Conan O’Brien started his late night hosting duties at NBC in 1993 and didn’t stop until a highly publicized feud and parting of ways left him without a job and a mandate that he couldn’t appear on television for months. An entertainer to his core, Conan O’Brien couldn’t stomach just stepping away from the spotlight (longer than his brief mourning period) for too long, and so he quickly launched his clever response to his television embargo: "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour", a two-month whirlwind of shows that simultaneously thanked his fans and reassured them he’d be back, somehow, in some form. Tickets for the tour sold out almost instantly in most locations and consequently many fans missed the hilarity of all that occurred – until now. Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop chronicles the tour but from a bittersweet angle likely to catch many of his fans off guard.
As a documentary, it doesn’t have much structure beyond the tour itself. Director Rodman Flender doesn’t seem intent on showing the ins and outs of such an event or even the act itself, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop offers up the profile of a sad clown, a man who spent 17 years in front of a camera, trying to make the world laugh every night only to be kicked to the curb. The Conan O’Brien seen here isn’t the happy-go-lucky personality you’re used to seeing on the stage. Bitterness tinges the absurd edge he used to wield with glee and there’s an all too obvious undercurrent of unspoken stress belied in nearly every offhand retort and glib remark he makes to his family and support staff. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear he was a self-absorbed jerk reeling from the loss of a perceived entitlement, but Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop makes it perfectly clear just how far from the truth that perception is.
Starting with the preliminary planning stages of the event, it’s not until the surprising demand for tickets pushes them to open more shows that it all becomes a reality and so Conan, Andy Richter, Conan’s assistant Sona, and the rest of the writing staff sit down to actually create the show that just sold out. Moving from there to the road, they make their first stop in Eugene, Oregon, and from there the pace of Conan’s life on the go never lets up. The experience is all at once thrilling, hilarious and exhausting (for the audience and the subjects) with Conan realizing just how hard it is to go out on stage night after night and throw 500% of himself at the crowd. The question of who he’s doing it for is the ever –pervasive question, and he’s not the only one to ask it. Everyone around him recognizes his burning need to keep going even as the ancillary aspects of the experience, like meet and greets or event emceeing, begin to wear on his energy level and enthusiasm.
And so the double meaning of Flender’s title for his documentary becomes clear. What at first started as a way to keep himself working and in the public consciousness is revealed to be as much a compulsion as a necessity. Is Conan such a consummate showman that he can no longer step away from his nightly tradition of entertaining an audience? Has that level of control escaped him? Does he have it in him to stop? Can he step out of the spotlight and go back to writing for a show like The Simpsons? Does he want to?
Flender’s documentary is a gift to fans of Conan O’Brien in two respects. First and foremost, it’s a solid hour and a half of quality Conan comedy that supplies more than enough self-deprecating comedy to make it worthy of a view. But second, and perhaps most importantly, it’s a rare look at a man that has been the primary late night entertainer of a generation. Though Conan O’Brien has always managed to maintain the very grounded and human persona that made him so popular with his fanbase, he still had a public front that covered up the inherent frustrations that come with show business. Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop gets behind the façade and shows another side of the late night host, and chances are it’ll only endear him further to detractors and fans alike.
"Conan O'Brien Can't Stop" opens June 24, 2011 and is rated R. Comedy, Documentary. Directed by Rodman Flender. Starring Andy Richter, Jim Carrey, Conan Obrien, Jimmy Vivino.
