-Welcome back, everybody.
Conan O'Brien is with us this evening!
[ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you.
-Uh, congratulations on the podcast,
"Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend." That's celebrating five years.
-Yeah, and what's been fun is... -Fantastic.
-...it started -- it started as almost kind of a joke,
and then it really blew up. And it's been so much fun.
And I do it with, uh, Sona Movsesian and Matt Gourley.
-They're great. They're just hilarious.
-Yeah, and she's herself. She's my assistant in real life.
-Yeah.
-And always mouths off to me and doesn't care.
And she's wonderful. -You can't buy that chemistry.
-Shout-out to Sona. Uh, and -- And I love doing it,
because as much -- I adored this job.
As you can attest, this is the best job in the world.
But there is a thing where you talk to these people
and, you know, it's like six minutes and then take a break.
Seven minutes, take a break. -That's our show.
-Because you got to make sure you -- That's the format.
And now I talked to people for an hour.
-Wow. -And I just talked to,
you know, one of my all-time heroes
from when I was a kid -- Carol Burnett.
-Oh, God, I -- -And talked to her for an hour.
And I left the interview,
and I'm driving home thinking about me as a kid,
sitting on the heating grate,
you know, in Brookline, Mass, with my family,
'cause whoever got the heating grate got the heat,
and watching Carol Burnett
and how she was television comedy, to me, for a while.
And the fact that I just spent an hour with her
and had a mind-meld, and I'm practically crying.
Irish Catholic -- I can't really cry.
But, uh... [ Laughter ]
We jam everything down. -Yeah, we're always crying.
-Yeah, we need a few drinks, and we cry about anything.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. -"The drink's gone!"
Uh, but, um, I just, I don't know, I was very emotional.
And I thought I loved this. I absolutely adored it,
but this is a nice thing to do at this stage in my life.
It's really fun. So I have a great time with it.
-When you did this job, you met everybody.
You interviewed everybody. Was there anyone --
I know people ask you this question.
-I bet you, we have one person in common,
which is McCartney, 'cause we're both Beatle fanatics.
So, the times that I've had a chance to, a couple of times,
interact with Paul McCartney.
-Yeah, he almost acts like he's doing an impression
of Paul McCartney. -He is, yeah.
I'm sure you have one.
-I go, "Well, you know, that's great, Jimmy.
You know, that's good." And I go, "Don't do that."
I go, "Wait, you are Paul McCartney."
-Yeah, yeah. -"You're not doing
an impression." -We did that once.
We were doing the podcast, and President Obama
came on the podcast, and he comes into this room.
We went to Washington to do it.
He comes into the room where we're going to do it,
and I'm just in the kitchen area of this, like, nice hotel suite,
and I hear him come in, and I just hear like,
"Hello, everybody. Good to see you.
Nice to be here. How are you?"
And I start laughing, and all of a sudden,
Obama's head sticks around the corner.
[ Laughter ] And he says,
"What are you laughing about, Conan?"
And I said, "It just sounds like
someone doing a Barack Obama impression."
[ Laughter ] -That's exactly right.
And he went, "I suppose it does."
Off and running, yeah. That's his life.
But for me, I have to say, the most unique person was Prince,
because, you know, just -- people talk about talent.
And then you see one person
who there's 75,000 talented people in one person.
But also it was, he had
this sort of trickster thing about him.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Because I'm sure you met him, too.
-He was fun like that.
-He was almost like a Batman villain who was perfect-looking,
but also playing little mind games on you in a fun way.
[ Laughter ] And so I did this benefit once.
Tiger Woods asked me to emcee a benefit.
And so I'm out in Las Vegas and I'm hosting this benefit.
And they got everybody to be on this thing.
And the closer is gonna be Stevie Wonder.
And so I say, "Ladies and gentlemen, Stevie Wonder."
And there had been a rumor that Prince was gonna
join Stevie Wonder onstage for the last song.
And I was like, "That would be amazing."
-Yeah. -So, I go back, I say,
"Ladies and gentlemen, Stevie Wonder."
He comes out, he starts to play.
I go backstage and I'm standing there,
and then you just feel a presence.
I just felt a presence.
And I look over, it's Prince.
And he's the most perfect-looking -- right? --
person in the world. Like, just beautiful skin,
wearing, like, a turquoise bodysuit.
Just perfect. And he's just standing there,
and he looks like he's made out of porcelain.
Just gorgeous. Seriously. -Looks like a statue of Prince.
-He's like a statue of Prince. He's abs--
And he's gorgeous, beautiful. And --
And I just look over at him just as he looks at me,
and he goes, "Hi." [ Laughter ]
And I go, "Hi, hi! Uh, hello!"
And I don't know what to call him,
'cause his name was changing and I'm like, "Oh, Fred."
Um... [ Laughter ]
-No, definitely wasn't Fred.
-Wasn't Fred. I really screwed up.
No, but I -- We -- I said, "This is exciting.
Are you gonna play with Stevie Wonder?"
He went, "No." And I said, "Oh,
you're not gonna play with Stevie Wonder?"
And he went, "No. They tried to get me to,
but just I don't feel it tonight."
And I said, "Oh."
And I said, "So, because that's what they're saying."
And he went, "No, it's a rumor. It's just a rumor.
Not gonna play with Stevie Wonder."
And I went, "Oh, okay."
So, then I listen, and out on the audience,
Stevie Wonder starts to play the opening to "Superstition,"
you know, on the piano.
He starts to play it.
And just then, I see some motion,
and on the corner of my eye,
a guy has put a guitar over Prince.
[ Laughter ]
And he starts playing the guitar lick
because he's radioed in.
[ Imitating electric guitar ]
And he looks at me, and he says, "Bye."
[ Laughter ]
And walks out. Just walks out like "Bye."
[ Imitating electric guitar ] -Don't know why.
-Yeah, and then -- I'll teach it to you guys.
Jesus. -Why?
-But anyway -- And I was like, "Why?! Why?!"
And then I realized there's a beauty to it.
It's a surprise.
So, it's a surprise for the, whatever, 30,000 people
in the crowd, but also for Conan, too.
-See, he didn't let anyone down.
-Or I just was like, "That is so weird."
But I also loved it. -Respect.
-Yeah. You must have met him.
-Yeah, I mean, all sorts of weird stuff and trickery
and stuff like that.
I have a story where I got a text one night
and said, "Prince wants to play Ping-Pong against you."
-Right. It's never Prince, too.
It's other people telling you. -Yeah, it was Prince's managers.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -And I go, "I have to go.
I think Prince wants to meet me."
[ Laughter ] So they go, "Okay."
-It's like when Batman says, "I need you."
You just go. You know, it's just like...
-I got in a cab. I went down to this place, SPIN.
And I went in and I go, "Hey, I'm here to see --"
And she goes, "Prince?" I go, "Yeah."
She goes, "Yeah, he's right in that room over there."
I go, "Okay."
I go in, and Prince is waiting for me
in, like, a double-breasted crushed purple velvet.
-Perfect. -And holding a Ping-Pong paddle.
He goes, "You ready to do this?" [ Laughter ]
It's like -- And it was the most insane night ever.
It was just us playing Ping-Pong.
And it was just crazy.
-And I bet if I had run into him outside and said,
"Did you just play Ping-Pong with Jimmy Fallon?"
"No." -"Bye."
-"No. Bye, bye."
And then, like, up in a helicopter.
That's how he flies. He floats away.
-He was a magical, magical man, yeah.
-Talk to me about "Conan O'Brien Must Go."
-I won't. Um... [ Laughter ]
I always wanted a guest that would do that.
Uh, we doing this podcast, and it's been a lot of fun.
And then I started to think, "I'm only
talking to celebrities, which is great,
but I love talking to people out in the world."
So we started getting calls from all around the world
to talk to me.
And so I started talking to anyone, anywhere in the world,
and we started to notice that some of them would say, "Hey,
if you're ever in, you know, my weird corner of the world,
in Tunisia or whatever, stop by."
And I thought, "Wait a minute. I would love to do a show
where I surprise my podcast guests,
not tell them ahead of time,
and then get involved in their lives."
So, um... [ Laughter ]
For better and often for worse.
And so we went to four different countries.
It's four different specials where I do that,
and it's really fun. Um, and I'm --
>> Thailand. You went to Ireland.
You went to Argentina. -Yeah.
-And they have no idea that you're coming,
and you go -- -They don't know.
And we actually -- we brought a clip...
-Yeah. -...of, um --
This is me talking to -- I did a podcast.
A kid called in named Jarle.
He's half of a hip-hop duo in Bergen, Norway.
And, um, he does not seem like part of a hip-hop duo,
but, uh, I end up surprising him in his own country.
He didn't know I was coming.
And then I end up with his hip-hop partner,
cutting -- I cut a vocal with them,
and I'm determined to get this song to the top
of the charts in Norway. We're gonna get this song.
It's gonna be number one in Norway.
You don't see the song on this clip,
but this is me, I think,
showing up unannounced in Bergen, Norway.
-Here we go. Here's "Conan O'Brien Must Go."
Check it out.
-Hey, Jarle, come on out here!
-Holy [bleep]!
-Ah, look! -Oh, my God!
-You're trembling. Wow! This is crazy!
-I'm in my goddamn Crocs out here.
-That's okay. Show me the apartment first.
You mind if I just check out what you got in here?
-Go for it. -Look at this. He has one spoon.
You have left this open, and it's a solid block.
How old is this bread? -[ Chuckles ] One week.
[ Chuckles ]
[ Laughter ]
[ Bread thuds loudly ] [ Laughter ]
-You know what's so great about this bread?
You can use it to break up the cereal.
[ Laughter ]
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-Look at this! Look at this!
These are your goddamn potatoes. [ Laughter ]
He's such a nice kid -- Jarle.
-"Conan O'Brien Must Go" premieres April 18th on Max.
Conan, I just want to say thank you
for always being so nice to me. Thank you for having me on.
-Let me say one thing really quick.
I have to say, I'm just very happy for you.
I've had the honor of meeting
every "Tonight Show" host going back to Steve Allen.
And I think what you've done with this show is beautiful.
You made it your own.
You've done so much great-quality work,
and I couldn't be happier for you.
You know, I really am thrilled for you.
-Thank you. [ Cheers and applause ]
-You deserve all good things. -Thank you, buddy.
-I want to say that. -You raised the bar.
You raised the bar. Made me work hard.
Conan O'Brien, everybody. Thank you.
We'll be right back with more "Tonight Show."
Come on back.