Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy, Bob,
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm doing? Okay, let's start from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Do you ever pinch yourself that you have a late
Speaker 1: night show, you host the Oscars, the Emmy's, you're the
Speaker 1: face of ABC. I mean, do you ever say, how wow,
Speaker 1: this is unbelievable. How did I get here? No? You
Speaker 1: know what I do is I make it all negative.
Speaker 1: I try to focus on the negative and the things
Speaker 1: that I don't want to do. But you're right, and
Speaker 1: in fact, I was. I was just thinking about this
Speaker 1: because I was thinking about a dinner I had at
Speaker 1: my house with a bunch of comedians, and um, you
Speaker 1: has some guys that I always loved, and I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: I hope I never get over that feeling of two things.
Speaker 1: Number one, I can't believe these guys are in my house,
Speaker 1: and then number two, I can't believe this is my house.
Speaker 1: Let's just go back for a second. Was the negative
Speaker 1: thing a joke? Because don't forget a Letterman. Letterman is
Speaker 1: you know, uh famous for being self loathing and finding
Speaker 1: the cloud in any silver lining. I am not self
Speaker 1: loathing by any means. I you know, I think I
Speaker 1: have relatively good self esteem. But I don't want to
Speaker 1: do anything I have to do. Even if I enjoy
Speaker 1: doing the thing I have to do, I want to
Speaker 1: do it. It's a weird thing. It's like anything that's
Speaker 1: on the schedule as my enemy. Uh my dream day
Speaker 1: is something that has no appointments on it. So you know,
Speaker 1: I know it's not the greatest way to look at things.
Speaker 1: It's actually a very bad way to look at things.
Speaker 1: But it does seem to be conssistent throughout my career. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's say you have a day with nothing on
Speaker 1: the schedule. Is that end up being great? Were does
Speaker 1: the day drag? Oh? The day never drags. There always
Speaker 1: a million things to do. And my wife makes fun
Speaker 1: of me because we have a beach house and we'll
Speaker 1: go there on the weekends and I'll just sit at
Speaker 1: the table in the kitchen and work all day with
Speaker 1: the door open. She's like, you know, you never even
Speaker 1: you didn't even look, you didn't go outside all day.
Speaker 1: It's like, I know, I just need to catch up.
Speaker 1: I just I that's what relaxes me being caught up
Speaker 1: on that huge list of things to do? Do you
Speaker 1: actually have a list? Keep a list? I do I
Speaker 1: keep a list? Is it a physical or do you
Speaker 1: keep it in an app? I keep it in you know,
Speaker 1: the notes app. I keep mind too. It goes to
Speaker 1: do April, and then I don't get to most of
Speaker 1: the things, and it becomes to do May one and
Speaker 1: so on. Now do you have certain things that just
Speaker 1: stay at the bottom month after month after month. Let
Speaker 1: me look at it right now and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this will be in true thing. Okay, um, yeah, there
Speaker 1: are certain things that, um that do stay at the bottom.
Speaker 1: One that aren't urgent, and there are things that I
Speaker 1: hope to get to, but like I have to make
Speaker 1: a video for a charity that doesn't have a real
Speaker 1: hard deadline, so I haven't gotten to that. There's a
Speaker 1: listed something that says t shirts. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what that means. Uh. There's something that says fire pits
Speaker 1: with a question mark next to it. So well, it's
Speaker 1: funny because at the bottom I have this I have
Speaker 1: to make this phone call to this rock star I
Speaker 1: know pretty well, but I know what's gonna be like
Speaker 1: two or three hours, and I haven't quite geared myself
Speaker 1: up for it. And now it's been like five months,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, if I cross it off, does
Speaker 1: that mean I'm not doing it or just that it's
Speaker 1: in my mind? But let's go back. Is it just
Speaker 1: a hurdle that once something's on the schedule and you start,
Speaker 1: you forget it, you know your anxiety or you're not
Speaker 1: wanting to do it just a years or do you
Speaker 1: have to kind of get revved up and get into it.
Speaker 1: Um No, I'm okay. Once I get you know, I
Speaker 1: have so many things to do that it's just like
Speaker 1: I'm like a like a hooker in some ways, it's
Speaker 1: just like, all right, let's he here we go. All right,
Speaker 1: let's just do this. And there are a lot of meetings.
Speaker 1: The meanings are the things the thing that I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily care for. But most of it's fine. Most of
Speaker 1: it is me doing what I call homeworks, is editing
Speaker 1: scripts and going through hundreds of ideas and figuring things out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Okay, let's separate their meetings that
Speaker 1: are business and meetings for the show. What percentage of
Speaker 1: there meetings for the show and what percentage or meetings
Speaker 1: for external stuff for the show for external stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: so during COVID, were those meetings done via zoom or
Speaker 1: conference call or what they're mostly still being done via zoom.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, Bob, but COVID
Speaker 1: is not over yet. I know that Steve Cropper thinks
Speaker 1: it is. But well, I will tell you it's a
Speaker 1: very strange thing if we get into this, because I'm
Speaker 1: taking it very seriously. I know. I mean you probably
Speaker 1: do too, those of us who know a lot of
Speaker 1: different people. I know a lot of people have died,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely possible. And in my particular case, I
Speaker 1: take the one drug that if you take it, the
Speaker 1: vaccine doesn't work. So I have been vaccinated months ago,
Speaker 1: and they now have a test that can literally show
Speaker 1: how many antibodies you have. And the threshold on the
Speaker 1: test is one. Most people have over twenty. I have
Speaker 1: point one. So I don't go down my whole avenue.
Speaker 1: But I will say I'm taking it unbelievably seriously. Other
Speaker 1: than doctors, I'm not seeing anybody. I'm going hike in
Speaker 1: the mountains. Otherwise I'm home. I'd close up your nose
Speaker 1: holes if I was you. I mean, just that's a boy.
Speaker 1: That's scary. I'm sorry you're going through that. That is,
Speaker 1: but I will tell you I was just at it.
Speaker 1: I just did a shoot this morning at a gymnastics place,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to learn to do a cartwheel and
Speaker 1: one of the people neither can I by the way,
Speaker 1: none of one of the people that works there. You know,
Speaker 1: we were putting a mask and somebody's like, yeah, her
Speaker 1: husband passed away from COVID. It's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you know it's you. It's easy to forget that these
Speaker 1: numbers that you see on CNN, that there people, and
Speaker 1: that people lose their loved ones to this, and that
Speaker 1: it's not just an inconvenience, which I think is what
Speaker 1: it is for probably most people, just in inconvenience. That's
Speaker 1: more than an inconvenience. Well, there's so many things there.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, people don't realize is someday they're gonna die,
Speaker 1: even like Sumner Redstone or as Jerry Seinfeld says, we're
Speaker 1: here to be replaced. And what they when you die,
Speaker 1: I don't care who you are. Life goes on. So
Speaker 1: you think what you're doing is so important. It's really
Speaker 1: a strange thing. But when you have these meetings, do
Speaker 1: you run the meeting? Um? Not? Usually no, who runs
Speaker 1: the meeting? The meeting is usually focused on me, So
Speaker 1: it depends on what department I'm talking to. They're usually
Speaker 1: pitching me stuff or trying to get my take on something.
Speaker 1: Usually I don't run the meeting, no, okay, But in
Speaker 1: the meeting it demands your attention the whole time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're not doodling. You're not, you know, surfing the
Speaker 1: web while you're doing this whatever. I am doodling, but
Speaker 1: but my not different part of my brain is paying attention. Okay.
Speaker 1: Can one say that you're moving so fast and there's
Speaker 1: so much in the landscape that really you don't have
Speaker 1: time to think about it and what it means. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things I don't have time.
Speaker 1: There are things I wish I'd had more time to
Speaker 1: think through. But you know, the worst part of this
Speaker 1: job is being asked a million questions and knowing, unless
Speaker 1: you're a lunatic, knowing that yeah, a certain percentage of
Speaker 1: your answers have to be wrong. There again't all be right.
Speaker 1: So you could ask like two questions in a day,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't even count picking between jokes or bits
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and um, a certain percentage of
Speaker 1: them are not going to be right. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: that's just something that you have to accept. You know.
Speaker 1: I go to a therapist for that because it's very hard.
Speaker 1: He says, just make a decision, whether it's right or wrong.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's what you've already achieved that you
Speaker 1: know that a certain number will inherently be wrong. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you, Bob, I'll tell you a weird thing.
Speaker 1: I can make a million decisions when it comes to
Speaker 1: work or you know, comedy or material whatever, But when
Speaker 1: it comes to trying to figure out what to do
Speaker 1: for vacation, I am I mean, and my wife is
Speaker 1: this way too. We cannot ever make a decision. It
Speaker 1: becomes like we almost always make the decision at the
Speaker 1: last minute. Well, we're absolutely us two, but because we
Speaker 1: just can't, it's just two. It's overwhelming and it's a
Speaker 1: weird thing. And we have talked about it, like why
Speaker 1: is this Why can't we figure this out? Why is
Speaker 1: this so difficult? And I don't know what the answer is.
Speaker 1: I really don't. Generally speaking, of you, the kind of
Speaker 1: guy who doesn't plan ahead. I know, I very much
Speaker 1: plan ahead, very much. So so it's only in this
Speaker 1: one area that you're stifled, so to speak. And so
Speaker 1: how many weeks a year are you off from the show?
Speaker 1: I am off? Now I have a new arrangement with
Speaker 1: ABC where I take the summers off I am off from,
Speaker 1: which is really just July and August. So I'm off
Speaker 1: July and August, and then we have I think, um
Speaker 1: six weeks spread throughout the rest of the year. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know famously Johnny went to four days, but Letterman
Speaker 1: had five shows a week, even though he did two
Speaker 1: on one day. To take the summer off, must have
Speaker 1: been pretty confident in your status to even ask for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually I didn't even ask for it. I was thinking
Speaker 1: maybe that maybe I've had enough. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can continue going at this pace. And either my
Speaker 1: agent or ABC or some combination of the two said,
Speaker 1: well what if you had the summer off? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: that would be great, and I think I could that
Speaker 1: I think could keep me going for a little while. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have a summer off, you have young children.
Speaker 1: What's the general plan. Now. You know that's hard for me, Bob,
Speaker 1: I can't figure it out. Well, let's start for the beginning.
Speaker 1: Your house is in the South Bay, right, your beach house. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: that's a big thing in l A. Because most people
Speaker 1: are north, they are Malibu. Whatever. How did you decide
Speaker 1: to be south? I have had I have a very
Speaker 1: small house. Our house is square feet and I have
Speaker 1: had it since. I've had it for sixteen years, I think.
Speaker 1: And I love it down there. I like people on
Speaker 1: the beach. I don't like Malibu. I don't like I
Speaker 1: just don't like the way it goes, you know. I
Speaker 1: like to see umbrellas and children and families and groups
Speaker 1: of people on the beach. I enjoy it. Nobody bothers
Speaker 1: me down there. People are very nice, and it's just
Speaker 1: it just relaxes me. When I I come over there.
Speaker 1: There's a little hill that I go down to go
Speaker 1: down to the beach. When I go over that hill
Speaker 1: on Friday, I feel a sense of relief and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the weekend. It's happening. And do you have
Speaker 1: anybody's who have houses down there? Um? Almost my whole
Speaker 1: family lives down there. My parents my in laws, my cousins. Uh,
Speaker 1: so we have a lot of friends down there. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's queer switch gears completely. Uh. The reason we're doing
Speaker 1: this podcast not that is we had a series of
Speaker 1: emails about the whole late night world and you were
Speaker 1: telling me that primarily or a big factor is creating
Speaker 1: stuff to post online. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that, amplify that. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I put it that way. I just you were talking,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you, um, you are a harbinger
Speaker 1: of death when it comes to all of our businesses
Speaker 1: that we've loved throughout the years, throughout our childhood, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, for the most part, you're right. But I
Speaker 1: do think that what people miss and people are so
Speaker 1: focused on, like Nielsen ratings when it comes to and
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about primetime television. I'm talking about late
Speaker 1: night television. If you were to look at the Nielsen ratings,
Speaker 1: you'd say, wow, things have really gone downhill. But if
Speaker 1: you look at the reality of late night television, it's
Speaker 1: that people are watching it on YouTube. People are millions
Speaker 1: of people every night are watching my monologue and Cold
Speaker 1: Bear's monologue and Falon's and Seth Meyers and James Cornet
Speaker 1: Are they just we actually um offered our product up
Speaker 1: for free to YouTube and we get almost nothing in return.
Speaker 1: And now people don't have to watch our show anymore
Speaker 1: because they know they get it there. Well, one thing
Speaker 1: we did discuss. You weren't sure the answer to this
Speaker 1: is to what degree it is monetized on YouTube? Um,
Speaker 1: well it is monetized. But the I mean you're talking
Speaker 1: about compared to television rate revenue, You're you're talking about
Speaker 1: probably ten of our revenue comes from YouTube. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what is the goal? Is the goal you say a
Speaker 1: lot of people they're watching, they never watch you on
Speaker 1: regular television when you're on for an hour, So it's
Speaker 1: not revenue. Is it to keep your name in the game?
Speaker 1: Is it for personal satisfaction? What is it all about? Well,
Speaker 1: it just kind of happened, is the truth. It was.
Speaker 1: Um we started The reason we even started a YouTube
Speaker 1: channel was because we made this video called I'm Fucking
Speaker 1: Damon and everyone was posting it and it was getting
Speaker 1: millions of views on a lot of people's pages and
Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with the revenue. I just
Speaker 1: didn't like the way some people were posting it. Some
Speaker 1: of them were cutting out the interest and it was
Speaker 1: like messy. I didn't like how it was being presented,
Speaker 1: so I said we should we should start our own
Speaker 1: YouTube channel so we can post these videos in the
Speaker 1: way we want them to be posted and then viral
Speaker 1: videos from late night television shows just for those people.
Speaker 1: Were just for those people who may not be you know,
Speaker 1: your biggest fan. What year are we talking about, Um,
Speaker 1: we are talking about Let's see when was that video? Maybe? Okay,
Speaker 1: I can figure it out because it was made for
Speaker 1: my forty birthday, but then there was a writers strike
Speaker 1: so we had to hold it. I think it was
Speaker 1: two thousand eight beginning. So this was really early YouTube,
Speaker 1: before all the influenzer craziness, never mind Instagram, etcetera. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was very early. I'm I'm certain we were the
Speaker 1: first show late night shoot to have a YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: So then we started posting our videos there just because
Speaker 1: you know, you want people as many people to see
Speaker 1: your stuff as possible. It seemed like a way, uh
Speaker 1: to catalog your show and your best bits, and then
Speaker 1: people could go and look at something you're particularly proud of.
Speaker 1: We none of us realized that it would go completely
Speaker 1: upside down and most people will be watching on YouTube,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's what has happened. But you can't
Speaker 1: really put it back in the box, you know. It's
Speaker 1: it's you can't just get off YouTube. It's not because
Speaker 1: you'd have to coordinate with all of the shows to
Speaker 1: get off YouTube, and then you'd have pirates putting the
Speaker 1: stuff up anyway, and it usually takes twenty four hours
Speaker 1: to get it taken down, so it would just be
Speaker 1: you'd wind up just like chasing your dog around in circles.
Speaker 1: What did ABC say about this? They, you know, they
Speaker 1: felt the same way. They're like, yeah, fine, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: let's we'll put it on you We'll go on YouTube, okay,
Speaker 1: because some of these channels they insistence on their own
Speaker 1: domain page and they kill it on YouTube, etcetera. You
Speaker 1: got no static or you were so early that the
Speaker 1: paradigm was set before they realized what was happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we were all in the same boat. None of
Speaker 1: us saw this as the basically outlet from I mean,
Speaker 1: we're we're all we're all doing shows for YouTube and
Speaker 1: being paid by someone else to do them, which is
Speaker 1: a great spot to be in if your YouTube. Okay,
Speaker 1: but let's talk about Jimmy Kimmel. So now you're creating
Speaker 1: a show every night. To what degree in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind are you thinking does this work on YouTube?
Speaker 1: Very little? I I always try to remember what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: what I was doing at the beginning. Um. I have
Speaker 1: an idea of what is going to work. But I
Speaker 1: do not program the show for YouTube. Do you watch
Speaker 1: the YouTube numbers? Yes, we do look at the YouTube numbers.
Speaker 1: You particularly you watch them. I look at it every week.
Speaker 1: I get a report on on it every weekend, and
Speaker 1: every once in a while there's something. If I'm particularly
Speaker 1: interested to see how it's doing, how it's playing, I
Speaker 1: will look. Okay, Now you must know what works and
Speaker 1: doesn't work on YouTube, right, I have a pretty good idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what works generally and what doesn't work? The monologue
Speaker 1: is works best of all, um the um uh, certain
Speaker 1: comedy bits, when you really put your foot into them,
Speaker 1: those will play very well. Mean tweets. Um. There's certain
Speaker 1: bits that we do regularly that do well because people
Speaker 1: know to look for them. What doesn't do well is music. Weirdly, Um,
Speaker 1: of course we have it's difficult because there are licensing
Speaker 1: agreements that prevent us from posting many of the performances
Speaker 1: that we have. So it actually surprises me a little
Speaker 1: bit because I would think that music would be more
Speaker 1: popular on YouTube than it is. Uh, just going back,
Speaker 1: what is the life span? Obviously these things live on
Speaker 1: YouTube essentially forever. But if you do something, do people
Speaker 1: then watch within twenty four hours or is it a week?
Speaker 1: What you know? What's the wind of the greatest number
Speaker 1: of people watch a clip? Definitely the first twenty four hours. Um,
Speaker 1: it will extend to a few days usually, But then
Speaker 1: what happens, which is interesting is you build this catalog
Speaker 1: of material and people will will come back to that
Speaker 1: material and um bits that you did ten years ago
Speaker 1: and watch that stuff and it gives you a kind
Speaker 1: of a huge viewer base. Okay, do you have any
Speaker 1: idea because the monologues are in the neighborhood at ten minutes,
Speaker 1: do you have any idea what percentage of people who
Speaker 1: start stay for the whole monologue? Um? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I did know at one time. The monologues are usually
Speaker 1: around fourteen minutes, fourteen fifteen minutes. Um, I know that
Speaker 1: they do well when they're long people. I think most
Speaker 1: people tend to watch the whole thing. Okay, now your
Speaker 1: monologue is a little bit don't. Let's start from the beginning.
Speaker 1: You were not a stand up comic before. Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: get to that later. But Johnny used to do his
Speaker 1: monologue and it was almost like it was clear he
Speaker 1: didn't write the jokes, and he'd be laughing at the jokes. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then Letterman made a whole thing of you know,
Speaker 1: the joke doesn't have to be good, etcetera. But you
Speaker 1: have changed the monologue, and you'll have footage and all
Speaker 1: kinds of things within the monologue. It's just that when
Speaker 1: you've even Bill Maher and HBO, he does his five
Speaker 1: to ten minutes. Then we go into the show. Whose
Speaker 1: idea was to change it up like that? Um, it
Speaker 1: wasn't really anyone's idea. Just happened. It's just I wish
Speaker 1: I could say there was some master plan, but it
Speaker 1: when I started the show. First of all, Regis called
Speaker 1: me and he gave me. I said, give me some advice, Regis,
Speaker 1: and he said, well start, how do you know Regis?
Speaker 1: I I you know Regis and I gravitated to each
Speaker 1: other somehow, Um, I've done it. I've done Regis when
Speaker 1: I was hosting The Man Show and oh Regis. I
Speaker 1: know how I know Regis because he liked I was
Speaker 1: on Fox NFL Sunday. I was a prognosticator and Regis
Speaker 1: is a big football fan and he liked me from that.
Speaker 1: And I was actually contested on Who Wants to Be
Speaker 1: a Millionaire long before I had the talk show at
Speaker 1: ABC when Regis was the host, and um, Regis and
Speaker 1: I had a little chemistry. Somehow he got a kick
Speaker 1: out of me, and I out of him. So Regis
Speaker 1: called me and he um. He gave me the advice
Speaker 1: to make the monologue my own. He said, the rest
Speaker 1: of the show is about other people. It's about the guests,
Speaker 1: about the music and whatever you have going on. But
Speaker 1: the monologue that is your time. That's that should be,
Speaker 1: that's yours, and don't forget that. Don't turn it over
Speaker 1: to others. Um, do the monologue. Be the guy who
Speaker 1: does the monologue. And I was like, okay, thanks. What
Speaker 1: My plan when I started was I had nothing written.
Speaker 1: I had no jokes written. The first year and a
Speaker 1: half of the show, I would go in, I'd sit there.
Speaker 1: I didn't even stand up, and I bullshit my way
Speaker 1: through the monologue like it was a radio show. And
Speaker 1: as like as I I became more discriminating, I started
Speaker 1: evaluating the show a bit more closely. I got over
Speaker 1: the like, oh my god, we're just lucky we got
Speaker 1: this show on the air tonight phase of the of
Speaker 1: the job. I started writing more, and I started refining
Speaker 1: well and planning and doing and shooting bits with real content,
Speaker 1: and um uh, these are things that I don't know
Speaker 1: why I wasn't doing them. I looked back on those
Speaker 1: early shows and I go, I thought I was pretty smart.
Speaker 1: I guess I wasn't. I had no idea what I
Speaker 1: was doing. It was a big mess. Everything was a mess.
Speaker 1: It was just a fucking disaster. It's a miracle that
Speaker 1: we made it to the second year. Okay, so is
Speaker 1: your show the type where you're open to anything someone
Speaker 1: comes in with a wild idea. Do you tend to
Speaker 1: say yes? So you're the kind of guy says no. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to answer that. I know what
Speaker 1: works for our show, and I know what doesn't, and
Speaker 1: I know I've learned over the years that there's always
Speaker 1: this idea when you started talk show. Then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: mix it. I'm not gonna do it the way everybody
Speaker 1: else did, and I'm gonna bit's. I'm gonna revolutionize this
Speaker 1: and and what you wind up doing is something that's
Speaker 1: not a late night talk show. You wind up doing
Speaker 1: something else. And maybe what you're doing is good, but
Speaker 1: it's not. You know, it's like being a baseball player.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways. You still have to have, um,
Speaker 1: you know, ninety ft between the bases and sixty six
Speaker 1: inches to the pitchers mound, and yeah, maybe there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a little bit of variable when it comes to
Speaker 1: where the outfield fences or the shape of the field itself,
Speaker 1: but ultimately you just have to you have to work
Speaker 1: within a box or else you're not doing a late
Speaker 1: night talk show in the same way these morning television shows,
Speaker 1: you know the Today Show, um, you know Good Morning America.
Speaker 1: They're kind of doing the same thing but with different people.
Speaker 1: And that is you learn what the viewer wants to
Speaker 1: see at that time, that's what they want to say.
Speaker 1: We've done these big shows where we've had these like
Speaker 1: we had krentin Tarantino direct our show. Once we had um,
Speaker 1: you know all these different we've done, these unusual bits
Speaker 1: were like I'd get on a bus and do the
Speaker 1: show from the bus for the whole night, and you know,
Speaker 1: all these crazy stuff that took a huge amount of work,
Speaker 1: and it always rates badly. It's weird. It's like people
Speaker 1: just want to see the show, Like, all right, you
Speaker 1: with your whatever the funk you're doing. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but people want to see you do a monologue and
Speaker 1: then go sit down at the desk and then throw
Speaker 1: it to either a comedian or a band. Okay, you
Speaker 1: have a young family, You're doing a five night a
Speaker 1: week show. To what how do you keep up? I mean,
Speaker 1: how much time do you have to surf the web
Speaker 1: just to get a feel for it on these varying sites.
Speaker 1: To what degree do you have to immerse yourself in
Speaker 1: the world of the people who are the guests, whether
Speaker 1: watch a movie, read a book, whatever. How do you
Speaker 1: manage all that? It's a lot. I you know, my
Speaker 1: schedules basically, I go to the work and go to
Speaker 1: work in the morning, I come home, I get home
Speaker 1: at about six o'clock. The next two hours or for
Speaker 1: the kids, and then the next four hours or for homework.
Speaker 1: So I put the kids to bed, and then I'll
Speaker 1: go through all my emails and all the stuff I
Speaker 1: couldn't get to while I was planning the show. I
Speaker 1: um will if I have a movie I need to
Speaker 1: watch or TV show I need to watch, I'll do that,
Speaker 1: and then um it all starts over again the next day,
Speaker 1: So there's not a there's not a lot of time
Speaker 1: for um me to do anything other than work on
Speaker 1: the next day show. Do you ever just fly blind? Say, man,
Speaker 1: I've been studying too much. I do this so well.
Speaker 1: I can have anybody as a guest. I don't really
Speaker 1: have to prepare. No. Never, I don't never do that. Yeah, never.
Speaker 1: But let's assume it was a test like the Tarantino show.
Speaker 1: Could you do it? I could do it, and some
Speaker 1: of them would be good. Some of them might even
Speaker 1: be better than the way I do it now, but
Speaker 1: some of them would be very bad. And I go
Speaker 1: for consistency, and I don't want to get lazy. And
Speaker 1: I think when you start getting lazy, that's when you
Speaker 1: should stop doing the show. I still want the monologue
Speaker 1: every night. I wanted to be as good as it
Speaker 1: possibly can be given our time constraints and um, the
Speaker 1: constraints of the world. But every night I work on
Speaker 1: it as hard as I can until the moment I
Speaker 1: have to step on the stage, and then I do it.
Speaker 1: And there's times like I'm very good at reading a teleprompter.
Speaker 1: I can you can wake me up in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, and I could read a teleprompter very well.
Speaker 1: But every night, even though I don't enjoy it, it's
Speaker 1: probably my least favorite part of the day. I go through.
Speaker 1: I read through my script and I committed to as
Speaker 1: much to memory as I possibly can because I know
Speaker 1: that it's gonna make it three better if I do,
Speaker 1: and that three percent makes a huge difference. That's what
Speaker 1: people don't realize. Okay, you grow up in New York
Speaker 1: until like you're nine or ten. What's that about? What's
Speaker 1: that like? UM? Brooklyn typical lower middle class upbringing mill
Speaker 1: basin down at the bottom of Brooklyn, UM an Italian
Speaker 1: Jewish neighborhood, running around with kids, Mets fan um, flipping
Speaker 1: baseball cards, playing stickball in the street. And UM I
Speaker 1: moved when I was in fourth grade. That's when my
Speaker 1: family decided to Okay, you're in New York Okay, you're
Speaker 1: going to school. You're good athlete. Um, i'd say intermediate.
Speaker 1: I say, I wouldn't say I was a good athlete,
Speaker 1: but okay, not bad. But you played a lot. You're
Speaker 1: always game to be in the game. How good a
Speaker 1: student were you? Very good student? That's very good student.
Speaker 1: Did everybody else? Did you go to public school or
Speaker 1: Catholic school? Public school? Okay? Did everybody realize that you
Speaker 1: were doing that? Well? Yes, I was. I know it
Speaker 1: sounds like a German. I was always the smartest kid
Speaker 1: in my class. Okay, so you were the smartest kid
Speaker 1: in your class. Did people resent that? No? I was
Speaker 1: also the funniest kid in my class. Okay, would you
Speaker 1: also say you were the most popular kid in your class? No?
Speaker 1: Well yes, um, in the way that I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be not not with girls, for sure, and not
Speaker 1: nobody was. Let's start with New York. You leave it
Speaker 1: here in fourth grade? So girls aren't that big an issue? No,
Speaker 1: they were a big issue. Yeah, I mean they weren't
Speaker 1: an issue, but yeah, there's definitely. I mean I was
Speaker 1: interested in girls from kindergarten on. Okay, wait, how many
Speaker 1: kids in your family? We don't know there's three kids
Speaker 1: in my family, and where are you in the hierarchy?
Speaker 1: You're the only So all the hopes and dreams are you?
Speaker 1: What kind of personality does your have? What did your
Speaker 1: father have at the time? My father is the kind
Speaker 1: of guy that will tell you about his knee operation
Speaker 1: for four hours straight. What if you try to interrupt him,
Speaker 1: he'll he'll get back on. You can't get him off track.
Speaker 1: It's impossible. Okay, does he tell a good story? No?
Speaker 1: Your mother verbal? Nonverbal? My mother was class wit in
Speaker 1: her giant high school in Brooklyn, Madison and very verbal,
Speaker 1: literally never stops talking. Okay, So how didn't work between
Speaker 1: your mother and father? He's telling a long story, she's
Speaker 1: the witch. She's talking. Who can get a worded edgewise? Well, he,
Speaker 1: my dad operates. They just talk simultaneously. And I'm not
Speaker 1: joking at all. Like you can be sitting in between
Speaker 1: them and they're both talking to you, and you look
Speaker 1: to them with you know, a look of amusement at first,
Speaker 1: and going like you can both see that you're both
Speaker 1: talking to me, And I know I have two years,
Speaker 1: but I only have one brain and I can't process
Speaker 1: both of this stuff. But my dad talks at a
Speaker 1: very My dad's like it goes like this, like, so
Speaker 1: your mother, we made a car rental, Uh, we're going
Speaker 1: to Avis and that was a thousand dollars. So then
Speaker 1: I looked, I got my discount from American Spread. And
Speaker 1: then my mother is at full volume talking about something else.
Speaker 1: So it's it's almost I wouldn't say it's harmony. It isn't.
Speaker 1: It's a cacophony, for sure, but they managed to just
Speaker 1: talk at the same time constantly. Okay, and how did
Speaker 1: you deal with this, dude? Were you quiet or did
Speaker 1: you jump into I was pretty quiet. I picked my spots,
Speaker 1: and I really think that's what attracted me to radio,
Speaker 1: is just being just never really being heard in the house.
Speaker 1: Okay and usually Okay, how far a part of the
Speaker 1: other two kids in the family from you. My sisters
Speaker 1: three years younger and my brother is nine years younger,
Speaker 1: well nine years younger. It's like a whole another generation. Okay,
Speaker 1: what's your sister think about all this? About? What about
Speaker 1: my cacophony? And there's no room for anybody? And now
Speaker 1: she comes along, you know, I have to tell you, um, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, just to give you an idea of
Speaker 1: what it was like in my house. Um my sister's
Speaker 1: birth announcement. My wife discovered this as my mother was
Speaker 1: showing her my baby book My sister's birth announcement said,
Speaker 1: and I quote, Jimmy has a sister. And it's not
Speaker 1: the way it really played in the favory. It kind
Speaker 1: of did. Yeah, my my sister was my father's favorite,
Speaker 1: and um my brother. I think yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: was you know, mom with the sons and dad with
Speaker 1: the daughter. Okay, now, somebody who's like the class wit
Speaker 1: usually gets sent to the office this trouble. The parents
Speaker 1: are called in. Not every day, but you don't go unscathed.
Speaker 1: Did that happen with you? Oh? Yes, absolutely, I mean
Speaker 1: it wasn't so it was, you know what, you put
Speaker 1: yourself in a position when you decided to be the
Speaker 1: I was more of the class clown in the class
Speaker 1: with probably, But when you put yourself in that position,
Speaker 1: you have to be prepared for shrapnel. You're gonna get it.
Speaker 1: I mean, because every once in a while, the teacher's
Speaker 1: gonna get really mad. My favorite teachers were the ones
Speaker 1: that that laughed along with the rest of the class.
Speaker 1: And I had a couple of great ones who you know,
Speaker 1: who really you know in the way, that's your first audience, right.
Speaker 1: So I had these teachers that got a kick out
Speaker 1: of me, and I think part of it was because
Speaker 1: I was such a good student, so they didn't hold
Speaker 1: it against me. But then every once in a while,
Speaker 1: I have a teacher that would just lose their minds. Okay,
Speaker 1: your parents would be called in, since your mother is
Speaker 1: such a wit, what would she say about your behavior?
Speaker 1: I don't think you know. I went to always really
Speaker 1: big public schools, so there wasn't a whole lot of
Speaker 1: parents being called in. Most of the punishment was meted
Speaker 1: out within the confines of the school, like I'd have
Speaker 1: to go sit in the hall, and which is a
Speaker 1: weird punishment. It was like, I'd rather be in the hall.
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of punishment this is, but
Speaker 1: uh it was. Uh. My parents didn't get called to
Speaker 1: school a lot. I was always nervous they were gonna
Speaker 1: find out what I was up to. Um, But only
Speaker 1: when I was adulted I realized my mother was probably
Speaker 1: up to the same stuff. Okay, and your father and
Speaker 1: mother were both of them working in Brooklyn, or just
Speaker 1: your father just my father and what was he doing
Speaker 1: at the time he worked for My dad didn't get
Speaker 1: his high school diploma. He he went and got his
Speaker 1: g e D. Okay, couple, wait wait wait wait wait
Speaker 1: before we go there, your father, how many generations in America?
Speaker 1: My father many generations in America. Okay, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: like he was an immigrant dropping out of high school.
Speaker 1: What do his parents think about him dropping out high school?
Speaker 1: You know what they didn't know? I think, um, I
Speaker 1: think my You know, my grandfather on my dad's side
Speaker 1: was an elevator operator for his whole life. That's what
Speaker 1: he did. So the idea that you would you would
Speaker 1: be expected to achieve something that wasn't something. We didn't
Speaker 1: have that in my family. You know. My grandfather on
Speaker 1: my mom's side, who was still like the funniest person
Speaker 1: I've ever met my life, was an upholsterer and a
Speaker 1: film splicer for his whole life. And both my grandmothers
Speaker 1: were moms. They didn't they went home and they cooked
Speaker 1: and did all that stuff. But there wasn't I mean,
Speaker 1: my dad was first of all. Definitely, my dad got
Speaker 1: a g D and then went to like night school
Speaker 1: to get his college degree. He was. Oh, so he
Speaker 1: ended up getting his college degree. He got his college degree. Yes,
Speaker 1: and um, there aren't many college degrees in our family. Okay,
Speaker 1: how about your two siblings? My neither one, none of us,
Speaker 1: none of us have a college degree. Okay, how did
Speaker 1: your parents meet? They met at a bowling alley in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Was an instant attraction or what's the legend? I think so?
Speaker 1: I think it was. And they got married very young.
Speaker 1: My my mom was twenty when they got married. My
Speaker 1: dad was twenty two. And when did you come? I
Speaker 1: came when my mom was twenty one. I came, um
Speaker 1: a little over a year after they were married. Okay,
Speaker 1: so your parents come in good front you one day
Speaker 1: say we're moving to Las Vegas. When you're a young kid,
Speaker 1: that's like the worst thing that could ever happen. You're
Speaker 1: leaving all your friends, etcetera. Not really, because my grandparents
Speaker 1: lived there and my cousins lived there. They moved two
Speaker 1: years out of us, so you know, we're it's a
Speaker 1: very tight Italian family. We were, we were excited. I was,
Speaker 1: you know. And also when I was nine years old,
Speaker 1: you don't know what's going on. It's like, oh, alright,
Speaker 1: we're moving to Las Vegas, you know, so we'll live there.
Speaker 1: And I had some good friends in Brooklyn, but we
Speaker 1: were kids, is you know, kids move on to other kids.
Speaker 1: Did you stay in touch with him? You ever seen him? Since?
Speaker 1: I do. Actually, there's my best friend as a kid,
Speaker 1: as a kid named Paul Kaplan. He's not a kid anymore,
Speaker 1: he's an adult man. He was the craziest kid in
Speaker 1: the class. I was always attracted to the craziest kid
Speaker 1: in the class. He really was a nut, this kid,
Speaker 1: and he still is a nut. In fact, he was
Speaker 1: one of the um bleacher creatures at the Yankees games.
Speaker 1: You know those guys, And it makes perfect sense. And
Speaker 1: of course he's the guy. It's Paul Kaplan. And I
Speaker 1: know he won't mind me telling this story. Got hit
Speaker 1: by lightning in his living room. Who tell this story?
Speaker 1: He could actually look it up and find it in
Speaker 1: the news. Paul was sitting on his couch in Staten
Speaker 1: Island watching a Yankees game and an errant bolt of
Speaker 1: lightning came down his chimney and burnt his couch and
Speaker 1: his hair and his TV and him and everything. And
Speaker 1: whether after effects or like, is he okay? You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell because it seemed like he'd been
Speaker 1: hit by a bolt of lightning before he was hit
Speaker 1: by a bolt of lightning. Okay, you moved to Vegas.
Speaker 1: What is your father do in Vegas? My dad? We
Speaker 1: moved there with no job. So my dad was working
Speaker 1: at Equitable and IBM in New York. He was like
Speaker 1: a computer program when computers were the size of a house.
Speaker 1: And we moved to Vegas and um we my dad
Speaker 1: got a job at a company called Suma Corporation, which
Speaker 1: was owned by Howard Hughes, who was not alive at
Speaker 1: the time, but they owned seven hotels in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: And my dad got a job in management information services,
Speaker 1: which I still don't know exactly what that is, but
Speaker 1: I do know that one of the things that he
Speaker 1: was involved in was setting the odds on the slot machines,
Speaker 1: so they were just the slot machines. Whatever the payout is.
Speaker 1: He was involved in that. So what was his viewpoint
Speaker 1: on gambling? What was the mantra in the house? The
Speaker 1: gambling was not encouraged. And in fact, my dad made
Speaker 1: a big impression on me, one of the few big
Speaker 1: impressions that he made advice wise, we were walking through
Speaker 1: one of the casinos and he goes, you see this
Speaker 1: beautiful hotel. I said, yeah, he goes, you think they
Speaker 1: built this from people winning? And I went, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I guess not. I haven't read this. Las Vega us
Speaker 1: a monument to losers. The whole town wouldn't exist. Okay,
Speaker 1: need let's just say the weather is a little bit
Speaker 1: different in Vegas than it is in Brooklyn. To what
Speaker 1: degree you adjust depressed and so, I mean it is
Speaker 1: really hot there in the degree a hundred and nine,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it's cold in the winter to
Speaker 1: in Vegas it can get pretty cold. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: snowed the first year we moved to Vegas. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, I was a kid that did whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: whether it's scorching hot or freezing cold, you're out in
Speaker 1: the street playing. Okay, So in the summer, even though
Speaker 1: it's a hundred degrees you were out making mischief very
Speaker 1: much so. And in fact, my partner in that mischief
Speaker 1: is a guy named Clito Escobido. He was he lived
Speaker 1: right across the street from me, and we became best
Speaker 1: friends almost immediately, and he is my band leader on
Speaker 1: my show Wow amazing connection. You're very loyal guy. So
Speaker 1: you're going to school. You go to public school in Vegas? Yes?
Speaker 1: And or is it the repetition of the same thing.
Speaker 1: You're the best student in the funny of the class clown. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: In fact, when I moved to Vegas, I was way
Speaker 1: ahead of the other The kids in Brooklyn were as
Speaker 1: far as public school goes, were quite a bit ahead
Speaker 1: of the students in Las Vegas at that time, So
Speaker 1: I was like a year and a half ahead as
Speaker 1: far as what we're a learning host. Okay, you say
Speaker 1: you've always been interested in girls, So how does that
Speaker 1: start playing out? Um? Uh, it didn't didn't play out.
Speaker 1: I would be quietly interested in them, terribly shy. Um
Speaker 1: never would I. I mean I once that in the
Speaker 1: sixth grade, I asked a girl named Lynn Englestad to
Speaker 1: the dance, and it took every bit of courage I
Speaker 1: had to ask her, and she immediately said yes, and
Speaker 1: she as I recalled, she's a beautiful girl, and I
Speaker 1: just I was so taken by her, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe she said yes and then went on the day
Speaker 1: of the dance, which was like an after school thing.
Speaker 1: I was two. I was so embarrassed I hid from
Speaker 1: her the whole time. Okay, I understand that. What happened
Speaker 1: the next four years in high school nothing. You got
Speaker 1: married at a very young age. I know that's because
Speaker 1: I thought I'd never have a girlfriend. I was like,
Speaker 1: I better get married to this one. And why did
Speaker 1: that marriage end? Um? She hated me. Yeah, we didn't
Speaker 1: get along. I think was the problem. And so you
Speaker 1: have your first kid at what age? That's a lot
Speaker 1: of responsibility. She turns thirty in August. What's she up to?
Speaker 1: She's an artist. She lives in the Mojave Desert. She
Speaker 1: makes ceramics, and she's doing very well. Wow. And your
Speaker 1: other kid from that marriage is my son. He is
Speaker 1: twenty seven. He is he works on my show. He
Speaker 1: makes funny videos with his friends, and he's interested in
Speaker 1: doing the type of nonsense that I do. How did
Speaker 1: the those both of those kids get along with Molly
Speaker 1: and the younger kids? Oh? Great, they get they get
Speaker 1: a look great. In fact, is our son's fourth birthday
Speaker 1: yesterday and the day before yesterday, and um, it was
Speaker 1: my birthday yesterday. So for a minute there I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what's your birthdate. Ap Okay, this is
Speaker 1: one we came, you know what. We were happy that
Speaker 1: he came on the twenty one because you know what
Speaker 1: April is, of course, not just Donor Day, but Hitler's birthday.
Speaker 1: And you don't want that. But uh, just in case
Speaker 1: there is something to astrology, you don't want your kids
Speaker 1: born on Hitler's birthday. But they get along great. I
Speaker 1: mean they I mean they all love each other. And
Speaker 1: to what degree do you have contact with your first wife? Uh?
Speaker 1: Not a ton. We you know, our kids are getting married,
Speaker 1: are olders. Kids are scheduled to get married this year
Speaker 1: and next year. So that has brought us together a bit,
Speaker 1: and we get along now. Fine, it's just when we're
Speaker 1: living in the same house, it was hard. And did
Speaker 1: she get remarried. No, she but she has a long
Speaker 1: term partner and she on the payroll. You mean as
Speaker 1: far as alimony goes. Yes, yeah, she doesn't want to
Speaker 1: get married. Okay, when someone looks at you're reading my mind, Bob.
Speaker 1: When someone looks at your career, those of us who
Speaker 1: were in l A know this ship doesn't happen by accident.
Speaker 1: People are not successful by accident. So it's a personality.
Speaker 1: I mean, my interaction with you have been significant yet limited.
Speaker 1: You're very open, you're very warm, you know the same
Speaker 1: type of thing like me and the girl said, comes
Speaker 1: come down to the show, come hang out. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all it was overwhelming. I couldn't go.
Speaker 1: But uh, is you know what kind of guy are you? Are?
Speaker 1: You just a guy's guy and you know everybody, and
Speaker 1: therefore opportunities come along. Um. No, I am a very
Speaker 1: hard worker. I am. I always have been, always, I
Speaker 1: mean since I was when I was when I was
Speaker 1: in high school, I worked seventy hours a week. In
Speaker 1: addition to going to high school, I worked at a
Speaker 1: pizza place, and I worked at a clothing store. And
Speaker 1: I just, I don't know, I think maybe it's anxiety
Speaker 1: or something, but I was always worried about money. When
Speaker 1: I was in radio, I was, you know, really just
Speaker 1: barely making it for a long period of time, ten
Speaker 1: years of really just kind of like going to the
Speaker 1: A T M And hoping that I will have more
Speaker 1: than twenty dollars so I can withdraw to twenty dollars
Speaker 1: to have lunch type of deal. And so that has
Speaker 1: always been with me, and that is you know, that
Speaker 1: makes it hard to turn things down, but you have to,
Speaker 1: you know. But definitely it when you go the first
Speaker 1: like thirty something years of your life and then career
Speaker 1: not having any money at all, it's um it really
Speaker 1: can like your priority. You know this the things that
Speaker 1: you you have to explain to your younger self or
Speaker 1: sometimes difficult. I mean it's you know, they're like, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say no to this. It'll take me an hour.
Speaker 1: I can make this much money, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: a constant struggle. Okay, but let's talk about musicians. The
Speaker 1: guy whose name is on you know, not Elton John,
Speaker 1: not Rod Stewart, not Drake, but the people who work
Speaker 1: with them, who are actually players, irrelevant of their personalities,
Speaker 1: they are unbelievable networkers. They maintain relationships with a lot
Speaker 1: of people because it's all gig work, and they know
Speaker 1: one point they're gonna work a relationship, they're gonna give
Speaker 1: a relationship. Was that at your experience in l A, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. I didn't know anybody, and I never
Speaker 1: intended to do anything other than be a radio disc jockey.
Speaker 1: I did not think I would be good at at
Speaker 1: at and being an actor. I'm still not an actor.
Speaker 1: I'm very aware of that. I did. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to make money. You know. I was on the radio
Speaker 1: and people thought I was funny, and they would call
Speaker 1: me and say, hey, do you want to write for this?
Speaker 1: Or would you like to audition for this? And I'd
Speaker 1: be like okay, and then you know, most of them
Speaker 1: went nowhere. But occasionally I would happen upon something that
Speaker 1: was um that worked out, and I had a weird
Speaker 1: you know who Fred Silverman is, right of course, so
Speaker 1: Fred Silverman for those who know, it's the only person
Speaker 1: who ran ABC, NBC and CBS. And this is when
Speaker 1: not simultaneously, but simultaneously, but this is when everyone was watching.
Speaker 1: This is you know, the set of these and eighties
Speaker 1: and a titan of the television industry. But now he's
Speaker 1: an old guy and he's mostly retired, but it's got
Speaker 1: a production company that keeps them busy. And I get
Speaker 1: a job writing for a game show, so I'd go
Speaker 1: do my radio show and then afterwards I spent a
Speaker 1: few hours writing questions and jokes for this game show
Speaker 1: they were putting together. Have any idea do you remember
Speaker 1: what you were getting paid? Um? Probably four hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a week something like that, which was great for me,
Speaker 1: I mean, which I was excited about. So and I
Speaker 1: meet this guy named Alan Rutcker, who's a great guy
Speaker 1: and who wrote U History of White People in America
Speaker 1: with Mark mull and I enjoy hanging around with him.
Speaker 1: So I stay a little longer than I've been planning to,
Speaker 1: and I start now hosting the run throughs. They do
Speaker 1: run throughs to work out a game show, and work
Speaker 1: out most every show, well literally a little bit slower
Speaker 1: started writing for the game show. Any writers are there?
Speaker 1: Just me and Alan? Okay, who is doing the run through?
Speaker 1: Before you? No one? There was no show before we
Speaker 1: worked it out. Okay, did you say, hey, I'll be
Speaker 1: the guy doing the run through or did someone say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, just have him do it. It wasn't either
Speaker 1: of those things. It was we were writing the material
Speaker 1: and and then somebody had to read it aloud, and
Speaker 1: so that became me. So I would do this and
Speaker 1: we try to figure out O this and the show
Speaker 1: was terrible. It was not working at all. It made
Speaker 1: no sense. So but they were paying us, and I
Speaker 1: thought I liked Alan, and so I was like, whatever,
Speaker 1: so I would host the run through and then there
Speaker 1: we were gonna they were gonna find a host for
Speaker 1: the show. And in fact, they were interested in getting
Speaker 1: Kevin and Bean, the guys I worked for at k Rock,
Speaker 1: to audition. They wanted them to audition separately, and they
Speaker 1: were gonna bring in all these hosts that people know well.
Speaker 1: Ll Fred Silverman comes in to see the final run
Speaker 1: through and he's I mean, he's great, look and he
Speaker 1: looks like an old TV executive. He's got a glass
Speaker 1: of iced tea in his hand at all that gets
Speaker 1: refilled at all times, and uh, you know, big belly,
Speaker 1: and he's he's dressed immaculately and he sits down and
Speaker 1: we do the run through and Fred says, and I
Speaker 1: swear to god this happened. Fred goes canceled the host auditions.
Speaker 1: This kid is the host. Didn't even know what my
Speaker 1: name was. Wow, And I was like what. He's like yeah,
Speaker 1: um and um it was I was like just to stop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: were you doing stick as the host? I mean I
Speaker 1: was walking around okay, and but not with the intention
Speaker 1: of being the host. You know, that didn't my mind.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I knew this show was not getting on,
Speaker 1: so it wouldn't it didn't even matter. But what happened
Speaker 1: was we presented this show to a lot of buyers.
Speaker 1: We had a um you know, we had a presentation
Speaker 1: where all these different buyers from these different networks came in,
Speaker 1: and many of them liked me. They didn't had no
Speaker 1: interest in the show. But one in particular was Michael Davies,
Speaker 1: who went on to produce Who Wants to Be a
Speaker 1: Millionaire and who produced a show called Win ben Stein's Money,
Speaker 1: which was my first show, and he called me afterwards.
Speaker 1: He's like, I thought you were really funny and I'd
Speaker 1: love to have you come audition for this show When
Speaker 1: ben Stein's Money. We were planning to do it with
Speaker 1: ben Stein solo, but we feel like we need a sidekick.
Speaker 1: And I said, well that sounds funny, that sounds like
Speaker 1: a good idea. The game show host plays against the contestants.
Speaker 1: And so I went in and it was great, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it really worked. Immediately Ben loved me, I
Speaker 1: loved him, and that was it. I was. Then I
Speaker 1: was the host of a show that one Comedy Central
Speaker 1: its first Emmy, I think, and was on every night
Speaker 1: twice a night. Um, you know we were on uh
Speaker 1: just before the daily show, um, every night, and um,
Speaker 1: that's really how it started for me. Okay, how much
Speaker 1: money were you making a k Rock? K Rock I
Speaker 1: was making when I started. I was making fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a year. When I left, I was making like and
Speaker 1: how many years were you there? I was there for
Speaker 1: five years. Okay, how did you get that gig? I
Speaker 1: got that gig in a weird way. Guy named Kevin
Speaker 1: Weatherly is a great program director. Um was. Everyone at
Speaker 1: k Rock was from Phoenix, Arizona, and that's where I
Speaker 1: went to college, and that's where my parents lived for
Speaker 1: a long time. So I would call into this radio station,
Speaker 1: k z z P. You know that station. Actually I
Speaker 1: don't huge in the eighties, I think they had the
Speaker 1: biggest market share of almost any radio station in the country,
Speaker 1: A huge HR station, very very popular. And I would
Speaker 1: call into the afternoon guys Mike Elliott and Kent Voss
Speaker 1: and they took a liking to me. And then I
Speaker 1: got to know this guy, who is your goal? In calling?
Speaker 1: I just like being on the radio. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: excited to be on the radio. You know, I'd call in.
Speaker 1: They tape a bit with me, I do character or
Speaker 1: something like that, and and then okay, well you're going
Speaker 1: to you we're going to University of Arizona. Are you
Speaker 1: studying radio and television? First of all, how dare you
Speaker 1: Arizona State University? Whichever? You know? I'm not obviously I'm
Speaker 1: not Arizona Fluid based on I didn't know the station. No,
Speaker 1: I went no, I was not studying uh that I
Speaker 1: was studying English. Okay, And you didn't finish because because
Speaker 1: I got a job as a disc jockey and a
Speaker 1: morning as a morning radio disc jockey in Seattle. And
Speaker 1: how long had you been at college. I've been there
Speaker 1: like two and a half years. I went to you
Speaker 1: and l V for a year two So you're none
Speaker 1: of this is planned. None of this is I gotta
Speaker 1: break my way out of the boonies. I gotta be somebody.
Speaker 1: No not, so you're calling into the station. Continue, I
Speaker 1: called into the station. I actually gave them an idea
Speaker 1: that they used and became a really big deal for them.
Speaker 1: There was we had a governor named ev Meekum who
Speaker 1: was like the first of the great Republican racists that
Speaker 1: made the news. He uh, he was a he got
Speaker 1: elected kind of by accident because there were three people
Speaker 1: on the ballot and the ballot was split. He got elected.
Speaker 1: He one of his first orders of business was to
Speaker 1: do away with Martin Luther King day as a Yeah
Speaker 1: remember that, remember that? Yeah, they were boycotted by and
Speaker 1: so anyway, you remember that song brand new lover by
Speaker 1: dead or Alive? Of course I wrote this brand new
Speaker 1: governor while we need as a brand new governor. They
Speaker 1: recorded it and became a big deal. In effect, you
Speaker 1: too asked they heard it when they came to town
Speaker 1: to record Rattle and Hum, and they asked the radio
Speaker 1: station for cop a copy of it, and they played
Speaker 1: it in the sun Devil Stadium before their concert, which
Speaker 1: was like, you know, it's crazy. I was, this is
Speaker 1: you know, I was just a kid, and you know
Speaker 1: that I have this happened. You actually even hear it
Speaker 1: in the background as Bono is sitting by the pool
Speaker 1: um in the Rattle and Hum documentary, and and so
Speaker 1: they were like, wow, that was great, and they trusted me,
Speaker 1: and I started doing a lot of stuff with them.
Speaker 1: And when when did you start getting paid by them?
Speaker 1: I never got paid by them, but one of the guys,
Speaker 1: Kent Voss got a job doing mornings in Seattle and
Speaker 1: took me with him as his producer slash sidekick and
Speaker 1: making how much? And you're married at this point, yes,
Speaker 1: but no kids at this point, no kids yet. No,
Speaker 1: but it's not a lot of money. And in fact,
Speaker 1: the general manager told me I'd be making thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year. And when I got up there, I
Speaker 1: looked at my paycheck, the first one I got, and
Speaker 1: I thought, well, it's doesn't add up right now. It
Speaker 1: seems to add up to exactly twenty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: And I went into his office and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, um you told me it was thirty thousand.
Speaker 1: He said, no, I didn't. I said, I even have
Speaker 1: my notes, right, these are the notes I made when
Speaker 1: you call you? And he's like, nope, sorry. I was like, fuck,
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do? So then Kent had to
Speaker 1: live with us because we couldn't afford the house that
Speaker 1: we'd rented on twenty thousand dollars a year. So Kent said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll stay with you guys and we'll split the rent.
Speaker 1: And that's just how that worked out. Okay, So how
Speaker 1: do you get from there to k ROCK. I got
Speaker 1: from there, we were fired there, moved back in with
Speaker 1: my parents and Phoenix. Finally got a job in Tampa
Speaker 1: at Q one oh five, another huge radio station. UM
Speaker 1: I was the producer and on air character guy. Then
Speaker 1: I got a job. I got fired from that job,
Speaker 1: got a job in Palm Springs. I worked there for
Speaker 1: uh eighteen months. I did not get fired. I got
Speaker 1: a in Tucson with one of the guys I worked
Speaker 1: with back at kazy ZP. We worked there for ten
Speaker 1: months and got fired. And then I got a job
Speaker 1: at k Rock through Kevin Weatherly, who was the music
Speaker 1: director and van driver in in Phoenix and who I
Speaker 1: met at a wedding in Cleveland and hung out with
Speaker 1: for a few days. And at the end of it
Speaker 1: he was like, you're really funny. I think you'd be
Speaker 1: great on Kevin and Bean show. Okay, you get fired
Speaker 1: multiple times. Everybody in radio knows that, but Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 1: gets fired. Does the sky fall or do you say,
Speaker 1: no problem, I'll get another gig. The sky falls and
Speaker 1: falls hard, and and I turned into you remember R
Speaker 1: and R. You know, the of course radio and record
Speaker 1: So that was really the only way to get a
Speaker 1: job unless you knew somebody, and I didn't know anybody
Speaker 1: at all. So every Thursday, R and R will be
Speaker 1: delivered to my house, and the nightmare was when it
Speaker 1: was delayed by a day in the mail and I
Speaker 1: would be waiting out by the mailbox at my parents
Speaker 1: house after we've been fired for that R and R
Speaker 1: to come so I could go through the want ads
Speaker 1: and get those cassettes in the mail immediately, because I know,
Speaker 1: I know that every radio station has a box of
Speaker 1: cassettes on the floor of the program director's office that
Speaker 1: never get listened to. And we always thought, oh, if
Speaker 1: we can get it there first, maybe they will listen
Speaker 1: to it first they've placed this ad and hopefully somebody
Speaker 1: will hear it and hire us. And that was just
Speaker 1: that's not how it went. We wound up getting a
Speaker 1: job at Actually, guy Mike Elliott, who we worked with
Speaker 1: in Phoenix, got a job as the morning man at
Speaker 1: Q one O five in Tampa and he had them
Speaker 1: he sent for us basically, so we he got us
Speaker 1: the jobs there. So it all comes down to who
Speaker 1: you know. Well, yeah, but for me, it was the
Speaker 1: same read people over and over again. Hey, it's still
Speaker 1: the people you knew. So all of a sudden, instead
Speaker 1: of being behind the mic, you're in front of the camera.
Speaker 1: That's a big switch. What was going through your head?
Speaker 1: By the way, I disagree with the it comes down
Speaker 1: to who you know, because you also have to be
Speaker 1: able to do your job. A lot of people that
Speaker 1: goes without saying okay, alright, especially when it comes to entertainment.
Speaker 1: People are lining up to work for free. Okay, But
Speaker 1: if you're trying to get a job through an ad,
Speaker 1: odds are you will never get it, never mind their
Speaker 1: ads where they're never really even gonna hire anybody. So
Speaker 1: it's ultimately something you know through personal relationship. In my experience, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean when you got to a certain level, like
Speaker 1: you say, k Rock, you get phone calls, you get
Speaker 1: emails out of the blue. Right, that's that's many steps
Speaker 1: down the road. Yes, it was a lot of steps
Speaker 1: down the road. So now that you're in front of
Speaker 1: the camera, does a light bulb go off? And you
Speaker 1: had to say, wait a second, I see a whole
Speaker 1: new opportunity that maybe I'm not really a radio guy,
Speaker 1: I'm a TV guy. Yeah, but not it wasn't a
Speaker 1: light bulb so much as it was a uh it
Speaker 1: was on a dimmer switch, if it was a light bulb,
Speaker 1: because I just kind of really just saw these as
Speaker 1: opportunities to make a little extra money. When I started
Speaker 1: wind ben STIGs money. And for the first two seasons,
Speaker 1: I made five fifty dollars a show. We won an Emmy,
Speaker 1: We won an Emmy, and I made five I think,
Speaker 1: what what's your agents say? Um? He said, You're lucky
Speaker 1: to have a job. I think the most I ever
Speaker 1: made was like eleven dollars a show. And keep in mind, like,
Speaker 1: if you like, if the ratings we had on that
Speaker 1: show would make it like one of the now, if
Speaker 1: we had those ratings, it would be one of the
Speaker 1: top ten shows on television. You know, you know, you
Speaker 1: look back and you go, oh wow, these networks were
Speaker 1: really making out because if they can still make money
Speaker 1: now with the ratings they currently have, who the hell
Speaker 1: knows how much money they were making back then? A lot? Okay,
Speaker 1: So who represents you now, James baby Doll Dixon. I
Speaker 1: can tell my audience about him, well, he is um.
Speaker 1: He was described as built Carter as a character right
Speaker 1: out of a Damon Damon Runyan novel. He is. He
Speaker 1: curses a lot, he smokes a lot. He is the
Speaker 1: Tan beyond belief at all times. He is um a character,
Speaker 1: the the character of characters. He is a brazen man.
Speaker 1: He asks for things that no decent person would ever
Speaker 1: ask for when he comes out to visit. He doesn't
Speaker 1: stay in a hotel. He stays in my house. We
Speaker 1: have a guesthouse next to my house. He won't stay
Speaker 1: in it because he wants to be in the house
Speaker 1: with us. He smokes in my house even though I've
Speaker 1: asked him not to a million times. He litters. He
Speaker 1: is He's the last living human who doesn't know littering
Speaker 1: is not a good thing to do. He is just
Speaker 1: a character. Okay, So how did he become your agent?
Speaker 1: How did you meet him? I met him he was
Speaker 1: an agent at William Morris. I had a different agent
Speaker 1: at William Morris, but he was my uh Daniel Kelson,
Speaker 1: who is the producer of The Man Show. He was
Speaker 1: his agent, and so we got to know him and
Speaker 1: we just got such a kick out of him. We
Speaker 1: became very close and Um, he's one of my best friends.
Speaker 1: He really is, and he is a nut. So what's
Speaker 1: his skill. The key has you keep working with him.
Speaker 1: His skill is he is a great negotiator, and even
Speaker 1: though he asks for the moon at all times and
Speaker 1: then wants them to throw Mars in with it, he
Speaker 1: everyone loves him, which is flipping the story around. You
Speaker 1: give good hang. So that must have helped your career
Speaker 1: because the natures, especially when you do filmed entertain Man
Speaker 1: or you know, these shows, there's a lot of hanging around. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so people just like Fred Silverman, they said this is
Speaker 1: a good guy to have around. Yea, Fred didn't know
Speaker 1: me at all. In fact, I'm saying that is the start.
Speaker 1: And once you start having a job with all these
Speaker 1: you know, okay, what do we know? You're on wind
Speaker 1: Benstein's money. Then ultimately you do the Man Show. There's
Speaker 1: crank anchors and all this other stuff. This doesn't happen
Speaker 1: for most people. Okay. And you're telling me that you're
Speaker 1: not really a hustler, that you're not out coming up
Speaker 1: with gigs, unless you want to say that, I have
Speaker 1: an inaccurate impression. I am a hustler in the way
Speaker 1: that I will sit at my computer or for a
Speaker 1: time my typewriter and work on projects and come up
Speaker 1: with a million ideas and then um some of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have you see this cabinet behind me,
Speaker 1: but you can't this. Yeah. Yeah, they can set the podcast,
Speaker 1: but I can. I have all my different project There
Speaker 1: are projects from when I was in high school that
Speaker 1: I have saved up. And it's funny because you go
Speaker 1: back to that stuff sometimes, like you know, somebody wants something.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, you know what, I wrote something that
Speaker 1: might work for this when I was twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: and then you dig through and you find it and
Speaker 1: you freshen it up, and uh, suddenly it's new again.
Speaker 1: Suddenly finally somebody is going to hear it or see it.
Speaker 1: And I just work a lot. I've just always been
Speaker 1: interested in, um, in coming up with a show or
Speaker 1: cartoon or something. I you know, I just okay, So
Speaker 1: you're the type of guy we're hanging out, you say, hey,
Speaker 1: you give you give somebody your script or what your address?
Speaker 1: You don't want to send you something? No, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: do that, um, but I might tell you an idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember how I got Crank Anchor sold
Speaker 1: to Comedy Central. Was I was at dinner here with
Speaker 1: the president of the network at the time, and I
Speaker 1: told him I had this. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it would be a great idea if we took crank calls.
Speaker 1: And at the time I wanted to be Acclaimation show,
Speaker 1: and later we turned it into puppets, but um, if
Speaker 1: we and we made them into a show, and he's like,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. I want to do that. I
Speaker 1: never really pitched it. I just kind of floated it
Speaker 1: out there. Okay, how did the Man Show come to happen?
Speaker 1: The Man Show was, Uh. First of all, Adam Carolla
Speaker 1: and I were characters on Kevin and Bean Show at
Speaker 1: k Rock, and we were very became very good friends.
Speaker 1: And uh, he did a character called Mr. Bertram, which
Speaker 1: was a shop teacher who would use the state He
Speaker 1: would call in to give messages to his students who
Speaker 1: were on the way into school. That was the conceit,
Speaker 1: and he became wildly popular, so popular, in fact, they
Speaker 1: hired him to do love Line on kay Rock, which
Speaker 1: is a syndicated show, and then uh, love Line on MTV.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, I've been doing when Ben
Speaker 1: Stein's Money, and I was the sports guy at k
Speaker 1: Rock and Adam and I would go to lunch every
Speaker 1: day and we talked for three hours and it just
Speaker 1: eventually occurred to me that we could probably put that
Speaker 1: time better to better use by working on a show together.
Speaker 1: So we started talking about doing a radio show together,
Speaker 1: which is our initial idea. We wanted to do afternoons
Speaker 1: at UM at the local FM talk station, but they
Speaker 1: weren't interested in us doing that. Weirdly, Comedy Central was.
Speaker 1: In fact, we sold the Manchow to ABC through that
Speaker 1: same guy, Michael Davies, who hired me for when ben
Speaker 1: Stein's money. I told him the idea, I said, what
Speaker 1: about if what if we did a show for guys?
Speaker 1: Um Oprah was super popular at the time, the shows
Speaker 1: only for men, and we tell women they're not allowed
Speaker 1: to watch it. And he's like, I like that idea,
Speaker 1: and he pitched it to ABC and they bought a pilot.
Speaker 1: We went and pitched it and ABC made a pilot,
Speaker 1: which one they saw it, they were like, oh no,
Speaker 1: we're never we will never put anything like this on
Speaker 1: our air waves. But a lot of other networks like
Speaker 1: Facts and Comedy Central made offers. Once the tape started
Speaker 1: to circulate around UH to what degree would you be
Speaker 1: able to do that show today. I think you would
Speaker 1: be able to do it, but you wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to get sponsors for it. I think it would be
Speaker 1: very popular, but with there would be no commercials. And
Speaker 1: to what degree are you talking with Adam Carolla at
Speaker 1: this point? Always? You know, we're like brothers. We you know,
Speaker 1: we don't talk a lot on the phone, but we
Speaker 1: love each other, and um, you know we check in.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, we texted, okay. But the reason I asked
Speaker 1: this is his politics are pretty to the right left.
Speaker 1: Well yes, um, uh, mine are definitely to the left
Speaker 1: and they always have been my whole life. Um, but
Speaker 1: his politics, I think are better described as all over
Speaker 1: the place. But the only exposure he gets is from
Speaker 1: the right. So you'll see him on Fox News screaming
Speaker 1: about nonsense, and um, that's because they're the ones that
Speaker 1: put him on. If other people put him on, you
Speaker 1: might hear some of his other opinions, which are pretty liberal.
Speaker 1: Are you know he's gotten socially? Uh, he's the guy's
Speaker 1: is pretty liberal. But yeah, he's definitely moved in that
Speaker 1: direction much more now than he was in the past,
Speaker 1: and it has an affected your relationship I don't love it.
Speaker 1: I don't love it, but I love him. Okay, So
Speaker 1: he was on keless x I was on that station,
Speaker 1: and then the station flipped format and he went to
Speaker 1: a podcast. He was very early on that. But needs
Speaker 1: to say, there's so many other people in that sphere
Speaker 1: at this point in time, and therefore he has been
Speaker 1: somewhat marginalized, as has everybody this Internet era. There's so
Speaker 1: much input. Do you think there's a chance to bring
Speaker 1: him back to a wider audience And did you ever
Speaker 1: think about working or with him or having him come
Speaker 1: on your show? Well, he's you know, he's been on
Speaker 1: my show. I didn't mean as a guest. I didn't
Speaker 1: state that. Well, oh, um no, I mean I don't
Speaker 1: really bring anybody on my show. And it's just me
Speaker 1: and Dillermo standing in the corner really and occasionally my
Speaker 1: cousin Sal does something. And Adams really carved out a
Speaker 1: nice situation for himself because he doesn't have a boss
Speaker 1: and he doesn't have to worry about the things that
Speaker 1: a lot of people have to worry about, and he
Speaker 1: seems to attract a number of sponsors who are comfortable
Speaker 1: with the content, and he's got his own world that
Speaker 1: he's created. I mean, he really has his own world.
Speaker 1: He's got all his race cars in this warehouse and
Speaker 1: he does his podcast from there, and he seems pretty
Speaker 1: happy with it. Okay, let's jumped forward for those who
Speaker 1: were not students. What year do you start hosting the
Speaker 1: late night program? I started two thousand three. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is important because the landscape is completely different then. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know we have Letterman, we have Leno. Letterman is
Speaker 1: beating Leno until all of a sudden he hosts the
Speaker 1: Oscars and that hurts his ratings because people see him.
Speaker 1: Timeline is a little off, but he was hosting late night.
Speaker 1: When he did did the Oscars, Letterman, Leonar Leno and
Speaker 1: he just want just get the Uh. Dave was on
Speaker 1: it twelve thirty and then he went to one. He
Speaker 1: went to eleven thirty. Uh ninety two was it? Um?
Speaker 1: It was yeah, right around there, and then he did
Speaker 1: the Oscars like nine, three, four or five. Um, gosh,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what. Okay, So continue, continue to
Speaker 1: your narrative. When I when I when I went on
Speaker 1: the air, I was on at midnight actually twelve o
Speaker 1: five and Dave and j were on, and then I
Speaker 1: think Craig Kilbourne was on A twelve thirty and Conan
Speaker 1: was on A twelve thirty. I guess what I was saying,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't making the point clearly that you have
Speaker 1: these two institutions. Okay, Letterman in Leno and to a degree,
Speaker 1: everybody's fighting for scraps. Then Dave says he's gonna call
Speaker 1: it the day this were already in the j went
Speaker 1: to ten, then came back to eleven thirty, and they
Speaker 1: announced at the Olympics that for the Olympics they're gonna
Speaker 1: blow him out and they're gonna bring Jimmy in. So
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's a whole new landscape. And
Speaker 1: you have been there chugging along, but you weren't Letterman
Speaker 1: or Leno but building your audience. What did one went
Speaker 1: through your mind when all of a sudden you say,
Speaker 1: wait a second, they're rejiggering the whole landscape here. Well,
Speaker 1: they definitely My show definitely played some role in them
Speaker 1: replacing Jay with Jimmy, and Jimmy show much more so.
Speaker 1: Obviously he was doing very well at twelve thirty, but
Speaker 1: I was gaining on Jay, and they got nervous. Now,
Speaker 1: unlike Howard you have interacted with Jay. He famously got
Speaker 1: into it with him on Squeen. Do you ever see
Speaker 1: Jay anymore? Ever talked to him every once in a while,
Speaker 1: you know, I've kind of I used to. It's funny,
Speaker 1: I I this grudge I had against Jay Leno really
Speaker 1: was not about me. It was about Dave and the
Speaker 1: fact that I thought Dave deserved the Tonight show. And
Speaker 1: and you know, if you read any account of how
Speaker 1: Jay got it, it's just a little bit sneaky. And
Speaker 1: so I always just had that in my in my head.
Speaker 1: And now, you know, especially since Dave has like done
Speaker 1: some stuff with Jay, and I was like, why am
Speaker 1: I still fighting this war? So Jay has been very
Speaker 1: nice to me. He's uh, he's he he is. Um.
Speaker 1: He called me when my son had his heart surgery,
Speaker 1: and he's done some nice stuff for charity for somebody
Speaker 1: that is important to me. And uh, we've we we
Speaker 1: don't have that. We're not friends, but we don't have
Speaker 1: that um negativity between us anymore. Okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: to that point where you're making headway on his ratings.
Speaker 1: Are you fully aware of that and are you driving
Speaker 1: and and are you saying, man, we are on a role.
Speaker 1: How do we keep this role going? Yeah, we're just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: first of all, you guys have to put us on
Speaker 1: at eleven thirty. You know, we want to be on
Speaker 1: at eleven thirty so we can really compete with these
Speaker 1: other shows. And they took him a very long time
Speaker 1: to come to that decision, but they did. To what
Speaker 1: degree was the show different from when you went on
Speaker 1: at twelve oh five. I'm not talking about Letterman changing
Speaker 1: the show, which I thought was a mistake for the
Speaker 1: earlier I like when he were the boxing shoes and
Speaker 1: you know, didn't wear the suits. But I'm talking about
Speaker 1: how much did you learn along the way, such a
Speaker 1: when you hit you were really ready. Um. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I was ready, but I thought I was ready.
Speaker 1: I you know, you you do get better at this
Speaker 1: as it goes on, and um, you know that's why
Speaker 1: it is so unfair to judge someone based on their
Speaker 1: first show or first week of shows, because it's it
Speaker 1: bears no resemblance to what they do years later. But
Speaker 1: I felt I was ready and I really wanted to
Speaker 1: and I could see that, you know, Dave and Jay
Speaker 1: were getting older and they weren't gonna be on forever,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to establish a foothold at that spot
Speaker 1: before the next shows came in. You know, that's that
Speaker 1: was what we wanted. And um it took a lot
Speaker 1: of convincing to get them there. Okay, So Jimmy comes on,
Speaker 1: what do we know? Johnny did a show that was
Speaker 1: really a talk show. Dave really did a show that
Speaker 1: was a comedy show, completely changed the landscape of late
Speaker 1: night television. Jimmy comes on. He is great at skits,
Speaker 1: not a great interviewer. What do you think of Fallon
Speaker 1: as competition at the time, and it comes out to
Speaker 1: great ratings. Listen, it was like if for a time
Speaker 1: it felt like you were in the corner of the
Speaker 1: ring being pummeled. It was just like the ratings that
Speaker 1: he was getting for a long period of time or astronomical.
Speaker 1: They were like, what what is going on? And they
Speaker 1: were putting on home run viral bit after home run
Speaker 1: viral bit, and it was really like he almost had
Speaker 1: to just like rope a dope it and just try
Speaker 1: to wait it out because there was no other choice.
Speaker 1: It really became a phenomenon beyond late night television. What
Speaker 1: did you think about Colbert getting the gig? I think
Speaker 1: that was absolutely the right choice. I was always a
Speaker 1: big fan of his. Always I thought it wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: and of course it didn't work at first, and then
Speaker 1: he changed some of the people working with him, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden Trump gets elected and Colbert
Speaker 1: starts talking politics and Fallon is a man out of time.
Speaker 1: It definitely, it was definitely well. I don't think any
Speaker 1: of us would describe that as a positive turn of events.
Speaker 1: You know. I think if you gave Stephen the choice
Speaker 1: between No Trump and his show, Finding It's It's Mark,
Speaker 1: I think he would go for no Trump. But yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely changed what t late night television was for and
Speaker 1: what it was about. It. It definitely made the trivial
Speaker 1: seemed trivial, whereas before that it was all trivial. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now you evolved to the point where you're making news
Speaker 1: for your political stance. Needles to say, it is to
Speaker 1: the left, and anybody in the public eye knows that
Speaker 1: if you do that, there are people who will relentlessly
Speaker 1: usually the same people attack you, if for no other reason,
Speaker 1: telling you your stay out of this lane. So what
Speaker 1: were the decisions to go in that area and to
Speaker 1: what degree? With our stones and you know, slings and
Speaker 1: arrows thrown at you, there was no decision made. It
Speaker 1: was so plainly obvious that we couldn't ignore what was
Speaker 1: going on, and that what the things that I said
Speaker 1: had to be said. And I knew that I knew
Speaker 1: what I know my audience, I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: came from the Man Show. My audience was the most
Speaker 1: republican audience of any show on late night. And but
Speaker 1: sometimes circumstances dictate, uh, what you are going to do,
Speaker 1: and in this case, they very much did. And I
Speaker 1: knew that it was going to split my audience in
Speaker 1: less than half. But what else? What am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: Ignore what this maniac is doing to our country? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's It was not even an option. And there
Speaker 1: was a time where ABC was uncomfortable with it, and
Speaker 1: they gently a couple of times tried to get me stop,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I remember a conversation I had
Speaker 1: with UM, with someone who was running the network at
Speaker 1: the time. I was like, hey, listen, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I get it. I understand where you're coming from. I
Speaker 1: know you want to get the biggest number possible. But
Speaker 1: this is what I'm gonna do. So let's just be
Speaker 1: honest and if if this is not acceptable to you,
Speaker 1: I understand that, but I'm going to go I'm going
Speaker 1: to keep doing this. So, UM, I just want to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, be upfront, and then I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna pull punches. I'm not gonna reel it in. This
Speaker 1: is how it's gonna be. I get it if you
Speaker 1: don't want me on your air anymore, but this is
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do on your air every night. To
Speaker 1: what were your active politically prior to Trump selection? Um,
Speaker 1: most of my activity was related to charity. I wasn't,
Speaker 1: but I was. I've always been interested in politics. I
Speaker 1: have always been a Democrat. My parents are very liberal.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's where I got it, I'm sure, and
Speaker 1: I've always been. But I've never donated to a candidate
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Um. You know, I always felt
Speaker 1: strongly about who I was voting for, but I I
Speaker 1: never had actually done anything other than vote. So you're
Speaker 1: doing the show. You have writers, What do the writers
Speaker 1: provide and what do you provide? Well? Um, every day
Speaker 1: I get like thirty pages of material email to me.
Speaker 1: I go through all of it and I pick what
Speaker 1: I want to use, and then um as the day
Speaker 1: goes on. I have a writer named Josh who sits
Speaker 1: next to me, and he will put together a monologue
Speaker 1: and I will follow closely behind him, editing the monologue
Speaker 1: as we go, so I'm like a paragraph behind him
Speaker 1: at all times. And I do a great deal of writing.
Speaker 1: There are sometimes where I use a lot of the
Speaker 1: writer's material, and there's sometimes where I go, Okay, I
Speaker 1: just this is something I need to just write on
Speaker 1: my own. When it comes to personal experiences or when
Speaker 1: it comes to serious subjects, generally I will do that
Speaker 1: sort of thing myself. Okay. You reach seven figures of
Speaker 1: people every night, and compared to other outlets, that's a
Speaker 1: very significant number. But it is less of the audience
Speaker 1: than it was in the pre internet era. As we talked,
Speaker 1: to what degree does this frustrate you, I say, it's not.
Speaker 1: You're not the only one. Everybody in the landscape. The
Speaker 1: only person who had universal mind share was Trump himself. Okay,
Speaker 1: but whereas you know, when I went to high school,
Speaker 1: everybody went in on Tuesday and talked about what was
Speaker 1: on laughing. We don't all we're not even all on
Speaker 1: the same page. So someone who is making content on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, servicing a base audience is your goal. Well,
Speaker 1: how do I grow my audience or how do I
Speaker 1: do something so special that it goes above the fray
Speaker 1: and it gets noticed. I always just I'm a niche performer. Inherently,
Speaker 1: I've always been that. I was. I was the third
Speaker 1: banana on the radio show here in l A. Some
Speaker 1: might even consider me the fourth banana after Mr Burcham
Speaker 1: I was. I did a very um niche game show
Speaker 1: on Comedy Central. I did a show that was, you know,
Speaker 1: just for men on a cable channel, and I was
Speaker 1: on Probably the most mainstream thing I've I've ever done
Speaker 1: is making football picks on Fox on Sunday Morning. So
Speaker 1: I've never felt like I should be reaching a huge audience.
Speaker 1: I've always been happy with the audience that I that
Speaker 1: I get. Um yeah, and but really most of my
Speaker 1: effort goes into how can we make this as funny
Speaker 1: as possible? Is never about like how do we you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Of course, I'll look at you know,
Speaker 1: if the ABC promo department has ideas, I'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe we could do this, But it's never about It's
Speaker 1: never if you. I think if you focus on that,
Speaker 1: you fail. I just you know, I think like if
Speaker 1: you think about I know you talk a lot about
Speaker 1: musicians and making a record, I think if you sit
Speaker 1: down and try to make a hit record, you're already
Speaker 1: on the wrong track. I you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: know it works out sometimes, but you know that's that's
Speaker 1: not how you should do it. That's a longer discussion,
Speaker 1: and I agree with you conceptually. But moving on about you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a niche performer who ends up hosting the Oscars,
Speaker 1: doing a better job that anyone has done at least
Speaker 1: in decades. It is acknowledged you do it again. So yes,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you do float above the fray. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and but that doesn't mean I'm not still a niche
Speaker 1: performer at heart. And uh, you know, I'm not your
Speaker 1: classic television host by any stretch of the imagination. I've
Speaker 1: got a New York accent, I'm not particularly handsome, I'm
Speaker 1: not necessarily I'm not the guy that would walk in
Speaker 1: an audition for a job and nail it. I'm somebody
Speaker 1: that kind of grows on you, I think, and who
Speaker 1: tries to be for me? I just try to I
Speaker 1: feel like and I always felt like this when I
Speaker 1: was on the radio. It's not about hitting a home
Speaker 1: run today, it's about hitting a double every day for
Speaker 1: years in a row. And that's and if I can
Speaker 1: do that, I'm happy. Okay, that may be your perspective,
Speaker 1: but you are literally the face of ABC. You do
Speaker 1: the upfronts, never mind their big events. I can't talk
Speaker 1: about an equivalent face of the other major networks. But
Speaker 1: think about this though, Bob. Yes, maybe I am. I
Speaker 1: guess maybe one of the more prominent personalities, and maybe
Speaker 1: I'm the face of ABC. But ABC isn't isn't what
Speaker 1: ABC was when we were young, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: we think still think of it everything you're saying. But
Speaker 1: let me dive to my ultimate point here. Okay, when
Speaker 1: you talk about important subjects on your show, there's inherently
Speaker 1: influence there. I can't tell you how many people turn
Speaker 1: into your show or already agree with you, or disagree
Speaker 1: with to tune you out, whatever, but it's influence. We
Speaker 1: have seen this with Fox News. There is power there
Speaker 1: and I'm sure if you sit in your office having
Speaker 1: a right. There's occasionally something so heinous they just have
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But most of the time you're
Speaker 1: saying I feel this, and this needs to be amplified,
Speaker 1: and there's influence in there, and you have a much
Speaker 1: larger audience than everybody. It's like in the New York
Speaker 1: Times yesterday they talked about these anti protester laws being
Speaker 1: passed in different states, such it, if you hit a
Speaker 1: protester in the street with your car, you can't be
Speaker 1: held liable. Okay, I mean that's just insane. I don't
Speaker 1: it was in the New York Times. I think the
Speaker 1: more people know about that, the better it is. You
Speaker 1: have a much bigger platform than almost anybody. Yes, everybody's
Speaker 1: platform is smaller than it used to be. But saying that,
Speaker 1: you were very high in the network that still exists
Speaker 1: in the in the hierarchy, and to sort of what
Speaker 1: degree do you say I have a certain power and
Speaker 1: I have a certain responsibility. Not only that I think
Speaker 1: I can influence people. Um, I know I agree with
Speaker 1: all of that. I mean I do, yes, I do
Speaker 1: have a certain amount of influence power whatever, how whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. Um, I know this based
Speaker 1: on my own experiences. I know this based on listening
Speaker 1: to Bruce Springsteen when I was a kid, and that
Speaker 1: helping to shape my worldview how I I think about politics,
Speaker 1: how I think about You know, you're a kid who
Speaker 1: graduates high school in n you don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about Vietnam um. And then you hear you hear, you know,
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen sing Born in the USA, and you think
Speaker 1: it's a Rara America song. And then you realize like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well that isn't what it is, and oh wow, that
Speaker 1: I didn't know that stuff, and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you're influenced by it and influenced in not just as
Speaker 1: when it comes to important things and unimportant things, and
Speaker 1: so um, I just try to say what I believe.
Speaker 1: I remember this reporter wrote something as guy he's still
Speaker 1: a popular guy, and he's he was a nice guy.
Speaker 1: But he wrote something about a friend of mine, Carson Daley,
Speaker 1: and he wrote something about him being a douche. And
Speaker 1: I was upset because we'd had a dinner and Carson
Speaker 1: was there, and I called him and I said, Hey,
Speaker 1: do you think Carson is a douche? And he said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think that I said, well, why did you
Speaker 1: write that, he goes I don't know. I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know it worked because everybody at that time was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, his image was like that he was some
Speaker 1: kind of a douche. And I remember just I said,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe when you're writing, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you want to take any advice from me. Only say
Speaker 1: things you mean, and you know it's hard to stick
Speaker 1: to that, but I try to. Okay, but let's what
Speaker 1: degree do you believe that you have influence. I know
Speaker 1: I have influence, I just don't have a real measure
Speaker 1: of it. And I think sometimes I have more influenced
Speaker 1: than others. I think, and if there is anything important
Speaker 1: that we're doing on late night television, it's reminding people
Speaker 1: that what was going on was crazy, because I think
Speaker 1: it would be maybe easy to forget that, especially if
Speaker 1: you're not somebody who is really connected to the news.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know so many people you think it's
Speaker 1: the biggest story in the world. They don't know anything
Speaker 1: about it. You know, smart people, people who you know
Speaker 1: are have big careers and whatever, but they just don't
Speaker 1: pay attention. I think what we offer is um maybe
Speaker 1: information it's um like when you when you give a
Speaker 1: dog a pill, you know you put some you put
Speaker 1: some peanut butter on it. Okay, talking about something really important,
Speaker 1: your weight. You went on late night TV. You became
Speaker 1: very thin, thinner than you were before. Everybody has been
Speaker 1: on TV knows two things. Yes, the camera does add weight,
Speaker 1: and no one likes how they look on television. So
Speaker 1: to what degree were you conscious of your weight? And
Speaker 1: to what degree are you conscious now and watching what
Speaker 1: you eat and exercising, etcetera. Yeah, I mean I'm conscious
Speaker 1: of what I eat and exercising. I just don't actually
Speaker 1: do I don't do the things that I need to do.
Speaker 1: I um, I am an extreme person. I like when
Speaker 1: I lost weight, and I've been pretty heavy for like
Speaker 1: ten years on on the show. When I decided to
Speaker 1: lose weight, it was almost like a game. It was
Speaker 1: almost like, well, let's see if I can do this.
Speaker 1: And it's just starved myself for like six weeks and
Speaker 1: that's how I got my weight down. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: any It wasn't healthy, that's for sure, but it is
Speaker 1: I have to say probably the great my biggest daily
Speaker 1: shruggle is that because I love to eat and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm come home sometimes and make dinner for
Speaker 1: the family and then I just sit there and watch
Speaker 1: them eat it. And it's terrible. If there's one thing
Speaker 1: I could buy, it would be the ability to eat
Speaker 1: anything I want. That would be the you know, that
Speaker 1: would be better than any house or car or anything.
Speaker 1: And what do we do? The The exercise? Um, to the
Speaker 1: degree of zero. I exercise. I was exercising for a while.
Speaker 1: I had a guy that would come to my house
Speaker 1: that I really got along with. UM and then COVID
Speaker 1: happened and he couldn't come to the house, and now
Speaker 1: he doesn't come to the house anymore. And left to
Speaker 1: my own devices, I will always find something else to do. Okay,
Speaker 1: filling a couple of holes. Are you still a sports guy?
Speaker 1: I have? I yes, I do. I I enjoy sports.
Speaker 1: I mostly pay attention around the playoff time, but I
Speaker 1: have I will say that the last four or five
Speaker 1: years have made sports seem less important to me. And
Speaker 1: what about football and c t E. UM, I think
Speaker 1: that it is. UM. I I feel guilty sometimes watching sports. Uh.
Speaker 1: Football is not my favorite of the sports. Baseball is,
Speaker 1: and it's less of an issue obviously there. But I
Speaker 1: have a hard time watching boxing, um because I know
Speaker 1: what happens to those guys in the long run, and
Speaker 1: I feel like it's like it's not so much different
Speaker 1: from watching cock fighting. UM. But I think I am
Speaker 1: somewhat willfully ignorant when it comes to watching football and guests. Now,
Speaker 1: the show's Letterman changed this. It used to be on
Speaker 1: Johnny the gifts just came Letterman. You have to come
Speaker 1: with the story. It became a comedy bit. How do
Speaker 1: you view this and what makes a good or bad guest? Well,
Speaker 1: if you have a great story, I am that's a
Speaker 1: good day for me because it's a lot less work
Speaker 1: and I can just sit there and enjoy and keep
Speaker 1: the story moving. Um. Some guests are harder than others.
Speaker 1: We definitely do things the way Letterman did, where we
Speaker 1: have a pre interview and if the guest has nothing
Speaker 1: to talk about, they sit on the phone with the
Speaker 1: producer for a long time and then they come to
Speaker 1: me and say, hey, there's this that this person can
Speaker 1: talk about, or this and this, and I say I'm
Speaker 1: not interested in that, or I am interested in this,
Speaker 1: And then sometimes the best interviews, it all gets cast
Speaker 1: aside and we get to none of that material. It's
Speaker 1: more of a safety net than anything. But if somebody
Speaker 1: is a great story, you want to make sure you
Speaker 1: get to it. And if somebody is a great joke.
Speaker 1: The good thing about knowing what it is before and
Speaker 1: is you don't want to step on their punch line.
Speaker 1: You don't want to step on the end of it.
Speaker 1: And you know, as a comedian, you're always like kind
Speaker 1: of thinking like, where's the funny line at the end
Speaker 1: of this, and you don't want to take that from them.
Speaker 1: You want to make sure that that that there's room
Speaker 1: for them to be funny. And your two favorite guests
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley is uh somebody that I'm always very very
Speaker 1: happy to have on the show. I love I love him. Um,
Speaker 1: It's really hard to narrow it down to two, but
Speaker 1: I will say it was always a thrill to have
Speaker 1: Don Rickles on the show. That was fun. Okay, So
Speaker 1: looking forward, how much long are you gonna do this? Um?
Speaker 1: Probably not that much longer. And when you stop doing this,
Speaker 1: what do you plan to do? I will You know
Speaker 1: one thing I know is that whatever I think is
Speaker 1: going to happen, that never seems to be the way
Speaker 1: it goes, and that things come out of the blue.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I get excited about things and I can't
Speaker 1: control myself and I go, oh, yeah, I should definitely
Speaker 1: do this. And sometimes before you know what, you're off
Speaker 1: to the races and committed to something. You now realize
Speaker 1: that you have to be committed to. But I will
Speaker 1: definitely produce television shows. I will, um, probably send jokes
Speaker 1: to other late night hosts when I think of them
Speaker 1: if I feel I don't have an outlet. Um. And
Speaker 1: I actually bought a fishing lodge in Idaho that I
Speaker 1: am enjoying remodeling and and fixing up. And um, I'm
Speaker 1: planning to spend a good amount of time there. Would
Speaker 1: you ever retire? Um not. I don't know that I
Speaker 1: ever fully retired. Maybe I will. I'll always do something
Speaker 1: I like to draw. That's really what I love to do. Yes,
Speaker 1: And um, I will always keep myself busy. I always
Speaker 1: have a project and I'm I'm working on Let's go
Speaker 1: back to the hunting uh fishing lodge that I assume
Speaker 1: is in the Panhandle of Idaho, which is where Mark
Speaker 1: Ferman and a lot of white nationalists move to. It's
Speaker 1: actually not. It's it's on it's on the it's an
Speaker 1: hour from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Really yeah, on the borders. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Okay that that sort of catches me off guard because
Speaker 1: everybody else I know as a house like in Sandpoint, etcetera.
Speaker 1: How'd you end up getting a place there? I went
Speaker 1: fishing there one summer and I said that I caught
Speaker 1: a lot of fish. I shouldn't have a place here.
Speaker 1: And so I knew the places for sale, and I
Speaker 1: started keeping an eye on it. And I have this
Speaker 1: buddy named Oliver White who's got a couple of fishing
Speaker 1: lodges and in the Bahamas and he um, and the
Speaker 1: hurricane actually demolished his fishing lodge, and I said, would
Speaker 1: you want to work on this with me? And would
Speaker 1: you want to be the guy that runs this lodge?
Speaker 1: And he said yes, And um, you know, because obviously
Speaker 1: it's not something you can do alone and you need
Speaker 1: somebody who really knows what they're doing. And we've been
Speaker 1: working on this for the last year and a half.
Speaker 1: So this will be a commercial enterprise people, Okay. And
Speaker 1: it's up and running now. Yeah, it's been open since Okay,
Speaker 1: So what's the name of it? Since we're talking, called
Speaker 1: the South Fork Lodge. Okay, And you grew up in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas when you become such a big fisherman, I
Speaker 1: used to fish in Las Vegas. In fact, Cleto who
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, who is also in my band, UM
Speaker 1: would take us to Lake Mead and we go fishing.
Speaker 1: We almost never caught anything, but we loved it more
Speaker 1: than anything. And when I'm out on the river fishing
Speaker 1: is when I really am able to stop and enjoy life. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you do with all your money? Um? I
Speaker 1: spend it on the fishing lodge. I do a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff with with my money. Um Uh, I donated
Speaker 1: all to charity. I you know what I like to
Speaker 1: do good things with the money. Um. I bought my
Speaker 1: parents a house, about my in laws a house. Um
Speaker 1: I bought the fishing lodge. And um, I don't love
Speaker 1: the stock market. I don't love any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: To me, it's like it's gambling. Is a bunch of
Speaker 1: people making money without actually doing anything or making anything. Um.
Speaker 1: So I like, I'm more interested in real estate than Okay,
Speaker 1: but you're handsomely paid, so I must assume there is
Speaker 1: uh cash stock or something somewhere where you know your
Speaker 1: liquid assets? Where are those? Um my liquid assets? I
Speaker 1: don't really know. I don't really I was gonna be
Speaker 1: my next question. You don't know someone's managing that. You
Speaker 1: don't think about it. I don't think about it. I'm I.
Speaker 1: I know I have enough money and um uh, and
Speaker 1: I know I'm not being robbed. That's the extent of it. Oh,
Speaker 1: believe me, A lot of people have been robbed. Okay,
Speaker 1: so both you and me, even though I'm older than you,
Speaker 1: we grew up in a completely different America. Yeah, what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen in America? Well, um, I like to think
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're going to reunite. But it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like it right now, that's for sure. It doesn't even
Speaker 1: feel like I mean, even something like COVID. This should
Speaker 1: have united us. This should have been the thing. This
Speaker 1: should have been our World War where everybody pitched in
Speaker 1: and helped each other. And instead it became another right
Speaker 1: versus left situation, which is just absolutely crazy. And I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone expected it. And I don't know that
Speaker 1: it's going on in other countries other than the countries
Speaker 1: that are influenced by the way we do things, and
Speaker 1: who see like, oh, okay, if I take that anti
Speaker 1: mask position, I'm going to attract a certain amount of
Speaker 1: people who don't trust the government and blah blah all
Speaker 1: that bullshit. Um I don't feel that optimistic. I really don't. Um.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm I very much hope I'm off and
Speaker 1: that there will be a time where we um are
Speaker 1: all Americans again. I mean, you know, I have a
Speaker 1: flag on my house and um uh. And people sometimes
Speaker 1: get the wrong idea, which bothers me. It's like, like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is not their symbol. This is our symbol. This
Speaker 1: is You're supposed to love this country and be patriotic,
Speaker 1: and I'll do all those things that we learned. We're
Speaker 1: also supposed to be critical of our country, and we're
Speaker 1: also supposed to be welcoming to people from other countries,
Speaker 1: and we're supposed to help people who are poor. And
Speaker 1: this idea of America first is a disgusting notion. It's
Speaker 1: it's disgusting. It's it's not that's not America. America inherently is.
Speaker 1: It was a refuge for people from all over the
Speaker 1: world to come and work together and build something. And
Speaker 1: obviously you know that there have been the groups that
Speaker 1: have been discriminated against in horrible ways. Um, but ultimately
Speaker 1: we I think we all when you and I were kids,
Speaker 1: used to feel like we're America. You know, we're all
Speaker 1: rooting for the same team. And um, now we seem
Speaker 1: to have two teams living under the same roof. Let's
Speaker 1: just drill down a little bit. We have now reached
Speaker 1: the point where everybody wants a COVID vaccine has one.
Speaker 1: How do we nvince the how can you help convince
Speaker 1: or other people help convince the people who won't get
Speaker 1: to give vaccine to get vaccinated. I can't, Bob, I'm
Speaker 1: I do not have that cash at However, there are
Speaker 1: people like Donald Trump, for instance, who did get the vaccine,
Speaker 1: who credits himself greatly for developing the vaccine and speeding
Speaker 1: the production of the vaccine. And why he hasn't turned well,
Speaker 1: I know why he hasn't turned the corner on that
Speaker 1: and just outright said you need to get the vaccine.
Speaker 1: Why he didn't put out a picture of himself with
Speaker 1: a needle in his arm shows his his his selfishness,
Speaker 1: his that he did that he cares more about his
Speaker 1: about keeping everyone under his his horrible little umbrella than
Speaker 1: he does about their actual lives. These people are their
Speaker 1: lives are in danger because the people who they followed
Speaker 1: don't care about them, and they need to do or
Speaker 1: those people who who do have the trust of that community.
Speaker 1: The musicians and the athletes and the you know UFC fire.
Speaker 1: You know, these people need to speak out and they
Speaker 1: need to tell people, especially the ones who are getting
Speaker 1: the shots. We know there are lots of Republicans getting
Speaker 1: the shots. Why where are they Why aren't they telling
Speaker 1: people telling their people to do it? Because the more
Speaker 1: I tell them to do it, the less they're gonna
Speaker 1: do it. Wow. Okay, and you're a student of the game.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen with the landscape? Let me painted
Speaker 1: for a second. Used to be network television and the movies.
Speaker 1: Now we have internet platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, etcetera. That's
Speaker 1: one thing. We have network television and the networks were
Speaker 1: smart because they ended up buying some of the cable channels.
Speaker 1: It's just not ABC anymore, just like it's not just
Speaker 1: not BC or CBS. But we know the ratings for
Speaker 1: the networks have gone down. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: channels on that are built into the cable system, that
Speaker 1: are supported by us paying for cable that don't exist otherwise.
Speaker 1: We have the movie studios that are only making a
Speaker 1: certain kind of movie. We have multiple streaming platforms. How
Speaker 1: do you see this all playing out? I love it.
Speaker 1: I think it's great. I think the idea that some
Speaker 1: sixteen year old kid can have his or her own
Speaker 1: TikTok video popular channel and get millions of people watching
Speaker 1: and actually make a living, uh, is a great thing.
Speaker 1: I wish I had that when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I think I believe I wish I did too. And
Speaker 1: it was so hard. I mean, I just think about
Speaker 1: my career. It was so hard to get on the radio.
Speaker 1: It was just so hard to get in in a
Speaker 1: in a studio in front of a microphone. And I
Speaker 1: will is under the thumb of these companies I worked for,
Speaker 1: because when I got fired, there wasn't enough. I couldn't
Speaker 1: go across the street. You know, the radio stations consolidated
Speaker 1: and it made it impossible you had to move to
Speaker 1: another city if you wanted to stay in that music format.
Speaker 1: And the idea now that anybody can can have a podcast,
Speaker 1: and that everybody's got a shot at it becoming popular,
Speaker 1: and that I mean, I just think it like it
Speaker 1: opens the doors to the best talent. It gives you practice,
Speaker 1: which is something you really, you know, you can't get
Speaker 1: from calling in every once in a while to a
Speaker 1: radio station. It gives you those reps that you need
Speaker 1: to um, you know, to host something later in your career.
Speaker 1: And I think it's great. I think you know just
Speaker 1: what you said about the movies, and they're only making
Speaker 1: these movies, these huge superhero movies, this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: The punishment for that is going to be they're gonna
Speaker 1: be a million little mini movies, studios making a million
Speaker 1: little what we call them TV shows because they're not
Speaker 1: in theaters. But who cares about theaters anymore? And I
Speaker 1: think that the power structure is completely upside down, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that's bad for anyone other than the
Speaker 1: people who are at the top of it. And the
Speaker 1: future of talk shows, the future of talk shows will
Speaker 1: be shows that have much smaller audiences but have particular subjects.
Speaker 1: And you will be able to find a talk show
Speaker 1: that you love because it really pushes every You'll be
Speaker 1: able to find a talk show about um, you know,
Speaker 1: sculpting and clay, you know, and those people on those
Speaker 1: shows aren't necessarily gonna make fifteen million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: but they might make a hundred thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: And that's you know. I mean, if you can do
Speaker 1: what you love and make a living from it, that's
Speaker 1: as good as it gets. And who do you listen
Speaker 1: to for information? I mostly read, UM, I listened to
Speaker 1: Howard all the time. Not necessary for information, but just
Speaker 1: for entertainment, and um, that takes up most of my
Speaker 1: And I always read your newsletter as well. I I
Speaker 1: always read it. Um, I don't, but I always read it,
Speaker 1: and I think it's I it is amazing how much
Speaker 1: how much material you put out and how many um
Speaker 1: thoughts you have on Israeli television shows. They're the best.
Speaker 1: All the television shows I'm got happen to be Jewish.
Speaker 1: But I didn't say, oh, I gotta sit at home
Speaker 1: watch is really television. You know what's gonna happen, Bob
Speaker 1: is you're eventually. It hasn't happened yet, but the relentlessness
Speaker 1: of the newsletter is eventually going to convince me to
Speaker 1: watch an Israeli television show. And when that does, I
Speaker 1: will send you an it happens, I will send you
Speaker 1: an email letting you know you've won. Okay, I got
Speaker 1: a couple, you know, because just to stay there for
Speaker 1: you know, they have a new season of Stistle. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people are watching this. You've made this up.
Speaker 1: There's nothing. Well the reason I mentioned it. This is
Speaker 1: about super orthodox people in Israel, so you don't want
Speaker 1: to recommend it to non Jews. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the non Jews have called on. I mean, it's one
Speaker 1: thing where you say you gotta watch this show. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is not that show, and then you say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you want to watch Game, which is about the
Speaker 1: modern Orthodox. They're Orthodox, but they have regular jobs. Okay,
Speaker 1: came now. But Prisoners of War was considered to be
Speaker 1: the best uh foreign TV show of the last decade.
Speaker 1: And that is first of all, it's very heavy and
Speaker 1: really great. But okay, let's just talk about the streaming
Speaker 1: TV for a minute. Okay, there are a couple of
Speaker 1: unbelievable shows that everybody should see. If you watch cops shows,
Speaker 1: the best cop show made you read a spiral? Have
Speaker 1: you seen spiral? I've not seen it. No French show.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable did you say French show? Yes, not deep meaning okay,
Speaker 1: but incredible. Have you watched have you watched Morgan? I'm
Speaker 1: not watching it. I've seen You've seen you write about it.
Speaker 1: But for me, even pleasure is part of my job.
Speaker 1: So when I watch shows, I need to watch things that,
Speaker 1: uh that are going to that I can talk. You know.
Speaker 1: You know Howard Watson watches nothing but shitty television shows.
Speaker 1: That's because he know he's accumulating material. It's if he
Speaker 1: watches a show that's really good, there's not much to
Speaker 1: say about it, you know. So for me, like I
Speaker 1: don't want to watch The Bachelor, but it's part of
Speaker 1: my job, and then it eats up a lot of
Speaker 1: like viewing time. And there are a lot of movies
Speaker 1: I don't want to watch, or TV shows, but I
Speaker 1: have the guest on, so I have to watch their show.
Speaker 1: So I don't have the luxury of watching Schmischel or whatever,
Speaker 1: Smuggli or whatever you watch. And I understand your point,
Speaker 1: and I understand the point you mean about Howard. Ironically,
Speaker 1: some of these shows would help with your material. But
Speaker 1: the interesting thing, especially with COVID, people have watched so
Speaker 1: much television that they're finally looking for new television. People
Speaker 1: are lazy, So let's just watch what everybody else watches
Speaker 1: some of this stuff. If you watched Morgan, which is
Speaker 1: basically a Danish political show, the woman who is the
Speaker 1: star is so charismatic and there's certain ways she behaves
Speaker 1: in a right end. Person is so evil and it
Speaker 1: talks about politics that would give you material because it
Speaker 1: would stimulate something. Back. Have you watched Patriot? Yes? I have,
Speaker 1: and it's a very odd show and you know, not
Speaker 1: that much happens, and you watch it, but you can't
Speaker 1: stop watching it. One of my favorite shows of the
Speaker 1: decade is it's so weird, like that that through line
Speaker 1: with the singing what's happening on the show is such
Speaker 1: sounds like such a stupid idea, and yet it is great.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a cult people who've seen her. So
Speaker 1: what else have you seen? The like? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: the Patriot is one of those few shows that I'm
Speaker 1: able to watch from my own I was able to
Speaker 1: watch from my own pleasure, you know, because most of
Speaker 1: the stuff I watches is because I have to watch it.
Speaker 1: But um, what do I you know, I watch um
Speaker 1: Better Things Pamela Adlin show, very good. She there's something
Speaker 1: magical about her. You know, she's a she's a pip squeak.
Speaker 1: She can be sensitive, but she also can throw it
Speaker 1: out with an edge. She's a tremendously natural actress too.
Speaker 1: U and and I find I love that show. So
Speaker 1: just having watched that show, did you watch a zse
Speaker 1: on sorry shows none? Yes? Yes, yes, that was phenomenal. Yes? Really?
Speaker 1: Did you watch Rami on Hulu? Yes? Rami is great? Yes? Yes?
Speaker 1: Because okay, so continue, you're gonna mention something beyond you
Speaker 1: know it's funny. I I don't know why. It's always
Speaker 1: hard for me. And then once we're done, I'll think
Speaker 1: of eleventh things I didn't mean to when people say
Speaker 1: what records you're listening to? If you had something in
Speaker 1: the top of your head, I don't want to push you.
Speaker 1: The only other show I want to definitely mention, though, Chad.
Speaker 1: Have you seen Chad? No? What is Chad? This is
Speaker 1: a show on TBS and I watched it because I
Speaker 1: had to because I had the star on the show
Speaker 1: and is very, very funny, and I think you would
Speaker 1: like it. Well, what's it about It is about a
Speaker 1: it's a an adult woman playing a teenage boy and
Speaker 1: a Ranian boy, and um, he is a hopeless nerd
Speaker 1: and as weird a character as you've seen on TV.
Speaker 1: And it's just very well done. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about one other show though. There's a show called The Bureau,
Speaker 1: another friend show about the French CIA. The first season
Speaker 1: not as good a one it turns out they do.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating because their secondary characters they're always were overpowered
Speaker 1: by the Americans. And the other thing is they can
Speaker 1: operate in countries where we can't, Like I ran okay,
Speaker 1: but it comes very tense as it goes along, very
Speaker 1: much like you know, what you would expect from a movie.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know what kills us. I only watch
Speaker 1: shows with my wife, so uh, if you know are
Speaker 1: we have we have a few hours together, so when
Speaker 1: we watch stuff we watched together and m and so
Speaker 1: we have to pick shows that are of mutual interest. Well,
Speaker 1: I find the same thing. It's like when I watch
Speaker 1: certainly you know Israeli show Our Boys was too violent
Speaker 1: for my girlfriend who I live with been together sixteen
Speaker 1: years next month, just as I say, my girlfriend, But uh,
Speaker 1: the other thing is go mora. Do you know the show? Yes,
Speaker 1: I you know what many of my friends have. My
Speaker 1: girlfriend won't watch it, so I you know, I only
Speaker 1: got through one episode. If I don't watch with her,
Speaker 1: my mind wanders. It's funny. So it's the same thing
Speaker 1: everybody talks about Peaky Blinders said. My girlfriend didn't like it.
Speaker 1: I mean it's not I could watch it myself, but
Speaker 1: not really happening. And ever read a book? Have I
Speaker 1: ever read a book? No? Now? Do you have any
Speaker 1: time to read a book? Not much, but for work.
Speaker 1: I just I had to read Hunter Biden's book. Um,
Speaker 1: I had him on the show. That was the last
Speaker 1: one I read. Hunter guilty of any of the ship.
Speaker 1: The Republicans say, the laptop, it's ridiculous. How about Bayner's book?
Speaker 1: You can have been around? No, no, no, no, he's
Speaker 1: he's he's suddenly very compassionate. I find that annoying. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's good. Who have you not had on that you
Speaker 1: want to have on? Not too many people. I've had
Speaker 1: almost everybody, but Madonna is somebody I had a I
Speaker 1: had the hots from Madonna when I was in high school.
Speaker 1: And she's never been on the show. Do you think
Speaker 1: you would be able to do your show if she
Speaker 1: came on or she would take over. She probably take
Speaker 1: off for you. It would be anybody you haven't met
Speaker 1: that you'd like to meet. Um, you know, I Banksy
Speaker 1: to me is a very interesting character who I would
Speaker 1: love to have on the show. I think if your
Speaker 1: own any Banksy, I do, I have a couple of them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the self destroying uh artwork?
Speaker 1: I love it. I's he's brilliant. It's it's just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't get enough of that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Ther irreverence, the irreverence, the creativity, this even weird prank
Speaker 1: element to it. And um also just putting a pin
Speaker 1: in all that art ship. Okay, since we're there, n
Speaker 1: f T S, what's you take? You know? I think
Speaker 1: I kind of know what they are. I've you know,
Speaker 1: I think when you hit a certain age, or at
Speaker 1: least from me, like I now have lost the ability
Speaker 1: to read directions and figure out how to do things,
Speaker 1: Like my brain is not a sponge anymore, it's a rock.
Speaker 1: And um, I think I have a basic idea of
Speaker 1: what they are. They seem to be imaginary baseball cards.
Speaker 1: As far as they are, you understand it completely. And
Speaker 1: that was the best way for me to understand that
Speaker 1: a guy what imaginary baseball? Did somebody say that because
Speaker 1: I said none of them? He didn't use the term.
Speaker 1: You can own the term. It's great, but that's what
Speaker 1: he exactly said. I was a baseball card collector. I
Speaker 1: just want an interest, just like people own baseball cards.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have these, you know, fake baseball cards. And
Speaker 1: I felt the same way about it, as you're just ridiculous. Spot.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should start selling imaginary baseball cards. I think
Speaker 1: you know, the window is already closed. I've got a
Speaker 1: jim Rice that I think people will be really interested
Speaker 1: in right now here. It is. Oh, I could see it.
Speaker 1: The appers to close. Jimmy. I won't keep you any longer.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting because you always try to find
Speaker 1: the hot point, and now I realized the hot point
Speaker 1: would be just having the conversation. I should have just
Speaker 1: brought up bullshit like a friend instead of all this
Speaker 1: other stuff. It's like when Howard he had mad Dog on,
Speaker 1: did you listen to okay? Mad Dog kissed? Howard's asked
Speaker 1: way too hard okay, and then they you know, they
Speaker 1: cover something usually, but then he asked, mad dogs take
Speaker 1: the last half hour. I don't know if you heard that. Brilliant. Okay,
Speaker 1: he should ask him anything. Godfather one, Godfather too. He
Speaker 1: had a take on everything, And you say, god, I
Speaker 1: would love to sit with this guy because what I
Speaker 1: love to do most is argue about all this fucking ship. Right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know there's if I can think of one person
Speaker 1: in my life, it's Adam Carolla, who has a take
Speaker 1: on literally any subject and a funny take usually. And
Speaker 1: in fact, I was walking with this this journalist Bill
Speaker 1: Carter at the beginning of my show, and I was
Speaker 1: telling him about Adam. I said, Adam has a take
Speaker 1: on give him. Look when we see him next. We're
Speaker 1: walking around the corner. I said, give him I think
Speaker 1: anything you can think of. And he's like, I think.
Speaker 1: He had like a cocktail in his hand with one
Speaker 1: of those little red drinking straws, and here comes at
Speaker 1: him around the corner and he goes, Adam, what do
Speaker 1: you think of these little And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was strawn and they're straws, but they're not straws.
Speaker 1: They're like he went in the whole thing. I was
Speaker 1: like seeing there you go. I know, as I say,
Speaker 1: I happen to like mad Dog. You know. That was
Speaker 1: one of the weird things where we went to went
Speaker 1: to satellite and lost a good percentage of his audience
Speaker 1: was supposed to Howard. But I think we've come to
Speaker 1: the end of the feeling we've known. Jimmy. I really
Speaker 1: have to thank you for taking all this. That was fun.
Speaker 1: Thanks Bob, appreciate you having me and uh, it's good
Speaker 1: to chat with you with words instead of typing Yes.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob Lefts. Thanks