someone may have sent you a clip of Conan O’Brien from the internet series Popular, a leprechaun in total disarray: red-cheeked, sweaty, drooling, face smeared with hot sauce, and roaring to seize the moment (“It’s not a point! It’s LIIIIIIFE!”). He looked crazy. If you haven’t seen the clip yet, please wait. As the kids like to say, it’s going viral.
This is not the first time. You know the Paul Rudd meme? His grin that radiates warmth and friendship (“Hey. Look at us.”)?that’s from Popular, also. Ditto Jennifer Lawrence panicking and sobbing (“What do you mean? What do you mean?”).
Now it’s Conan’s turn. He appeared on the show to promote his new Max travel series and immediately seized control of the interview and the venue itself. O’Brien is known as a performer who can’t help but be “on” at all times, no matter the size of the audience.when he wrote The Simpsons, he and his colleagues in the writers’ room would sit around a table; they would joke and he would imitate an elaborate routine in which he was an astronaut strapping himself to a rocket ship— —It’s all for the benefit of the person across the table. On his podcast, Conan O’Brien needs a friend, he keeps throwing out a series of clips to the delight of his producers and assistants (mostly). There’s a restless, needy quality to his comedy that would be worrying if his instincts weren’t as sharp, if he weren’t as funny as he is.
The perfect guest?
But before we unpack how and why O’Brien became the best Popular As guests, we need to think about the show itself.
When you first hear this premise Popularis a series on YouTube in which affable and well-prepared host Sean Evans interviews celebrities as they eat a series of increasingly spicier buffalo wings, which you might think Sounds like a stupid gimmick. Then you might start looking around to see if any of your favorite celebrities have been guests. Then you watch an episode. Then, it was all over.
There’s an entire Reddit forum dedicated to ranking Popular The guest is “the best,” but determining this requires a very subjective calculation. Some people want to see their guests melt; Others wish they could complete the task without any effort. Some hope that their media-trained soundtracks will begin to dissolve through various hot sauces, like alien blood devouring the Nostromo, in the hope of gaining new insights into a celebrity’s personality.
The good news is there is a Popular Perfect for any episode you’re looking for. Different guests react very differently, and your favorite episode might not be someone else’s.
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To me, a great guest has to come in with arrogance—the excessive pride of a tragic hero—because they bring their own narrative arc to the endeavor. Because Idris Elba rises to the challenge with dismissive bravado, his failure—coughing, sweating, swearing, mockingly threatening producers—is all the more satisfying. So does Gordon Ramsay.
But it’s also nice when an episode seems to confirm an impression you already had about a guest. Padma Lakshmi kept her cool on all fronts while answering Evans’ questions and offered insightful (and even infamous) comments on the flavor profiles of various sauces. The infamous Da Bomb, which has a viscosity of 119,700 Scoville units, reportedly tastes like kerosene when it’s pissed).
Elijah Wood, Tom Holland, and Michael Cera showed a deep knowledge of the series that fans loved. Alton Brown brings a know-it-all confidence that’s not particularly endearing. Key and Peele are among that group of guests who hilariously attack the host (see also: Shaq, Bill Burr, Lizzo, Michael Rapaport, Ed Helms). Lorde, Jenna Ortega, Charlize Theron and Rachael Ray weren’t fazed by the hot weather.
Over the years, many guests have raved about interviewer Sean Evans. Specifically, they were surprised by his questions, which were both deeply researched and novel. It’s funny to see celebrities who answer the same questions over and over again at press junkets realize they’ve just been asked a question about something they love deeply that no one else has asked them.
It’s true – Evans is an excellent interviewer. But as a host, I’d love to hear him give his fellows some of the love he gets from his guests. If I have any objections to the show, it’s that Evans is so well prepared that his questions always sound more like written English than spoken English; the phrasing is too formal for the loose chemistry the show is aiming for The reaction didn’t quite match.
Now, about that Conan episode.
Conan has jumped to the top of the list Popular An All-Star because he knew exactly what he was going to do and what he had to do.
1. He came prepared
Conan brings with him a fragment of humanity. He introduces us to his personal physician (who is actually longtime writer and producer Jose Arroyo). It feels like an old-school showbiz joke, something you could imagine Johnny Carson or Steve Allen doing. O’Brien’s ability to bow to his comedic predecessors while also striking out on his own and doing ridiculous things endeared him to millions.
2. He came to conquer
Not only does Conan show a relaxed familiarity with the show, but he also spends a lot of time mocking its premise (“What’s wrong with you people? You don’t know what real danger looks like anymore!”).
3. As expected, he went crazy
Popular Fans talk with admiration about the Padmas and Charlizes – celebrities who are not bothered by the heat on the show. Conan decided he wasn’t just going to laugh at the show’s premise; He put to shame every previous guest who had dismissed the spiciness of the sauce. He leveraged his innate comedic sensibility—a handcrafted blend of restlessness/poverty—to achieve iconic status.
Not only did he smear the chicken wings with hot sauce; He poured it on them. He loaded them up and smeared them across the table until they were covered with every stray drop. He licked them – lovingly, but also with a certain anger. He spread them over his face like woad; he applied them to his nipples. He drank Da Bomb straight from the bottle.
I say it again: He drank Da Bomb straight from the bottle!
What’s more, he’s committed to it. completely. Complete.
Although his face began to turn red and his forehead began to sweat, he still acted unfazed. Even though he began drooling, drinking milk, panting, and giving increasingly abstruse, rambling answers to Evans’ questions, he persevered.The red sauce around his mouth makes him look like an extra Cannibal Holocaust If it were set in County Cork.
Even those of us who loved Aubrey Plaza, who managed to maintain her too-cool-for-school composure even as she nuzzled milk to cool her burns, have never seen anything like this things. We may never again.
Conan is clearly in pain, and of his own doing. We know this because A. we have eyes, and B. because he joked at the beginning of the interview that because he grew up in an Irish household, “I never saw spice until I was about 52.” Yet here he is happily Throwing yourself into a maelstrom of excruciating pain and stomach upset, all for the sake of a bad YouTube show, just for the sake of being an idiot who rejoices in the joy of the global village.
We watched with helpless confusion and wonder (and a little fear) as he strapped himself to the rocket and took off.
fans Popular Call those celebrities who finish their sauces without complaint “spice lords.”
Conan O’Brien was even better this week. Not because he could stand the spice, but because he threw himself into it. He became a spice legend.