It’s been over fourteen years since Conan O’Brien last appeared on The Tonight Show–and back then, it was as the show’s host.
We all know how that went down, but his first visit to the franchise since then promises to be a much more light-hearted affair.
O’Brien is set to sit down with Jimmy Fallon Tuesday April 9th to discuss his new Max series, Conan O’Brien Must Go.
He has technically appeared on the show one other time since stepping down as host–in 2018, as part of a brief recorded sketch that also featured Stephen Colbert and aired on both Colbert’s and Fallon’s shows, but this will mark O’Brien’s first physical visit to the show.
While there was no love lost between O’Brien and Jay Leno, who was both his predeccessor and his successor at The Tonight Show desk, O’Brien and Fallon have long had friendly relations, with O’Brien making a surprise appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon in 2011, and Fallon appearing on O’Brien’s TBS show later the same year.
When Jimmy Fallon took over The Tonight Show in 2014, Conan even took some time on his own show to wish him good luck.
O’Brien ended his 28-year career in late-night in June 2021. He’s since been mostly focused on podcasting. In 2022, Sirius XM bought his podcast network for $150 million and signed O’Brien himself to a five-year contract. His flagship podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend is said to command upwards of 9 million downloads a month.
Each episode of his new Max series, titled Conan O’Brien Must Go, will see the former late-night host travel to a different foreign country visiting fans he’s met through his podcast. The show’s four-episode first season takes him to Norway, Thailand, Argentina, and Ireland.
While in New York next week, O’Brien will also be taking part in a special event at The Paley Center, titled “Globetrotting and Podcasting: Conan O’Brien’s Life After Late-Night TV.” The event will feature an exclusive screening of an episode from his new series ahead of its April 18 premiere, followed by a conversation with O’Brien himself.
