Conan O'Brien Needs a Doctor While Eating Spicy Wings

"Conan O'Brien Needs a Doctor While Eating Spicy Wings" is the twelfth and final episode of the twenty-third season of the American talk show Hot Ones. The episode premiered on YouTube on April 11, 2024. In the episode, host Sean Evans interviews television host and comedian Conan O'Brien.

Episode
Appearing to promote his Max travel series Conan O'Brien Must Go, O'Brien was interviewed by Evans while eating Buffalo wings of increasing pungency. Writer and producer José Arroyo appeared as O'Brien's physician, a "not very good, but very affordable" doctor who placed O'Brien into a chokehold to check his pulse and auscultated him from his tongue. During the interview, O'Brien explained that he would discuss interesting or provocative topics with guests during commercial breaks, recounting that he told Bea Arthur that she would live four years at most; Arthur died three years and eleven months later. He criticized guests who acknowledged vexatious interviews, recounted a perilous encounter with a water buffalo, and writing for Saturday Night Live from David Letterman's desk. O'Brien insulted the rebranding of HBO Max as Max.

Despite claiming that his Irish Catholic household averted spices, presenting a challenge for eating the wings, O'Brien—in boisterous exuberance —consumed the ten wings, dousing the hottest sauce on his face and drinking it. In an interview with Jake Tapper on The Lead, O'Brien stated that hot sauce got underneath his wedding ring and burned through his skin.

Reception
O'Brien's appearance on Hot Ones is regarded as one of the series's greatest. Actor Jamison Webb noted that O'Brien's comedy was effective for its antiquity, particularly O'Brien's discarded wings and Arroyo's performance. NPR's Glen Weldon stated that the episode was Hot Ones's greatest for O'Brien's consistent composure and ridicule towards the show's premise.

The episode renewed interest in O'Brien's work; users on Twitter began posting Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Conan segments, including Ginger the Homicidal Dog, Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage, and Festus McGee. Comedians Josh Gondelman and Robert Smigel praised O'Brien after the episode.