Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend XX
[0] Hi, my name is Jeff Ross, and I feel tan about being Conan O 'Brien's friend.
[1] That's appropriate.
[2] Wait a minute, so do I. The kid from powder feels tan when he's talking to me. You actually look like Desi Ernestrian right now.
[3] You have.
[4] You put the Aryan in Conan the barbarian.
[5] Oh, baby.
[6] Brand new shoes Walking loose Climb the fence Books and pens I can tell that we are going to be friends I can tell that we are going to be friends Hey there Welcome to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend And terrific program today I'm feeling good You feeling good, Gourley?
[7] I never felt better Oh really?
[8] Well, I know That's the saddest thing I've ever heard I know This is you in peak form No, I'm overcompensating I'm going through a rough patch Oh, is everything okay?
[9] Everything's okay, but we have a cat baby war at home.
[10] What do you mean?
[11] Just the baby is crawling after the cat, and the cat is just taking it out with bodily fluids all over the house.
[12] Okay, paint the picture, please.
[13] Your daughter is now how old?
[14] She's nine months old.
[15] Okay.
[16] So she can crawl.
[17] Yeah, okay.
[18] And boy, can't she.
[19] She's crawling all over the place and describe the cat.
[20] The cat is a half -maincoon, gorgeous plus -sized model cat, and boy, does she know it.
[21] That's way too much information.
[22] I just have cats.
[23] My wife, kids and I have two cats, and I just know that we have two cats.
[24] Right.
[25] I don't know what kind they are.
[26] Is this a pure breed, what you call it?
[27] No, no. She's like a pound cat, but she's half Maine Coon.
[28] And Maine Coons are notoriously big and vocal.
[29] Okay.
[30] I didn't know any of this.
[31] Well, the more you know.
[32] I guess.
[33] Yeah.
[34] I didn't realize we were doing an NBCPSA from 1997.
[35] Also, are we about to watch Suddenly Susan?
[36] Don't go in any abandoned refrigerators either.
[37] Good message out there.
[38] kids.
[39] So the cat is a big fat cat is what you're saying.
[40] Yeah, Margo the fat guy.
[41] Okay.
[42] So you have this cat and everything was fine until the baby showed up.
[43] Everything was even fine when the baby was here.
[44] But once she started crawling, territory started being seized and it's like, it's hell right now.
[45] And we took Margot to the vet because she also got fleas and they gave her an anima.
[46] Okay.
[47] And then we And Margot's the cat, not the daughter.
[48] Margo's the cat.
[49] Okay.
[50] I just want to be sure if you're listening, he did not give his nine -month -old an anima because she got fleets.
[51] No. Have you thought about putting your daughter down?
[52] Oh, I'm sorry, the cat down.
[53] It's very confusing now.
[54] It is, and I understand that.
[55] I forget that.
[56] Margo the fact is the cat.
[57] Have you neutered your daughter?
[58] No. Okay.
[59] Margo the fat guy's the cat.
[60] Glenn, who's also called the Peepie Queen of Pasadena, they're both...
[61] You're an idiot.
[62] And the Golden State Pooper.
[63] Okay.
[64] You spent all your time coming up with these cute nicknames, and this is time when you could be solving the problem.
[65] That's the issue.
[66] The issue is you could be solving the problem, but no, you're too busy going, there's giggles, the tall cam gagler.
[67] Well, let me write that down.
[68] What do you call your toaster?
[69] There's Toasty the Mosty?
[70] There's Toasty the Mosty.
[71] Well, I've got to give you's Toasty the Mosty, but first I've got to open Cooley the Fridge Fridge to get the bready, bread, bread, bread.
[72] You're living in Pee Wee's Playhouse.
[73] It's madness.
[74] Yeah, I suppose.
[75] It just happens.
[76] So what's the plan here?
[77] I want to this segment to end in a real solution.
[78] Okay, good.
[79] I could use your help.
[80] Margo is, she did this to me. You can see this just railroad track of scrape down my forearm.
[81] That's the, those are the same scratches that the murderer always shows to the police afterwards and says, look at that.
[82] Hold that up to the, that's the same.
[83] How did you get these?
[84] Oh, cat.
[85] I have a cat.
[86] Okay.
[87] Oh, and also, I murdered.
[88] I fell down a flight of murder Yeah So we brought Margo home from the vet And I guess she hadn't finished her enema process Because what do you mean Well Not everything got out And by everything I mean There was a lot in there And so she started scratching in the corner Like she was going to go to the bathroom So I picked her up to take her to her litter box Which she's been refusing lately And as I was holding her She just spat out some kind of pressurized soft serve And it's just been all over the house and it's just been a nightmare.
[89] What is she spitting up?
[90] Not spitting up, chat.
[91] Oh.
[92] Oh, I see.
[93] Yeah, I'm sorry.
[94] I didn't mean to go there, but that's how bad this has been.
[95] What I'm saying is me being here right now is the first calm I've had in like two weeks.
[96] We're on the second floor in the podcast studio.
[97] It's a soundproof insulated area.
[98] And I can hear your cat outside smashing the window open with an iron bar.
[99] Oh, geez.
[100] Jack from the Shining.
[101] Yeah.
[102] Yeah.
[103] He's terrible.
[104] And she hasn't stopped and I don't know what to do.
[105] Well, you know that the child comes first.
[106] It's the hierarchy of needs.
[107] Yes, of course.
[108] And so cats got to go bye -bye.
[109] No. We can't get rid of the cat.
[110] This cat is special to us.
[111] The babies are life.
[112] I have to go, I think, is the thing.
[113] Okay.
[114] Well.
[115] I'm the unnecessary.
[116] What I'm saying is I don't want the cat to be harmed in any way.
[117] No. But I think maybe the cat has to learn its lesson.
[118] and go live somewhere else for well until it learns to tow the line, if you will.
[119] You're volunteering?
[120] Oh, I'll come pick up your cat.
[121] Oh, Jesus.
[122] I will come pick up your cat and go for a ride and when I come back, the cat won't be with me and we won't have to discuss it.
[123] Absolutely not.
[124] Yeah.
[125] Absolutely not.
[126] I'm coming by at 3 a .m. quietly through the window.
[127] Oh, God.
[128] This is a bad idea to bring this up.
[129] Well, good luck with your cat.
[130] Thank you.
[131] What's your cat's name again?
[132] Margo the fat guy.
[133] Incredible.
[134] You live a very, Silly life.
[135] There's our daughter, Mrs. Squeak's Cheeks for weeks.
[136] Captain Howdy Lips Up Howdy.
[137] Right.
[138] So you're not a real adult person.
[139] And I'm saying this, which is really bad.
[140] All right.
[141] Yeah, that is bad.
[142] I'm the stupidest.
[143] I think I've had my eyes open to some things about myself here this afternoon.
[144] Well, listen, what better time.
[145] to get into our first guests.
[146] Yeah, this seems resolved.
[147] Yeah, I think your sense of humor and his are just so in line.
[148] My guest today is Mr. Goopty McLeopty.
[149] My guest today, no, he really is a hilarious comedian.
[150] He's best known as the Roast Master General.
[151] Very excited to chat with him today.
[152] Jeff Ross, welcome.
[153] I congratulate you on, through, talent and tenacity, just carving out this amazing thing for yourself.
[154] You are the Roastmaster General in, not just the United States of America, worldwide.
[155] Worldwide.
[156] And, you know, it occurred to me, we should probably start where all things must start, which is with Don Rickles.
[157] We lost Dawn a couple of years ago.
[158] You have picked up that mantle.
[159] I mean, you know, you are the guy that everyone thinks of now when you think of insult, comic, and you always have amazing jokes.
[160] You get terrific jokes.
[161] Thank you.
[162] Do you write them all?
[163] Do you ever, do you have people that help you out?
[164] my cousin Ed and my other buddy Ed and sometimes for the big roast, you know, full on writing staff will help everyone on the dais.
[165] But I mostly try to do my own.
[166] Right.
[167] And have, you know, a couple friends who know me real well sit around with me. And I don't really accept jokes, but I like to hone them with people.
[168] Yeah.
[169] If they sound, what do you call it, recycled, they start to sound mean or predictable.
[170] But I really wanted to be like a suit when I roast somebody, tailor -made just for them.
[171] Also, I think people appreciate that.
[172] If you're doing jokes about someone and telling them they're so fat that when they, you know, they need to leave the house to, it's a standard joke.
[173] I'm going to work on that one, by the way.
[174] That's around.
[175] Is it a good end?
[176] Trust me. Oh, no, it's going to place.
[177] Is that joke?
[178] What Jeff will tell you is that you start with that and then you work on it.
[179] But you...
[180] Thank you for that nice compliment off the bat about Don.
[181] He really was the, what do they call it, the Sultan?
[182] of insulting and yes he did teach me a lot uh so i i i appreciate that there was a few years there where if you were a big shot having a 50th birthday or a 40th you know a big a big birthday you'd have to have me and don you know and and he would inevitably um go on after me and make i'd always i'd always write the jokes and i'd always have papers of jokes yeah yeah and like john stamos asked me and and don rickles to roast him for his 50th at this fancy hotel tuxedos and the whole thing and I come in with pages of stuff.
[183] You know, John Stamos is so good -looking, his birthday candles blew themselves.
[184] And, like, I'm really prepared, and John asked me to prepare.
[185] And then Rickles goes on after me and just makes fun of me for preparing.
[186] Yes.
[187] Well, this is what I wanted to bring up.
[188] The way in which you're different from Ripples.
[189] And I'll start with the day I had an experience about 15 years ago.
[190] My wife and I are on a flight cross -country.
[191] We get on the plane.
[192] I'm putting my stuff in the overhead, apartment, and I start to hear someone say, Jesus Christ, I let any guy on this plane.
[193] And I'm like, I'm sort of hearing it out of the, and I'm thinking, what?
[194] And then he's like, man, goddamn, fucking Irish.
[195] When I was the Irish on the plane?
[196] This far up, you think the Irish should be further back?
[197] And I sort of start to get a little like, I'm tired and I'm frustrated so I get irritated and I turn around.
[198] Don Rickles is sitting right behind Liza and I and he's sitting there and I where the definition of being happy as a pig and shit was my wife and I both, we'd never, I just don't think I strapped in the whole flight where both of our heads are peeking over behind us and the whole flight he's going after me and then he's going after, you know, what are your plans?
[199] We told him he went after our plans.
[200] Then he starts going after Newhart, who he was best friends with, who he knew that I knew.
[201] Yeah.
[202] And just on and on and on.
[203] And it was, that flight felt like it was 20 seconds on.
[204] But here's what I've always thought about.
[205] It's what's interesting because I, for lack of anything better to do, I think about comedy a lot.
[206] I think you prepare very, very, very well.
[207] I think you take these things really seriously and your jokes are very crafted.
[208] I'm going to say that, and I love Don, Don had a different technique.
[209] He was a nerve comic in a lot of ways.
[210] He wouldn't, there are so many times I saw him, if you saw him like on a D. Martin roast, yes, he had material, but so often he would just go by the seat of his pants.
[211] And it wasn't so much crafted, intricate insults.
[212] Do you know what I mean?
[213] It was a full on, it was a full on bear attack in the moment.
[214] And if you went back and looked at the transcript, you'd say some of this doesn't make any sense.
[215] You know, you're looking this guy over here.
[216] And he would come on my show and do stuff.
[217] And every now and then, one of my favorite things that he used to say was you'd say something, be like, oh, good, good for you, smart guy.
[218] What do you want a cookie?
[219] And I just thought, and I think I just laughed because he said cookie.
[220] What do you want a cookie?
[221] His timing.
[222] It was just the way he said it.
[223] And, you know, he did chastise me, and I did get embarrassed, you know, like, oh, God, I'm the kid who did all the homework, and he would go up after me and crush.
[224] It always kind of bothered me. Maybe it was, my skin wasn't thick enough to take it from him.
[225] And then a couple of years after that Stamos thing, I was at Don's Memorial at a synagogue, and, you know, all the comics were sitting there were all invited.
[226] and remember Judd Appetal's right in front of me and all the guys are that and Don's manager, Tony, comes walking over to me and he says, Jeff, can you speak?
[227] In the moment, this is something I would have prepared a month for had I known.
[228] And I look at Joe, I go, this is Don challenging me right now to talk.
[229] No papers, kid.
[230] And I did it.
[231] I just stood up and I took the mic and handled my business for five minutes and it was funny and it was sweet.
[232] and I remember being like, freaking Don taught me something from the grave that I can do it.
[233] And somewhere from the beyond, he's like, what do you want a cookie?
[234] And I do always want a cookie, so that did work out.
[235] You would have been good around people with low blood sugar.
[236] Don just visiting a diabetes ward.
[237] What do you want a cookie?
[238] Actually, I do.
[239] I need one very, very badly.
[240] The first time I ever saw Dodd Rickles was some event, you know, decades ago.
[241] And my buddy Adam, Farrar, and I are in tuxedos, and we see Don Rickles where early, we beeline, you know, across the whole room.
[242] And he can see two comics coming from a mile away, right?
[243] And my buddy Adam goes, Mr. Rickles, I just want.
[244] And he goes, all right, kid, don't make a thing.
[245] His impatience was hilarious.
[246] Yes, his impatience was hilarious.
[247] And also the intensity of his attack, you know, because he was a terrific actor and studied seriously as an actor.
[248] It was maybe even less about the material than it was about the sheer nerve.
[249] You know, I've always heard that early Jerry Lewis, like Martin and Lewis, 1950s, I mean, late 40s, if you saw them in a club, people I talked to, like Herb Sargent, who saw that said it was the funniest thing they ever saw.
[250] Because it was sheer nerve.
[251] They had no act, no act, which meant they would do anything in the moment.
[252] And Jerry was dressing up as a waiter.
[253] He was stepping on people's food.
[254] He was cutting off people's ties.
[255] Big mafia guys.
[256] and it was the nerve of it.
[257] And I think there was something about Don that was just the intensity and nerve and he had an actor's ability to come at it.
[258] Like he was just out for blood, completely out for blood.
[259] He was a verbal assault unit.
[260] He was fearless and his brashness.
[261] I still get that.
[262] People are like, I'm not sitting in the front row at your show.
[263] And I'm like, no, no, no, don't worry.
[264] I only rose volunteers.
[265] You're not going to be a sitting duck at my shows.
[266] Is that true?
[267] When I do my shows, I'll do my proper.
[268] act, whatever I'm working on for 30 or 40 minutes.
[269] And then I'll say, all right, I need volunteers.
[270] Who wants to come up here and get roasted?
[271] House lights go on.
[272] People stand up.
[273] And I'll say, like, anybody pregnant or disabled?
[274] Raise your hand.
[275] And if people try to point to other people, I don't take that.
[276] That's bullying.
[277] I go, it's got to be volunteers.
[278] And that way, I don't get slapped at the Oscars.
[279] Which, by the way, is considered an honor now.
[280] Yeah.
[281] Can you believe we lost Gilbert, Sagitt, and Will Smith in the same year?
[282] I mean, gone but not forgotten.
[283] Okay, so here's, I want to get your take on this because I was in New York the week.
[284] Malini was hosting S &L and he asked me to come by the comedy seller and check out what he was going to do for his monologue.
[285] So I went by and Chris Rock was there.
[286] I talked to him for a bit.
[287] And then Chris went up, this might have been a week and a half before the famous slap.
[288] Right.
[289] But I saw him deal with the heckler in the audience.
[290] And I thought, wow, that was interesting.
[291] I was there.
[292] I think it was kind of a very PC person in the crowd.
[293] He went, I don't know about that.
[294] And Chris was like, excuse me, you don't get to weigh in on what I'm doing.
[295] And it was really fun to see.
[296] But then to see a week later, you'd think, well, that might happen at a comedy club in Manhattan.
[297] But now he's doing the Oscars.
[298] He's safe.
[299] And the idea that a week later he was on stage getting slapped by one of the biggest A -lister's was absolutely stunning and something I still can't believe happened.
[300] I was in Atlanta.
[301] I just come off stage, watching it on TV.
[302] And I'm going to be sincere here.
[303] I welled up.
[304] My eyes welled up.
[305] It was my hero, one of my heroes, Chris Rock, arguably my favorite comedian, getting slapped over a roast joke.
[306] So I saw my whole world.
[307] And a throwaway joke, nothing that in the, Well, the joke's on Jada because I have alopecia and I'm starring in G .I. Jane, too.
[308] But it was something that I...
[309] Do I slap you?
[310] No, I don't.
[311] Well, it really showed me, and I've always been preaching, like, take a joke, have thick skin.
[312] That's been my mantra for years since I've been doing the roast.
[313] And roast can be very healing.
[314] And I get a lot of people with disabilities.
[315] I get a lot of, it's normalize, roasting is normalizing things that aren't necessarily normal.
[316] Maybe not the celebrity roast, but like the roasting I do in nightclubs and in theaters and stuff.
[317] And I got alopecia like six or seven years ago and I did everything I could to cover it up.
[318] You know, my hair fell out in a course of a few weeks.
[319] And I thought I was dying.
[320] I was seeing specialists.
[321] I didn't know what it was.
[322] It took a long time to figure out.
[323] And, you know, my eyebrows look fucked up sometimes and this and And I was embarrassed because I had this big jufro and I had jokes about it.
[324] And I said, you know, I'll pretend it's a summer look and I'm going on tour.
[325] And when I saw that woman not take that joke, when she could have easily normalized it for hundreds of thousands of kids all over the world watching this beautiful movie star on TV be a bad sport about something she could easily have laughed about, even if it hurt inside she could have.
[326] And to me, it forced me to talk about it.
[327] I was talking about on stage.
[328] I talked about it on the Internet the next day because it really, I knew that it was hurting other people who might have that.
[329] It's mostly kids.
[330] Like, imagine me, my doctor, Brett King at Yale, he's a research doctor.
[331] And he told me about that he had read about a girl who was 12 years old who had to wear a wig to school.
[332] And the kids bullied her and they pulled her wig off and she freaking killed herself.
[333] So to me, anything you can do to normalize it and own it, I guess, and learn to live with it and channel your inner rock star, which for me is pit bull, if you got attacked by a pit bull, is what we Jews call a mitzvah.
[334] Not that I'm trying to be, listen, I'm sure no doubt for a woman, it's very traumatizing.
[335] But Jada had talked about it so much publicly.
[336] that for, it made me think that it wasn't the alopecia that was bothering her that maybe she had some history with Chris Rock.
[337] Yeah.
[338] To me, not knowing anything, it felt like there's something else happening here.
[339] And also, it's a weird pool shot because it's not her storming the stage.
[340] It's her signaling to her husband who then goes into, but look to me like a character.
[341] Like he reset and became this person who I'm now going to go kick ass.
[342] And you think, I don't know, I've met Will Smith a bunch of times.
[343] Sometimes he's, that's not who he is, that he went into character.
[344] It all felt very strange to me. Somebody told me that is who he is, and we've been watching a character for 20 years.
[345] So, I don't know, man. I don't know.
[346] I hope he's okay.
[347] I love Will Smith.
[348] I always enjoyed his movies.
[349] The one time I met him, he did scare the shit out of me. I was writing the MTV Awards with Chris Rock.
[350] We were standing at the stage.
[351] This is when he was doing Ali.
[352] And he goes, you know, hey, Jeff Rod.
[353] He just sort of recognized me, is it, you know, and he starts coming at me like, I'll leave, boom, boom, boom, boom, throwing punches.
[354] And I was, like, scared shitless.
[355] I was like, this guy's, like, really got the character down.
[356] So he is, he is an icon, and it's sad to see someone's career plummet like that.
[357] I mean, his, you know, who am I to talk?
[358] His worst day is probably my best day in show business.
[359] But it really hurt me to see, I said to my girlfriend that night, you know, like, basically through my emotions, I said, if he gets away with this, I'm done in show business.
[360] Right.
[361] Who's going to stick up for me at a comedy club if this guy's getting away with slapping Chris Rock on the Oscars?
[362] And think about it.
[363] Like he slapped Chris.
[364] He won.
[365] He made a speech.
[366] He got a standing ovation.
[367] He went to the after party.
[368] Went dancing.
[369] And then they kicked him out of the academy.
[370] That's like going to your favorite restaurant for your birthday.
[371] They pick up to check.
[372] The waitress fucks all your friends and families.
[373] You have three desserts.
[374] And the mater D is like, sir, we're going to have to ask you to leave.
[375] Yeah, it's 5 a .m. My dick is wet.
[376] I'm leaving.
[377] I did it.
[378] That's the greatest Denny's I ever heard of.
[379] You've got to go there now.
[380] You bring up something that I wanted to talk about, and I intend to talk about a little later, but I know this about you.
[381] I don't know that everybody does.
[382] You are a very talented comic, and you're a very intelligent writer of, you know, what would seem to a lot of people to be like vicious, brutal jokes.
[383] You're a sensitive person.
[384] Someone might think, oh, this guy has a thick skin.
[385] You have a thin skin.
[386] And I think that's true of a lot of, actually, probably all comedians.
[387] At the end of the day, we want to make people happen.
[388] You're not someone that wants to hurt people or wants to hurt their feelings.
[389] And I think when you're doing your job right, you can really roast someone and they enjoy it.
[390] It's an honor for them.
[391] It's an honor to be roasted by you.
[392] Thank you.
[393] I think of myself as having a thick skin when it comes to jokes.
[394] Like if someone makes a joke about me, that I have thick skin.
[395] But as far as like when I find out if for some reason I've hurt someone's feelings or the few times I can remember that I over did it or piled on, yeah, I regret it.
[396] I've sent notes.
[397] I've apologized to people because it's a bad feeling.
[398] It's a terrible feeling.
[399] I'm sure you had it going on over your career with jokes and with guests.
[400] But to me, I want everyone to leave the roast feeling like that was so much fun.
[401] I want to do that again or I want them to roast me sometime or I can't wait to tell my kids what Jeff Ross said about me last night tomorrow.
[402] You know, I wanted to be a badge of honor.
[403] I wanted to.
[404] And I waited years and years.
[405] You know, you'd always wait for celebrities to go, all right, let's do it.
[406] Putting on the tucks, here we go.
[407] You know, big star celebrity roast.
[408] And that's when I was like, I can't wait anymore.
[409] That's when I started just saying to the family.
[410] at my show is like, who wants to come up here and get roasted?
[411] Because I realized that it had this healing quality over it and made people feel good about themselves and feel sexy or feel validated or seen.
[412] I had a guy in, I guess it was Salt Lake not too long ago.
[413] He's squealing out of his chair.
[414] He's with his friends.
[415] He wants to come up so bad.
[416] And he's a severely deformed person.
[417] Like his eyes were two different levels.
[418] His ear was down like under his jawline, And something happened to him, obviously, at birth, that was pretty intense.
[419] And the audience is just like, what the fun.
[420] And you can feel them tighten up.
[421] So I save him for last.
[422] So I line up to 10 people and I work my way down.
[423] And I'm thinking, in my head, I'm trying to figure out of this.
[424] What is this going to be?
[425] Where is this going to land?
[426] And then I got to the guy and he was so happy to be up there.
[427] It almost didn't matter what I said.
[428] I asked him if he modeled for Picasso.
[429] But the point.
[430] was.
[431] He's the first guy afterwards, like wanting a picture, wanting to hug me. And that is the part where you say, am I sensitive.
[432] That's the part that gets me. Like, I get, I get weepy trying to understand how it all works.
[433] What goes to this guy's head?
[434] What am I doing for him?
[435] What is he doing for me?
[436] How is he?
[437] He's making my job harder, but also more gratifying.
[438] And the whole thing, and I know, usually analyze it, because then I get, you know how it is.
[439] It's like when you're a comic, You go, well, if I'm too happy, I won't be funny anymore.
[440] If I understand it too well, it won't be as daring.
[441] So it's just as one of those, I don't know, it feels like a superpower sometimes.
[442] A lot of it's about how the person reacts.
[443] And as you know, again, I grew up, maybe you saw it, watched it too, but those Dean Martin roast that they would show on television were, that's what I knew a roast was when I was a kid.
[444] And I've seen some of them since because they packaged them and you can watch them.
[445] and it really is about seeing Dean Martin or, you see these huge stars just laughing as they're being torn apart.
[446] To me, that's the magic of it is seeing the person enjoy it.
[447] Now, famously, I've never seen the tape, but famously there was the Chevy Chase roast where I'm told he sat there with glasses the whole time and then apparently just pretty much told everyone to fuck off and went up to his room and locked the door.
[448] That's what I've always heard.
[449] But stunning to me that he would go to a roast not knowing what the deal was.
[450] Almost acted like I'm shocked.
[451] I thought I was getting a Nobel Prize in chemistry.
[452] And you people were so cruel.
[453] But I didn't know what it was.
[454] But it was to me one of the few times I've heard in history that it went completely off the rails.
[455] Have you seen that?
[456] Have you heard about that?
[457] I wasn't at that one, but I did interrogate Greg Geraldo afterwards.
[458] And just recently, Al Franken brought it up to me. over lunch, we were laughing about how stick in the mud Chevy was.
[459] But I remember saying a Greg, he was telling me how awful the Roes was.
[460] There was a few people.
[461] Apparently Todd Barry killed and maybe Mark Mayer and a couple people were funny.
[462] But I couldn't get through it because to me it was one of those things where it just seemed like a movie where the plot never moved along.
[463] It's like, all right, everybody's he's stonewalling everybody.
[464] It's like, and not showing vulnerability, wearing sunglasses at a roast is just odd.
[465] But the linchpin for me is always the human connection.
[466] When I do produce a roast, and I'm producing one for Tom Brady after the Super Bowl, this coming up.
[467] To me, the linchpin of it is everyone knowing each other, or at least meeting.
[468] So I said to Greg, well, what did you say to him when you met him early, you know, the night before or in that morning?
[469] He goes, oh, I didn't meet him until I walked out to the podium.
[470] And I said, well, if I was producing that show, you would have had a moment to shake his hand, no hard feelings, anything.
[471] goes, let's have some fun, big fan.
[472] Humanize it, right.
[473] Whatever.
[474] You know, just have some human moment connection there.
[475] And they didn't do that.
[476] And I think, you know, not to give all the secrets away about baking up, cooking up a good roast, but I do think everyone meeting, at least for dinner the night before or having some kind of, it's like, it's like a wedding.
[477] You want to have a little bonding time the night before, the big day.
[478] And they didn't do that.
[479] And I think that was problematic for the younger comics.
[480] They didn't feel made enough.
[481] They didn't feel like they were belonged in his life.
[482] And I think that he also felt that way, it seemed.
[483] But his daughter's very nice and she got married this weekend, so shout out to Kaylee.
[484] I'm going to have that edit it.
[485] She's the piano player at the comedy store.
[486] She's lovely.
[487] That'll never see air.
[488] I'll take that out, just out of spite.
[489] No, I'm sure, I'm sure Chevy's over the roast by now.
[490] Well, I'm not sure he is.
[491] They have made the beginning of a long...
[492] I always thank my honorees for being a good sport afterwards because it's not easy.
[493] Right.
[494] You know, have you ever been roasted?
[495] I've never been roasted.
[496] I get roasted every day.
[497] Every day.
[498] That I think, to your point, when you're done with something like that, you almost felt like you've been to a spa.
[499] Because you get the bile, like the bile literally comes out of your pores.
[500] And I find it to be, there's something really magical about it.
[501] when it goes well, when it goes really well.
[502] And it's one of the things that why I brought up, how the person reacts is so key because you're giving them a gift if they see it that way.
[503] I'll take it enough.
[504] Go ahead.
[505] If you can laugh during that, it's kind of joyous.
[506] And when you're done.
[507] I always say to the honorary, I said, if you're having fun, everyone's going to have fun.
[508] And to your point, their laugh can also make the joke better.
[509] My most famous joke when I was a young comedian was at the roast of Jerry Stiller, Reier's Roast.
[510] I've heard about this.
[511] This is this, B. Arthur.
[512] I want to hear this.
[513] Oh, yes.
[514] Please say this.
[515] Please say this.
[516] So, this is like 1999 or something.
[517] I'm just starting to get a little bit of a reputation around New York for doing the roast.
[518] And I loved it because here I was doing shows with Milton Burrell and Buddy Hackett.
[519] And, and, you know, of course, my hip friends in the old comedy scene were making fun of me. But I was like, this is the ultimate alternative comedy.
[520] Like, I'm up here with these, you know, Melton.
[521] roast more of comedy, you guys are out there, you know, without a microphone in these, like, alt bars.
[522] And I'm like, I'm going to come up here and get made fun of by Milton Burrell.
[523] And at this point now, I'm like, you know, a comedy central, I don't know what they would call it, consultant.
[524] Like, I would help if Kevin James was going to roast Jerry Stiller, I was going to write Kevin's set, my set, Jerry set.
[525] Like, I worked months, 24 -7, you know, I did it all.
[526] It was like, you know, fresh -baked daily jokes.
[527] Here's the latest.
[528] And this is your speech.
[529] And this is your speech.
[530] Everybody would have input.
[531] And, you know, I'd work with everybody to make sure they owned it and felt it.
[532] But I was all in on these shows.
[533] And B. Arthur was one of my idols.
[534] I just loved her.
[535] And she, the Friars Club would have the podium in the middle.
[536] And then the dais would go 40 people each side, like an airplane wing.
[537] You know, like, and, you know, Freddie Roman would get up.
[538] and it would introduce everyone there for 20 minutes.
[539] Everyone would take a bow.
[540] I did the same joke every year when Freddie would introduce Donald Trump on the dais.
[541] I would stand up and wave just as Donald had his one moment of the night.
[542] I would always take his moment and act like I was him and waved.
[543] It was like, you know, 2 ,000 people.
[544] He was a good sport even then.
[545] Yeah, sure.
[546] And, you know, Howard and Robin, they'd be up in the balcony.
[547] And, you know, it was like a who's who of politics.
[548] boxers and all of it was always just as, I love that I was, that it was just all these New York socialites and stuff.
[549] And B. Arthur shows up because she's friends with, you know, Ann Meera and Jerry Stiller, so she's a guest and she's on the dais.
[550] And of course, I'm towards the end of the show.
[551] And no one's, other than her little bow in the beginning, no one's mentioned B. Arthur.
[552] And I'm like, that is disrespectful.
[553] I'll fix this.
[554] I know what to do.
[555] So I have my script.
[556] There's no teleprone.
[557] I have my script and I don't know what I was thinking or where it came from, but in my nervous scrawl, just somewhere in my margin, I wrote B. Arthur's Dick.
[558] And I sat there another 30 minutes.
[559] That note just sold at Sotheby's for $600 ,000.
[560] And one of my friends from the Friars Club, one of the board members, Joe Zappala, he was the ambassador to Spain.
[561] You know, he's sitting next to me. an older guy and I show him I just I point on the paper to him next to me it just says Beartre and he looks like no no no no no this perfectly nice you were warned this perfectly nice evening no no no no no no and I look at him like man you know I should have asked a comic not an ambassador and I finally wait my turn and I'm next and Sandra Bernhard who I love is up there, and she's doing a risque sort of lap dance thing to Jerry, you know, and, you know, writhing around Jerry.
[562] And, you know, he doesn't, he was very squeamish.
[563] He was very embarrassed.
[564] And that was the joke is how he got uncomfortable.
[565] Yeah, and his son is there, and his daughter's there, and his wife, Ann Mears there, and the whole thing.
[566] And it's just delightful and hilarious and weird and totally Sandra.
[567] and then they introduced me and I said my opening joke was I couldn't help myself Sandra Bernhard holy shit I wouldn't fuck you would be Arthur's dick but to your earlier point the joke's okay yeah to me the joke's okay but the it's like you say about rickles it's the balls of it but it's the brazenness part of it But it was her reaction that made it my, made my triple into a grand slam.
[568] Yeah.
[569] It was, she, she just slow burn her.
[570] And the camera held on her and she just didn't just evil eye, just, just, she murdered me by just looking at it.
[571] Right.
[572] And that made everything okay.
[573] Like she gave a classic golden girl's like slow burn take.
[574] Perfect.
[575] And she really made it.
[576] Perfect.
[577] And, you know, a year goes by, you know, that year, like timeout in New York, jokes of the year, it makes the end of the year thing, like moments.
[578] And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm getting famous off this B. Arthur joke.
[579] I wonder if she's hearing about it.
[580] So now I'm like, oh, my God, I hope she's not upset.
[581] You know, I love B. Arthur to think that I would embarrass her or hurt her in any way.
[582] Like, she was a good sport, but maybe on the inside, is she getting asked about this in interviews?
[583] The roast were starting to take off to become this, like, cultural thing.
[584] And I see that she's performing her one -person show in Los Angeles.
[585] It's a fundraiser for an animal charity.
[586] And I didn't have a lot of money back then.
[587] And tickets were expensive.
[588] And I got one ticket.
[589] I went by myself.
[590] And I brought flowers.
[591] And somehow I weasel my way backstage.
[592] And she had a long line of well -wishers who wanted to congratulate her.
[593] And I waited to go last so that I could actually talk to her.
[594] And I gave her the flowers.
[595] and I said, Ms. Arthur, it's like a year later.
[596] I don't know if you remember me, but we met at Jerry's Roast, and she said, you nailed me, you prick.
[597] Well, good for you, but good for you for going.
[598] Good for you for going.
[599] And the best lay I ever had.
[600] She was hung like a horse.
[601] Roast in peace.
[602] Roast in Peace, Beard.
[603] I loved her.
[604] She was so cool and did come back to another row.
[605] She showed up at the Pam Anderson Rose.
[606] So to her credit, she really did love what we were doing.
[607] I think you and I have something in common, which is I adore endless fascination and idolization.
[608] Well, seriously, people that came before me. The longevity is why I respect that older generation.
[609] My buddy is a professor of comedy and show business history at NYU and at Yale, and he told me that you and I are both fans of Sid Caesar.
[610] Yes, yeah.
[611] I used to go to Sid's house for, like, Jewish holidays and for his 90th birthday.
[612] He'd have a few, you know, Richard Lewis and me were like the comics that he would invite along with Mel and Carl and his sort of protégés, you know, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks.
[613] And I remember sitting there on Sid's 90th, and Carl and Mel came in five minutes after me. So I'm sitting there with Sid and some other people, and they come in.
[614] And they regressed back into their 25 -year -old selves.
[615] And Carl and Mel walk up around Sid's wheelchair.
[616] Sid was a little in and out of it at that point.
[617] You weren't always sure.
[618] Sometimes he thought he had a show to do that night.
[619] Sometimes he knew it was his birthday.
[620] It was so cute.
[621] Carl and Mel come all the way around to the first.
[622] front so that Sid can see them, recognize them.
[623] And Mel goes, hey, look, Sid, it's Carl Ryder and Mel Brooks.
[624] And the Sid just lit up, you know, it was like, it was like going to see your uncle or something.
[625] It was beautiful.
[626] We probably took him right back to 1952 and they have a show in, you know, an hour.
[627] And these are his.
[628] Wake me when it's funny.
[629] Yeah.
[630] I mean, there's a life.
[631] That's why I love a writer's room.
[632] I started out in a writer's room.
[633] I love being in a room full of people.
[634] And to me, sometimes people would think, well, you guys are wasting time.
[635] You're really going off in these crazy tensions that have nothing to do with the Simpson script or the S &L script or whatever it is you're supposed to be working on or the Conan script.
[636] I think I don't, I know this is necessary to the process.
[637] I don't know why.
[638] But us doing a weird, nonsensical, filthy 45 -minute riff about a guy who's got a slim gym for a dick, you know, is somehow necessary to the process, and you'll never convince me that it's not.
[639] It's like, what do you call it, when you're making a sculpture out of clay, you know, a lot.
[640] I always say to writers and to myself, there's no such thing as wasted writing.
[641] Even if you write that whole slim gym bit down and you trash it, it kind of got you to the next thing that you have to get to.
[642] That's funny for all.
[643] of you because you've been through the ride together.
[644] So I do think there's no such thing as wasted writing.
[645] It gets you to the next place.
[646] Now, you referenced this a little bit earlier.
[647] You made a joke, but you touched on the fact that we've lost Bob Sagitt, Gilbert Godfried, Norm McDonald, all in a relatively short period of time.
[648] It almost feels like a conspiracy.
[649] I mean, these really uniquely talented people, you know, I've been thinking about it lately because I knew I knew Norm better.
[650] I think I knew Gilbert used to do tons of bits for us over the years.
[651] And what I remember about Gilbert was he was the most, the difference between backstage Gilbert and on -air Gilbert was the largest difference I think I've seen on a performer.
[652] He was so quiet he just wanted to take food from the craft services table.
[653] Put it in his pockets and get it home to his rent -controlled apartment.
[654] That's what he mostly wanted to do.
[655] So odd.
[656] But he was so, So, yeah, he, but he's so sweet, so sweet.
[657] And he was one of the first, when I first got out of school and was in New York, I went to a comedy club.
[658] And I barely knew who he was.
[659] And the crowd was, they said, ladies in Jim and Gilbert Godfrey, and he came on on stage and he went, thank you, thank you.
[660] Please, please, no, thank you.
[661] Please, it's too much, sit, thank you.
[662] And then he kept doing that for maybe 11 minutes.
[663] And people at my table were getting, I didn't know them, I was just sitting in, but people at my table were getting mad.
[664] They were getting mad.
[665] And then there's silence.
[666] And he's going, I beg of you.
[667] Please.
[668] Please, it's too much.
[669] How can I reciprocate?
[670] And he kept going and I was dying.
[671] My jaw fell off.
[672] I was crying.
[673] And then, of course, he got the crowd back again.
[674] But I thought that the balls on that guy to do that.
[675] He was one of a kind.
[676] Talk about fearless.
[677] I spoke at his funeral.
[678] And, you know, he did this joke on my.
[679] my Netflix Bumping Mike special about skull fucking his dead grandma.
[680] So now I'm at that old chestnut.
[681] Now I'm at his funeral.
[682] And I'm looking at his wife and he has kids a 13 year old and a 15 year old.
[683] And he had this whole other side to him.
[684] Yeah, yeah.
[685] He was a great dad.
[686] And I love his kids.
[687] I took his son to see Billy Crystal's amazing new musical the other day.
[688] I know that, sides of Gilbert.
[689] So here I am at his funeral, and I'm talking about how Gilbert's comedy is fearless and subversive, but yet he was so lovable, he could get us to laugh at a joke about skull -fucking a dead person.
[690] And I looked at his coffin and said, not so funny now.
[691] Had that come over?
[692] Well, we buried him in a soundproof coffin.
[693] Go ahead, Ken. Go ahead.
[694] He was very loud.
[695] A wonderful, wonderful person, a unique person.
[696] He will be missed.
[697] The Norm Gilbert Sagitt thing, I don't know how to explain.
[698] I will say my sister has asked me to get my affairs in a letter to.
[699] So she doesn't get stuck taking care of me, figuring out what to do if I ever.
[700] But I would love to tell a Norm story since you really moved me at the memorial.
[701] And I love Norm.
[702] He was my, when I was a very, very beginning comedian, my first real, legit road gig was emceeing his seven or eight shows at Catch a Rising Star in Princeton.
[703] This would have been about like 90, 91.
[704] Norm was not famous.
[705] He was this sort of like hot young comic coming out of Canada.
[706] And he wasn't famous here.
[707] He hadn't done Letterman.
[708] He hadn't done really much here.
[709] It was a big gig for me. I'm hosting Norm's shows.
[710] And this is when Andrew Dice Clay was the number one comic in the world.
[711] and Norm was so different than that.
[712] Yes.
[713] But comedy was hot, so the club was packed every night.
[714] And Norm had this weird accent, and his jokes were long, and they were often absurd.
[715] And, you know, the crowd was, seven shows, he probably bombed three of them.
[716] Yeah.
[717] And he killed the other four.
[718] They either loved them or they hated them.
[719] And when he killed, we'd go backstage, and we would play poker until the next show.
[720] when he bombed inexplicably, he would go to the exit and say goodbye to every single person.
[721] I think to entertain me, I don't know if he just loved the awkwardness of it or he was always one step ahead of me. One step ahead of his fans, the industry.
[722] I wish he had been, you know, he wanted to tell the most honest, the most brutally, the most brutally, funny joke no matter what the consequences.
[723] I would play poker with him later on when he was at SNL.
[724] He would he would have the guys over on Mondays, whatever it was, Sundays, whenever there was Sundays, whenever there was no one up there.
[725] And we'd play poker and he liked to play poker there because he had the long table and he could watch five TVs so he could gamble on football while playing poker and while holding court.
[726] It was so much fun for me. And then he said, come back Saturday, come hang out at the show.
[727] So this is an example of Norm just not giving a flying fuck about anybody.
[728] Like, he just wanted to make people laugh no matter what the consequences.
[729] Rosie O'Donnell was the host of the show that week, a guest host, and height of her fame with Penny Marshall.
[730] They were like, this famous team.
[731] And they'd done a big movie together.
[732] And Penny by now is like a big movie director.
[733] And I'm in that hallway.
[734] you know, where the pages are, where the desk is, and everybody kind of, you know, congregates in that area.
[735] It's crowded.
[736] It's 10 minutes to showtime.
[737] And I'm standing there with Norm and a bunch of writers and pages and whoever else and our guests.
[738] And Penny comes in with a baseball hat and sunglasses, head down, just kind of big -timing everybody, just cutting through the crowd, celebrity style.
[739] And Norm starts going, he starts pointing at her and screaming, Laverne!
[740] Leverne!
[741] Leverne!
[742] A month later, I think he was fired for telling OJ jokes.
[743] It really shows that he just wanted to tell the best jokes.
[744] I wish he was so brutally honest about his health.
[745] We would have gotten to say goodbye to him.
[746] I know.
[747] I think that bothered a lot of us, and I think a lot of us assumed everyone knew.
[748] When it happened, I thought, oh, Jesus, he didn't tell me, but I guess I would assume you would know.
[749] We all assumed everyone else.
[750] knew, and then it turned out that nobody knew.
[751] You know, his family knew, and Lori Joe knew, but that was, he didn't want people to know.
[752] That's what he wanted, so I guess you have to honor that.
[753] I had freaking a skin condition I didn't want anyone to know.
[754] Like, anything that makes you think the audience might feel sorry or sympathy or not think you're just funny.
[755] Yeah.
[756] Anything that undercuts the comedy, you don't want the audience to know.
[757] So I get it.
[758] I've done very well with sympathy.
[759] I think you've, again, We disagree.
[760] I think you get that audience to feel badly for you.
[761] Nobody rewards desperation.
[762] Yeah, exactly.
[763] You know, I want to ask you about Bob Sagitt because I knew Bob a bit.
[764] I did not know him nearly as well as you guys, but I spent this intense day with him in San Francisco.
[765] Oh.
[766] About maybe 12 years ago, we shot something towards the end of my late -night show run.
[767] We were in San Francisco, and I was with him for a...
[768] entire day and then into the evening.
[769] And we had a great day.
[770] And I feel like after that, I felt like I get Bob.
[771] I understand Bob.
[772] He's neurotic.
[773] He was, he was, but very funny and incredibly sweet.
[774] And when he passed, which was very shocking, I know that you and John Mayer made this a great video of you guys going to pick up his car at the airport.
[775] And I started to think about, what if that became like the new harbinger of death or a comic?
[776] that, you know, that you go and pick up their car.
[777] And I was like, and they, you know, if I'm in the hospital and I'm not feeling quite well, and they tell me that Mr. Mayor and Mr. Ross are downstairs asking about your car.
[778] Do you have your keys?
[779] Yeah, do you have your keys?
[780] I was like, I'm going to put it in my...
[781] That's why he's here today.
[782] I know, I'm going to leave.
[783] Don't fucking go near my car.
[784] If it's on a stick, if it's a stick, you're safe.
[785] I'm getting a stick now.
[786] I don't want you guys touching my car.
[787] But, no, that was, I thought what you guys did was, was very sweet.
[788] And I was.
[789] Thank you.
[790] She a necessity, because Bob refused to have an assistant.
[791] It was, obviously, his death was a surprise, so nothing was.
[792] And he would do that during COVID.
[793] He would drive himself in his daughter's old car to the airport, so he wouldn't be in a car with a driver.
[794] He was really worried about getting COVID.
[795] And, you know, I remember that first or second night at the house.
[796] and his wife Kelly said, Bob's car is at the airport, you know, and I said, all right, we'll go get it.
[797] And it was just a simple act of, you know, it's like, just like I was back in New Jersey running an errand for a family friend, you know.
[798] It wasn't.
[799] And John Mayer was just in the car when you got in it.
[800] Which was odd.
[801] I thought that was odd.
[802] Because I think he was living there.
[803] He did not agree to go.
[804] He didn't even know what was up.
[805] Where's Bob?
[806] Just take it easy, John.
[807] I'll tell you later.
[808] You're going to miss that guy too.
[809] I'll really, I mean, I had this very strong feeling with Norm, which is there's no more norm.
[810] I don't get any more of that my favorite.
[811] It sounds really crass, but like this is my favorite soda, and they don't make it anymore.
[812] And you keep looking for it and saying, I want more of that.
[813] They're like, no, there is no more.
[814] That's it.
[815] We discontinued it.
[816] Yeah.
[817] It's, and you go back and I replay his jokes more than anyone's.
[818] You know, it's like every six months, daylight savings time rolls around.
[819] I think of Norm.
[820] You know, we say, ah, I give him six months.
[821] I blew the punchline that's what I was going to.
[822] But also, he has some jokes that only work if Norm says them.
[823] So he'd say like, you know, MMA, kickboxing, a sport that combines the grace and, you know, athleticism of the sweet science.
[824] with kicking.
[825] And the way he would just stare afterwards, you know, and has that jack -o -lantern face that just devastated me. He had the most famous, I told you earlier about opening for him in New Jersey at Catch a Rising Star.
[826] What really bonded us was at the end of that run, he was going to New York for the first time to do Letterman.
[827] And that was kind of launched his career.
[828] And I had a Jeep that my sister bought me after she got hit by a trunk driver to help.
[829] me get my comedy career going so i i norm says hey you want to drive me to new york you know i'm doing you know he didn't invite me up or anything he just i dropped him off at his first letterman and you know we really got to talk on that on that ride and then and then um that was that famous appearance where i'd never seen letterman do this um norm did his whole bit about the devil tricking him into cut killing his family and cutting them up at this the side of the road or so side of the lake or something, and the big reveal was, it's not the devil, it's me, Bob!
[830] You know, Bob, you got me!
[831] And then Norm crushed, he killed.
[832] And then there's a commercial break.
[833] Norm's gone.
[834] And it comes back to Letterman who goes, it's me, Bob!
[835] And I was like, wow, I've never seen a callback.
[836] Wow.
[837] And a late night show before.
[838] So Norm was a one -of -a -kind, and like you say, there'll be no more Norm joke.
[839] We have to sort of play the greatest hits in our head.
[840] Well, as Jim Downey mentioned this to me, Norm's co -writer on Update, he thought, and I thought it was a really good idea, the way people get together once a year and play roots music, you know, old Appalachian music, or they, and to preserve it, people should gather once a year and talk about Norm.
[841] You know, there should be some forum for that because it will endure.
[842] I love that idea.
[843] Yeah, I love that idea, too.
[844] I want to make sure that I mention, you mentioned a project that's important to you just before we started the podcast.
[845] It just dropped.
[846] It's called Dirty Daddy, a tribute to Bob Sagitt that I produced with John Stamos and Mike Binder.
[847] It's like a punk rock wake that we did at the comedy store in honor of Bob and his family is there and Jim Carrey and Chris Rock and Lovitz and Jackson Brown and John Mayer.
[848] They're all on it.
[849] And we just sort of decided for one night to mourn Bob with a comedy party.
[850] And we just sort of improvised our way through an hour.
[851] And it's cathartic.
[852] If anybody wants to watch that, it just dropped on Netflix.
[853] I'm glad you guys recorded that.
[854] I didn't know you had.
[855] I heard about it, but I didn't know you had.
[856] I didn't know either until Mike Binder said afterwards, I had five cameras planted in the back.
[857] And we were thrilled that he had it.
[858] It was Jim Carrey's first time on stage at the comedy store in decades.
[859] Wow.
[860] It was actually a really special.
[861] That is the odd thing that, you know, I never really thought what happened.
[862] Because I lost three friends in such a short amount of time, I've sort of been doing a lot of tributes.
[863] They asked me to do one on the hall, which was like a Hall of Fame show as part of the Netflix is a joke comedy festival.
[864] I had one joke that is hard to tell, but I want to tell us because I feel like this is a good room for it.
[865] And this is something that you and I talked about before the podcast, but you asked me, you know, Bob was this global television star, but he lived his life like a comedian.
[866] He died on the road after a show in a hotel room by himself like a comedian.
[867] and he slipped and hit his head, which is kind of poetic for a guy who hosted America's funniest home video.
[868] Oh, shit.
[869] Bob's in heaven right now.
[870] Can I use that?
[871] That's good.
[872] Can I have that?
[873] Can I use that?
[874] So let's shout out, Bob.
[875] Well, God bless you, Jeff Ross.
[876] hilarious and a delight talking to you today.
[877] Really fun, yeah, please come back because I feel like we just scratched the surface.
[878] I definitely would love that.
[879] I have a list of 75 things to talk to you about and we got to two.
[880] And all the fans listening, come on out, see me on tour.
[881] I'm having the best shows of my career.
[882] I don't ever talk like that.
[883] My fans who know me know I never talk like that, but there's something going on in comedy right now.
[884] I don't know if it comes from the slaps, the tackles that are happening.
[885] And post -COVID.
[886] I think there's a release, right?
[887] I think it's the COVID.
[888] People missed comedy for a long time.
[889] And I think they're appreciating it in a new way.
[890] And for whatever reason, I'm feeling, I love it more than I've ever loved it, 32 years in the game for whatever reason.
[891] So go to roastmastergeneral .com.
[892] I promise you, you will have a good time at one of my shows.
[893] Or your money back.
[894] You didn't say, or your money back.
[895] No money back.
[896] But guaranteed that you'll have a few good zingers you can take home with you for the next day.
[897] Conan, congrats on this next chapter for you.
[898] This studio is awesome.
[899] Your crew is awesome.
[900] This was cathartic today, so thank you.
[901] Great.
[902] I'm glad.
[903] This was a joy.
[904] Thank you so much.
[905] Sure thing, bud.
[906] Listen, guys.
[907] We've made news and we've made fake news.
[908] Okay, help me out.
[909] I have no idea what you're talking about.
[910] Remember when we did the Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan episode with Smith Mulligan, the guy who is responsible for the shipping manifest of things that go up to space?
[911] Yes.
[912] And we joked, what could you send up?
[913] And Sonas said, space porn.
[914] And we got into a conversation about jizzing in space.
[915] And then I said that if one male astronaut jizzes in space, he could get up to three female astronauts pregnant.
[916] Right, right.
[917] Well, now news outlets, pick up.
[918] this up and started presenting it as news.
[919] And when I say news outlets, I mean real rags, like a bunch of other.
[920] In the New York Times.
[921] Clickbait things.
[922] The best part about this is that Snopes had to do an entry on it.
[923] Now, Snopes is the fact -checking site that people go to to find out if something is real or not.
[924] I've been a donor to this site before.
[925] I love this site.
[926] And I'm so happy to be on there, but also bummed to be on there as one of the people blamed for fake news.
[927] You're saying that people reporting that this did happen, that three astronauts got pregnant?
[928] I'll clarify.
[929] Okay.
[930] Here's the Snopes article itself.
[931] Claim.
[932] A NASA scientist warned astronauts against masturbating in space because they could accidentally impregnate multiple women at once.
[933] Oh.
[934] Rating.
[935] Faults.
[936] Fact check.
[937] In July 2022, several news sites published articles claiming that a NASA scientist had recently issued a warning to astronauts against masturbating in space because it allegedly could impregnate multiple women.
[938] The New York Post, for example, published an article headline, Astronauts should not masturbate in zero gravity, NASA scientist says.
[939] The Daily Star ran with, astronauts warned not to masturbate in space as one session can impregnate three females.
[940] These headlines are absurd.
[941] NASA has issued no such warning to its astronauts.
[942] These articles were based on a joke that was told by a comedian during a recent episode of Conan O 'Brien's podcast, Conan O 'Brien needs a friend.
[943] On July 21st, an episode of the podcast titled Space Porn was released on very very podcast platforms.
[944] The episode featured Conan, co -host Sonan, Mofsessian, and Matt Gourley, and guest Smith Mulliken, a mechanical engineer who works with a NASA contractor in Houston, Texas.
[945] During the episode, Conan asked Mollikin about what sort of items can be shipped up to the International Space Station.
[946] As the host Mold ideas about the strangest items that could be shipped to space, co -host Mofsessian asked if he'd ever sent porn in distress.
[947] Oh, man. They specified it was me that brought up the porn.
[948] Yeah, but still, let's hear more.
[949] Let's hear more.
[950] No, Mulligan replied.
[951] None of that.
[952] The curious hosts were not satisfied with this answer, however, and continued to joke about porn and masturbation in space.
[953] At one point, Gorley, who was a comedian, now they should factor that.
[954] That's the fake news.
[955] Yes, I know.
[956] That is the, to me, that's the most, that's the part that has me enraged.
[957] Well, I get called a scientist later, too.
[958] I'm loving this.
[959] All right.
[960] At one point, Gorley, who's a comedian and not a NASA scientist, joke that three female astronauts could be impregnated at the same time if an astronaut were to masturbate in space.
[961] Here's the exchange.
[962] Conan, were someone to be watching space porn on the space station, how does that work?
[963] Gorely.
[964] Three female astronauts can be impregnated by the same man from the same session.
[965] Conan.
[966] Because the seaman flies around?
[967] Goorley.
[968] Uh -huh.
[969] And finds its way.
[970] Moseccian, and the women are all naked?
[971] Gorely.
[972] Well, it's space porn.
[973] Mulliken, who is not directly employed by NASA, was not an active participant in this portion for the conversation.
[974] I'm glad that we cleared him.
[975] If we've done nothing else, we've cleared him of all charges.
[976] This was a brief exchange by three comedians.
[977] However, no, it was not an exchange by, there's one comedian here.
[978] Then there's Sona.
[979] I don't know what, you're my assistant.
[980] Yeah, I'm your assistant.
[981] And Gourley, I don't know what you are.
[982] I only are.
[983] You're just an imp.
[984] You're a troublesome imp, but you are not a comedian.
[985] However, when this conversation was recounted in the pages of the New York Post, the site misquoted this section and claimed that the scientist had issued this warning about multiple women getting pregnant.
[986] The scientist in the concluding sentence was actually comedian Gorley.
[987] Okay.
[988] You've got to start.
[989] Is there more to read?
[990] Just to sum up that NASA has not issued this guideline.
[991] And there is even, I believe, some evidence that the Russians wanted astronauts to try that in space.
[992] But there might be some logistical problems to having sex with someone in space because of lack of gravity has an impact on blood flow.
[993] So that's just the fact of it all.
[994] Okay.
[995] Well, that's all neither here nor there.
[996] I think we should attack what's happened in the media.
[997] There are many instances of fake news.
[998] I don't think this is that egregious because I think we brought up a legitimate point.
[999] And I think that astronauts should be warned.
[1000] We don't know.
[1001] Science doesn't know what's going to happen if space porn somehow invades the International Space Station.
[1002] Well, now isn't this reason for them to find out?
[1003] Like, now there's, now we need to know.
[1004] Well, I'm pretty sure the Russians have figured it out already.
[1005] We just need them to share.
[1006] Yeah, okay.
[1007] Someone needs to jizzes.
[1008] But can I say something?
[1009] This is, um, what's clear to me is that we were talking about an interesting subject in an erudite way.
[1010] Then you mentioned, you take it to porn.
[1011] This isn't just my fault.
[1012] Sona, you brought it to porn.
[1013] And then, um, the, uh, the imp over here.
[1014] I'm a comedian.
[1015] Excuse me. No. You are either a comedian or a scientist.
[1016] You bring it to semen.
[1017] And it's all the low arts.
[1018] It's the low -hanging fruit.
[1019] You're also quoted in that Snopes article as carrying this conversation forward.
[1020] And Snopes is the final art. Wait, all I'm doing in that conversation is trying to get some clarity, but I did not introduce those topics.
[1021] I was trying to keep it more towards what are the fun, innocent things that could be brought to the space station.
[1022] or put into space.
[1023] You were the guys that brought it Sona, you with porn, and then you alli -ooped it over this creep who took it to Jiz Mountain.
[1024] And then that's where we are.
[1025] That's where we are.
[1026] Did you just say Jiz Mountain?
[1027] Yeah.
[1028] You are not.
[1029] Can people get pregnant on Jiz Mountain?
[1030] You can, but the man has to be at the top and the women have to be at a slight grade below them so it could run down.
[1031] Okay.
[1032] Jesus.
[1033] Now, news outlets, if you're listening, this is very important.
[1034] There's a mountain.
[1035] The higher the altitude, the thinner the JIS.
[1036] Yeah.
[1037] Okay, that's great.
[1038] Well, this is what we have.
[1039] This is, this is what we have.
[1040] And there's a capper to this.
[1041] Okay.
[1042] Which is that you're still employed.
[1043] That's the cap.
[1044] I don't say that you're still.
[1045] Is that you're still, is that you're still employed.
[1046] No. You're still here and you're going to.
[1047] You get a comedian and a scientist and you're paying for one.
[1048] Oh, my God.
[1049] You act like you're above this.
[1050] I am above.
[1051] You're not above all.
[1052] I'm above.
[1053] I'm above it.
[1054] You are part of this.
[1055] I'm the great pharaoh who stands atop.
[1056] the pyramid and watches you guys slinging jizz down at the bottom of the pyramid.
[1057] We've got a capper for this.
[1058] Okay.
[1059] So you know that this is real news.
[1060] Joe Rogan has put it on his Instagram.
[1061] Oh, the headline from one of the articles.
[1062] That's fantastic.
[1063] We don't know if it's fake news.
[1064] We really don't.
[1065] No, we do know that NASA has not issued that warning.
[1066] Yeah, but maybe NASA should.
[1067] That's my point.
[1068] NASA get on it.
[1069] Do you know what I mean?
[1070] They're stargazing so much.
[1071] They're not keeping their eye on things that could really happen.
[1072] I think people need a release.
[1073] even in space, I don't think it's fair to tell me. Well, then come up with a device that keeps the material secreted and far from anyone who could be impregnated.
[1074] They have that.
[1075] It's called the International Space Station.
[1076] It's a tube sock.
[1077] All right.
[1078] Nicely done, Sona.
[1079] Space porn, space porn.
[1080] Okay.
[1081] Well, keep bringing us down and I'll keep trying to raise us up above.
[1082] And you were part of it.
[1083] You were part of it.
[1084] Not really.
[1085] Yeah, no, you were a part of it.
[1086] We learned it from watching you.
[1087] Yeah, you said space porn.
[1088] I think that was what you said.
[1089] No, I did not.
[1090] That was you.
[1091] Wait.
[1092] All right.
[1093] No, no, we're getting tangled.
[1094] No, I think you just.
[1095] Please.
[1096] Stick with Tube Sock.
[1097] That was your great end end right there.
[1098] Congratulations, new mother of two.
[1099] All right.
[1100] Good night, everybody.
[1101] Hope you enjoyed it.
[1102] Space porn.
[1103] Conan O 'Brien needs a friend.
[1104] With Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Goreley.
[1105] Produced by me, Matt Goreley.
[1106] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solitaroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Koko, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf.
[1107] Theme song by The White Stripes.
[1108] Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.
[1109] Take it away, Jimmy.
[1110] Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.
[1111] Engineering by Will Beckton, additional production support by Mars Melnik, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.
[1112] You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read, on a future episode.
[1113] Got a question for Conan?
[1114] Call the Team Coco hotline at 323 -451 -2821 and leave a message.
[1115] It too could be featured on a future episode.
[1116] And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.
[1117] This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.