Intruders, beware: Conan O'Brien is armed to the teeth! The comedian and TV/podcast host has revealed that he's the proud owner of a real crossbow that was gifted to him by comedian and Community actor Joel McHale.
On the latest episode of the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend (published April 8), O'Brien told guest W. Kamau Bell, "Joel McHale's running schtick with me is, he always gives me weapons. Not guns or anything like that, but kind of interesting, steampunk-y weapons that you can buy on the dark web."
McHale really ramped things up last year for O'Brien's 60th birthday: "He gave me a crossbow. A real crossbow!" O'Brien revealed. "It's apparently a very nice crossbow. It's completely unassembled in the box, and so just put the box way on this top shelf. And when I say top shelf, I'm 6'4". ... I have to stand on a box to reach the top of this shelf and slide this box up there. So it's way, way, way up on top of this very high shelf in our garage. And it's facing the other way, so you can't even see what it is. And it's this box, and inside, it has a disassembled crossbow."
Now, nearly a year later, O'Brien's wife has begun feeling uncomfortable about the disassembled crossbow in their garage, telling the comedian that it could be dangerous if an intruder breaks into the house and turns it against them.
Conan recalled, "And I said, 'Hold on a second! You saying someone could come into our garage, see that box, investigate it, spend 40 minutes assembling a 14th century weapon, and then come up into our bedroom.' And I said, 'And menace us?' That's what I used. I said, 'Menace us? With a crossbow? And they've got one shot and then I charge?'"
He added that McHale also gave him a mace — a bludgeoning instrument used by medieval knights. "A modern interpretation of a knight's mace, so it's not the big spiky ball," O'Brien explained. "But it's this steampunk mace that someone's making in their basement and selling them online."
O'Brien's 61st birthday is in a little more than a week, April 18, so who knows what new weapons he might acquire soon.