Conan O’Brien reveals details of his Cuba trip to Jon Stewart

Conan O’Brien carved out a bit of history for himself a week and a half ago when he became the first American TV host to tape segments for his show from the island nation of Cuba. On Wednesday night, he told Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” that the whole thing almost didn’t happen.

“We weren’t sure we were going to get into the country,” O’Brien said. “We didn’t make a lot of preparations. ... We were told we had the right papers. We showed up, there is no Internet, so our phones didn’t work. ... We walked in, we handed our papers to them. The guy looked at them, our phones are dead, our plane is gone and the guy just looked at us and said, ‘No.’”

Luckily, after a detour in which he got to see a bit of “Gilmore Girls” dubbed into Spanish, O’Brien got in the country and was immediately spotted by Canadian tourists. They’ve been going to Cuba for years.

The rest of the country, however, was completely unfamiliar with O’Brien or the concept of “Team Coco.” And that was exactly how he wanted it.

“I wanted to go and do my by-now-tired shtick for these people and see if it is at all amusing to them,” he said.

The episode, which is set to air on Conan’s TBS show on March 4, features the host visiting a Cuban cigar factory, getting intoxicated at a rum factory and learning to dance the “erotic” rumba.

Overall, O’Brien described it as a “sophisticated spring break.”

And just like he planned, O’Brien managed to get down to Cuba ahead of those ladies of “The View.”

The full interview can be seen here.

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