The Conan Slabaroo

You know, like a Conan bit, Sonic takes the pickle too far with their big dill meal. What? I don't know what they're saying.
What are they saying here? That's an insult to me. I don't take things too far.
Oh my God. Sonic, I've got a beef with you.
And a very delicious beef. First, you get the Smasher Tot with Grillo's Pickles.
Then there's Pickle Season Tots. And they're pickling further than anyone before with the Picklerita Slush.
when I have a slush I want pickles in there

full of pickles Pickles. Then there's pickle season tots.
And they're pickling further than anyone before with the picklerita slush.

When I have a slush, I want pickles in there.

Full of pickle flavored bursting bubbles.

Topped with a Grillo's pickle garnish.

This must be the edge of the known pickle verse.

Oh, whoever came up with that needs a beating.

To which Sonic says no.

You don't understand.

This is just the beginning.

You think a pickle burger, pickle tots, and a pickle slush is a lot of pickle?

Hubris. We'll pickle everything.
That's their logo. Well, the Sonic and Grillos.
Big deal meal. It's the Conan bit.
Oh my God, they're going after me hard. Of burger pickle meals.
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Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started.
Stop, stop. No, seriously, though.
No, no, no, not now. It's over.
Guys, Micah is here. Micah, welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a fan.
Micah, how are you? Good. Did I interrupt a fight? There was no fighting.

No fighting.

We're stupid.

We are adults, Micah, and to think that we would be slapping at each other's shoulders like children trying to get the last hit in before you arrived is, it's chimerical.

It's foolish and beyond crazy.

We'd never do that.

It's absurd.

It's footage.

Micah. Micah, old friend.
Where are you coming to us from where are you in the world i'm in kansas city missouri the bell the map very nice i love kansas city had some fantastic barbecue in kansas city wonderful oh yeah it's uh it's it's kind of like talking like politics or or religion out here yeah there's a beautiful i stayed in a beautiful uh old hotel like from the 20s that had been restored in downtown kansas city and i can't remember the name of it oh i've been all over i was traveling salesman at the time um mike uh tell me um you seem like a nice fellow uh is that a cork giant cork board behind you what's behind you i think so i'm i'm using one of the meeting rooms at my job they probably need this room for a meeting but i'm just camping out in it i think it is cork though yeah it's so funny it's uh yeah it looks like you're almost going to be pinned up to it um micah don't listen to me micah i'm having a hard day i'm not making a lot of sense today micah micah what do you do at this company what is this company so i'm a designer I work for a hard day. I'm not making a lot of sense today, Micah.
Micah, what do you do at this company?

What is this company?

So I'm a designer.

I work for an advertising firm.

Okay.

You know, my wife worked in advertising when I met her.

And so, yeah, that's the world she came from.

Oh, cool.

And so you work in an advertising firm.

And what's your, do you have a specialty in advertising?

Yeah.

So I work on a big fast food client. I've been working with them for about 12 years and i do all the me and my team we do all the design work and we shoot all the food photography just about every month which as you can imagine it's pretty i have a couple of questions tempting i'm guessing you can't tell us the name of the fast food place i cannot tell you yeah yeah um and you can't even probably give us hints like they make a good taco or are you loving it yeah they're the king of fast food burgers you know that's all yeah kind of thing you know whatever it's not important it's uh i mean it is important i will find out and i will disclose it to my fans yes you will um so uh you are the person who does photography for fast food is that right you're like you're in charge of the whole thing so so once a month we fly out to our photo partner in st louis and it's a several day shoot and it gets it gets intense with with the food stylist and getting to work with them and direct things.
You know, we'll, we'll fuss over strips of lettuce on a burger for a good hour, just making sure it's perfect. It's perfect.
It's perfect. Well, you know, I've noticed when you, when you look at photographs of, uh, food, especially fast food, everything looks, it's, it's like the most perfect burger you've ever seen or the display of fries the way the different fries individual french fries splay out perfect i mean it's all done with such attention to detail what's it like to be setting that up i mean it's got to be a lot of pressure i mean it's fun for me because i'm not the food stylist right so i get to just to just, well, I see something here and I get to move this around.
You're the dick. You know.
What? Well, like, you know, he's the guy who's like, that piece of, you know, lettuce isn't right. And then he's like, move it.
Too many onions. That poppy seed is shaped a little like Lyndon Johnson.
oh you would not believe you would not believe how many times we

and That poppy seed is shaped a little like Lyndon Johnson. Oh, you would not believe how many times we and some of our clients see different faces or different things.
And like, why is there a worm in that bacon? Oh. Is there still a worm in the bacon? But if you stare at anything long enough, you're going to see your worst nightmare.
When you're there, is the food edible or has the food become just a, is it cold and you've covered it with, I mean, do you do stuff to the food to make it photographed better so that it's kind of inedible? Yeah, so years ago, you were able to just do whatever you wanted to just have it keep. But I think just because of regulation and lawsuits of late for a lot of

people,

all the food that we shoot,

it's,

it's edible.

Right.

We had our,

one of our food stylists,

not,

not for my client,

but he had to actually rebuild a burger in front of a judge in court of

law for a lawsuit.

Whoa.

Whoa.

Really?

To prove that he could do it.

To prove that this is real.

We're not using anything fake. This is how we shot it, just like this.
It was crazy. That's cool.
I once, before an award show, I went to a stylist, and I accidentally hired a food stylist. And I only knew when they were spreading mustard under my eyes.
Pouring lettuce on your head? I had a lettuce for hair and on the red carpet i

just killed it people remember that i got more i was the cover of us weekly um you just need to spritz the tomato that's all yeah but i mean in the old days i always heard that they would practically coat the burger with you know motor oil motor oil or whatever they had to do to make it look appealing

so that ice cream used to be mashed potatoes. It's it used to be crazy.
Yeah. Yeah.
Is this true? So now they would coat a burger with motor oil. No, but for syrup, I heard they used to do that.
They used to put motor oil on the on the pancakes. And then until they burst into flame during a photo shoot.
Remember? The Great Pancake Fire of 1987? 700 people were killed. I must have missed that.
And three buttermilk cakes were lost. But the pictures were pretty.
Yeah. When my wife worked in advertising, when we met, she was, I think, on a food account for, I probably shouldn't say, but she was working on a cookie cookie that if you dipped it in milk would like turn the milk blue i think oh really yeah and it later turned out to be plutonium oh perfect yeah it uh illegally so your wife invented plutonium yeah that's great yeah it turned out that she was a spy and um uh saddam hussein paid her a lot of money for that cookie.
It was a long time ago, a long time ago. But so you're there and you're, did you, you must have moments, because I have these moments all the time in my life where I'm doing what has become my work.
And I step outside my body and I say, how did this become my career? And you must have moments where you're there and 15 people were standing around looking at a triple cheeseburger and people are with tweezers moving a pickle slightly to the right. And you must step outside your body and go, how did this happen? Absolutely.
No, that happens all the time, especially when we're on set shooting things, because it's literally exactly what you said. It's a whole team of people just looking at me sometimes going, is it good? Is it ready? No, it's not there yet.
Let's move the bun back a little bit. Or, you know, the limeade just needs a little more ice on top.
Oh, man. We're almost there.
That's a clue. Can you have free food always? Do you have...
Oh, Sona goes right to the heart of my mouth. Do you always have free food? Can you just go? Do they cater it with the food from the company? Or can you go and get free food? Hold it.
Just sit down. I know.
I'm excited. Sona just wants you to mail her a burger.
That's all. I will show up with a bunch of food if you want me to the studio.

Okay.

You're going to drive with the food from Kansas City.

Oh, absolutely.

So you have to be sensitive.

First of all, let's talk about it.

In advertising, it's all about the client.

So is the client there?

I'm guessing the client is there.

Yes.

Clients there.

Luckily, our clients are amazing, fantastic.

I've always heard

Ronald McDonald's a very nice guy.

Every now and then

the Hamburglar comes along

and something goes missing.

So anyway,

your clients are nice.

That's good.

And clearly you've been with them

a long time.

Long time.

Do you ever like go

to the actual venues?

Do you ever go to the fast food

I'm going to go ahead. That's good.
That's clearly you've been with them a long time. And do you ever like go to the actual venues?

You ever go to the fast food restaurants and check out how the photographs are being displayed,

you know, in the restaurant

or a lot of stuff is drive-through now, isn't it?

I mean, so many places are just drive-through.

Most of it is.

No, I will go and some of my other designers and copywriters, we will go once a month to make sure, like, it is presented properly. You know, some stores don't get it quite right, but, you know.
Now, what would be a mistake? If we're there. Meaning, when you say they don't do it quite right, the lighting isn't right on the burger that you beautifully shot? No, like, we make sure all of our stuff is great and good to go to print.
I'm talking about sometimes there will be, oh, an entire menu is just displayed upside down.

Oh, okay.

So after doing several, several.

I love that they didn't catch that on their own.

Yeah.

What's the problem?

Looks okay to me.

You notice they're wearing their pants on their head, their on their ears I don't see any trouble here I have to go to the ceiling now And use the toilet I've always believed that your home Should be an expression of who you are. That was my, I have that like tattooed on my low back.
Oh, wow. I could have had so many things tattooed down there.
Yeah. And that's what I chose.
Down there. Yeah.
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That's cool. I love saying it.
I know. I could tell.
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That's cool. And this magenta status sounds amazing.
Blay, tell me, I think you get magenta status. What's it entail? What's included in magenta status? Yeah, I have T-Mobile.
I have had T-Mobile for a long time. I love it.
And, you know, when we went to Thailand, I got great coverage and great high-speed data, which means that I could- I hear it's up to 15 gigabytes. That's right.
How did you know? That's the word on the street. Wow.
I hear people going, 15 gigabytes. Yeah, that's incredible.
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Summertime.

I love to hang out with my pals, my bros. You know me, right? Yeah, I know you.
And when I think of you, I think of bros. Yeah.
A bunch of us get on our hogs, our choppers. Yep.
We go up the coast, driving around, cruising with my gang. Yeah.
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Man, I can't believe it's the 50th anniversary of Miller Lite. So many memories.
I'm at the Louvre, Miller Lite, traveling around. I'm one of those little trolley car things that you just, one guy pushes up and down, up and down, and it goes on the train.
On the train track? Yeah. And I've got my Miller Lite with me.
With your crew? With my WAC pack. Yeah.
My homies. Miller Lite, great taste, 96 calories.
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That's betterhelp, better, H-E-L-P.com slash Conan. Wow.
Okay. So that's funny that you and this, this posse of yours drive around.
And I just hear like the Peter gun theme. And you like cruise in, but you're not just there like other customers.
You're there to check it out. Oh yeah.
Make sure that everything is. Oh, undercover boss.
Oh, you know, they go to like through the drive-thru and they're like, what can I get you? And you're like, a right side up menu, bitch. Yeah, bitch.
Yeah. And then you peel out for no reason.
Killing four people. You'll be hearing from me.
You'll be hearing from me. We'll be back when your menu is right side up.
I love that you have to check on that. I hope they put the menu right side up.
I'll have a rem-ha-berg-ahi. A what? A rem-ba-ha-gahi.
Do you mean hamburger? That's what it is upside down. Oh my God.
Wow, that's really fun. I don't know that I'd be of any help to you in your, it sounds like you've got your, you know what you're doing.
I think if I came into your life. Make it worse.
I don't, I think I would just make it worse. I would have, because I would want to do funny things to the burger.
And I know that your client, whoever your client be, wouldn't appreciate me putting a funny slant on their hamburger. Like I would want to put a funny hat on it or an eye patch.
You know, something to just sort of lighten the mood a little bit, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, we like to have fun with our copywriters.
We like to send some fun headlines around new burgers or, you know, slushes first time around. See if it'll tickle the fancy of the car.
Sure, yeah. Another hint.

Yeah.

We're writing down the hints.

If you need a copywriting gig,

we might be hiring.

You'd be good at it.

I think I'd be okay at copywriting,

but my copywriting might get very strange.

I'd be edited a lot,

and a lot of my stuff wouldn't be used,

and I'd be frustrated.

Yeah.

You know?

You'd be writing over my shoulder.

Now put this in the layout.

Yeah. Okay, I'll put this one in.
All right, here we go. Yeah.
Wow. It's so, I mean, hats off to you.
I mean, it sounds like it'd be a fun job. It sounds like it's something you enjoy.
It is fun. It's so fun.
Does it make you critical when you're watching television and you see a rival fast food chain and they're displaying their burger or their nachos or whatever and you don't like it are you like they fucked up that nacho cheese looks like diarrhea right do you ever do that oh yeah no i i can't turn it off i'll even even be on vacations with my husband and I. I'll just be taking photos of other food promotions and posters.
And he's like, could you just not for one day? Like, we are on vacation. For one day.
Stop thinking about food. An interesting experience, which is we shot a show years ago in Cuba.
And i was looking at the food presentation because you go to the restaurant and all the there'd be pictures of the food out front and the menu and i go like oh that's pretty interesting and then you'd go inside you'd have the food and then i'd go to the next restaurant and it was exactly the same and then exactly the same and exactly the same and i realized realized, oh, it's state-owned. Everything was state-owned and still is state-owned.
So when you go, when you're trying to decide which restaurant to go to in a state-owned country like Cuba, where everything is under the socialist system, everything's the same. And so it's this weird idea.
I think tonight we'll go to, you know, Chester's.

And you're like, Chester's is the exact same thing as David's.

Yeah, it's all exactly. There's one Micah probably for the entire country.

There's one Micah.

There probably is, yeah.

There's one Micah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I freelance in Cuba.

Wait, can I ask a question?

Yeah.

Have you gotten to do anything with, like, those robots that make the food? Like the drinks or anything? Oh, not making the actual food, but on photo shoots for some drink specials, like for slushes or, again, Lime Aids. We'll have the robotic arms twisting.
They'll have like the robotic arms twisting and pouring syrup at the same time so that we get this really cool twisty visual while it's going into the dream so that you're talking about the camp the camera you're talking about the actual camera is because sometimes i'll be watching i mean it works i'll be watching television just scanning tv and a commercial will come on and suddenly i'll see different brightly colored syrups swirling through time and space and hitting this creamy shake. And I just want it at that moment.
I mean, you're basically, you are, you have the human brain hardwired, don't you? You know exactly how to make food look a certain way so that I must have it, right? Yes. Yes.
You're controlling my mind, Sona's mind. Yes.
You're controlling David's mind. You're in control.
Constantly. It's incredible.
And we fall for any marketing tactic. We are like a marketer's dream.
Yeah, we really are. We are.
It works. I meal plan for you all, essentially.
Yeah's so cool i mean there's uh i i like it sometimes when they show it'll be like a shake and they're trying to show you that they add chocolate bits so the the beautiful chocolate is swirling or the vanilla is swirling and then a shower of little chocolate chips and flakes comes down do you know what i mean mean? In perfect. Beautiful, isn't it? It's gorgeous.
And I think, put classical music to this. Yeah.
And this is what I want to see as I'm leaving this world. I don't want to see the faces of my children and my loved ones.
I want them to roll in a TV, hook me up to the morphine. And then I want to see little flakes of chocolate dancing through the sky as they hit the Palubi soft creamed ice.
Oh my God. That's what I want to see.
I like when they bite into the burger in those commercials and then I just think I want to be that person that's biting, you know, they like bite. Also, I have a theory that they get people with very small hands.
I know what you mean. No, no, but I have a theory that they get people with very small hands to make the burgers look bigger.
Oh! So that there are burger holders and biters who have, who look, they were born with very small mouths and very small hands, but in every other way, their proportions are correct. And you guys hire them so they can lift the burger up to their mouth and then it's just mammoth.
And they go to take a bite. You're not wrong.
They open their jaw and they take the tiniest bite. You realize if I had that burger, I could live for a year.
And then all this juice comes out. Yeah.
Yes, and it's like the burger's having an orgasm. It's crazy.
Yes. Oh, I want it.
Now I want a burger. So you said I'm not wrong.
There are tiny hand people out there. Tiny hand.
With little jokes. Are we? If you are out in the world and you see someone go to pay for the check with a little tiny hand and they go, this one's on me.
And they've got a very tiny mouth. Then you can just say to them, you're a burger holder.
A professional burger holder. And you try and put cuffs on them to take them to the police station, but they slip off.
But you can gag them by putting a little pee in their mouth. Just one green pee.
Look, I lost my mind here, Micah. My brain broke and you didn't.
Oh,, no Micah, did you have a question for Conan? Question? How do we follow that up? Oh, my God There's no way he could have a question after that Do you? I do have a question I might pivot slightly on my original question I had for you Okay Which is, are you insane are you insane no in the fast food world there's a lot more celebrity endorsements and customized drinks or meals right so if conan o'brien had a custom drink or combo what what would it be oh if i had oh i mean if i had a custom drink or combo can you give me an example? Like what celebrities have a custom drink or combo? So I think Mariah Carey had one a while ago. And it was just a slight twist on a classic burger and fries and drink.
But what's the Conan O'Brien level up version of? Yeah, or like the Hailey Bieber smoothie. Yeah.
Oh, that's right. Yeah.
Me, let's see.

Well, I mean, it'd have to be ham-based because, you know, I'm so Irish.

My bones, I had an MRI recently

and they said your bones are made of ham.

1970s ham.

So, you know, it would have to be,

I mean, I'm just saying,

I'm not putting it out there,

but like an Arby's that has like a ham sandwich where there's giant slices of ham. It would have to be that kind of thing to be true to my Irish roots.
Just big chunks of ham. Ham.
Can you shoot ham in a way that's attractive or is ham always just ham? Well, are can, are we calling it the big chunks of ham combo? Yeah. The ham chunker or the slabaroo.
The Conan slabaroo. The Conan slabaroo.
You have to have a name associated with it. Okay, yeah.
Conan slabaroo. Yeah.
And I'd be paid hundreds of dollars for my association with this product. Yeah, it's gotta be...
And we'll have the tiniest hands hold it for you.

Oh my God.

We have to find tiny hands tomorrow.

Tiny hands and tiny mouth.

I'm not gonna do it.

You are gonna do it.

Okay.

Yelling at them?

What?

Yelling at them.

You are gonna do it.

You're gonna hold his brother.

He's holding the hand.

Don't hurt me.

Don't hurt me. Please don't hurt my hand.
Hold it better. Okay, so yes, if you could hook me up with, it's going to, I don't know what other fast food chains have ham as a staple, but it's going to have to be ham.
I will pitch it to our clients come Monday morning. Oh, so your clients have ham.
Interesting. Got it.
We've narrowed it down now.

Limeade and ham. Yeah, the limeade

and ham special. Wow, this is a

fast food place that's going down

the toilet fast. How come

no one's coming in for our

limeade and ham drink?

Big chunks of ham floating

in lime. What's

wrong? I like it.

Quiet, small mouth.

We're not ready for the photo shoot okay all right well really fun talking to you micah you're a very funny smart uh cool person and uh i wish you well i really do it was fun talking to you oh thank you can i just say one more thing i know you get a lot of compliments um just me being a fan all these years uh my and my company, what we do, even though it's advertising, it sounds pretty superficial, but we love to just bring joy, comfort, and meaning to people in your podcast. And you all three have been doing that for me and my creative director, JJ, for years.
Oh, thank you so much. Well, I will tell you this.
There's really, I'm always watching ads and seeing really funny stuff that I think, oh, I wish I had thought of that. There's a, the, the line between, uh, you know, what I do and advertising and I mean, creativity is creativity.
So we're all trying the same thing. We're all just trying to make, I don't think you should, uh, hem and haw at all about being in advertising.
And like I say, my wife, who's the most important person in the world to me, she was in advertising and she loved it. And she's an incredibly creative person.
So I don't know. I don't think, I think you guys should hold your heads high and get a ham sandwich out there with my name on it.
Okay. We will.
We absolutely will. All right.
All right. Take care, man.
We'll see you. All right.
Thank you all so much. Bye-bye.
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