Whimsy Watchable: Conan Without Borders Goes All In on Mexico

Conan Took His Show South and Let Mexico Run the Room

Catch some Whimsy Watchable with one of Conan O’Brien’s most perfectly chaotic international detours: Conan Without Borders: Made in Mexico.

The TBS special aired on March 1, 2017, but the setup still feels wildly ambitious. Conan did not simply fly into Mexico City, point a camera at himself and call it travel television. The production was built with an all-Mexican staff, crew, guests and studio audience, turning the whole thing into a cross-border version of Conan rather than a standard tourist special.

And yes, naturally, Conan made himself the least dignified person in almost every room.

This Was More Than Conan Doing Tourist Bits

The special arrived during a particularly tense moment in the U.S.-Mexico relationship. Team Coco and TBS framed the trip as Conan’s attempt to strike a more positive note by heading directly to Mexico City and making the show there with Mexican collaborators instead of talking about the country from a studio in Los Angeles.

That gave the episode a little more purpose underneath all the silliness. Conan’s comedy has always worked best when he is the one willing to look ridiculous, and Made in Mexico gives him an entire city’s worth of opportunities.

He delivered his opening monologue in Spanish, introduced regional Mexican band Calibre 50 as the house band and welcomed two very different headline guests: actor Diego Luna and former Mexican president Vicente Fox.

But the studio pieces are only part of why the special is such an easy rewatch.

Lucha Libre, A Telenovela and One Extremely Game Conan

Out in Mexico City, Conan threw himself into the assignment with the exact amount of grace you would expect.

He trained as a luchador with legendary wrestler Cassandro, becoming El Gallo Loco while Andy Richter took on the equally majestic identity of Bebé Malo. He tried fútbol with Mexican star Giovani dos Santos. He became the honorary padrino at a quinceañera and took the responsibility hilariously seriously.

Then came the telenovela.

Conan landed a guest role on Mi Adorable Maldición, apparently hoping for smoldering leading-man material and instead finding himself playing a Mennonite cheese merchant. Frankly, television understood the assignment.

There was also a street segment in which Conan asked people in Mexico City to donate toward the proposed U.S. border wall — a premise designed to collapse under its own absurdity as quickly as possible. Predictably, he collected considerably more jokes, hugs and reactions than construction funding.

The Joke Was Never “Look at Mexico”

That is probably why the episode holds up better than a lot of celebrity travel television. The joke is rarely that Mexico is strange. The joke is Conan trying to function inside situations where everyone else already knows what they are doing.

He is the bad soccer player. He is the oversized novice luchador. He is the foreigner testing Spanish jokes on people who can actually tell him whether they are funny. Mexico gets to remain Mexico while Conan does what Conan does best: arrive with confidence and immediately discover that confidence was wildly premature.

Team Coco’s archive of the trip reflects that spirit too. Alongside the main special are extended interviews, outtakes, Q&As and behind-the-scenes pieces that spend as much time on the people who helped make the episode as they do on Conan himself.

For a Whimsy Watchable, that is basically the sweet spot: funny enough to throw on without homework, strange enough to keep surprising you and warm enough that the whole thing never feels like somebody punching down for an easy travel gag.

Watch Conan Without Borders: Made in Mexico

Revisit Conan O’Brien’s 2017 Mexico City adventure, built around the people, comedy and culture he encountered while taking Conan across the border.

Sources: Team Coco; TBS / Warner Bros. Discovery Pressroom; Apple TV.