The Conan watch
Conan O’Brien is in town, shooting an episode of the HBO Max series Conan O’Brien Must Go. Naturally, there are people posting selfies with him in locations he’s popped up so far, like BGC and Rizal Park (#TeamCoco), and a certain candy factory called Philips Sweets Manufacturing in Quezon City.
Where will the towering red-haired talk show host pop up next? If you’ve seen his series, he shifts around like Carmen Sandiego: one week he’s in New Zealand; next week he’s in Austria.
All we have for clues so far are the Instagram and Facebook posts, widely shared, of Conan smiling and posing with random Filipinos. It’s awesome!
Oddly, his arrival here may have been spawned by a Pinoy phone-in call to Conan’s podcast Conan Needs a Fan, a spinoff of Conan Needs a Friend, where the host tries to answer questions from around the world. In the episode “Charles and the Chocolate Factory” (Nov. 21, 2024), O’Brien hears from Charles, a mechanical engineer doing marketing for his family’s Quezon City sweets factory. The company isn’t doing great, relying on nostalgic appeal for ‘60s gum candy with US-friendly names like “Tarzan” and “Texas.” Conan vows to come to Manila and set things right—first suggesting naming his candies “Taylor Swifts” for more modern appeal, despite possible lawsuits. Charles plays along.
Fast forward a year, and Conan and crew are here, filming segments for the episode. And lo and behold, a photo of Conan turns up on IG, manically posing on a bed of local candies. And look, there he is, on an EDSA billboard! Posing—his face superimposed on Tarzan’s body—for the local gum brand, with the tagline: “ME LOVE GUM, PARDNER!”
Hysterical. Since, as of this writing, there is no Conan Tracker app on my phone to help whittle down where he will strike next, spotting Coco seems like a needle-in-a-haystack operation. First, there’s traffic. Impossible to zigzag to where the Cone-man might be on a given day or given hour; he strides fast, and is gone. Secondly, there are lots of nice posts online already, including from Team Coco, to help us follow his trek through Manila.
Also, side note, I did encounter Coco before in the flesh, as an audience member in the NBC Late Night studio in New York City, decades back. Always an avid crowd worker, his goal, even before the show started taping (I believe Mark Wahlberg was the guest), was to win over the audience—so there he was, in the aisles, while some Elvis number was playing in the studio, bopping and working his tower of hair, pumping hands, smiling maniacally and thrusting his red pompadour at various audience members. My wife and I were with a female Filipino cousin who beamed and hollered, “I love you, Conan!”; and the host threw back his hair tower, beamed back at her, and made that guttural cat-purring sound before getting pretty much in her grill and shaking his pomp at her. Which she loved.
Ensconced in a BGC hotel, he pops up a lot. One day he’s trying balut, next he’s riding a bamboo bike, or wearing Gen. MacArthur getup (as drawn by staff artist and writer Jose Arroyo).
One post has him in barong Tagalog, posing with some fan art of him… also posing in barong Tagalog. “This should be the next Philippines stamp,” he declares.
Having been here a while, I would have recommended Conan visit Ringside Boxing, the “midget boxing” place that used to be in Poblacion. But sadly, it is no more. Nor is there still a Hobbit House located in Ermita, come to that. In any case, pairing a 6’4” Irishman with Filipino little people for comic effect is maybe a bit on-the-nose.
On the New Zealand episode, he learned the fierce “haka dance” while onlookers watched. Maybe Conan could handle the tinikling? Or, since he’s a musician, plant him onstage with The Jerks, or Itchyworms, doing some Beatle numbers.
We just heard he was heading to GMA, and an insider says he might pop up in the teleseryes Sanggang Dikit or possibly the cop drama Hearts on the Badge, or maybe a noontime show.
What else? There’s always karaoke. Or the sabong.
Honestly, seeing Conan simply turn up anywhere in Manila will guarantee enough entertainment for any segment. He’s not hard to spot — a red flame bopping above a crowd in, say, SM Megamall (marveling that Christmas décor is already in full swing by October), or a back alley in Tondo, watching kids conduct some spider fighting. Where will he turn up next? Keep watching.
