Conan O’Brien opted for the extra spicy option during his Hot Ones appearance. On the season finale of Hot Ones, the comedian railed against streaming platform Max’s rebranding and brought his own personal doctor to monitor his temperature in a truly delicious episode.
O’Brien admitted early to Hot Ones host Sean Evans that eating spicy wings was going to be something of a challenge for him, due to his background. “I grew up in an Irish house,” O’Brien said. “An Irish Catholic home in Boston. I never saw a spice till I was about 52 years old.” Given that, O’Brien brought an alleged personal physician to the taping called Dr. Arroyo—who, in a running bit, would monitor his temperature periodically throughout the episode. “97.8? I’m running a little cool,” said O’Brien at the top of the episode. That certainly wouldn’t last for long.
Between bites of hot wings, O’Brien got increasingly spicy as he took shots at Max, the streaming platform formerly known as HBO Max, where his own travel series Conan O’Brien Must Go will stream on April 18. “Is it HBO Max or just Max? I can’t get used to it,” said O’Brien. “It’s not a better name.” (He’s right). By the end of the episode, a drooling, delirious O’Brien was shouting at the clouds about the foolishness of Max’s rebrand, brought on by Warner Bros merger with Discovery. “I have a show, it’s on Max,” he yelled. “They used to call it HBO, but people found that too popular. So now it’s Max because that really rolls off the tongue. And it’s a funny show.”
Perhaps inspired by the spiciness of the wings, the veteran late-night host also revealed the worst thing that talk show guests routinely do: tell the audience the interview isn’t going well. “I would look out at the audience, maybe 200 people sitting there, and I’d see 200 souls leave 200 bodies and float up through the ceiling,” O’Brian said. “Because they were just told they were not getting a good show. No, that’s not show business. Show business is, ‘You’re getting the greatest show in the world.'”
He also revealed that he may or may not have predicted a stalwart actor’s untimely demise. O’Brien shared that during interviews, he’d sometimes say outlandish things just to keep his guests on his toes. “I’d try to say something provocative, like ‘I bet you live 4 years tops,’ and you can see them get a bit rattled,” said O’Brien. With one Golden Girl, he happened to be on the money. ”I remember I said that to Bea Arthur, and I was right,” O’Brien admitted. “I said, ‘Four years tops.’ And it was three years, 11 months.” By the end of the episode, it looked like O’Brien might not make it three years and 11 months longer due to his visceral reaction to the spiciness of the wings. Consider that Dorothy’s revenge.
