Conan O'Brien is with us this evening.

-♪♪

Uh, congratulations on the podcast, uh, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

That's celebrating five years.

Yeah, and what's been fun is it, um, 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 Sonam Ovsessian, Matt Gourley, and...

Oh, they're great. They're hilarious.

Yeah, and she's herself.

She's my assistant in real life, and always mouths off to me and doesn't care, and she's wonderful.

Shout out. Shout out to Sonam.

And, um, and I love doing it because as much...

I adore this job.

This is, 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, because you got to make sure you...

That's the format, and now I talk to people for an hour, and I just talked to, you know, one of my all-time heroes from when I was a kid, Carol Burnett, 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, because 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...

We jam everything down.

Yeah, we're always crying.

Yeah, we need a few drinks.

We cry about anything.

The drink's gone!

But 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 had a great time.

When you did this job, you met everybody.

You interviewed everybody.

Was there anyone, if I just,

I know people ask you this question, but...

I bet you we have one person in common, which is McCartney, because 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, and 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.

That's his action.

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 gonna do it, and I'm just in the kitchen area of this 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, and he says, what are you laughing about, Conan?

And I said, it just sounds like someone doing a Barack Obama impression.

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's, 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.

It 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, and I, 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's 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 on stage for the last song, and I was like, that would be amazing.

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 body suit, just perfect, and he's just standing there, and he looks like he's made out of porcelain, just gorgeous, seriously.

He's like a statue of Prince.

He's like a statue of Prince, and he's gorgeous, beautiful, and I just look over at him, just as he looks at me, and he goes, hi.

And I go, hi, hi, hello, and I don't know what to call him, because his name was changing, and I'm like, oh, Fred.

No, definitely wasn't, yeah.

Wasn't Fred, I really screwed up.

No, but I said, this is exciting.

Are you gonna play with Stevie Wonder?

And 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 I just don't feel it tonight, and I said, oh, and I said, so, huh, because that's what they're saying, and he went, no, it was a rumor, just a rumor.

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 out of the corner of my eye, a guy has put a guitar over Prince, and he starts playing the guitar lick, because he's radioed in.

Ba-dum-bum-bum-bum, dum-dum-dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-dum, and he looks at me, and he says, bye, and walks out.

Just walks out like, bye, dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-da-dum.

Yeah, why?

Yeah, and then, I'll teach it to you guys, Jesus.

Why?

But anyway, and I was like, 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.

Oh, it's never Prince, too, it's other people telling you.

Yeah, it was Prince's manager or something, and I go, I have to go, I think Prince wants to meet me, and 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?

And 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, and holding a ping pong paddle, and he goes, you ready to do this?

And I was like, and it was the most insane night ever.

It was just us, playing ping pong, and it was just crazy, and I.

And I bet if I had run into him outside, and said, did you just play ping pong with Jimmy Fallon?

No.

No.

Bye, 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.

Won't.

I always wanted a guest that would do that.

We're 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.

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, 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.

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 of, this is me talking to,

I did a podcast, a kid called in named Jarla, he's half of a hip-hop duo in Bergen, Norway, and he does not seem like part of a hip-hop duo, but 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 am 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 in 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, y'all, come on out here.

Holy.

Ah, look!

Oh my God.

You're trembling, wow, this is crazy.

I mean, my goddamn crocs out here.

That's okay, show me the apartment first.

Do 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?

One week.

You know what's great about this bread?

You can use it to break up the cereal.

Look at this, look at this!

These are your goddamn potatoes.

He's such a nice kid.

Conan O'Brien, Must Go, premieres April 18th on Max.

Conan, I just wanna 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.

I really am thrilled for you.

You deserve all good things.

Thank you, buddy.

I wanna 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.

We'll be right back.