Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Conan O’Brien Must Go’ On Max, Where Conan Hilariously Surprises His Fans That Live Overseas

In each of the four episodes of Conan O’Brien Must Go, Conan visits a fan that he and his co-hosts have talked to on the podcast Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. The idea is that if the fan tells Conan to come visit whatever corner of the world they’re in, Conan will go to that country, surprise the fan, and try to get involved in their lives. In the first season, Conan and his film crew travel to Norway, Argentina, Thailand and Ireland.

CONAN O’BRIEN MUST GO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A snowy mountain range. A narrator with a Schwarzenegger-esque accent says, “Earth. A cradle for unimaginable beauty and staggering wonder.” After some more praise, the narrator says, “at times, you must defile it. Meet the defiler.” Cut to a shot of Conan O’Brien holding a rubber chicken.

The Gist: In the first episode of Conan O’Brien Must Go, Conan goes to Bergen, Norway in order to surprise a fan named Yarla. After giving Yarla one of the biggest shocks of his life, Conan surveys the fan’s apartment, which seems to be rife with stale cereal and bread and sprouting potatoes. He only has one spoon in his silverware drawer. Yarla is part of a hip-hop group in Bergen, and Conan goes with him to a recording studio, meets the rest of the group, and lays down vocals on one of their tracks — stuff about looking at fjords. He promises that he’ll get the track played on the radio using his “connections,” of which he has none.

Conan also ventures to places inside and outside of Bergen. He sits with a group of people in a knitting group, then goes to a local tourist attraction that replicates a Viking village. He dons a wig and flowing beard to be “Conan the Red” and can’t seem to keep his tights up as he wields his sword and other Viking-like activities. Because his luggage hasn’t made it to Bergen yet, Conan goes to a local store and dons a ridiculous outfit and finds someone on the street who has no problem telling him how silly he looks.

He then talks to a couples therapist about the Norwegian dating tradition of “sex, then coffee,” but just does things to make her say she’d never have either with him if they were trying to date.

Conan then goes to Lofoten to meet another fan — “That’s right, I have two fans in Norway,” he says. Kai is a fish farmer, and he takes Conan out on his boat with his coworker Gaardsemen (writing it how it’s pronounced), who drives him nuts. He rents a family to see him off as he gets on the boat.

The late night legend then goes to Oslo, where he “helps” get one of the vans the production is using get out of the snow, makes his attempt to get Yarla’s song on the radio, then joins Yarla’s group at a club to sing the song live.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Conan O’Brien Must Go is not all that different than the Conan Without Borders specials that ran on TBS during the 2010-21 run of Conan.

Our Take: One of the highlights of Conan O’Brien’s promotion tour for Conan O’Brien Must Go was his appearance on Hot Ones, which went viral and reminded everyone what made Conan so funny during his near-thirty-year late night run: He loves to be silly and absurd, and most of all, he commits to the bit. That’s exactly what we saw during the first episode of Conan O’Brien Must Go, and we couldn’t stop laughing watching him do it.

Conan really does appreciate his fans, and the idea of visiting those fans as an entry point to doing a travelogue-type show is a good way to not only incorporate his increasingly-popular podcast into the mix, but also show just what kind of impact Conan has had for over three decades. The fact that he has fans in different countries speaks to how widely watched clips of him on YouTube and other social media have been, never mind the fact that his various talk shows have likely been shown in those countries for some time, even if it’s on some obscure cable channel.

But the first episode also shows just why Conan’s brand of comedy is getting a new life via Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, this new show, and things like the Hot Ones appearance. After over 30 years in the spotlight, Conan doesn’t have an ego and he still has no problem looking completely silly. This is a man who’s now past 60, keep in mind, and he almost invites scenes like the man on the street who tells him that he’s tool old to wear the denim jacket he’s got on, or the discomfort of the bicycle-helmet-wearing man who allows Conan to lick his cheek.

That sort of self-deprecating, absurdist shtick is what has carried Conan for his entire career and three decades on, it still seems less like an act and more like the way Conan generally lives his life. It’s why it still comes off as genuine and really, really funny, whether you’ve been a fan of Conan since the ’90s or just became a fan in recent years.

Sex and Skin: None, and we think if there was any it would be really, really awkward, anyway.

Parting Shot: We see a video that Kai sent the producers months after Conan’s visit; at a pub after Conan’s boat trip, he encouraged the shy fan to talk to a woman who was there. Well, there’s a lot of good news attached to that, which means that Conan is a matchmaking mensch on top of everything else.

Sleeper Star: Director Mike Sweeney got a lot of great shots of Norway’s beauty, including using a drone that Conan repeatedly referred to “get our money’s worth.” One shot has the drone fly from about 200 feet away from Conan’s waterfront hotel straight into the window of his room.

Most Pilot-y Line: The drone bit was the only piece of repeated shtick that fell a little flat, though how Conan got around Oslo’s restriction on photographic drones still made us smile.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Conan O’Brien Must Go has a lot of the elements that have made Conan into the comedy icon that he is (though he’ll only say that in self-deprecating jest). It’s a fun watch, and we hope that Max gives him more than the four episodes in the first season.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.