Conan O’Brien Must Go: Austria Roundtable Discussion

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Okay, let's get started.

Hey, Conan O'Brien here, and this is our third podcast episode about my Max series, Conan O'Brien Must Go.

This is the third because today

our third episode of Conan O'Brien Must Go drops.

And this one

may be a personal favorite of mine.

It is Austria.

And it is jam-packed with foolishness,

inanity,

and insanity.

I'm a man who's never been afraid to put on a fake mustache or beard.

You'll be seeing plenty of that in this episode.

Yeah, I am very happy with this episode.

And it was a little bit of a strange one for circumstances I will explain.

But first, I'd like to tell you who's here with me.

It's my team, my squad, my girl squad,

who helps me with all of these episodes.

The nuclear core behind all the travel shows going back to Conan Without Borders on TBS and now the Max show.

You got Mike Sweeney.

Hello, Mike.

Hello, Conan.

And you also have Jesse Gaskell.

Hello, Jesse.

Hi, Conan.

Thanks for having us.

Of course, Jose Arroyo.

Hey, hi, Conan.

And

this is

Austria.

That's the episode.

The Oosterreich.

Ooster Reich.

Oosterreich.

And

this one was a little bit strange because

not to get too heavy, but I just think it's worth noting how we did it, which is quite unusual.

We went to Austria late November.

I got the call about hosting the Oscars.

I said, yes, I would like to do that.

And then we asked Nina Rosenstein at

MAX,

is it okay if we do that?

And she said, yes, we're thrilled with you doing the Oscars, but we do need you to finish up

the last travel show.

That would be great if you could do that.

And we said, Of course.

So we immediately rushed off to Austria to start shooting.

And we were working our way across the country.

And

I think we were maybe halfway through our travel show.

We were

exactly halfway.

Halfway through when I got a call that my father had passed away.

And

so immediately we dropped everything.

I jumped in a van,

flew a couple of flights back to Boston, got there.

And then two days after arriving, my mom passed away.

And so it was this very powerful, strange time.

And it was this double funeral and everything was

sort of chaotic and hard to process.

And then a really lovely lovely gesture I'll just pass along is that

suddenly at the funeral in Boston, Mike Sweeney shows up with Jeff Ross, with Sonom Obsessian, with Jason Shalemi, with Adam.

And if I'm forgetting anyone,

tell me.

But that meant a lot to me.

So I want to thank you guys for doing that.

You then charged me your airfare.

I had Celtics tickets.

Well, you had Celtics tickets.

But anyway, that blew my mind when you guys walked into the church.

That was, I'll never forget that.

And Jesse, I don't know why you weren't there.

I wasn't invited.

They didn't tell me they were going.

Yeah.

And actually, you came and I had a bouncer out front.

I was the only guy that had a bouncer at a wake at an Irish wake.

It's a private party.

Yeah.

And but anyway,

it was

so that happens.

And then

suddenly we're into

it's Christmas, then the fires.

Oh my God.

Then

dislocated from my home and we're working on the Oscars.

I'm living in a hotel, craziness.

And then

the Mark Twain thing happened after the Oscars.

And then

it was immediately the day after the Twain.

The next morning, we all jumped on planes

and flew to Austria to continue the Austria show.

This was like

you're running out of excuses.

You're running out of excuses.

No more dead parents.

But I'm getting another award.

We're sick of you and your made-up awards.

I'm getting the O.

Henry award.

And there's a twist at the end

where there's no award.

So, anyway,

we go back to Austria, and it was

the first time we've ever done that for three days.

What was very interesting is that because of all this stuff that had happened happened before and because I was kind of running on fumes, I think I was sillier during those three days.

Oh my God.

I was extra crazy silly

and pre-associating like someone on drugs.

And that.

So when you guys put the show together.

It was in a fugue state.

I was in a fugue state.

Perfect for Vienna.

No, it really was.

And

I think all of that combined makes it a very interesting travel series.

and one that I mean I watch it and I know that it's like bifurcated it's divided between this is before I hear about my parents this is this is much later afterwards I'm back

but the viewer wouldn't know that but it's just interesting and we also weather exactly exactly the same four months later yeah exactly

well it was Christmasy there was some Christmasy vibes some decorations but and then but yeah pretty much you'd never know.

Yeah, uh, I just brought it up because I thought people like inside baseball, and that is something that's happened in that show that's never happened.

We've never had to leave a country and then come back to it a couple of months later to finish one show.

Um, but there's so many silly little ideas in that show, you guys go with that.

We went back, we went back specifically to have you record in Vienna because we had done other parts of the country already.

And then we paused it when we were in Linz and you got the word word about your dad.

And

I remember you came down to the breakfast area and you just and it was just you and me and you said, there's no easy way to say this, but my father passed away.

And then Mike Sweeney and Jeff Frost came in and you just said, I know one thing.

I won't be taking a yodeling lesson today.

Because that was on the schedule.

That was on the schedule for me.

I was going to meet up with a fan and learn how to yodel.

I know one thing.

And I just knew that like you can't, if you hear about- You weren't in the right headset.

If you hear about your father.

But also I knew that if you hear about your father passing away unexpectedly and you go, right, okay, time to yodel

in leather shorts.

Exactly.

That is the definition of a sociopath.

So you do more than that.

You were a more evolved sociopath and you took a car to the airport and you went home.

You know what was weird is that you guys were very nice and you were like,

Conan, you need to pack.

And

of course, Jeff was great.

He was like, you know, we and Shalemi, they were like, we got a car downstairs.

It's going to take you to the, they scrambled.

You're going to take this airline to this, you know, city and then to that city.

And that's going to get you to Heathrow.

And then you're going to go.

And I'm acting like I'm all together, like, oh, yeah, no, no, no, that's okay.

And look, these, you know, these things happen.

And, and I'm putting a watch on, just a watch, a regular watch.

And I kept putting it on upside down and backwards.

And I kept, I did that like five times.

I didn't, my, I was so so

on the surface, I was acting like, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Well, I appreciate that.

And I guess we can pick up this later.

I should go home.

And,

but in total sort of Irish Catholic denial about whatever I'm feeling, and the way I knew it was that I kept putting my watch on and then I'd look at it and it was facing down and away like this.

Yeah.

And then I'd do it again and it would be on this side.

And I, and I was like,

I suddenly didn't know how to do the most elemental thing in the world, which is put a watch on.

Yeah.

Well, it's nice to know you're human.

It's, I mean, really.

Or he has a human side.

Okay, I guess that's exactly.

Exactly.

How do we know that I just don't know how to put a watch on?

He's a watching.

You look at me and I've got this tangling from my earload.

Well, see you later.

Oh,

that wasn't a sign of mourning.

But we went back specifically to get the capital city, which is what we had sort of missed.

Vienna waited for you.

Exactly.

nice nice nice we spent a couple um after you left the first time we had to cool our heels in vienna for a few days and while we were there we were there alone with jordan uh we shot some stuff with him which is dante's eighth layer of hell

six through eight and uh we shot something with him and uh jordan which we ended up using uh so that that worked out and but it was it was we went back to vienna the fan who was supposed to meet us in Linz, where he lived, we had him meet us.

And he was wonderful.

Yes, when Toss.

And I did Yodel.

And you did myself.

I did Yodel.

And your watch went on.

You dissociated enough to Yodel again.

Yes.

Everyone's going to check how you're wearing your watch in this show.

It was a very musical episode.

And it's very musical.

And it's pretty cool.

No, one of my favorite things is a segment where we

visit the exact spot where Julie Andrews did the open for the sound of music.

Yes.

Yes.

And Jose Arroyo.

Which is not easy to coordinate.

No, no, not easy to coordinate, but

it's the

exact spot, like literally down to exactly where I'm standing.

It's secret that you have to get, we had to go through a lot of different channels.

You have to go to Julie Andrews.

To get permission.

And

you have to talk to all the actors who played the children, and they have to be lined up on a staircase.

The public is not allowed there.

And it's on private property, and the owner is very reticent too, because 10 years ago they let ABC shoot there, and I think they felt like it over-publicized it or something.

Well, it was an episode of Lost.

Exactly.

And I think that's what they were just mad that it didn't wrap up.

But you were going to say, Jose.

Oh,

Jose wrote this song, which is all about us not being able to clear the sound of music.

You can't get the rights.

Of course, you can't get the rights.

So you wrote a song about that, which is in a similar vein, but, of course, not.

And no lawyer

could find any similarity.

But it was,

it's really

great work, Jose, and

very creative, and the way it's shot.

And I was very, every now and then we get to do a little set piece.

Like one of my favorite travel shows from the TBS days was The Italy Show because we do a little Italian movie.

Every now and then we get to do a little, and I really love those.

I mean, I love the sponge nothing will ever beat spontaneous, fun moments that we have

with,

and I'll say that from my late night career and just in general, and nothing will ever, those are my favorite moments, but every now and then there's just a little moment to have a set piece where we get to really shoot it like cinematographers and choreograph it a little bit.

And you wrote this music and we kept, and when we get into those things, I'm obsessive about

if

Jose has put this much effort into it, I want it to be just right too.

So I'll ask for multiple takes.

I won't say, hey, we got to go.

I want to make sure it's just what you have in your head.

Thank you.

You were in later hose and it was short

and it was cold up on that mountain.

I've always believed that your home should be an expression of who you are.

That was my mind.

I have that like tattooed on my low back.

Oh, wow.

I could have had so many things tattooed down there, and that's what I chose.

Down there.

Yeah.

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You know, Julie Andrews, it was a helicopter, of course, in 1965, but

it grown.

That she shot it.

It came out in 65.

Yeah, they shot it in 64.

Right, but I thought people would relate more to when the movie came out.

I think people relate to the trip.

It's in a room, YouTube.

Anyway, when they shot it, they used a real helicopter.

Who gives a fuck?

They used a real helicopter with Julie Andrews.

And true story, the helicopter, they didn't know how to get the shot.

And the guy who was like directing the movie said, I'll do it.

And he got in the helicopter and he's like hanging out of a helicopter.

But the helicopter has to come really close to Julie Andrews.

And

the backwash from a helicopter is a serious deal.

So

it's, you know, fans of that movie who know the behind the scenes know that when she's going, when the music is swelling and she's walking up the hill as I recreate, we're doing it with a drone.

She was doing it with a massive like Vietnam era helicopter.

She got flattened a couple of times by the, just the wind.

She got knocked down and they kept making her do it over and over and over again.

And apparently at one point, I've heard Julie Andrews lost your temper.

I was like, What the fuck?

Let's just fucking pull this shit together.

I'm fucking, I got fucking knocked down like 15 fucking times.

But she did it at the highest register with a beautiful multi-octave range.

You fucking assholes.

They also trucked it, like there's a scene where she walks along a brook and through some poplar trees.

That was all trucked up.

They built a stream.

They ran a stream.

Yeah, all all that was

all it was manufactured yeah but anyway um that was oh you know what else was fun to be ski lift ooh we have this great drone shot there's a ski lift to one side and all these new buildings so our our great graphics artist uh painstakingly

chris weller painted them out yeah he also uh painstakingly repaired my face

so that i uh appear to be

late late 30s and a male who lowered the hem of your later hosen by three inches because there was an issue there

with standards.

Can I say one thing, which is

this better be good?

Well, speaking of.

And we should identify this as Aaron Blay.

Everybody call him Blay.

Hi.

You know, we started this show in Zurich.

You know, we landed and we started in Zurich.

We spent the night in Zurich.

And kind of these, on these shows, we have a local crew.

And so we're meeting these people for the first time.

And does anyone, do you want to talk about kind of what happened?

That's the first story.

The first day?

Well, anyway, so we're kind of running around.

Jose was in the bathroom, so we're kind of waiting for Jose.

Jose's always in the bathroom.

And we're all, we're all, we're like, where's Jose?

Where's Jose?

And we're all in the bus ready to go.

And we're going to drive.

I think he's seated on the toilet, urinating.

Yes.

But I think, so we need to, we were going to drive to Austria.

We're driving.

We're driving to the town of Pelson.

And so finally, and I kind of get off the bus, and here comes Jose.

And we're like, okay, we're all ready to go.

And we start going and we're traveling.

Driving, driving, driving, driving, driving, driving for a while.

And then in the very, I'm kind of sitting towards the back.

40 minutes.

40 minutes, a good, a solid 40 minutes.

And this recounting of it better be not as long.

That's right.

Go ahead.

And then I hear behind me, there's some talking.

And our drone guy stands up.

He goes, where, you know, are we going to the city center?

And everyone's kind of talking.

And then we go, no, we're driving to Felicirch.

He goes, I can't, I have to go to the city center.

I can't go to Felicirch.

And it just happened that he was not our drone guy.

He was a random tourist who got on the bus.

He thought he was a business.

He saw us all getting on a bus.

He thought it was a tour bus.

And he drove

a hotel shuttle.

Way out of our way,

way, way out of his way.

And he suddenly realized that he's part of a Conan O'Brien must-go shoot that's taking him to God knows where.

He's probably going to have to yield.

I'm with Stanley Tucci.

Yeah, I'm supposed to be with Ava Loma.

We were driving for like almost an hour.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, and he looked quite upset.

He was upset.

And it's not our fault i think someone at the hotel said i think he said is that the bus to the city center and someone at the hotel went yeah you know and so off he went but uh

he had to throw them off at a gas station he literally was 40 minutes away and we told him he was in a wheelchair no me was not

well he's on a respirator though

um

i also want to point out that My first memory of I wake up and

someone had gifted me this cool little, I like travel gear, and someone had gifted me this really cool small hair dryer

that's like folds out.

I think it's Japanese.

It folds out.

It's kind of got a sleek, cool robotic ray gun look.

And I was like, oh, cool.

I'm going to bring this on my to Austria.

So

that morning that we got up.

in Zurich, I look out the window.

Oh my God, it's Zurich.

I take a shower.

I get out of the shower and I plug in my little hair dryer and I turn it on.

I heard a

light, not just in my room, but I think on my floor, went out.

And I smelled that smoke that no, you know, there's a smell that an electrical appliance has, which means it will never live again and it cannot be repaired.

And so that smoke drifted up.

And I looked down at this cool little neat Japanese and folded it up really neatly and dropped it in the trash can.

and then went downstairs and went, I think I just shorted it.

They were running around downstairs like there's a major explosion on the third floor.

And I said, someone was using a Japanese hairdryer.

But it was later explained to me that you have to bring a

just using the con

just using the converter isn't enough.

You need a voltage transformer, which I didn't have.

So my apologies to the hotel in Zurich, which is still, I'm told, without power.

Right.

And there have been many casualties.

And he's being sued by the family of that dead tourist.

Yeah.

Died at the gas station.

Okay.

That's not.

I don't like that we've took that too far.

And I apologize to it.

Or not far enough.

Yeah.

But

it's very musical.

And you encountered really great fans there as well.

And that's part of our homework, which is finding the people that you get to see when you get to the country.

That's what brings us there.

And then we're going to be able to do that.

Exactly.

We're motivated by by it.

Yeah, it's always meet the fan, and then

the fan is my reason, is my way in.

And I use them.

I use my fans.

You do.

You ring them.

Then you pivot.

And

then

there is a segment that I'm.

I think there are the two segments that we shot in Vienna that I'm really happy with because I think to a degree

it's me.

I don't know what happens to me, but

if you put me in a certain outfit or a certain milieu,

I start babbling.

And one is at the Sigmund Freud,

Sigmund Freud's home and office that I visited.

And the other,

there's also a Snow Globe Museum.

Right.

Yes, you were riffing a lot in that one.

And then

there's finally singing with the Vienna Boys Choir.

So those are all ones where I felt very much at home.

Like, this is me.

If I was put on this earth for any reason, it was to do this.

And that's both the good news and the bad news.

Well, that's amazing that that feels so comfortable for you because I think.

I don't know.

I watch and I think, wow, that would be a lot of stress to be thrust into this situation.

And

we often do.

I mean, we throw you into these shark-infested waters a lot of times, but then it's like, that's

you guys gave me a beard and a cigar and let me speak in a corny Viennese accent.

And you looked, I have to say, the transformation

was

amazing.

Very funny.

Well, I

was very happy

with, I was very happy with, I mean, I enjoyed making this season.

Austria, despite

the

complicated emotions involved in that show,

was

might be my favorite for just,

you know,

I don't know.

It has

been surprising.

Yes.

Yeah, maybe blowing off steam.

There's something, something's being off-gassed or vented.

Oh, and there's a surprise, there's

a bonus episode tucked into it.

That's right.

That's right.

Wow.

Okay.

That might be promising too much.

A whole bonus

Or maybe

no, it really is.

No, no, no, no.

Leave it in.

Leave it in.

Well, bonus and quotes.

I thought that was understood.

I'm going to wrap this up.

But again, I want to thank my intrepid team, Mike Sweeney.

This is where I hold up a sign with my name on it.

Jose Ario.

Close enough.

Jose Arroyo and Jesse Gaskell.

And I want to tell you that if you

this Mac show is out now, the third episode, Konobri Must Go, Austria.

And if you would like to be considered

to be one of the fans that I visit anywhere in the world,

it's pretty simple to reach out to us.

Just go to teamcoco.com slash apply.

Once again, that's teamcoco.com slash apply.

And maybe I'll come visit you

wherever you are on this spinning blue, lonely globe called Earth.

So get ready.

I mean, you should wake up every day, assuming Conan might show up at your door.

Dress camera ready.

Yes, exactly.

I had a beautiful ending that ended with the image of the Earth spinning in the black void.

And I'm, and then you guys came in with that.

No, I just want to say that I appreciate the work that you guys have done for this show as

microscopic inhabitants of this tiny blue spherical speck that drifts alone in an inky void.

Are we alone?

Are we not?

We'll never know, but we call this place Earth.

I know you want to say something sweet.

Go for it.

You have to do it.

Go for it.

You had one word,

gas station.

Yes, I knew it.

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Hey there, Conan O'Brien here to tell you how you can get even more from me and many of your other favorite shows.

If you want to be the first to hear new episodes ad-free and a whole week early, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit seriousxm.com slash podcast plus to start your free trial today.

Now, I'm excited to give those of you who want a chance to listen early a chance to do so, because I know you just can't wait a whole extra week to hear my beautiful,

reedy,

annoying voice.

So, go subscribe and be the first to listen right now.