Conan's Clueless Gamer Becoming TV Show
By Dalton Cooper 04 January 2017
TBS president Kevin Reilly announces plans to convert Conan’s popular Clueless Gamer segments into its own cable television series, complete with celebrity guests.
Five years ago, Conan O’Brien’s late night talk show Conan started a unique segment designed to appeal to gamers. Called Clueless Gamer, the segment saw Conan O’Brien playing video games with his content producer Aaron Bleyaert, with many of the jokes revolving around Conan’s disinterest in games clashing against Bleyaert’s love for them. The segment is now popular enough that TBS is spinning it off from Conan into its own television series.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, no premiere date has been set for the Clueless Gamer TV series, and it’s unclear if the segment will continue to be seen on the Conan talk show or not. However, we do know that the Clueless Gamer TV series will follow the same format as the talk show segment, with Conan commenting on games he knows little about while playing them with Bleyaert and a revolving door of celebrity guests. Whether these celebrity guests will be unique to Clueless Gamer or be the same people appearing on episodes of Conan remains to be seen.
While an official premiere date has yet to be announced, one can make an educated guess as to when Clueless Gamer will debut on TBS. Over the next few months, there’s numerous major gaming events that TBS could capitalize on with its Clueless Gamer premiere, like the launch of games like Resident Evil VII and Mass Effect: Andromeda or the debut of Nintendo Switch. Hype around Nintendo Switch or any of the big games releasing this quarter could increase interest in Conan’s Clueless Gamer show.
Another opportune time for Clueless Gamer to debut would be this coming summer during E3 2017. Conan has filmed numerous Clueless Gamer segments at past E3s, and the event should give his show enough material for multiple episodes. Of course, there would need to be a quick turnaround from when Clueless Gamer is filmed to when it premieres on TV if TBS wants to take full advantage of the E3 excitement.
Finally, the 2017 fall gaming rush wouldn’t be a bad time to premiere Clueless Gamer. The fall is when many of the year’s biggest games are released, and fall 2017 shouldn’t be any different, with Red Dead Redemption 2 already announced for the season.
Whenever Clueless Gamer debuts on TBS, it will be interesting to see if the concept is able to remain compelling in a regular TV format, as opposed to the bite-sized segments seen on Conan. If TBS is able to continue bringing on popular celebrities like Peter Dinklage, Zac Efron, and Conor McGregor, and keep delivering high quality comedy bits, then Clueless Gamer stands a shot finding success on its own.
The Clueless Gamer TV series is being developed at TBS.
