The Coco Express: Conan sells Amex while we cheer him as underdog

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Conan O'Brien, American Express: Extended Cut

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You’re with Coco, right? I mean, I know I should be. Heck, everyone’s with Coco – well, at least everyone with a heart. What kind of pop cultural denying hermit would you have to be to choose any other late night viewing option over underdog par excellence Conan O’Brien? Surely you’ve heard his name at least a few times in the last year or so. Nice Irish-Catholic fella, takes over Letterman’s original Late Night show on NBC, had previously worked in somewhat modest obscurity on The Simpsons for several years prior and then the “Big Deal” finally happened. He was tagged as Leno’s heir apparent on the Tonight Show (way before Jay was even dead yet) and that’s when all hell broke loose. I won’t go into the details but clearly Conan was the wronged party in all of this. How couldn’t he be? It certainly wasn’t that block jowl-ed company man Leno. What an establishment tool he is, right? Our Coco took it and took it hard on his delicately understated chin, proving once and for all that big corporate America has it in for the little guy. Not fair! Foul! Unrepentant rogues! Hands off our man Conan!

As such things go, even American Express picked sides on this one too. Immediately they stood with Coco – loud and proud – by sponsoring his “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny Tour” allowing Mr. O’Brien to both lick his wounds publicly and work out any performance kinks he may have picked up during his contractually enforced layoff. As the stage was being expertly set for an appropriately triumphant tele-visual comeback, Amex then went another step further, sponsoring a truly epic commercial that saw our beloved stick-insect, ex-host travel all the way to Mumbai in search of the sort of excellence only one as wondrously post-ironic as Conan O’Brien could demand.

My snark aside, the spot is really well done. Supposedly a promo for American Express, (….and I hereby challenge anyone to actually prove that claim after viewing it) the piece follows Conan to India on a hero’s quest for the perfect silk. More than anything else, the commercial spot is a long-form advertisement for Conan’s comedic brilliance and craftsman-like attention to humor details. It used to be James Bond that warranted globe-trotting commercial attention. Now its red-haired chat show hosts.   

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We watch as Conan makes his way through Mumbai. Displaying the confidence of a local and the eye of a lifetime trader, Conan barters in Hindi and gesticulates wildly (‘cause waving your arms and yelling is pretty funny…) and eventually decides to source his own silk, spin his own fabric and dye his own drapes to achieve the desired level of perfection only one as demanding as he could ever require. Again, the commercial is great – fun to watch and pretty hilarious too. No question, the man is good at what he does. But as I’m chortling away at a Harvard alum doing his Lawrence of Arabia goes to India routine, and getting laughs by doing little more than being an ugly American doing the same tasks many Indians do every day, I began to wonder if the irony wielded so well by Mr. O’Brien might also extend to him as Mr. Hard Done By too. Bottom-line? He got mucho dinero to work at NBC. He got many millions more to leave. He did a tour – made more money from it and then had American Express chip in another million bucks or so for a decidedly self-promoting adventure to India. I’d say the man is doing all right, no?

Look, I have no specific problem with Conan or his millions. The guy is talented- period. But even as I can enjoy the man and his madness, commercials like the American Express one really do drive home the reality of the world that he, and we, live in. Show-business is way more business than show, and when you remember that, things like seemingly innocuous American Express commercials help one to realize how silly it is to be taking sides ala some kind of manufactured outrage over the working life of a very professional entertainer. Was Conan screwed? I don’t know but his punch-line obsession with NBC’s treatment of him is starting to sound a little bit like Obama’s “Bush did it” fetish. It might have worked back in the day but it’s time to let your supposed talents stand on their own two feet.   

I’m with Coco? Well, that remains to be seen. But what I do know is that I’ll be saving my moral outrage and marching around energy for issues that really matter – like getting those damn McDonald’s Happy Meals banned once and for all in San Francisco. We took round one against the toys. Now the meal itself is next. Time is short. And remember: it’s for the children.