Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Summer S’mores with Conan and the Chill Chums 1

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

On the first installment of a special Summer S’mores series, Conan and his team loosen up by sharing memories of summers past.

I'd like to start. I really would. Okay, you could start. What's that? You could start. Watch this. Start it now and go. And then wait and then go. And go. Won't listen to you and go. Hey.

I'm not ready. I almost started. I know. You should go. I'm trying to start the show. I know. I just, when you said you wouldn't go on my cue, then I'm trying to time it so that you went on my cue.

So go. I'm not ready. And I'm waiting till it's my decision and now I'm going. Okay. Go. I'm not going to go on your cue. So if you, as long as you keep saying go, I'm not going to go. We can do this for hours and go.

And pause. And now I'm ready. Hey, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Go. I was going. So you saying go is redundant and unnecessary. I'm not ready. So yeah.

I was already going. I'll talk to Matt and he'll edit my go right before you start speaking. He won't. If he does that, I'm going to sue him so that all he has left is that banjo behind him on zoom right now. That's all I need. All he needs is that he can crawl inside it and live in it. You can actually eat off a banjo.

I've done that. Listen, I need to get this show started. This is, this is not your typical Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. These are little summer treats, little, little s'mores. These are little summer episodes. Oh, summer s'mores. That's a good title. No, it's a terrible title.

But imagine these are little treats to get you through the summer, those humdrum days of summer. And what we're doing is making these smaller episodes. Now, I was told that I had the summer off by our executive producer, Adam Sacks. He said, hey, Conan, you know, you're done with all 36 episodes. Have a good summer. And I said, great. See you, pal.

Then he called me two days later and said, now we've got to start making more episodes. And I said, what are you talking about? And he said, you got to make more episodes for the summer because we sold some ads already. Adam, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Yeah, I'm not recording on my, you'll get this Zoom recording. That's OK. I don't mind if the quality is bad because I want people to hear your quavering voice.

Adam, executive producer, isn't it true that you lied to me? Oh my God. Did you lie? Or did you not lie? I would, I mean. Did you lie to me? I lied. I lied.

I lied. You know what you did? It's 1977. It's August. And you told Elvis one more concert, Elvis. And he said, what, another, I don't think, I think I could die soon. And you said, get your ass in gear, Elvis. And then I died.

That's what you did. You killed Elvis. We talked about it. I said, I admitted it was a little bit of a bait and switch. And you're right. I lied. I am genuinely sorry. I apologized off mic when you berated me.

And I'm apologizing now on mic while you berate me. I don't think I'm berating you. I'm just warning you. You're berating him. Yeah, you are. I'm not. I, listen, when I'm berating, you'll know it. Oh, I know.

This is low-grade berating. This is very low-grade. This is, you know, this is like, Stalin was sarcastic with me today at the Politburo meeting. Hey, did he take, did he have the KGB take you into the basement and shoot you? No, he was a little sarcastic. I would take that from Stalin. Here's my point, Adam.

I am an old, tired circus bear that's been forced to get on its hind legs for 35 years now and show business and dance around the ring. I have scars. I have arthritis. My nose isn't black anymore. It's kind of grayish. You know, I'm doing my best to caper about, but I could attack at any moment. And you told the bear, the bear could go sleep in the corner.

And then you got out a stick and you hit the bear, just as it knotted off. And then you wonder why the bear clawed you. Yeah. Does any of this making any sense? I'm, by the way, I'm the, I am the bear in this example. Uh-huh. Yeah, we got that. And Adam is wearing, he's the Russian, uh, circus master, uh, who keeps hitting me with

a stick, uh, so that, uh, you know, I can, uh, I can fill more seats in the tiny little tattered tent that is our podcast. I did say that we could go dark. I just also presented it with. What? And we didn't take that off. We presented it with a bunch of, we could go dark, but here's what, you know, here's what that means.

Yeah. I was very suspicious because I don't know if you guys saw this, but Adam is now driving a gold Bentley. And the, the, the vanity plate says pod for days. Uh, uh, no, no, I, I kid you, I just, I mean, listen, all good comedy comes from truth. You did trick me. You did lie to me. You did manipulate me in a very.

I know for that I am very sorry. I don't think you are. Uh, I, I see that you're wearing a yachting cap right now. Oh my God. Yeah. He's on, he's on the island of Cyprus right now. He just purchased an estate there. Uh, he's been siphoning money off this podcast since the beginning.

Jesus. But no, listen, listen, Adam, I forgive you. And also I, I do love making the podcast and I think it does feed into my sick neediness. So if we make a couple of fun summer episodes. Yeah. Real fun so far. I know. Yeah.

This podcast did go dark. Can I mute now? It's a nice lighthearted way to start these summer episodes. Let's just. I like it. The executive producer. I like, no, no, I just want people to know the truth that our fun summer episodes are really fun, light summer episodes.

These little s'mores that you're eating, uh, your, the reason you have them is because we were all tricked, tricked by a mastermind, a podcast evil mastermind. Yeah. We're just puppets in his little world. He's pulling the strings. We're marionettes. Wait, am I a circus bear or a marionette? I don't even know, but I know this is so fun so far.

Oh, I'm sorry, Shona, did you not have any more fun? I wish you were having more fun, Sonsy. What can I do for you? So you have more fun. I might be out of control. You might be. Are you okay? You came in real hot.

Yeah. I came in hot. I have to admit. All these pills on the street. Yeah. I took a whole bunch of them. Yeah. No, you can't bring this energy into summer s'mores.

This is cool and relaxed. I don't know what the pills were, but I had them with nine cups of coffee. These are the summer episodes. These are going to be, and I look, yes, I came in a little hot and I can do that sometimes. So now tell them I can sometimes come in a little hot. Sometimes you can come in real hot. I think they know. They're angry.

I think, yeah, girls is right. Everybody knows that you're an unreasonable man. Does that come across on the podcast that I've been in a while? I don't think I'm unreasonable. Immediately. Out of the game. No. Was Caligula unreasonable to make his own horse a senator?

No. He saw real potential in that horse. That's the way I look at it. Sometimes what looks like insanity to you guys and unreasonable, egotistical acting out is maybe me just trying to express my truth, and I'm really proud of myself. I really am. Okay. I'm very proud of myself.

Well, we're halfway through this episode and we haven't even said what it is. Well, these are called, we don't have a name for these. These are little summer treats. Summer s'mores? Yeah. We call them Conan O'Brien tricked into looking for a friend. Well, you're not going to be looking for a friend though, because you're on here with your two pals.

No, these are little summer treats. This is a summer hang with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, Matt, I don't know your whole name. What is it? It's Matt. What is it? Oh, good improvisation. Wow.

Okay. You went far. I can't wait for this improv scene to hit the stage at Second City. What do you mean you don't know my last name? I mean, you've called me by my last name a million times. Yeah, I'm lost on that premise. My full name is Matt Netflix Ramirez Goyle. Okay.

You have to forgive me. I sometimes blank. Oh, wait, it's there at the bottom of the Zoom chat. I think this is a chance for us to just hang a little bit over the summer. We don't have the pressure of, oh, here's a big guest, because let's face it, we get some, we get huge guests. Yeah. And we don't have the pressure of, oh, here comes the big guest.

It's just us hanging out, chilling, you know? Like we normally would. Well, we might. It's summertime. Summertime is a time to relax, maybe reminisce about other summer experiences we've had. That could be a nice premise for the show, you know? Summer with Conan. It's Matt Goyle.

Is that it? And Sonoma of Sessia. You know? We're just hanging. We're just hanging. It's summertime. We're just chilling. We're just chilling.

When I was a kid, we had a tiny backyard, we still have a tiny backyard. My parents still live in the same house in Massachusetts, just outside Boston. We had this tiny, tiny backyard. And my mother, I remembered we didn't have a pool or anything, but she got one of those plastic pools. And I remembered we would sit, the six of us would try and sit in a plastic pool that maybe could fit two kids comfortably. And we would sit in there.

You ever seen too many puppies just in one little pen? That's what we were. We would all sit in this plastic pool and my mother would sit on a deck chair and she would sit there with her friend, I think her name was Gene Sturdy. And they would sit there and eat this cookie that I don't even think exists anymore called a lemon cooler. Oh, I remember those. Oh yeah?

They were dusted with that white powder? Yes. Which we later found out was cocaine. Yeah, that's why I loved them and still do. Yeah. Big, big, they had those at Studio 54. No, it was called a lemon cooler. They were dusted with like a white sugar or something.

And they really were cool when you eat them, like that you'd get like an influx of cool air. Yes, yeah. And so my mother would eat those cookies with Gene and we would get to have a few of them. And I always think when someone brings up summer, I always think of a lemon cooler. And like I said, this is not an ad for lemon coolers. I don't know if they still exist.

I am fascinated. But I think about sitting, being crammed into a little plastic pool with six other kids or five other kids. I don't think my brother, Justin, was born yet. So it was five of us maybe. And lemon coolers, that's what I think of when I think of summer. What do you think of, Sonia, when you think of summer? Well, first of all, I can't even imagine how much urine was in that plastic pool you were

sitting in. There was no water. My mother would put us, she would put us in an empty plastic pool and she would wait 20 minutes. And then we were all up to our chest in liquid. And you know, it's sterile, so we didn't care. You want her lugging a hose out? No, she didn't want to do that.

Oh my God. She made sure that we drank plenty of Kool-Aid about two hours before and then we just sat in the pool. I'm just trying to picture that image, like just yellow water and all those red-haired boys in there. Probably look like orange juice and troll dolls just floating around in a big stew. First of all, Matt, a little fun fact for you since we're supposed to be really good friends and we know each other.

I am the only real redhead in my family. Oh, really? The redheaded gene is a recessive gene. So you can, my parents could have had 30 kids and I could have been the only redhead. You see what I'm saying? It's a gene that pops up. I think it was quite unusual. I had real red hair.

We don't know who else had red hair, even among my relatives. There's like stories of a great aunt who had reddish hair, maybe. It's an abnormality. Yeah. What? It's an abnormality. The norm is not red hair. You are abnormal.

You're not normal. It's your own admission. You're an abnormal person in your family and in the world. Chosen by God. Okay. Don't you look at it that way? That's the way I look at it. Is that what your mom told you?

I've told you this, right? My mom told me. I know I brought this up on the podcast, I think, but I wondered why I had so many freckles. I had so many more freckles than anyone in my family. I had red hair and all these freckles and I said, why do I have these marks all over my body? And my mother said, that's where an angel kissed you. Aw, that's sweet.

So you went to an angel orgy. Yes, exactly. First of all, the angel that kissed me all over my body, and I do mean all over my body, did it without my permission. I was molested by an angel. Oh, that's my favorite TV show. No, molested by an angel. I was molested by an angel against my will without my permission.

My space was invaded, I mean, this is all before I'm even born. And then I was given this coppery red hair, and I mean everywhere, sorry, I swear to God. No, we believe it. Yeah, well, you don't need to say it. It goes without saying. Yes. Looks like a brush fire down there. Come on.

It really does. Sometimes to amuse myself, I buy a little plastic fireman and I put them down there just to look. Oh my God, what is wrong with you? They're fighting a blaze. Oh my God. What? What do you mean, oh my God, oh my God?

I mean, oh my God, oh my God, oh the humanity, oh my God. You want us to act like it's normal that you get little firemen and put them in your pubic hair like they're fighting a brush fire? It's something that entertains me, and we're all supposed to enjoy our bodies in our own ways. My body, my choice, my little plastic fireman. Not their choice. No, they have no say in the matter.

This is so stupid. I think these are nice memories of summer. That's what I think so far. Me, with my troll hair, sitting in a cramped pool filled with urine, with my mom ate lemon coolers, and I dreamed of one day having little firemen that would put out the raging fire south of the border, if you know what I'm saying. Wow, that's America. Oh, sorry.

That was a huge waste of time. I took us down a cul-de-sac. What about you, girly? I bet you did all kinds of fun things in the summer. You probably went and visited your- You can imagine my stuff was a little weird, right? I was a bit of a homebody, so I never went to camp or anything like that. You didn't go to camp? I only did when I was an adult.

I went to teach at a performing arts camp, and when I got there, I realized I'd never had a camp experience, and immediately got drastically homesick and called my girlfriends and said, I want to come home. Wow. You didn't go to camp? No, I never went to camp. I think it was because my parents just never thought to sign me up. They weren't thinking those things.

They might have thought you wouldn't have made it. Yeah. And I might not have. They probably watched you carrying around your favorite toy, which was Eisenhower's Bakelite phone. Yeah. And they probably thought, if we send him to camp, he'll be murdered instantly. I think that's fair.

Look, it's the closest thing my generation has to we went into the army, you know? Is it though? It is. Is it though? Oh, it is? Yeah. You're doubling down on that. Okay.

I did a hard time in Freedom, New Hampshire. Oh. Oh, my God. What was your camp called? Craggett Mountain Farm. What? A farm? It wasn't even a camp?

It was a camp. They just called it Craggett Mountain Farm. But it was a camp and they made you, you know, hike up mountains. I'll tell you a memory. This is a memory from my childhood. This is back in the days in the mid-70s before people believed in sunscreen. And as you can imagine, I'm someone that medically needs to have sunscreen on. And I remembered once my mom gave me some sunscreen to take to camp because it was a

new thing that you were supposed to put on. My parents didn't, you know, no one knew about sunscreen back then. People would put olive oil on their skin, you know, and just burn. So I went to put, first of all, here's some traits of the 70s. No one's putting on sunscreen number one. Number two, shorts are super short. Just watch any old basketball game from like the late 70s or early 80s. And people's shorts were super short.

So I had short shorts, long legs that looked like white logs of spam, you know, just freckled white pinkish skin. And I get, and then what did they do? They put me in an aluminum canoe and they said, you're going to row on this river. You're going to paddle on this river for three days. And I said, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, I will, sir.

And so I paddled for three days and when it was done the whole time, I'm basically in a microwave oven. Solar beams are hitting the sides of the canoe and cooking my legs. You could smell ham roasting on the Soco River. And then we finally got to the end of this trip and it was time to get out of the canoe and I couldn't stand up and kids were like, come on, let's go. And I'm like, I can't stand up and they carried me out of the canoe. And oh, I just realized this story doesn't have a funny ending.

I had second degree burns on my legs, literally bubbling skin, bubbling skin, true. And then blisters, big bubbly blisters. And then later on, when they, when the skin healed over the blisters fell off, giant sheets of skin came off and I had them sewn into pants, pants made of my own childhood skin. Oh my God. Okay. That last part's not true. I did get badly burned.

You know what? We're selling my human boy skin pants. Get them now on Etsy. We'll raise money for charity. You're going to lose money for charity with that. Yeah. No, anyway, that's a true story. Sona, what about you?

Well, I did go to camp, but also when I was a kid, what I remember is when I was a kid, I went to my aunt's pool a lot and I would, I don't know why, but I constantly kept getting stung by bees and I don't know why I'm telling you guys this because this is just going to be chum for Conan. But my aunt would spread mud all over my bee stings because she said that would help fix them. That was like an old wives' tale. Is that a thing?

People used to put mud? Yeah, I think so. Anyway, and then like years later, I got stung by a bee and had to go to the hospital. So then I suddenly developed an allergy for bees, but I just remember my aunt would always just spread. It was an old sort of Armenian trick that they had, like a cure, a... I think. Yeah.

It was like that and you could pee on them. You should have just gone to Conan's pool. I thought that would only work for jellyfish stings. Well, we're going to have to try it. I don't know. Mud worked. I don't know what happens. It cooled it down.

I don't know. Did you go to, you went to a special, did you go to an Armenian camp? I did. Yeah. I went to an Armenian private school that was affiliated with a church and then I went to a religious Armenian camp. It was a sleepaway camp and I think it was a Malibu. Wait, you went to camp in Malibu?

Yeah. It was awesome. We walked down to the beach once my little cousin came and I was in charge of two kids, two seven-year-old kids, and then I looked at one and the other one disappeared. And I was terrified. I thought the ocean... To this day. I had, everybody else had like 15 kids they were watching.

I had two kids. You lost your kids? I lost not just any kid. I lost my cousin. Have they ever been found? So yeah, I like ran around. I was crying. Wait, answer the question.

Have they ever been found? We've got that twice. I ran around. I was crying and then I found him underneath the lifeguard tower, but I also forgot to put on sunscreen on them and they both got heat stroke, so I wasn't, I didn't, I didn't, I mean, I think I was a counselor like two or three times and I, I loved it. I had a lot of fun, but I was not good at it and you can't curse at the religious camp I went to.

And if you did, you had to do push-ups and my entire week was just me doing push-ups. Did you need to speak Armenian at this Armenian camp? Every once in a while a priest would come and you had to speak Armenian with the priest. Sonia, can you speak some Armenian just so we can hear it? Yes, I can speak Armenian, but I can't speak Armenian, so I can't speak Armenian. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, nice job, Matt. You at least said a word.

Conan, let's hear some of your Armenian. I want to, yeah. This will age well. Yeah, go for it. Jesus, you're just scatting now. What did he say? None of the noises you made were even remotely Armenian or accidentally. You say sometimes I accidentally say an Armenian word.

When I do fake German, I've been told by German people that it actually every now and then I say a word. Okay, let's hear some German. Yeah. You said stone, I heard stone in there. Yeah. Stein. I also said Poland will fall.

Oh my God. I think accidentally. That's a good place to wrap it up. Yeah. And this, please. No, this isn't it. I decide when this is it. Oh no.

And wrap it up. Yeah. And wrap it up. Oh man. Oh man. And time. Oh man. Sonia, if you asked me to wrap it up, I can't wrap it up.

And wrap it up now. Go. Nope, can't do it. Can't do it. Can't do it. You know what? One. We learned a lot about ourselves and summer, summer.

And hey, if lemon coolers are still out there, have one today. And as you bite into it, think of my childhood in a little plastic pool, filled with five people's urine. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Sonia Mobsessian and Conan O'Brien as himself. Produced by me, Matt Gorley, executive produced by Adam Sacks and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Earwolf, theme song by the White Stripes, incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer

Samples. The show is engineered by Will Bekton. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review featured on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts,

Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.