A longtime American comedian who took audiences to places like Cuba, Armenia, South Korea, and Germany before retiring appears yesterday teased a comeback in Thailand that might involve riding in a Royal Enfield sidecar.
Conan O’Brien, who stepped down in 2021 after 28 years as a late-night television host, has been visiting Bangkok and posted a video clip yesterday outside Wat Arun in which he complained about the intense heat wave that’s gripped the capital in recent weeks.
“Hot. Very hot. Record-setting apparently. We decided to come here,” he says with a twinge of regret.
The short scene ends with the camera panning around to discover his scattered production team operating out of a tuk-tuk.
O’Brien appears alongside Jessie Gaskell, a longtime collaborator who wrote for his show Conan Without Borders for the entirety of its run. He also shows off a type of vehicle he has made use of in previous comedy travelogs: a motorcycle with a sidecar
“This is my Royal Enfield. Having it shipped back to America so I can get killed there,” he says.
Bangkok residents should expect the usual tropes from any show. Just this morning, 60-year-old Brien tweeted a photo of himself looking unhappily at the classic scorpion-on-a-stick snack.
“The scorpion here is so much better than the scorpion I get at the Glendale Galleria,” he wrote, referring to a mall in his adopted home of Southern California.
On Friday, he tweeted a photo of a fan he met in Bangkok who had hanged onto a souvenir from a 2006 visit to his show in New York City.
O’Brien started as a writer for television shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. Conan Without Borders ran for 15 episodes and six years, ending when O’Brien retired from 28 years of late night television, most recently as host of Conan.
The scorpion here is so much better than the scorpion I get at the Glendale Galleria. pic.twitter.com/s7X736R36t
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) April 25, 2023
Just met a fan in Bangkok who came to my show 17 years ago and kept his Late Night shirt. It still smells like 2006. pic.twitter.com/JBjCtU9OMS
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) April 21, 2023
