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Conan O’Brien is having a moment, and as a longtime fan I am here for it.
The first four episodes of Conan O’Brien’s new Max travel show Conan O’Brien Must Go are available on Crave. (Charles Krupa / The Associated Press files)
The 61-year-old former late-night talk show host and writer for The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live saw the first four episodes of his new show Conan O’Brien Must Go released on Max (Crave in Canada) on April 18 (O’Brien’s birthday). The travel show sees O’Brien visit a range of countries as he meets up with fans of his long-running podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.
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What does this have to food and drink, you might be asking yourself? Well, as part of the show’s promotional campaign, O’Brien appeared (with his fake doctor) on the season finale of Hot Ones, a YouTube talk show hosted by the somewhat-bland Sean Evans, in which he interviews notable guests while they eat wings doused in progressively hotter sauces.
O’Brien fielded questions about his career, his new show and more during the 25-plus minute segment, loudly proclaiming that he felt almost nothing heat-wise from the first half-dozen sauces, while slathering the wings in copious amounts of sauce or gulping the stuff right from the bottle. (You can watch the episode here — the language becomes progressively NSFW.)
His braggadocio caught up to him on the last few sauces of the episode, however, as O’Brien visibly struggled to keep up the shtick as things got painfully spicy. Seizing on the chance for a laugh, O’Brien leaned into the error of his ways, resulting in a riotous and hilarious final six to seven minutes of the episode in which he turned beet red, his eyes started watering and his behaviour became more…erratic.
In a rare display of widespread online positivity, O’Brien’s Hot Ones appearance resulted in a virtual love fest on X (formerly Twitter), where loads of users posted their favourite Conan clips from over the years with a level of affection typically saved for the death of a beloved entertainer.
(As the wine guy at the Free Press, I’ve always been partial to Conan’s visit to Napa Valley.)
Some of the hot sauces that reside in my fridge door. (Ben Sigurdson / Free Press)
On the scale of “total wuss” to “masochist,” my own enjoyment of/tolerance for hot sauces lands firmly on the more adventurous end of the spectrum. I’ll add hot sauce to almost any post-breakfast meal. (I recently tried hot sauce on scrambled eggs for the first time, and could see myself doing that again in the future.)
Like most other spice lovers, when I’m chowing down on a red-hot roti, a fiery burrito, a peppery curry and such, my threshold balances on the knife edge between pleasure and pain.
But I also have a somewhat embarrassing second barometer when eating spicy food: the top of my head sweats. It’s true. My follically challenged dome starts simmering like a long-dormant volcano awakening from its slumber.
So, if you see me dining out and I’m wearing my napkin around my head like a bandana, now you know why.
1882 Fruit-Based Hot Sauce is one of many local producers of spicy condiments. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files)
Hot sauces: Yea or nay? (If yea, any favourites?) Have you tried and loved any of the many locally made hot sauces?
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