Podcast Corner: Conan O'Brien has the craic with Irish festival stalwart
Conan O'Brien. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Chat show legend Conan O’Brien’s appearance on the cover of US magazine Variety in August 2019 felt like a certain moment in podcasting. Perhaps it was the form’s ‘jumping the shark’ moment, the subheading declaring O’Brien as “among a new wave of podcasters helping to transform the niche medium into a viable business”.
But O’Brien wasn’t simply a star name attached to a fleeting podcast vehicle: Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend is one of the most consistent shows around, amiable, playful, and funny. It had an Irish angle last week as Aoife McElwain, who people might know for her Singalong Social events which are a mainstay of the festival circuit, was on in her guise as a ‘Craic Mechanic’.
Of course, O’Brien enjoys poking fun at her name; Aoife happily joins in, pointing out that her name features every vowel except ‘u’, which gets a laugh out of the affable host. Trying to figure out what she does, he tells her: “Aoife, you are so Irish because there is so much deflection going on that I don’t know what you’re talking about, and this happens whenever I talk to anybody in my family.”
There are bigger names if you scroll down Conan’s podcast feed - Liam Neeson, Maria Bamford, and Questlove in the last month alone - but for national pride, we’ll recommend ‘Craic Mechanic’.
The ever-consistent Second Captains wrapped up their annual summer outing on RTÉ Radio 1 with Michael Sheen seeking to be crowned the best non-sportsperson sportsperson of the year. We’ll recommend that for his Welsh accent alone. Conan O’Brien was the star of the series though - the reveal of his wrestling nickname will have you in fits of laughter.
The rest of the series featured Lankum’s Radie Peat (who buried her youth basketball medal in the back garden because she didn’t think she had earned it), Irvine Welsh, and Samantha Barry, among others. Unlike Second Captains itself, which you have to pay a subscription fee for, Second Captains Saturday is widely available wherever you get your podcasts.
If Conan isn’t enough of a US comedy hit for you, the legendary/divisive Chevy Chase is on episode 1,473 of WTF.
Maron explains that he did a ‘roast’ of Chase about two decades ago so was a bit hesitant to talk to him for his podcast.
It’s made news mostly for Chase’s comments about the cult sitcom Community, from which he was axed after 83 episodes. “I honestly felt the show wasn’t funny enough for me, ultimately. I felt a little bit constrained,” he tells Maron. “Everybody had their bits, and I thought they were all good. It just wasn’t hard-hitting enough for me.”
