Before he became a filmmaker, Frederick Wiseman was a professor who was in over his head. Wiseman had gone to Yale Law School partly to avoid the Korean War draft (though he ended up drafted anyway), but also, by his own admission, because he lacked a better idea of how to spend his time.
Back in the 1990s, when Marc Maron began appearing on Late Night With Conan O’Brien as a panel guest, the comedian would often alienate the crowd. Like most of America at the time, O’Brien’s audience was unfamiliar with Maron’s confrontational brand of comedy and his assertive, opinionated energy.
It took Conan O’Brien less than 90 seconds to upend Hot Ones. The YouTube interview show’s gimmick is simple: Celebrities eat successively hotter chicken wings while the host, Sean Evans, asks them well-researched questions about their life and career. Most guests are happy to endure painful spice while answering never-before-asked questions. O’Brien, on the other hand, shamelessly infused his own zany sensibility into the show’s design by immediately introducing “Dr.