Conan O’Brien’s ‘Hot Ones’ Episode Gave Him a Huge Revelation

I was passingly familiar with Hot Ones when Conan O’Brien appeared as a guest. I’m pretty sure I called the host “Seth” Evans when I first wrote about it. The idea of the show was never something that appealed to me, and, honestly, felt a bit gimmicky. Plus, I was not someone who enjoyed spicy food. To put it mildly (as I preferred at the time), I turned my nose up at the show like some interview snob. There was nothing better than late-night talk shows for that sort of thing anyway.

Late night has long appealed to me as the ultimate interview medium. It has sketches and music and funny people, but also nice suits, big bands, and did I mention silly stuff? But I was also enamored with a man who had all of that wonderful stuff at his fingertips and didn’t take it seriously in the slightest. And yet he elevated it to what I would argue is its absolute peak. Conan O’Brien is the king of late-night, so when he appeared on Hot Ones, I made it appointment viewing.

Here we are, almost two years removed from Conan hilariously torturing himself with hot sauce, and it’s still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Easily in the top ten in my lifetime. It also somehow still feels unexpected, even though I have watched it several times. It also gave me a great appreciation for the show, even though it hasn’t made its way into my regular watchlist. I understood it better in a revelatory way, but my acceptance of it was nowhere close to Conan’s.

Recently, the former late-night host sat down with THR to talk shop, and the interview was brought up. Not only did Conan have a great time, but he also realized that Hot Ones’ success meant the end of late-night, especially if it’s racking up 15 million views. “That was the moment the scales fell from my eyes,” he noted. “If a guy can do World Series numbers with overhead that looked, to me, to be about $600, and you have every big star lining up to do his show or Chicken Shop Date … that’s when I profoundly understood that late-night shows are in trouble.”

I love the excess of late-night. It feels like a party that you are invited to every night of the week. But, as someone who is currently planning their twin sons’ birthday party, I can assure you that parties cost money. Someone may be more apt to foot the bill for a show that requires black curtains, chicken wings, and nothing else, especially if such a small operation can have such a significant return. I’ve long been someone who wants late-night to keep going as long as it can, but hearing it this way from Conan certainly makes things feel more… real.

Now, I’m all depressed. Better watch the Conan Hot Ones again to pull myself out of it.