Is It Medically Advisable for a Man as Irish as Conan O’Brien to Do ‘Hot Ones’?

This Thursday, Conan O’Brien will take the Hot Ones challenge and face the Wings of Death, hopefully with a Catholic priest on call — Father O’Schlansky should be able to give him his last rites. 

Leading up to the April 18th release of his travel show, Conan O’Brien Must Go, the late-night great and podcasting king is stopping by a great many places he probably did not intend to visit when he first pitched the vacation docuseries. Last night, Conan appearred on The Tonight Show 14 years after his acrimonious exit following a public power struggle with Jay Leno. But, for all the possible discomfort and odd feelings he may have experienced in his return to the setting of his most disappointing career setback, the complicated emotions of his interview with Jimmy Fallon will be nothing compared to what Conan and Sean Evans will undertake when Conan hops on the show with hot questions and even hotter wings later this week.

Hot Ones production company First We Feast formally announced Conan as the guest for this week’s episode in a tweet on Monday afternoon. Though fans of both Conan and Evans celebrated the booking, we gotta wonder whether First We Feast has considered the liability issues and melting potential posed by serving the hottest wings in the world to an 8-feet-tall stick of Kerrygold butter.

This is not the first time some producer or publicist has had the bright idea to punish Conan with spicy food for the amusement of strangers, nor will it likely be the last now that he has his own Anthony Bourdain-esque series. In the first-ever episode of Will Arnett’s improvised murder-mystery comedy series Murderville, Arnett fed his guest star the sloppiest of sloppy joes drenched in fiery hot sauce, inspiring the half-vomited lamentation from Conan, “I’m gonna die” between burning bites. In that same episode, Conan also admitted to having high blood pressure, the treatment for which has never included Da Bomb: Beyond Insanity hot sauce.

Also, in a 2017 episode of Conan, the titular host traveled to Mexico near the U.S. border where he ate a spoonful of house-made hot sauce at a local restaurant to the horror of his fellow patrons. Conan was heard to remark, “Now, I am Mexican. I am also dying.”

With that kind of track record, it’s hard to be optimistic about Conan’s chances of surviving the ordeal he’ll face on Hot Ones, but it’s not impossible for paddy to pass the test. Two years ago, actual Irish national Colin Farrell completed the entire challenge down to the last dab, even chuckling as he took the final bite. 

So, should Conan fail his upcoming trial, he won’t be able to blame his Irish ancestors — though he may meet them.