Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour.
Speaker 1: See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot com
Speaker 1: slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people
Speaker 1: about what brings them happiness. Lee's welcome today. My friend
Speaker 1: for a very long time. He has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the Muppets, but he's still very good. John Hanson, this.
Speaker 2: Is a rare thing, an afternoon coffee for me.
Speaker 1: Is that bad? We'll find out you are you health
Speaker 1: craze that you look really well right now?
Speaker 2: No, it's more of a function of needing to update
Speaker 2: your prescription right now. This is honestly, I nothing could
Speaker 2: be farther from the truth in terms of health. I
Speaker 2: you know, I get up insanely early. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 2: that's because you're crazy. That's none of it with food exactly.
Speaker 2: That's just I've known you for a long time.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're up, You're you're like a deer
Speaker 1: that's going through the forest. And then I imagine you
Speaker 1: sleep like a deer sleeps like just it's quite for
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: I always say, like I sleep the way your computer sleeps,
Speaker 2: like the screen is dark, but you press any key
Speaker 2: and it's right there, lights right up. But I you know,
Speaker 2: I get, you know, it's it's as if my body
Speaker 2: thinks I'm a farmer. And so I haven't used an
Speaker 2: alarm clock in ten years.
Speaker 1: I know as I get older, you know, but I
Speaker 1: I as I got older, sleep gets harder to mean
Speaker 1: an elusive mistress. Well, it's weird, man, because when I
Speaker 1: was young, I could sleep like for But now what
Speaker 1: I can do and I'm very happy. But i've i've
Speaker 1: i've uh entered my cat years. Oh you nap a nap?
Speaker 1: I can nap pretty much like if I needed to nap,
Speaker 1: not a nap.
Speaker 2: See, I'm an abject failure at napping, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: stop me from trying all the time. If I can
Speaker 2: get just ten minutes of gray zone, I'm good. That's
Speaker 2: that's that's that's that's meditation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well in that case, I am freaking Gandhi do
Speaker 1: you meditate? I do I do.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I it's funny. I still words
Speaker 2: like meditate like I think of it as just like
Speaker 2: framing my mindset, stilling my mind.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's what it is. Yeah, right right.
Speaker 2: I'm no Eggs, but I'm no David Lynch, but I'm
Speaker 2: always I still have the knee jerk fear that when
Speaker 2: you use the word meditate and conversation, people arch and
Speaker 2: eyebrow and you say like, still my mind, and people go.
Speaker 1: Well, that sounds very practical. Yeah, But I I I
Speaker 1: sleep like a rock.
Speaker 2: I just sleep like a rock for like four and
Speaker 2: a half hour. I think that's okay. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that the thing to do is I'll beat yourself up.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've just ankled to it. But the way
Speaker 2: I cope with that is I get up at about
Speaker 2: four four thirty, yeah, and I drink just enough coffee
Speaker 2: to bring me to the brink of a seizure, right,
Speaker 2: and then I when I start feeling the jaw lock up.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can switch over to water. Is there
Speaker 1: a time? And then we'll go into you in a
Speaker 1: minute and your life and important things? But is there
Speaker 1: can you see a time? Because I know, like like me.
Speaker 1: You don't drink, you don't do drugs. You have them
Speaker 1: for a long time at nine or five. But I
Speaker 1: don't know how easy it would be for me to
Speaker 1: say goodbye to coffee.
Speaker 2: Coffee and nicorette, no nicotine.
Speaker 1: I'm done. I'm done a long time ago with nicotine.
Speaker 1: But those are the two.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you will pry those from my cold, dead hats.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying goodbye to those yet.
Speaker 1: Well you know it's and well you said yeah though,
Speaker 1: which is good, right, because I would have a hard
Speaker 1: time with call you. I could probably do it, but
Speaker 1: I think, well, why why? Because coffee isn't bad for you,
Speaker 1: is it? I mean everything in moderation, right, Like I
Speaker 1: drink motivation.
Speaker 2: I can't get to that. I drink Probably this is
Speaker 2: for me, assign and progress. This is down for me.
Speaker 2: I drink seven or eight cups of coffee more. Okay,
Speaker 2: I think I got to the root of your sleep problem.
Speaker 1: Fucking idiot.
Speaker 2: And if you if you saw if I were to
Speaker 2: lay out on a table the amount of nicorette gum
Speaker 2: I chew, yeah, you would you would immediately be like,
Speaker 2: we're taking you right to seaters.
Speaker 1: Wow? Really, I didn't know you took nicer I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew you didn't smoke, But when did you stop
Speaker 1: smoking a long time ago? I was supposed going to
Speaker 1: say because I took Nicorette for about a year after
Speaker 1: I stopped smoking.
Speaker 2: But that's I didn't even I didn't start until well
Speaker 2: after I stopped smoking. I just tried it one day
Speaker 2: because I didn't want to smoke a cigarette. And I
Speaker 2: was like this, this, this is my brand of Scotch
Speaker 2: right here.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a scope done on my upper
Speaker 1: endoscopy scope done earlier this year. I remember that, right.
Speaker 1: So they were giving me the propofall before they put
Speaker 1: me out. Sweet my god. So just as we're getting
Speaker 1: I'm talking to the anesthesiologists. I'm in the room and
Speaker 1: he goes, Okay, you're going to feel a little I'm
Speaker 1: gonna feel little wosy for a few seconds and then
Speaker 1: it'll be night night. I was like okay, and then
Speaker 1: he said, okay, I'm letting the stuff going now. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, that's so good. I tried.
Speaker 1: I tried so hard to stay you live in that
Speaker 1: spot between ten and nine. Oh my god, it was
Speaker 1: so crazy good.
Speaker 2: I actually watch the bag, like when they bring it in.
Speaker 1: I watched that.
Speaker 2: To me, is the drive to the dealer's house. Yeah
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, where it's like it's all
Speaker 2: in front of me. It's all I'm just just sweet anticipation,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing though, man, Like we're talking about
Speaker 1: as a couple old druggies. But but here's the thing. Kids,
Speaker 1: no or anyone I know these kids, but people who
Speaker 1: take drugs. Now that phantoel shit is that there. It's
Speaker 1: just like it's a bomb, just goes right off.
Speaker 2: It's and if they say this all the time, is
Speaker 2: like it's in everything now, it's in the pot, it's
Speaker 2: in It's like, you know, everything is laced with fentanyl.
Speaker 2: And I'm thankful because our kids are about the same age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my youngest is the same age.
Speaker 2: I mean mine is a lot so mine. Mine just
Speaker 2: turned thirteen. And I said, you know, he's seventh grade.
Speaker 2: And I thought, all right, he's entering the phase where
Speaker 2: people are going to begin to experiment. And I said
Speaker 2: to him, like, do you know anybody who's like vaped
Speaker 2: or tried pot or cigarettes or drank. And it was
Speaker 2: as if I had said to him, do you know,
Speaker 2: anybody that uses in travenous drugs. Like he looked at
Speaker 2: me and he goes, no good, And I go really,
Speaker 2: and I go, do you ever smell.
Speaker 1: It at school? And he goes, oh yeah, all the time,
Speaker 1: every time I enter the men's room. Oh god. You know,
Speaker 1: well that's that's tricky, but it is.
Speaker 2: It feels like, you know, the pendulum swings back and forth.
Speaker 2: And I feel like this younger generation, at least where
Speaker 2: I am, and this pocket of kids that my son
Speaker 2: hangs with is very sort of innocent.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think so, I mean, I hope so.
Speaker 1: I mean, Liam's abit the same age as as your boy,
Speaker 1: and he's, uh, he's just you. He done thirteen a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago, and he seems very cognizant of
Speaker 1: what bad idea is. But maybe you know, I'm his dad.
Speaker 1: He's talking to me, you know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: he's saying to his buddies. You know.
Speaker 2: All it takes is like one kid in your class
Speaker 2: with a peanut allergy, and all of a sudden, marijuana
Speaker 2: seems like playing with plutonium, Like, no, man, we can't
Speaker 2: even do skippy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I know, I know it's uh it's a
Speaker 1: little tricky, but you know what, I'm glad that I
Speaker 1: passed through the drug sniper alley before they had loaded
Speaker 1: up with fentyl. That's that's terrifying. It's just terrible.
Speaker 2: Otherwise there'd be two other people sitting in the You
Speaker 2: remember Craig Fergus, Yeah he was.
Speaker 1: That was weird. I thought he was gonna get sober. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he didn't. It was a really good guy. I
Speaker 1: had no idea. Yeah, well neither did he. And yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's one and done right, Yeah, that's just thing
Speaker 1: you can't just like, oh, I better clean up my
Speaker 1: you've fucked. Yeah he won.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's March Madness, single elimination role.
Speaker 1: God. Yeah, it's crazy. Good sport analogy. Thank you? All right,
Speaker 1: So listen, you know that you are one of the
Speaker 1: few people I know in show business who actually has
Speaker 1: is qualified to be in show business. You know that.
Speaker 1: What do you mean because you haven't good at anything else? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: that that's as everybody else. I know, that's me. But
Speaker 1: you are like you've got a degree in acting. Uh well,
Speaker 1: and I I studied acting quite a bit. You watched
Speaker 1: a couple of.
Speaker 2: Movies I went you know I did not finish college,
Speaker 2: as I say, you are regular show business. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I always say I went to college the same way
Speaker 2: Charlie Sheen went to rehab. We were both physically there
Speaker 2: for a period of time. I don't know that any
Speaker 2: of us took a lot away from the experience. But
Speaker 2: and I've said that joke to Charlie, So no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I think it's fine.
Speaker 1: No, I think you're right. I don't know about it, Charlie, So,
Speaker 1: I don't know he's got it. I haven't heard anything.
Speaker 1: You're right with that, Yeah, with that tiger bloodshed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's not exactly flying under the radar when
Speaker 2: he's years. Oh yeah, there's usually you know, there's goddesses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, maybe not tour he did and all that,
Speaker 1: the two and a half man thing and everything.
Speaker 2: I remember I did an episode of Anger Management once
Speaker 2: and is that the one after him?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was the one that he did on like FX,
Speaker 2: and they gave him like a hundred episode commitment, which
Speaker 2: you know, it is like an astronomical amount of money
Speaker 2: that they guarantee me. And and so I had done
Speaker 2: the episode and gone back to my trailer, and I
Speaker 2: was facetiming my then wife, and while I was getting
Speaker 2: changed and saying I'm all done, I'm getting ready to
Speaker 2: come home. And while we're talking, there's a knock on
Speaker 2: the trailer door and I open it and this guy goes, hey,
Speaker 2: Charlie wants to see it in his trailer, and I
Speaker 2: go okay, and I close the door and she goes,
Speaker 2: don't go at least don't don't did you go of course, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And it was okay. This is the best part about
Speaker 2: it was we sat in his room, me, him and
Speaker 2: another guy and just shot the shit and laughed like
Speaker 2: there was no care in the world. For thirty forty minutes.
Speaker 2: He's smoking cigarettes and then eventually I had like a
Speaker 2: joke that got enough of a laugh where I was like,
Speaker 2: I should leave, Yeah, you know what I mean. I go, well, listen, man,
Speaker 2: I got to take off, and he like drains the
Speaker 2: last of a marlboroughread and goes, yeah, I should get
Speaker 2: back to set. And I went there waiting for you,
Speaker 2: and he goes yeah, and I go, oh, dude, I
Speaker 2: I would have left, like, you know, after five minutes
Speaker 2: if I had known that the whole crew and he goes, am,
Speaker 2: I gonna shoot anything without me and just ambled out
Speaker 2: of the set.
Speaker 1: I don't know how good it is for you to
Speaker 1: be like that though.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, yeah, but it was I mean
Speaker 2: it was delivered like a boss, like like like I
Speaker 2: believe it. It didn't feel like, oh, this is the
Speaker 2: one time I've done this. Put it that way. He
Speaker 2: did not have any compunction about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but so you're not you're not a qualified actor,
Speaker 1: then you just a stand up. I've done it.
Speaker 2: I started acting when I was young, so I did
Speaker 2: a lot of you and like.
Speaker 1: Mary Popin's or something.
Speaker 2: Uh may or may not have done God's Spell, which
Speaker 2: you know that's a that's does that.
Speaker 1: Say a little prayer for you, say a little prefer you?
Speaker 1: Is that goad spell?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I don't know what age of.
Speaker 2: That's Jesus Christ Superstar. I can't, honestly, I've blocked it out.
Speaker 2: It was high school. But no, I didn't the classic.
Speaker 1: Bullying story in high school because you don't strike me
Speaker 1: as someone whould get No I got.
Speaker 2: I was it was requested that I take my education
Speaker 2: elsewhere after my junior year of high school. Really, and
Speaker 2: you know you got to really ship the bed to
Speaker 2: be asked to leave a public high school. That's not
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, that's not a there. They
Speaker 2: don't keep real tight reins on you.
Speaker 1: And do you remember what caused any particular incident that happened.
Speaker 2: There were a series of unexcused absences. Okay, over a
Speaker 2: couple of years, I had the sales job that I
Speaker 2: that needed attending to during school hours. Got it, and
Speaker 2: and that that was not a that was not a
Speaker 2: well kept secret, And so I repeated my junior year
Speaker 2: of high school. I had to go to another school
Speaker 2: and do it again. Close the store in that still
Speaker 2: I did it was I went to a smaller private
Speaker 2: school that was either for like it was for like
Speaker 2: affluent kids who had been in private school their whole life,
Speaker 2: were kids that needed more structure in their environment, and
Speaker 2: like the sort of reclamation projects.
Speaker 1: And do you ever hear about those ones that like
Speaker 1: people send their kids to schools and Utah and stuff
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Where you're like in the fucking wilderness. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 2: I don't know, No, that sounds scary. Yeah, that sounds
Speaker 2: like an episode of Dateline, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: That sounds like you know where Q the Keith Morrison like,
Speaker 2: but Danny never came home after that.
Speaker 1: So do you know the great Ferguson Fancy Rascals Stand
Speaker 1: Up To It continues throughout the United States in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets,
Speaker 1: go to the Craig fergusonshow dot com slash Tour. See
Speaker 1: you out there, Hey, So you became a stand up then? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I dropped out of college s to do stand up, right,
Speaker 1: but stand up was stand up like a thing for you,
Speaker 1: like a lot of American stand ups. I know, everybody
Speaker 1: says Richard Pryor. Everybody goes, I was Richard Pryor, and
Speaker 1: that's what I wanted to do. That Like black guys,
Speaker 1: white guys, everybody is like, yeah, black women and white women,
Speaker 1: everybody talks about Richard Pryr.
Speaker 2: It was so I was the youngest of five boys.
Speaker 2: I inherited a collection of comedy album Ah so Bob Newhart,
Speaker 2: Bob Newhart, Richard Pryor, Red Fox, George Carlin.
Speaker 1: So, I you know it was.
Speaker 2: I remember like it all seems sort of dark, but
Speaker 2: I became so obsessed with it that I had one
Speaker 2: of those like turntables where if you closed it, it
Speaker 2: would just play until the end of the album, then
Speaker 2: get up and start at the beginning again. And I
Speaker 2: would put on a comedy album and just close my
Speaker 2: eyes and listen to it over and over and over
Speaker 2: until I could like lip sync with it, until I
Speaker 2: had memorized it.
Speaker 1: Like I was obsessive about it.
Speaker 2: I used to sit up and like I remember when
Speaker 2: SNL started, and I would sit up and record it
Speaker 2: on an audio like on a cassette cassette plan and
Speaker 2: just listen to that shit. So and then I was
Speaker 2: acting and training and stuff a little bit.
Speaker 1: It sounds a little. Look, I'm not a doctor that
Speaker 1: has a little spectrum. It was not. It was not.
Speaker 2: It was you know, not full on rocking back and
Speaker 2: forth in front of the dryer, but it was closed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like it may it may You may
Speaker 1: be in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like anyone ever a little O c D, a little,
Speaker 2: a little uncomfortable with human interaction.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but you're but you're an affection man. I've
Speaker 1: known you for a while. You're I mean, look, I
Speaker 1: don't know enough of it with al I'm talking about
Speaker 1: to know if that is a thing. But I think
Speaker 1: it was more O C D O C D.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. It was that, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't. That was my rain man box of matches
Speaker 2: on the ground. I just look and you know, but
Speaker 2: I would just comedy was. I think being the youngest
Speaker 2: of five and being the youngest by seven years, I
Speaker 2: had to learn to defend myself verbally because I could physically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were you and your mom?
Speaker 2: Like, my mom was a like first ballot Hall of
Speaker 2: Fame alcoholic m They sent her jersey to Cooperstown. Yeah,
Speaker 2: second sports reference. Yeah, scoring a good one. Thank you
Speaker 2: feel good about it? Yeah, but yeah, So you know,
Speaker 2: my parents divorced when I was eleven, and my mom
Speaker 2: cratered and I was living alone with her because all
Speaker 2: my brothers were in college and out of the house.
Speaker 2: But so it was like four or five years of
Speaker 2: that's pretty traumatic, John, dude, it was. I have realized
Speaker 2: since you know, you kind of synthesize and naturalize what
Speaker 2: you've lived through, right, like all of a sudden, you've
Speaker 2: just sat with your own story for so long that
Speaker 2: it's not big deal, right, And I think recently I've
Speaker 2: had that experience where like I went back to therapy
Speaker 2: years ago, and I you know that there's that first
Speaker 2: week or two where you're kind of just vomiting your story.
Speaker 1: And bringing them up to speed.
Speaker 2: And I went through this era of living with my
Speaker 2: mom and the years that there was like no hot
Speaker 2: food and no clean clothes and nobody getting up for school,
Speaker 2: and you know, she just was a functional and and
Speaker 2: I just watched the mask of horror come over my
Speaker 2: therapist face and she goes, you know, like the state
Speaker 2: takes kids away for that, and that was a big thing, Like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, she's right, Like in modern times there
Speaker 2: would have been some sort of intervention where it was.
Speaker 1: Connecticut, you're from, right, yeah, yeah, so and then so
Speaker 1: that you.
Speaker 2: Know that that was quite a left turn. And then I,
Speaker 2: you know, I exhibited itself in running with you know,
Speaker 2: wanting to having sort of a compulsive desire to to
Speaker 2: break rules to you know, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, if you get no structure and
Speaker 1: then suddenly you had much, you start like thinking it
Speaker 1: doesn't apply to you. I mean, it just was.
Speaker 2: It was not a man, I need to bang out
Speaker 2: this book report today because I don't want to do
Speaker 2: it at the last second on Sunday. It was more
Speaker 2: of a hey, if I just don't go to school
Speaker 2: on Monday, no book report.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, So when did you do your first
Speaker 1: stand up? Then? How did you like? We freshman year
Speaker 1: of college? Really that young? I take that back. Second.
Speaker 2: It was freshman year at college. I was in and
Speaker 2: I started. I didn't start it. I was a founding
Speaker 2: member of an improv troop at Boston University, right. And
Speaker 2: then sophomore year, I did my first open mic night
Speaker 2: with another guy, a guy that I loved dearly that
Speaker 2: I went to college with his past now, but he
Speaker 2: and I did a two person thing and at an
Speaker 2: open mic night, and I was I mean, it went terribly,
Speaker 2: but I was just fucking hooked. And he never did
Speaker 2: it again, and I just couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I was always obsessed with that, yeah, because
Speaker 1: I remember doing stuff guys none of them stayed at it.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is my thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and I just I you know, I think
Speaker 2: I'd only done twelve or fifteen open mic nights. When
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm out of college, I'm leaving after
Speaker 2: my sophomore year, and I'm start earning money. I went
Speaker 2: to New York and I was, you know, it was
Speaker 2: sort of a process of putting in the FaceTime, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I had a social media then used that you
Speaker 1: couldn't do your your tiktoks and no, it was just
Speaker 1: that it was just pledging the frat, you know, just
Speaker 1: being around. And there was a cup.
Speaker 2: There was a club Boston Comedy Club, which is now
Speaker 2: you know people know and Boston Comedy Club in New York. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I was. I started working there and then over it.
Speaker 2: I took probably two or three years before I got
Speaker 2: passed in all the clubs and was able to cobble
Speaker 2: together enough of a living just on set pay to
Speaker 2: not have any other job.
Speaker 1: All right, did you ever do the comic strip up
Speaker 1: on a first that second Avenue and that.
Speaker 2: Ended up becoming my home club? That ended up becoming
Speaker 2: Lucien Hold who was the owner.
Speaker 1: Then I know that, you know, that's my first gig
Speaker 1: in America. Really. Yeah. When I was twenty one, I
Speaker 1: was living in New York City. I was working in
Speaker 1: construction in Harlem, and I had other activities downtown m
Speaker 1: but I was interested in being the stand up and
Speaker 1: the time, I don't know if this was at the
Speaker 1: same time for you. I'm a bit older than you.
Speaker 1: But you used to go up there on a Monday
Speaker 1: morning and get a lottery ticket. Yeah, and then Monday
Speaker 1: night was the open mic night, right, but it was
Speaker 1: the following Monday, right, So you went up on Monday
Speaker 1: morning and be a bunch of kids outside waiting for
Speaker 1: their shot to get a lottery ticket. Ten people would
Speaker 1: get picked, and then if you got a lottery ticket,
Speaker 1: you went the following Monday to the open night. Open
Speaker 1: mic night. I went up there. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: up there to do it, and I'm standing there. My
Speaker 1: number didn't get picked. It was like twenty five kids.
Speaker 1: And I go to the bartender who's running the little raffle,
Speaker 1: and I said, what did I do? Because I'm not
Speaker 1: from around here and I don't know what to do
Speaker 1: about that. And he goes, where are you from? I
Speaker 1: said Scotland and he went he gave me a ticket
Speaker 1: and he went, you just come back next week. I
Speaker 1: gotta fucking see this. And then Lucien Hold was really
Speaker 1: nice to me, but he asked me back after the
Speaker 1: first open night, and then the second open mic. I
Speaker 1: didn't do so well in then we felt our relationship
Speaker 1: didn't proceed beyond that point. It's interesting.
Speaker 2: So I had a couple of years to kind of
Speaker 2: incubate at the Boston Comedy Club, right, getting a lot.
Speaker 2: I did a lot of hostings, so I got stage time.
Speaker 2: And you know, you may remember this if you spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time in New York. But it was
Speaker 2: the role of the MC was not as sort of
Speaker 2: ignored in New York as it is here, Like it
Speaker 2: was a very important role. It was your show, right,
Speaker 2: and you got a lot more stage time, and it
Speaker 2: was your job, like it was your obligation to your
Speaker 2: fellow comics too. You know, you need to warm them
Speaker 2: up and then you turn them over. If somebody kills,
Speaker 2: you need to stay up there for a couple of
Speaker 2: seconds and give them time to simmer down. Remember, if
Speaker 2: somebody dies, you got to bring the crowd back to
Speaker 2: deliver a decent crowd. So if you were a good MC,
Speaker 2: people were like, all right, I trust that, Like it's
Speaker 2: your show, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Did you do that?
Speaker 2: I did that at Boston Comedy Club for a couple
Speaker 2: of years, and then I ended up auditioning Mike Sweeney,
Speaker 2: who many years as the head writer for Conan got
Speaker 2: me an audition at the comic Strip and I auditioned,
Speaker 2: and Lucian you know, pulled me aside famously long winded,
Speaker 2: but I got I love that man, and he said
Speaker 2: something I'll never forget. He goes, you are in the
Speaker 2: single largest.
Speaker 1: Cross section in comedy.
Speaker 2: You are a straight, middle of the road white guy,
Speaker 2: and that means it's going to be that much harder
Speaker 2: for you to break through because there's so many, so
Speaker 2: many of you.
Speaker 1: But if you break, you throw that to me, they said,
Speaker 1: he said, Scottish and he goes.
Speaker 2: But if you break, you break for an entire career,
Speaker 2: as opposed to if you're a character act, you get
Speaker 2: like a three year window before everybody's.
Speaker 1: Like remember yeah who series?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, that.
Speaker 1: Sort of cautionary tale.
Speaker 2: And you know there are guys like obviously Dice had
Speaker 2: a much longer arc and but you know, the the
Speaker 2: a more sort of outside the box acquired taste, like
Speaker 2: it's you know, it has a shorter shelf life.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's true of all our forms. Know,
Speaker 1: just stand up. I think that if it's very you know,
Speaker 1: if you stay with like if Boy had stayed Ziggy
Speaker 1: Star does that you know it doesn't be but it
Speaker 1: doesn't stay like that, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, because you can't be like, you know, your second
Speaker 2: album can't be yet more stardust.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean. It's like Biggy started,
Speaker 1: so Biggie started the rap album.
Speaker 2: But I ended up hosting that open mic night. And
Speaker 2: it was your job by the time that I took
Speaker 2: it over.
Speaker 1: It was your job.
Speaker 2: You watched all the comics, right, and then you decided
Speaker 2: who got passed onto a callback for Lucian So it
Speaker 2: was this weird gatekeepery roll.
Speaker 1: So I think that probably happened to me. I got
Speaker 1: called back after the first one, and then Lucien Hold,
Speaker 1: who I Sadly I never connected with him later and
Speaker 1: I wish I had because he's passed now, but he
Speaker 1: he Yeah, I mean I was, I go on late
Speaker 1: night and stuff. I should have gone back and seen him.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, and in my apartment in New York
Speaker 1: is that like a storin stroll from the Coming strip?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: By all the time, I loved that place. That was.
Speaker 2: I went there my first night in New York City
Speaker 2: and I saw Sandler pre snl right, and I'll never
Speaker 2: forget this man. He walked on stage and he goes,
Speaker 2: you know, nobody knew who he was, you know, and
Speaker 2: he goes, sorry, I'm late everybody I was. I'm in
Speaker 2: the cab driver on the way over. He killed a
Speaker 2: little doggie, and everybody goes on and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: he he didn't even hit her with his car. He
Speaker 2: just got out of the car and stabbed it. And
Speaker 2: I was like right away, I was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: no tip, and I just I like, I'll never forget.
Speaker 2: It was my first night in New York City and
Speaker 2: I remember saying to a guy, an older comic there,
Speaker 2: I go, you got any advice for somebody just starting out?
Speaker 2: And he goes, yeah, if there's anything else you can do,
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and.
Speaker 2: I go, I got I don't have anything else I
Speaker 2: can do, and he goes, then don't give up your
Speaker 2: seat at the bar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, just don't quit. That's why I'm kind
Speaker 1: of interested in because the stand up world is very
Speaker 1: different now. Young performers male and female and come through
Speaker 1: using like short social media things and build up that
Speaker 1: way and get a following, and but it's not like
Speaker 1: that's that's not it's just not the same thing, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not of any last value. It's still Look,
Speaker 1: if you can make somebody laugh for forty five seconds,
Speaker 1: that's great. But to assume that that forty five seconds
Speaker 1: is is going to see you through the comings up
Speaker 1: on a Monday night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it it feels different thing to me coming from
Speaker 2: New York where there was this huge emphasis. And I'm
Speaker 2: not putting myself in this category. I mean I was
Speaker 2: I was not one of these guys, but there were
Speaker 2: there were guys who like the the emphasis was on
Speaker 2: you got to keep writing, you got to keep evolving,
Speaker 2: you got to keep working on your craft, you got
Speaker 2: to like you know, there were there were guys it
Speaker 2: was almost like a badge of honor if they were
Speaker 2: doing a set and they just refused to go to
Speaker 2: their A list material, if they were trying out new
Speaker 2: shit and they were dying and everyone, every comic in
Speaker 2: the room knew they could kill yeah, but they refuse
Speaker 2: to do it. Oh yeah, you know. It was like
Speaker 2: a badge of honor in La. I got to La
Speaker 2: and it just felt like Land of the shortcut, like
Speaker 2: Land of the I want to do a seven minute
Speaker 2: set for network and get a development deal, and you know,
Speaker 2: it felt like a pass through, like stand up was
Speaker 2: a pass through.
Speaker 1: Sound's right, it was. It was a thing going on
Speaker 1: to something else. And I guess kind of I did that.
Speaker 1: Really That's how I ended up on the Drew Carey
Speaker 1: Show because Drew had done that through you know, his
Speaker 1: ten minutes on Carson or five minutes on Carson then
Speaker 1: and then he'd go to the deal and stuff, and
Speaker 1: I had go. I think I got the addition because
Speaker 1: of doing like a stand up at the the improv
Speaker 1: in LA and then I didn't do stand up for
Speaker 1: ten years.
Speaker 2: I mean that's I did sort of that version of
Speaker 2: I did stand up for I don't know seven years,
Speaker 2: and now you got Talk Soup and then came out here.
Speaker 2: I didn't you know, it was different Cold Cuture, different comics.
Speaker 2: I didn't know anybody. And the first year that I
Speaker 2: was on Talk Soup, it was the OJ trial that
Speaker 2: he was covering live, so I had to be out
Speaker 2: of the studio by like seven thirty in the morning,
Speaker 2: and so I was getting to work at like three
Speaker 2: thirty or four, and it just you couldn't do stand
Speaker 2: up like I couldn't do stand up five nights a week,
Speaker 2: you know, And I blinked, and I had been out
Speaker 2: of stand up for like a year, but I was
Speaker 2: doing television and I.
Speaker 1: Just like I took the path of the Grad Show
Speaker 1: and that was a great show.
Speaker 2: Like I remember, like sixteen years I was out of
Speaker 2: stand up, and then I was like, I think I'm
Speaker 2: going to go back and try again. I ran into
Speaker 2: Joe Rogan at a club and he goes, you're going
Speaker 2: on and I go yeah, and he goes, how long
Speaker 2: has it been since you did stand up?
Speaker 1: And I goes sixteen years and he goes, how do
Speaker 1: you do? I did all right? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a good comic, but it's not it's not my
Speaker 1: I don't feel like that's my fastball. Really.
Speaker 2: I mean I I I am constantly sort of taunting
Speaker 2: myself to like maybe I need to go back and
Speaker 2: and just throw out everything and start fresh of who
Speaker 2: I am now, you know. And because when I went back,
Speaker 2: it was like now I was I wasn't writing the
Speaker 2: jokes I was writing in my twenties. I was writing
Speaker 2: jokes as like now I'm a husband and a father
Speaker 2: right now, Maybe I just need to just turn the
Speaker 2: page again and start over. I feel like I am
Speaker 2: I am most comfortable, and I feel like I am
Speaker 2: at my best when I'm improvising and hosting. Like like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you feel this way. I don't
Speaker 2: know if between stand up and for instance, what you
Speaker 2: were doing on your talk show, like I've told you this,
Speaker 2: I feel very strongly that what you did on your
Speaker 2: talk show should not be considered a talk show when
Speaker 2: you are talking and comparing it to other talk shows,
Speaker 2: because it was it was not lazy media shit. You're
Speaker 2: you're selling yourself short what you what? And I you know,
Speaker 2: for a comic to realize. You know, anybody who's done
Speaker 2: a talk show knows you go over the questions a
Speaker 2: million times, you go over your answers a million times.
Speaker 2: There is absolutely nothing spontaneous about it.
Speaker 1: And what you did was.
Speaker 2: Entirely throw that that format out and let's just figure
Speaker 2: it out. And to do that with no net is
Speaker 2: to me, I like, I couldn't have a greater sense
Speaker 2: of respect. So I don't know if you like when
Speaker 2: you talk about thinking on your feet, being present, you know,
Speaker 2: being spontaneous when you look at that versus you writing
Speaker 2: and doing stand up if you feel like one is
Speaker 2: definitively stronger than the other.
Speaker 1: I don't see any well, I don't. I don't write
Speaker 1: stand up doing that way. I mean I write for
Speaker 1: myself a boy, Like if I'm going to write an act,
Speaker 1: and I do, I will like I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: this story about that the time I go that thing
Speaker 1: on my ass right, bull points, Yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 1: I never write anymore in that. And so when I
Speaker 1: when I go out and do it, it's like it
Speaker 1: changes every night.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's no, right, very few things land the
Speaker 1: same way every night. Yeah, And that's what you do, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's certainly what I did when I was
Speaker 2: doing a lot of stand up, right, Like I remember,
Speaker 2: you know, doing weird shit like you know, in my
Speaker 2: twenties before I got talk soup, I remember doing things like,
Speaker 2: you know, because sometimes you're performing and it's late at night,
Speaker 2: or you get you're in you know, you get a
Speaker 2: crowd that's not necessarily kind of you're not able to
Speaker 2: dance with. And there were times where I would do
Speaker 2: stuff like I'd get frustrated and turn and face the
Speaker 2: wall and I and I and I would do my
Speaker 2: entire act with facial expressions and gestures but with my
Speaker 2: back to them, or I'd lay down on the stage,
Speaker 2: you know, and do.
Speaker 1: And go to ever work.
Speaker 2: It's funny because it would be like it'd be funny
Speaker 2: and then it would get quiet, right, and then it
Speaker 2: would get really funny, and then it would get annoying,
Speaker 2: and then it would you know, it would.
Speaker 1: Just like go through these cycles.
Speaker 2: But I remember being like saying, once, oh, I know
Speaker 2: what you're thinking. Surely he has to turn around. Well,
Speaker 2: ladies and gentlemen, let me teach you a little lesson
Speaker 2: and something I call commitments, you know. And but yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it was because then it really did feel
Speaker 2: like there was nothing to lose. There were no rules,
Speaker 2: you know, you were just like read.
Speaker 1: So was that leading up to going into the super No,
Speaker 1: that was before talks, all right, so you're going to
Speaker 1: talk soup and talks like it's one of those life
Speaker 1: changing gigs, right, That's one of those legacy gigs because
Speaker 1: no matter what you do, it'll always be part of
Speaker 1: the show, part of the wikipedia.
Speaker 2: And that was very much a bullet pointed TV show.
Speaker 2: It looked like way vibe.
Speaker 1: I mean that that talks to what you were doing
Speaker 1: in talks of very much influenced well I did in
Speaker 1: late night. I was very aware going on Late night,
Speaker 1: like what skunk Boy was doing on Talk Soup. I
Speaker 1: want that vibe. I'm very I'm very aware. Did it
Speaker 1: get you? Well, you know, I got my own podcast.
Speaker 2: It was I always think about this, like I had
Speaker 2: a director, Fred Mendez, who was brilliantly funny, and you know,
Speaker 2: he would come over the stage announce, and whenever we
Speaker 2: had like you know, our sketches were like drawn up
Speaker 2: a play in the dirt, like all right, so I'm
Speaker 2: going to say this, and then you come in and
Speaker 2: you say, you know, and you know these guys are
Speaker 2: crew guys, isn't they like yeah, and you just knew
Speaker 2: when you had built something that was too heavy to fly,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And it was got and
Speaker 2: and my uh my director would come right before he rolled.
Speaker 2: He would come over the stage announce and do Tom
Speaker 2: Hanks from saving Private Ryan and go.
Speaker 1: I'll see you on the beach, you.
Speaker 4: Know, likefore the boatlands on Normandy Beach and fucking people's
Speaker 4: because it was like you just knew this is gonna
Speaker 4: be a catastrophic failure and that was sort of that
Speaker 4: was the beauty of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But the thing of what people I think, or
Speaker 1: what I never understood ely in Camedy is that failure.
Speaker 1: And Carson was a master of this. When it goes wrong,
Speaker 1: it's better. Now. You can't fake when it goes wrong.
Speaker 1: You can't fake it going wrong. But if you try
Speaker 1: and fail, then that is gold. You know.
Speaker 2: It's the difference between you know, obviously without naming names,
Speaker 2: and I don't even have specific examples in my head,
Speaker 2: but when you're watching SNL and someone really breaks as
Speaker 2: opposed to when someone fans breaking, and you know, it's there's.
Speaker 1: The fictureak thing bothers me because I'm like, that's now.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm the world's worst. If I can't
Speaker 1: hold it, and but I can't, I feel like I
Speaker 1: can't tell when it's like yeah, that's oh, yeah, I did.
Speaker 2: I did a movie once, really terrible movie with Kevin
Speaker 2: Nealon and we started getting.
Speaker 1: You know, you and I in the same movie. By
Speaker 1: the way, we were Yeah, I looked at your bio today.
Speaker 1: We were in a movie together. What Yeah, life without
Speaker 1: a dick. Oh my god, that's right. I'm in that movie.
Speaker 2: I am in that movie for two seconds, all right,
Speaker 2: Well I think I'm in it for much more than Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: big scalehill scale, yeah yeah. Oh that's so funny.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I worked with him on an ABC pilot years ago
Speaker 2: that I loved, and at one point I fired him
Speaker 2: on the air, like the in the middle of the pilot,
Speaker 2: I go, hey, bicks, uh, come and see me after
Speaker 2: the show, and he goes, okay, and I go and
Speaker 2: bring all your stuff. But I Kevin and I got
Speaker 2: the giggles. And we were shooting overnight in front of
Speaker 2: the improv and the sun was starting to come up,
Speaker 2: and people were panicking because they're like, dude, this is
Speaker 2: the last night of shooting. We don't have the we
Speaker 2: can't we need this like tuck it in, guys. And
Speaker 2: Kevin couldn't stop laughing, and that was making me laugh.
Speaker 2: And so there's a moment where he has to turn
Speaker 2: to me, and because he was looking out for himself,
Speaker 2: he did this where he was like looking up and
Speaker 2: away at a forty five degree angle, so the it
Speaker 2: was an over the shoulder shot of him, so it
Speaker 2: looked like he was making eye contact with me, but
Speaker 2: he made it exponentially harder for me to keep a
Speaker 2: straight face because it looked like his eyes were rolling back,
Speaker 2: and I said, god man, there's nothing better than those
Speaker 2: kind of I remember.
Speaker 1: Tons of those, so from all over the lord ton
Speaker 1: of shows. I mean, the thing was wow I was
Speaker 1: doing but the time I got to late night, we
Speaker 1: didn't care. Yeah. You know, it was like by the
Speaker 1: time the Skeleton was out there with Josh over tombs
Speaker 1: and stuff, It's.
Speaker 2: Like there was an acknowledged irreverence to like it was
Speaker 2: almost a dare, like what what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: I kept calling him for the CBS eventually said stop
Speaker 1: saying that, or we're just gonna, We're gonna there's gonna
Speaker 1: be trouble. I used to call it don't give a
Speaker 1: Fuck TV, and THEYD theyvid call it. They'd call it
Speaker 1: don't give it Tucci fruitsy TV. And then I did
Speaker 1: it like two four times, like you know it's coming
Speaker 1: from upstairs. Now you got to stop saying don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck? Yeah, yeah, because and also I get the
Speaker 1: same week it was when I was saying CBS with
Speaker 1: the Z stance for classy and the BS speaks for itself. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's great. They fucking came down on me. They were like, no,
Speaker 1: stop that, you can't say that because that'll become a thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's the whole point. Yeah, They're like, noo,
Speaker 1: it's out there now.
Speaker 2: I learned over the course of doing Wipeout seven seasons of.
Speaker 1: White Out also, I want to get to that because
Speaker 1: wipe up to me, well, carry on talking about white pepforms.
Speaker 2: It became clear that, like you're you're filtering your comedy
Speaker 2: through like there's the producers you work with, and there's
Speaker 2: the producers at the production company, and then there's the executives,
Speaker 2: and so you know, there's like nine people that a
Speaker 2: joke has to make it past to get into the show,
Speaker 2: and so you start losing jokes that you fall in
Speaker 2: love with. And so there were there were two ways
Speaker 2: that we dealt with it. I'm sure you did very
Speaker 2: similar things on your show. But it was it was
Speaker 2: all right, if I have a joke that's on the line,
Speaker 2: I'm going to write half a dozen jokes that are
Speaker 2: so far over the line that maybe it downgrades the
Speaker 2: way this reads to them, and they let it go.
Speaker 2: And then when they kind of caught onto that, I
Speaker 2: just started saying to my writers, like, hey, don't put
Speaker 2: that in the script, and I will magically improvise it
Speaker 2: the day of the shoot. And it led to like
Speaker 2: a protest of.
Speaker 3: The show by the Indigenous peoples of America for a
Speaker 3: joke that I had made that was a little dark,
Speaker 3: and there was a letter writing campaign and phone calls
Speaker 3: to the executives and and.
Speaker 1: I I had.
Speaker 2: And then they called me and it was a It
Speaker 2: was a joke that John Anderson and I were very
Speaker 2: rarely on camera together, and we were on camera and
Speaker 2: I had improvised it and it had gone so well
Speaker 2: they didn't get a backup, so they had nothing to
Speaker 2: cut away too. They had no way to edit it out.
Speaker 2: And they called me and were like, hey, what the hell, man,
Speaker 2: you made this joke and it upset people, and I go,
Speaker 2: it was socratic irony. And I assumed, judging by the
Speaker 2: fact that everyone laughed and you all signed off on
Speaker 2: the episode, that that's the way it was interpreted.
Speaker 1: So oh no, once it goes through the edit process,
Speaker 1: even as to it, then at that point it's on them. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: So now when they repeat that episode, they literally just
Speaker 2: dropped the audio so it's just our mouths moving and
Speaker 2: there's no audio and then it comes back like seven
Speaker 2: seconds later.
Speaker 1: Maybe they should have done that in the first place.
Speaker 1: No one to go upsets. It's a different world though, man,
Speaker 1: because you know, if people get upset back then, they
Speaker 1: had to be together a lay right campaign and you know,
Speaker 1: and get organized and come after. You know, it's easy
Speaker 1: to get it's easy to get into trouble. I've I've
Speaker 1: done it, a little trouble. I've done it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's Did it freak you out when it
Speaker 1: happened to you very much? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because it was you know, I put a
Speaker 2: joke on Twitter that I.
Speaker 1: Remember it was some some political joke or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it drew an official response from a
Speaker 2: White House spokesperson and it was but it was such
Speaker 2: a it was at the time. It was two thousand
Speaker 2: and twenty, so it was the beginning of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: you know, financial collapse, widespread unrest after the death of
Speaker 2: George Floyd. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 2: People are going to be clutching your pearls over what
Speaker 2: is clearly a joke by a guy who has never
Speaker 2: said anything remotely serious in his life. Yeah, and but
Speaker 2: it you know, there were there were death threats. There
Speaker 2: was an interesting touchy time. I mean, I I now
Speaker 2: like I find myself I'm very cautious with who accepted
Speaker 2: except doing stand up shows. Like if I'm doing a
Speaker 2: stand up show and it's a live show, I'm like,
Speaker 2: we know why we're here, And I say to the
Speaker 2: audience at the start, you know, don't because you know,
Speaker 2: don't be tweeting.
Speaker 1: I don't be saying that. If I want to tweet it,
Speaker 1: I got a fucking Twitter account. I can do it.
Speaker 1: You know, leave it the fuck alone and let's have
Speaker 1: enjoy a quiet, sneaky night in the club.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: You know this is not forever, because it's not for everybody.
Speaker 1: I used to remember this happened a lot in late night.
Speaker 1: If you I noticed it the first time. When remember
Speaker 1: those like vegetarian vampire movies that were like all the
Speaker 1: kids were watching for a while. What was It's like Twilight? Twilight, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that ship is like that. You know, it was like
Speaker 1: the vampire was like nice and everything in your boyfriend
Speaker 1: and I remember I had one of the actors on
Speaker 1: or something wave Fye vampires. Yeah, like the vampires that
Speaker 1: like care about your.
Speaker 2: Feelings and wear eyeliner and.
Speaker 1: Walk you to school and stuff. But but one of
Speaker 1: the actors we were taking around, there's no but I
Speaker 1: wasn't sufficiently referential to the actor. For the fans of
Speaker 1: that actor who were on I can't even remember who
Speaker 1: it was, and but they were like people gave me
Speaker 1: a hard fucking like, but the fuck, I don't even
Speaker 1: watch these fucking movies. How come I have to be like, now,
Speaker 1: I have to be a fanboy for the thing? You
Speaker 1: were into it, right, right, I don't get it. But
Speaker 1: it's because if you try to appeal to too many people,
Speaker 1: you're going to get into trouble.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the mistake that I made was I
Speaker 2: had been you know, I was sort of exercising my
Speaker 2: my I was feeling my oats on on social media,
Speaker 2: and I, you know, you get away with something, you
Speaker 2: push the envelope and then you think you can push
Speaker 2: it a little bit further. And I had been doing
Speaker 2: I'd been making some jokes that you know, were to like, well,
Speaker 2: I would just say jokes that I thought were you know,
Speaker 2: I was doing this thing where I was trolling the right,
Speaker 2: And I would pick a person and I would post
Speaker 2: a photo of them and I'd write, so and so
Speaker 2: looks like, you know, Steven Miller looks like, or Matt
Speaker 2: Gates looks like. And then but then I would write
Speaker 2: as many jokes in that formula as I could in
Speaker 2: like ten minutes, right, so I might write twenty five
Speaker 2: of them, and the progression of them was to me funny,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like, you know, Matt Gates
Speaker 2: looks like he owns Ted Bundy's rookie card, you know,
Speaker 2: like like you know, and like and that was, you know,
Speaker 2: that was where it started, you know, so you can
Speaker 2: imagine where twenty five was. Yeah, and it was it
Speaker 2: was like it was reverberating a little bit and form
Speaker 2: my level of Twitter exposure and getting a little traction,
Speaker 2: and I just I just kept pushing and the fires
Speaker 2: and yeah, I mean I put it this way that
Speaker 2: I was sort of scared s trade by that, like
Speaker 2: I just you know know what, Like, I'm I'm fine.
Speaker 2: I think it went it went a little crazy.
Speaker 1: Is when so called legit press started using Twitter and
Speaker 1: social media as a source, right, and then you go, well,
Speaker 1: it's not a source, man, It's like it's like walking
Speaker 1: into a bathroom reading something on the stall and saying
Speaker 1: sources say yeah, sources say what where? I mean, what
Speaker 1: the Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: It's it's useful as like up to the second news,
Speaker 2: but when the news is coming, when it's now being
Speaker 2: mirrored back from social media, it's like, no, man, you
Speaker 2: guys tell us, we're not telling you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's very odd, but of course it's really
Speaker 1: it's about money. It's always about money. And you follow
Speaker 1: the money and you get the storyline. Remember the wire,
Speaker 1: you know, follow the money. Yeah, And when it's the money,
Speaker 1: the money is in the clicks and the information sharing
Speaker 1: and the information the clicks. It doesn't matter about being right.
Speaker 1: Nobody gives a shit about being right, he said. Maybe
Speaker 1: some guy on an actual paper that's made of paper,
Speaker 1: but nobody really cares. It's about being first.
Speaker 2: I think I am where I am now with social
Speaker 2: media is what I believe is a similar place to
Speaker 2: where you are, which is it feels like an obligation.
Speaker 1: Now, oh, totally it is. I hire people to do
Speaker 1: it for me.
Speaker 2: And you and and and you have this sort of
Speaker 2: lifeline of like fine, I'll fucking post something on Instagram
Speaker 2: every once in a while, but I cannot bring myself
Speaker 2: to be one of those guys that is like I
Speaker 2: need to have X number of followers and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: you know, chase the followers and the crowd and the reaction.
Speaker 2: It's it just, I don't know, it just makes me
Speaker 2: feel OOGI. Well, it's it's not the same. It's no,
Speaker 2: it's no fun. Yeah, it's gonna be fun, or I
Speaker 2: don't want to. I'm too fucking I'm not talented enough
Speaker 2: to do shit that isn't fun, and it's hard enough
Speaker 2: to do stuff that is fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. So if it's no fun, I thought,
Speaker 1: that's why I want to very I mean, we're going
Speaker 1: on all over. I want to talk to you about WIPE.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you for why because from my money, hands down,
Speaker 1: guaranteed fucking laugh every single episode, every single no matter
Speaker 1: how many times I've seen the reruns, that fucking show
Speaker 1: every time I see now it's deep into the you know,
Speaker 1: the thousands, and kind of like the satellite, it's everywhere.
Speaker 2: It's fucking it's on Apple TV and Netflix and there
Speaker 2: it's late.
Speaker 1: People can really hurt doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can imagine some of those, like.
Speaker 1: The boxing glove that comes out the fucking wall though.
Speaker 2: Man, it's you know, I I remember running into Johnny
Speaker 2: Knoxville at one point and he goes, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I love Wipeout and if without dier thing.
Speaker 1: That same movie, it's the zeleg that brings us all together.
Speaker 2: I literally go, really, it seems so tame compared to
Speaker 2: like the jackass stuff, and he goes, uh, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just fun watching people get smoked.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's it, that's it, and it is.
Speaker 2: I think Wipeout is in essence, it's it's a sort
Speaker 2: of universal form of physical humor that just bridges ages
Speaker 2: and backgrounds and and and you know, interests, and it
Speaker 2: is and it.
Speaker 1: Also doesn't pretend to be anathon. It's no. And I
Speaker 1: think that's really funny. Like when you who is your
Speaker 1: co host on that? Yeah, John Anderson, right, you and
Speaker 1: Joanah Anderson doing it is the kind of serious sports
Speaker 1: guys with like fucking chef's kiss. I mean, it got
Speaker 1: it just perfect. The tone was just perfect.
Speaker 2: It was a little Laureland hardyish where he was the
Speaker 2: guy who knew what he was doing. And I was
Speaker 2: the idiot that etole I.
Speaker 1: Say, sports guys like every fucking commentary it was.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was so much fun to do and and I
Speaker 2: remember I remember auditioning for that, and you know, you
Speaker 2: just went in and they showed you a run and
Speaker 2: you just vamped over it, and and I just remember
Speaker 2: going like, oh yeah, Like he goes, do you want
Speaker 2: to watch it first?
Speaker 1: One? No, like, you know, let it run? And he
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 2: I did it for like whatever two and a half minutes,
Speaker 2: and he goes, you want to do it again? Nope,
Speaker 2: Like I'm you know, I'm good.
Speaker 1: And it was. I loved that show.
Speaker 2: I love doing it. I've had I've had some you know,
Speaker 2: I think my one of my social media bios says, uh,
Speaker 2: talk soup wipe out and a few shows no one watched, you.
Speaker 1: Know, I talk to though. You know, let's know, let's
Speaker 1: not be wrong about talks. If I am doing the
Speaker 1: late night show, if my late night show is I
Speaker 1: don't know, Bowie, then talk soup is the available underground.
Speaker 4: Is it is?
Speaker 3: It is?
Speaker 2: It's gratifying now to to occasionally hear from people who
Speaker 2: I am enormous fans of, who grew up watching that
Speaker 2: show and we'll say yeah, like I remember running into
Speaker 2: you know, Sasha Baron Cohen Yeah, and him going I
Speaker 2: grew up watching that show on Sky TV And I
Speaker 2: was like what, and he goes, oh, yeah, it was
Speaker 2: a huge influence on me. Or going to like an
Speaker 2: SNL taping and you know, people like Kristen Wig or
Speaker 2: you know whoever like telling you like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'd like it. I'm like, really because it was my
Speaker 2: first job in TV and it was basic cable and
Speaker 2: we didn't know if there was anyone watching.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is though, it was it was so fresh,
Speaker 1: and she was like talk soup. She was like that,
Speaker 1: I think they live. I remember having a conversation the
Speaker 1: last week I was doing Late Night. I was sitting
Speaker 1: with producer Magnate, this is a friend of mine, and
Speaker 1: make said, you know, it's shame people really love this show.
Speaker 1: It's a shame here stepping back, and I was like,
Speaker 1: they may love it now, it's not as much as
Speaker 1: they're going to love it ten years from now. And
Speaker 1: I've not been doing it for a while, right, And
Speaker 1: I felt that when and I believe that's true. People
Speaker 1: coming to the show and they never saw the show
Speaker 1: this is coming to see Me live. They never saw
Speaker 1: the show boy on CBS. They never saw it. They
Speaker 1: watch it on fucking YouTube, right, they watched clips of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I you know you did?
Speaker 2: You know you you sort of Barry Sanders that show
Speaker 2: where you like you retired at the top, like you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, you stepped away from that show
Speaker 2: without writing it into the ground. And that was I
Speaker 2: pulled the plug on my time I Talk Soup after
Speaker 2: four and a half years. Now, that was a daily
Speaker 2: show with no hiatus. It was grueling, you know, three
Speaker 2: three or four writers, Yeah, doing two and a half
Speaker 2: hours a week, three hours a week, and but it
Speaker 2: was you know, there got to it was nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: nine and they had given me the opportunity to sign
Speaker 2: a new four year contract, and the talk shows themselves
Speaker 2: were dying off, you know, they were they were like.
Speaker 1: That show because it was on ice floes, you know.
Speaker 1: And I just thought four and a.
Speaker 2: Half, like, it's fun now, but it could be ringing
Speaker 2: a fucking towel to try. I just don't want to
Speaker 2: be around. I love this too smart to leave.
Speaker 1: The party a little bit early. That was then a
Speaker 1: little bit Yeah, I feel it's just like just like enough.
Speaker 1: Remember having this conversation with Jared Butler, Gerald Butler, Jerry Butler, right,
Speaker 1: and we were working on a movie, one of these
Speaker 1: Dragon movies. We're talking about it just when I was quitting,
Speaker 1: and he said, you're a quitter, and I went, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's probably better to get out, Like
Speaker 1: it's like being a boxer. Leave before you get hurt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you start, you know, Yeah, it's getting take off
Speaker 2: before you're sitting in the corner with the coloring book,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I kind of I kind of feel that way.
Speaker 1: But I fucking much respect to you, man, and I
Speaker 1: really mean it. I really mean it. You are the
Speaker 1: archetype of an arco. TV don't give a fuck TV
Speaker 1: was put together. You were right there. You were Warhol
Speaker 1: and boy and fucking Jack's ballock. You were rut there
Speaker 1: fucking doing well. That's that is.
Speaker 2: That is more kind than I deserve. But I I
Speaker 2: am grateful to have been in the right place at
Speaker 2: the right time for that rf TV because there there
Speaker 2: was there was no supervision, so there won't you can't
Speaker 2: have that, you know, there was no We'd go months
Speaker 2: without seeing. Nobody ever sat in on my tapings, Nobody
Speaker 2: ever told me what we could say on the last executives.
Speaker 1: Now it's a career, like being a stand up is
Speaker 1: a career. You believe that ship, it's a career like people.
Speaker 1: My dream is to be a stand up. My dream
Speaker 1: was to you know, it was to be anything but
Speaker 1: a fucking that though. Yeah, but there you go. It's
Speaker 1: it works out the way it was that John your joy.
Speaker 1: It's great to be a man. I'm so wonderful to say,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy you came and talked about ship, which
Speaker 1: you know is marsh to me. It's always good to say,
Speaker 1: always good to talk to you.
Speaker 3: I thought thought that nothing