Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Interrupto!

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Conan talks to Mike from Ontario about working as a conservation authority (and former polar bear monitor), training bald eagles, and bear escape tactics.   Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: teamcoco.com/apply Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hey, Mike, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a fan. Hey, thanks so much. Hey, Mike, how are you?

Where are you right now? Oh my gosh, hey, Conan. I'm in London, Ontario, and Canada. Oh, wow. Okay. And are you in the wilderness right now? Are you in a pretty urban area? Yeah, I'm in the urban area today.

Okay. Can I just pretend that you're way out on the tundra somewhere? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, can you occasionally make a sound with your mouth just so I feel like this is really authentic? What do you want, sorry? Forget it. That's the perfect response. Why don't you repeat what you asked him?

No, I'm good. Oh, okay. And I just wanted to get you to say Canadian sorry, so I'm happy. Hey, Mike, it says that you are a conservation authority. Is that correct? Oh, yeah, I worked for a local conservation authority. And in the past, you were a polar bear monitor. What does that mean?

Essentially, I would be, I would go out to the Arctic and get dropped off by helicopter with anybody who needs a safe escort across the Arctic from polar bears. So I would kind of track the bears, find the bears, keep my eyes on them and make sure. I was supposed to do this reveal earlier. What is... Oh my God! Look, for those of you listening, Mike just panned to, I mean, a Hogwarts owl.

A beautiful owl is perched right next to you, and apparently it was just happily hooting. That was a perfect cinematic reveal. If you get a chance to see that, go on your computer. and check it out. That's amazing. That was amazing.

She's going to leave that. What is that bird's name? Well, Kona, I was hoping you could name her for me. She's fairly new to my team here. So I was wondering if you give her name for me. Interrupto? I love it. Interrupto the owl.

She's also sitting on my router right now, so she might even interrupt us further. That's okay. That bird, Interrupto just wants to destroy. Like, not that guy. Just this podcast? Yeah, this podcast? Why isn't it smartless? And he's like crushing the wire.

Where's Will Arnett? He's Canadian. Hey, Mike, so I just have to ask you. So your job was to be basically a guide who would protect people from polar bears in the Arctic. And so I have so many questions right now. I've always heard polar bears are the most dangerous bear. They can kill you so quickly. True? It's true, yeah. Like a black bear or a grizzly bear might not want anything to do with you where a polar bear, if they smell you, see you, they're coming to get you. They're hungry. It's cold. And they want to eat. Right. They don't, they're not sitting around on their backs eating a bunch of blueberries that they found. There's nothing like that in the Arctic. So when they see a ham steak and boots walking by, they go for it. They go for that person.

They want it. They want it bad. So what can you do to protect them in that situation? Yeah. So I care about conservation so much. So I want to protect the bears just as much as I want to protect the humans because I am armed. I do use non-lethal rounds, but there are lethal rounds. It may be never had to, never want to. So what are the non-lethal rounds made of? Like a rubber slug

And so it hurts The Yeah If you hit a polar bear with it He'll say I want to leave now Kind of I did it Once and the polar bear

Just kind of like squinted its eyes And walked away Sort of like Clint Eastwood It looked annoyed And then walked away Yeah Yeah And can I ask you

What is the caliber of weapon If the rubber bullet isn't working That you would use on a polar bear Because I would think it just has to be A You can't just be using a 22. No, no, it would be a 12 gauge. Jesus. Okay. Yeah. But I'm glad, but you never had to kill a bear. No, I haven't. I've had some guys think that maybe I should have. You know, they might have pooped their

pants a bit while they hid behind me, but I wanted to give that bear every chance to get away. And luckily, nobody got hurt and the bear got away. I think once they poop their pants, the bear wanted to leave. Yeah, yeah. That's what saved their lives. It doesn't want food. The bear was like, oh, my God. There's poop all over my ham. steak. Yeah, yuck. I'm giving this a terrible Yelp review.

You also have worked a lot with birds, is that correct? That's right, yeah. Birds of prey. Birds of prey, and you would train the birds of prey? Yep. Train them right from the very beginning. And I would use them

anywhere that has a problem with birds, not of prey. So if there's a blueberry farm and all the songbirds are eating all the blueberries, they would hire me to bring my birds of prey. I would fly them around and it would scare all the other birds away. Okay, so tell me a little bit, what kind of birds of prey are we talking about? Yeah. Hawks? Jeer falcons, sacred falcons, paragon, Harris Hawks, bald eagles, all kinds of different birds.

You can train a bald eagle? I had a bald eagle named Babe. I raised her from an egg, basically, so. Oh, you are so rugged. Take it easy, Sona. You're married, Sona. What's up? Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Thanks, David. Good Lord. To be fair, I'm swooning, too. Oh, so wide. Yeah.

Wow. Let's get it on. I'm down. Hey, time for some polar porn. So anyway, moving on, I didn't think you could train a bald eagle. Yeah, it's possible. They are one of the trickier to train birds because they have a natural instinct to be a bit nasty. Oh, really?

If they can steal prey from another bird, they will, you know, to save themselves the energy of catching their own. So, you know, they can be... I love that that's the symbol of America. Oh, I know. Our national symbol is the dickiest of the birds. I'll steal that food before I get my own. Well, yeah, Babe had a, babe was her name. She had a really good personality.

She didn't really have that nasty side except towards women. My girlfriend at a time. What? Really? They were near me when I had her. But you could come up and shake my hand and she'd just be like, no, many birds have thought I was a woman. Trust me.

They're like, no, but so really, so sometimes a bird will, or in this case, a bald eagle, or in Babe's case specifically, Babe would be cool with dudes, but if a lady showed up would try to attack the lady? She was super jealous. Yeah, I wouldn't give her the chance. I'd hold on to her pretty good, but yeah, she'd think about it. She'd let you know she wasn't happy.

This must have gotten in the way of your dating life, I would think, that you had a bird. attacked women instantly. Yeah. Yeah, well, it did. But that's all right. I know what you mean. I got polar bears to monitor.

You get to live alone. You know, yeah. Wow. So you have all these different birds, and then you would use them like, oh, damn, there's some seagulls that are hanging around my house by the ocean and they're real drag and they're pooping all over the place.

Yeah. I'm going to get one of these birds of prey to chase them out of here and it works. Yeah, I'll get rid of them right away for you. But we do something called car hawking, which is essentially the hawk will ride in the front seat of my car. We will do a drive-by of your house. I'll do down my window, and the hawk will just fly out. She might grab a seagull.

She might miss, but either way, every seagull in the area is going to disappear pretty fast. And how long do they stay away for? When do people think, okay, the coast is clear now? The guy who has a hawk in his car, what left? Yeah, it depends. The Domino's guy with the hawk left. Yeah. If it's a food source, like a landfill, they will keep coming back daily to check and see if I'm still there.

Yeah. And I would be. I love that you would ride up with a hawk in your front seat, riding shotgun, and then you'd pull up to the address and go, here we are. 34, Crenshaw Road, put the window down and wha! That's boss. That's so amazing. And then the hawk scares them all and just comes right back into your car?

If they catch a bird, they'll stay out there. I did have a hawk train to come back right in the window. And I drove the Dodge Dakota at the time, and she went out of the window, and I was driving behind the Dodge Dakota, and they had their windows down. They didn't know that they didn't know me. And she flew straight into their window, and the car hit the gravel. Everyone came running out of their cars You know what I love the hawk being embarrassed

Yeah I'm just thinking of the hawk going Oh God I'm sorry Oh God I'm so sorry No it's just I swear to God It's the same maroon It's the same color It's okay it's okay no no oh god

Oh god Did the hawk just cover its face When it got back to your car With its two wings She walked back to me yeah Yeah Just get me home just give me home Just give me home

Oh my god oh my god The walk of shame Yeah the walk of shame Yeah, the walk of shame for a hot. Bird of prey walk of shame. Oh my God. Wow, that's so amazing. A bunch of fascinations here.

I love the birds. I love, did you always, did you ever work with other bears other than polar bears, grizzlies? Because grizzlies fascinate me. Yeah, they are incredible. I didn't work directly with them,

but I was a guide on horseback in the Rocky Mountains. And I've had a few run-ins with grizzly bears, but nothing too crazy. Yeah. My God. But they're also quite incredible. Yeah, I mean, take it easy, Sona. I'm sure Tack has been around. It's just one thing after the other with this guy.

Didn't Tack? Hasn't Tack worked with some lethal animals? No. Wasn't there right? No, there was a sickly hamster that he'd befriended. No, he's like cuddling with our poodle at home. Okay, well, that's what I have. Okay.

Take it easy. I'm a big tack fan. Wow. You can have him. I'll go to him. I'll move to Canada. Yeah. And be attacked immediately by one of his birds.

No, no. I won't allow it. I'll cut a bitch. Car! I'll cut a bitch. I'll die immediately. I forgot. I'm not a very outdoorsy person.

Take it easy. Take it easy, interrupto. Wow. No, I'm fascinated by grizzlies, and it's this crazy fascination where I find it terrifying the idea of being mauled and eaten by a grizzly, but I'm also, I just find them so fascinating that part of me wants to have a grizzly encounter just as much as I don't want to have a grizzly encounter. Does that make sense to you? I totally get it. I totally get it. I try to tell my mom and family things because it's it's a bit of a dangerous job so they worry about me but um it's not to be morbid but like i don't want to you know die of old age working in an office my whole life if i had a

you know a bear encounter and that's what happened like i don't want it it would be awful but like you know yeah that's like that is a closed casket funeral i'm telling you right now if yeah or if there's i don't know even know what's left at that point you know they have to follow the bear for three weeks. Keep tricking it to use a toilet. And then put your wool cap on whatever's left. I'm sorry, but that's exactly what would happen. Nobody would go to that effort.

Just leave me out there. It's okay. Oh, my God. Okay, leave you out there. Got it. Okay. I think this is very cool. Now, be honest with me, Mike.

If you've been listening to me at all are familiar with my work and know me as a person. What you see is pretty much what you get. How would I do in these situations, you think? If you were with me, terribly. Whether it's in the Arctic

and we're approaching a polar bear or in a grizzly encounter, I want to know. I want to know. I'm constantly wondering how I would measure up. I think you know. I don't know. No, I don't.

Go ahead. Let's see. How big can you get? How big can I get? I'm six four without doing anything. and if I, when I'm, when frightened, my hair gets much taller. So I could be 6-6 maybe. Okay.

So that's bigger than me. I'm bald. So I'm 6'4, but I'm bald. So you're, you might, standing behind me, we'd look even bigger. So you know what? We might survive together out there. Would you think that I'd be the kind of person to panic and run or do you think I'd be calm?

I want to believe you'd be calm. Why do you want to believe that? Why can't you just believe that? I don't know. You might try and like use comedy to get out. Yes. Hey, here's my question. Do Grizzlies like bits?

Do they like, like sort of cartoony physical schick? A little bit. Okay, yeah, okay. So I'm just thinking, yeah, that's the problem. The biggest problem is I might see a comedy opportunity and start pretending to be another bear who's kind of a wise guy. And I could see that really irritating, not just a human, but any member of the animal kingdom.

If the bear wasn't going to kill you, after your bits, it would want to kill you. Yeah. You would be doing yourself a disservice. The bear might befriend me, and then I would start to show the bear stuff from the podcast and old Conan episodes, at which point the bear would reduce me to a pile of ground chuck instantly. You're still going to be doing bits during the attack? Yeah, even during the past, I'd be like, oh, no, I'm being murdered by a bear, marred, marred, maud, Mould, I tell you.

Moll. Look at me, I have one leg. Look at me. Hoppy, hoppy hop. I've got one leg and a hoppy hoppy hop. Yeah, Mike, I'm going to cancel this idea right now. Okay. If you change your mind, though, you know, we can go out there.

I'll make sure we have a good time. We'd have a good time. I like this guy. I do too, yeah. And I think you and I would do well hanging out. I think would be good buddies. They're so mutual. Well, I would try to, I think I could, I think I would be a little, you know, the way I, you've

seen this, Sona and David, I kind of become the person I'm with if I'm with them for a while. I'm very zealig that way. I think I would become more like Mike. And I would, I would, might calm down. I really like being out in nature. I chill out a bit. There's way too much stimulation around me all the time. This might calm me down and maybe battling a bear of some kind would make me realize what it's all really about. Yeah. Battle a bear? Yeah. Like you think you have a chance?

I have a very good chance. Maybe Mike is there. Only if Mike is there. That's true. Yeah. I will be in the car. The car will be locked. I'll be in there with your hawk. With the hawk. There's no cars out in the Arctic.

Yeah. Dropped off. Oh, we get dropped off? Okay. Yeah. So there's no, obviously no Wi-Fi, no reception. in the middle of nowhere. I love it. And that's, it can get quite boring.

I'd go out for 30 to 60 days at a time. So I basically downloaded a gazillion hours of your podcast and trailer park boys. And I would just listen to you guys. Thank you. Look at that. That is very cool. That's really cool. Well, I've been, yeah, I've been watching you forever, Conan.

I just have so much respect for you and your team. You're bringing comedy and kindness. and we just need so much more of that. And you're bringing it away. It just reaches everyone. That's so nice of you. Me getting to tell you this is changing my life. Oh, wow.

Like I just, I want you to know how incredible. You're changing people's lives, whether you know it or not. It's such a good way. Well, all I know is we keep our head down and we do this stuff. And we do it because I can't not do it. Does that make sense? I'm not trying to do a public service. I do this because I just.

has to happen. You guys have been around me when I haven't been able to do this for 10 minutes and it's not pretty. But Mike, getting to talk to you is a real, it's a real pleasure. You seem like a great person. And what you're doing is really cool. And I love that you have found this life for yourself. I say this all the time when we talk to fans, people that have found what they love and

what they're passionate about. And then they manage to will that to be their career. their life, I think that is the best way to go, you know, through our time here. I really do. I managed to do it. You're doing it. It's a beautiful thing. So I hope our paths cross in person, because I'd love to shake your hand. I really would. Incredible, Conan, incredible. Did you have a question for Conan? Well, I got him to name Interrupto over there. Yeah. She sat beside me perfectly through all the tech checks as soon as we got out. She threw away. Yeah, I know.

She saw which way this was going. Oh, look. Really standoffish now. Just get back to Arnett. I brought her to a staff meeting earlier today. Oh, cool. She was interrupting everyone, so they're going to love that name. Great.

Well, say hi to everybody. And Mike, a real pleasure, and I mean it. I hope we cross paths. That would be fun. That would be incredible. Look, I'm hard to miss, so keep your eyes peeled. Okay. Well, thank you so much.

This was incredible, guys. Thanks for everything you do. Take care. We'll see you soon. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Conan O'Brien needs a fan.

With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Goreley. Produced by me, Matt Goreley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer Jennifer Samples. Associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Burm.

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