Billy Crystal

26:03But Lauren, afterwards, I said, I don't have anything else. He says, well, you know, let's think about it. It's Friday at midnight. Yeah. Saturday, I come back. The rundown, I'm on at 1255, which you know already is dicey. Yes. That's the last comedy spot. Whenever you'd see, when I was a writer there, whenever your sketch was on at 1255, you'd think all it takes is for one sketch to run a little long and you're going to get nudged into, well, we'll do it next week. But it never, once it's gone, it's gone. It's gone. Hard to explain, but it's gone. So I see that. So I call my managers and everyone.

26:42So they come over. And it was, you know, Lawrence putting together his very first show. It's so hectic. It's crazy. And this is the first one. So I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting, camera blocking, run through it again. It's coming out of it up. This, this, this, wait over here, wait over there. It's not looking good. It's going to be okay. Don't worry about it. So at 830, my manager comes out and says, come on, we're going. What? We try to get it five minutes in the first hour. He can't do it. George is doing four monologues. There's two songs. And so this, come on, let's just get the hell out of here.

27:18And I went, but I, and that was it. And then I find myself on the Long Island Railroad, subway to Penn Station, Long Island Railroad, to go home to call the relatives to say, don't watch. I mean, there's no cell phone. There's nothing. You know, you had a dial. Yes, yeah. And then the reactions. What'd you do? You got fired? What did you say to the man?

27:45What'd you do? Open a mouth? That thing. and I thought that's it I'm done you know Lauren then brought me back for show 19 with Ron Nesson who was Gerald Ford's press secretary he hosted the show I did that and then I didn't do it again for 8 years until I hosted but then you come back as a cast member in a way again these things are so much bigger than us but everyone's trajectory is is probably the trajectory they're supposed to have. Yes. So you went off, had all this other success, but then came back and was able to dominate on SNL in that season in a very special way that would not have been possible in the first five years.

28:34No, I was ready. Yeah, you were ready. What we had talked about in the beginning was that I was to do like six appearances over like the first two seasons. and then be sort of the first non-celebrity host. It was like growing from the farm system. And then I go off and I end up on Howard Cosell's Saturday Night Live on ABC. Right. And then I move to California, playing places, doing pretty well, and then I get soap. You get soap. But, you know, so now I'm playing one character, which I really, really enjoyed, learned a lot, great cast controversial show and character really brilliant though yeah way ahead of its time way way and and really one of the real geniuses that i ever met was susan harris who wrote the first 68 episodes by herself wow amazing but i kept looking back at 8h yeah going that's where i should have been and you know i was having a successful time but i wasn't i didn't feel like myself.

29:38Then I did my first HBO special in 79 that did very well. And another one in 84 that also did very well. And then Dick Ebersole called and said, would you host? And I did two that year. And that summer he called me and said, listen, I got an idea. If I could get Chris Cass and Marty and Harry Shearer, would you come for a year? I said, let me think about it. Yes. I just knew it was the right thing yeah and we packed up the kids and we moved um to new york and and i had the time of my life and i felt like i was where i was supposed to be but now i was supposed to be there you know it all felt right i don't know i feel you've got a lot of moments to remember but i think i had i think i'm doing the late night show but there's an anniversary special for snl and uh and i don't know if it was an anniversary special for snl or maybe a salute to nbc 50 i don't know there was some salute something you came out as your fernando fernando character it was the 25th okay but what i remember is that you come out and gary bucey is in the audience yes and gary bucey who's you know been through some stuff uh gary bucey suddenly thinks that it's okay for him to just shout out on this live tribute show to fernando and he starts heckling you.

31:02Yes. And you start talking. It was so funny because it was live television. And you don't see that on SNL. He came towards me. Yes. I was there. I was sitting in the crowd. I'm doing this little thing. I think I had a minute 45 scheduled and it's going well and I look out and I'm picking up people and I say, well, Gary Busey, you're alive. You're alive. And he got mad and he came towards the set and I had to restrain him. He's got up and starts walking. And then you were doing a great job of having fun with it. Yeah. You were so funny and in the moment, and it was electric because you thought, I don't know where this is going.

31:44This either, maybe you'll get choked out. I don't know what's going to happen, but you were making it really funny. And in the moment, I thought, this is, I don't see this in 8H a lot. Sometimes there has to be some improvisation. Well, the thing about Fernando was they were all improvised. Yeah. All the hideaways that we did was so much fun because I wasn't sure what I was going to say until I said it. And the hideaway set would roll out right in front of the audience, right where the news usually is, right? And it was the booth and all that stuff. And the audience could see that the cue card guys went away.

32:17So it was just me talking to whoever the host would be. Oh, we had Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, which was very funny. And then Barry Manilow was scheduled to be the, to come, he was playing Radio City Music Hall. He was scheduled to be the guest in the hideaway. At 10 after 11, he calls Dick Ibersole and said he's not coming. He's too scared. He doesn't want to be made fun of. He's nervous about improvising. So he decides he's not coming. So we have a six-minute slot. So I'm looking around and I see one of our camera guys. His name is Bobby Ferraccio. Bobby, did you know Bobby? Yep. All right, Bobby weighed about 400 pounds.

32:58He was a large man. And I went over to him and I said, Bobby, it's a crazy idea. Manilow just canceled. Why? No, no, no, calm down.

33:11Goddamn Manilow! Would you come into the hideaway with me and play him? and I'll introduce the fact that he's not there, but I can't disappoint my fans and we'll just do it. And he goes, do I get paid extra? I said, ask Dick, I don't know. He says, okay, okay. And so we did it and it was really funny and he was just so delightful. And real. And real and it just, they were all just so spontaneous. That's what the show was supposed to be and that's the world I love to live in And so I, you know, my year there for me, I used everything in my toothpaste that I had. You know, I just loved every second of it.

33:56But that was an example of really being comfortable and confident with myself. And Bobby was great. And then we thought, well, what about for the rest of the season? Nobody shows up and it's always Bobby. It would be pretty, you know. And he said, no, my neighbors killed me, Bill. My neighbors killed me. He starts singing, I write the songs. He starts singing stuff. It's really delightful. It was great. You know, it's funny. I was thinking about this too before you came today, which is media entertainment has changed so much. People used to all be on the same page. For better or worse. No. I think when you were early on hosting the Oscars was maybe one of the last times when you've got the right guy doing the job, but it's not just that.

34:46You have the right person doing the job, but you also have everybody's on the same page. It's tougher now, I think, because I watch a lot of movies. And oftentimes when I'm watching, and I'm in entertainment, and I haven't seen seven of the things they're talking about. Whereas when I think about the shows when you were hosting, you had amazing, great material. You're very comfortable. You're in charge of the room. but also everybody's gathered around the campfire. And it felt like a time that might not come back. I agree. Because people were going to movies. And there were movie stars, real movie stars.

35:28We didn't have streaming. We didn't have anything else. You went to the movie theater. And when I started doing the show, I was now part of the movie world. I had hosted the Grammys three years prior to that. and then one after the other had a couple of really good you know movie hits that i earned my way yeah to the show you don't have to have movie hits anymore no that was you put a pressure on yourself that i mean god bless you for having those and for doing that but uh it's it's i mean also when carson was hosting the oscars which he did many times he had never had a movie hit before So you put a pressure on yourself that was unnecessary.

36:12I wish I had been there to tell you. I was way too young and you wouldn't have known who I was. You're that kid from Universal, right? You don't have to do it, Billy. The coffee was cold.

36:32That first time was really special. I had been a presenter the year before in the terrible show. This was a non-host Rob Lowe singing. I was a presenter. He's still hiding out from that one. I was a presenter on that show. And it went pretty well. And then they asked me to do it. But I remember feeling not nervous. I was actually excited to go out there because we had good stuff. Yeah. And I had one writer, Robert Wall. Oh, yeah. Bob Wall, who's a very good actor too. He's actually in the SNL movie. He plays Davey Wilson. Okay. It was just he and I. And we had done the three Grammys together. And we had a great way to work together.

37:17It was just us. And it was just like, let's get out there. Because we felt really confident. You know when you would do your show and you do a monologue, you knew your jokes were really good. No, I don't. You've never felt that. I think you forgot who you're talking to. But no, I know, I do know the feeling of, I think this stuff is really good. and I'm excited to go out. Yeah. And now I'm prepared. Yeah. And I remember walking out there and Nicholson was right there in the front who would later become like my partner on the show. Yeah, yeah. And we wrote jokes about him because he had made that huge deal for the Batman thing and he had the Joker and he made like a$40,$50 million something.

37:57Right. It was one of those pay me later things. And we did jokes about him. You know, Jack is so wealthy, Morgan Freeman drove him here tonight.

38:14And the great thing is he's laughing. Oh, big time. See, that's the thing, too, is that having the great joke and going after an icon of that status, but then they're laughing. That's magic. Oh, yeah. And I did three. Because they don't always laugh. No, I said, you know, Jack's so rich. I remember the sequence. Jack is so rich. He bought land in Japan. Jack is so rich. Morgan Freeman, German. And the last one was, and I said to the audience, I got one more if you want it. Yeah, yeah. And he was just, and that was relaxing me. Yeah, yeah. I said, Jack is so rich. John Peters still cuts his hair.

38:43Now, John Peters was the head of the studio. Who had been a hairdresser. Who had been a haired guy. Yeah. And it was just, it was going just great. And there's an 18-minute gap. We call the Rosemary Woods gap in the show where it's sound effects editing. Yes. And there's no host. So I'm in my dressing room, and I'm getting a sandwich, fixing my makeup and all this stuff. Who is it? It's Jack and Warren. So I go, Jack and Warren who? So it's Warren Beatty and Jack. And I said, are you upset? Are you kidding me? Thanks for talking about my money, kid. And he said, I just want to say one thing. It's great you're doing this.

39:28Keep it doing. Keep doing it. And it's just so important that you're here, and we love you both. Both of us just want you to have a great rest of the show, and we're going to have a little thing later at the Hacienda if you want to come by. I'd say, he's got a Hacienda. I never knew anyone had a Hacienda.

39:48I thought only in Zorro does somebody have a Hacienda. but that was the most it was the most selfless wonderful feeling that it that it it connected with him it was great you've had a lot of these fun crazy moments that you sometimes must wake up and think wait a minute did that happen yeah i know i know did that really happen i um here's another one that was uh i'm introducing uh bob hope is in the audience and bob at that point could not hear very well. I did not know that. And he's sitting next to his wife, and I said, you know, this is my, whatever time it was, 6th or 7th, I've done 9th, something.

40:32And I said, Bob, I'm just renting your house for a while. You know, just, ladies and gentlemen, the great Bob Hope. And he knows the camera's on him. They're roving through the audience with the mini-cam on him. And he knows and knows, and then the camera goes away, and he looks at me, and he slips me the finger. Just fooling, just like, thank you, thank you, thank you. Like that. And I just cracked. It was just so great. The next day I get a handwritten note delivered to my house, which I have framed at home from Bob Hope. Very nice things he said. You can do this, you can do that, and that. And he said, but why didn't you call me to play your brother in Mr.

41:15Saturday Night? I would have saved you a fortune on makeup. Keep doing it, Bob. It was great, great things. You know, I was thinking you have this other aspect of your career, which is you've been able to, you were able to befriend your sports idols. I mean, you became very friendly with Ali. Yes. The face, you could, you could argue the face of sports in the 20th century. I mean, who's a bigger sports icon than Muhammad Ali for so many reasons. Yes. And I know that you became close with Mickey Mantle, who you grew up idolizing. What I didn't know is that you became friends with Yogi Berra. Oh, yeah.

41:55I didn't realize that. Hey, kid, how you doing, kid? You know, don't work so hard. You work too hard, kid. Yeah. He came to opening night of Seven Hundred Sundays on Broadway the first time, which is now on November 5th, there'll be 20 years. Wow. Crazy. And we became friendly. And through Joe Torrey, who's one of my best friends now, I'd be around them all the time, either working out. I was a pretty good baseball player for a while. And then Joe would have me work out with the guys and Yogi was there. We'd have dinners together. He'd call me on my birthday. He was the sweetest, most beautiful guy and amazing character.

42:40You know, he was a D-Day when he was 19 years old. I did know that. Yeah. And unbelievable. You know, he had like two sides of his character. One, he was an amazing baseball player. But two, most of the new generation knew him as the Affleck guy, you know, with the duck. And funny and a little, you know, he's the little old guy whose talk's funny. Who says malapropisms and yeah, exactly. When you come to the fork in the road, take it. You know, that stuff. It gets laid early out there. You know, it's. Yeah. And he had the greatest, he's the greatest character in the history of baseball. His stats are insane.

43:17He's also interesting because there was a documentary about him recently that made the point that he didn't look the way a baseball player was supposed to look. I mean, Ted Williams looked like a movie star. Oh, man. Mickey Mantle looked like a movie star. All these guys look like what they're supposed to be. Yogi Berra doesn't look like an athlete. No. He didn't look like he belonged anywhere. No. Maybe in the back of like a shop where he's like slicing up ham or something.

43:53You know, I was thinking about, you got to know Ali well, and Ali really enjoyed you. Yes. He really enjoyed you. You did a fantastic impression of him and he loved that. and that created a bond. Yes, it was the first time that I really was on television as a stand-up. It was a local special, only seen in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. It was produced by Sport Magazine. A great writer there was the, later became a great friend named Dick Schaap. Dick was a great sports writer and journalist and amazing man. It's really a story about fate and about destiny. Ali beats George Foreman. He's 33 years old, and he's named as the Sport Magazine Man of the Year.

44:41So they're going to have this special for him at the Plaza Hotel. So Dick calls my agent, Pat Lee, who later produced. Who gave him my first job. Yeah. Looking for Robert Klein, because Robert did a lot of great sports stuff. And she said, well, gee, Robert's out of town, but I have this new kid. He does this really good little three-minute Ali Cosell thing that might be perfect for you, Dick. Dick goes, sounds great. Tell him Friday night. Be there at the Plaza Hotel around 6.30. The show's going to start at 8. The dinner's at 7. And give me his phone number. So I am literally feeding my daughter, who I just told you about.

45:21We went fly fishing together yesterday. Yeah, yeah. And I'm feeding her. And Pat calls me and said, Dick Schaap's going to call you. And I said, why? I knew Dick. He was the Ed McMahon of the Joe Namath had a talk show. Yeah. This is back when Joe Namath could have a talk show. Yeah. It's a different time. And he's going to call. I said, why? It's a dinner on Ali and so on. So it's going to be televised. And so I said, really? And then taking oatmeal off her cheek. Phone rings. Hey, Billy, Dick Schaap. Would you like to hear the invitation? No, no, no. I hear it's great. Really? It's good over the phone.

45:54You know, that's how I like. No, no, it's fine. So we get a babysitter. Janice and I drive into the Plaza Hotel. and I thought it was supposed to be a tuxedo for some reason. And everyone in his business suits, I really look stupid in this little makeshift tuxedo I've got. And Janice and I walk in holding hands, looking like two people who had just come to America.

46:26And I meet Dick. He couldn't have been more charming. and said, Janice, you'll sit with me. Billy, you're going to sit two seats from Ali on the dais. And I look at Ali, and there he is. The first time I saw him in person, and it was like, you know, he was the sun, and everybody was revolving around him. It was insane. It was a Scorsese shot. Everyone else was in slow motion. As I walked closely, you know, up to the dais, and God, there was like this tracking shot. I'm just looking at him. and I sit down and I'm in between Archie Griffin, who had just won the Heisman Award, and Gino Marchetti, who was the defensive end for the Baltimore Colts.

47:11Because not only was Ali the Sport Magazine Man of the Year, all of these people were there, the Man of the Year in their individual sports. Plus, it was Neil Simon and George Plimpton. Yeah. So, oh my God. So now I'm sitting there and Ali looks over and he's like, he knows everybody except me. I didn't even know me. I mean, I'm still substitute teaching during the day for$43.50 and working at Catch a Rising Star at night. And Dick says to me, before I sat down, how shall I introduce you? Dick, just say, here's one of his closest and dearest friends. And I'll walk to the podium and I'll go right into, hello everyone, how are you?

47:52It'll just make sense and I won't have to talk as myself. It'll be okay. I'll be in character. I'll be fine. So, you know, as I said, Ali's looking at me probably thinking, what the hell is Joel Gray doing here? He's not looking so good. So he says my name. I walk up. I go right into the co-cell of it, and I get heckled in the audience by Ali's, one of his trainers, his name is Drew Bondini Brown. Yep, yep. And he starts, I don't know what he's yelling. Hello, everyone. Howard Cosell coming to you live from Zaire. You got it, man!

48:30That's what heckles sound like. You never know what they're saying. I got this, Bondini. I've got this. Man, you got it, man!

48:42So I get in there. Finally, I get to... Muhammad, come over. Muhammad, come over. How do you knock out George Foreman? How do you feel? Everybody's talking about Joe Frazer. I'm going to talk about Joe Frazer. And then it goes on. and they go crazy. Yeah. And it finishes, I'm announcing tonight I'm changing my name because I got new religious beliefs. I want to be known now as Izzy Yiskiewicz. Izzy Chaim Yiskiewicz because Chaim, the greatest of all time. It's Jewish boxing. Jewish boxing, you don't hit the man, you just make him feel guilty. You get in the clutch, I said to him, when's the last time you spoke to your mother?

49:18He goes, oh, Jesus. Boom, I gave him I gave him my zets. I'll have a base, gimel, gal, I'm chest, I did, you know, boom. It finishes, and then Dick says my real name, big applause. Ali holds me in his arms and whispers into my ear, you're now my little brother. And that's what he called me for 42 years. And he lived not far from here in the Fremont place, I think it's called. And it was later they shot the Rocky movie. That was his house. It's not far from here. And he'd call me up. And it was never Bill. It was always, little brother, what are you doing? You want to run with me tomorrow on a golf course?

49:51I run on a golf course. or Wilshire golf course. I said, Mohammed, they won't let me there. I'm Jewish. It's segregated. It's restricted. No Jews allowed. He goes, what? I'm a black Muslim, and they let me run there. I'm not going to ride there again. So he never ran there again. Wow. So we would have all of these events over the years. He would be there. He came at my 50th birthday party and surprised me and walked out in front of everybody. It was just crazy. Didn't you guys go to Cosell's funeral together? Yeah, and it was sitting at Howard's funeral. And they meant everything to each other.

50:35Howard, for all of his pomposity, sided with Ali when Muhammad refused to go into the service. And he kept him going and fought for him and in some ways helped the Supreme Court overturn his conviction. and they meant a lot to each other. So I'm sitting next to him, closed casket, and Ali whispers to me, he goes, Hey, little brother, you think he's wearing his hairpiece?

51:04So now I lose it. I lose it. I'm just gone. It's like, you know, somebody farted in church. That's what this is like. Oh, my God. I'm laughing, I'm laughing, I'm laughing. And I said, I don't think so. He says, well, how will God recognize him? And I said, once he opens his mouth, he'll know. So this went on and on. And now we age. We all age. And I get a call that he's not going to make it through that weekend. And so Lonnie, his unbelievable wife, says, listen, it's going to be a memorial in Louisville. Mohammed wanted you to be one of the eulogies. I said, oh, my God, can you come? I said, of course I'll come.

51:53So we fly there. It's very emotional. It's an arena of 17 ,000 people. That day they paraded the casket through town, and people ran after it the way that people looked at the train with Robert Kennedy's casket flying by. And I'm sitting there waiting to go on. President Clinton's on my left and Janice is on my right and we're still holding hands and I'm thinking to myself what if Robert Klein was in town? All those years ago. Or what if you had been on SNL? What if you had gotten on that night? October 11, 1975. You still, because you're you, you make it, but it's different. This is, how could it have gone better than it went?

52:39Yeah. That's why I so value my time now. because my choices get more interesting because they're more limited. Yeah. Just because of time. Yeah. All right, what do I do? If I could do that, I would do that. If I had a chance to do that, I would do that. Yeah. That's why when I developed this show called Before for Apple with my great friend and amazing writer named Eric Roth, and then we found this phenomenal writer named Sarah Thorpe who really created the show from our initial ideas is about this pediatric psychiatrist who I play who's dealing with this troubled little boy who is... Noah. Yeah.

53:22He's really a savant. He's mute a lot. He can draw what he can't talk about. And I have to draw him out. And he shows up one day out of the blue. My wife had committed suicide. I'm mourning her. How did this happen? Why did this happen? Why is this kid here? And why does this kid just show up on my doorstep and scratches his name into my front door? And the show goes off from there. And why him? Why me? And it's, I'm so proud of this show. And it's, you know, you talk about these trajectories. We live in an era now. There's positives. You can say there's positives, there's negatives. It's just what it is.

54:06I think one of the things that's very positive about this time we're in is that I think people used to get pigeonholed more for star. So if a star like you said, I want to make this series that is about some really dark material and it's got a lot of mystery to it, but this is, we're going to get great actors, we're going to get great cinematographer and we're going to shoot this series. I think there would have been a time where they said, well, no, you're Billy Crystal. We're not going to let you do that. But what we want you to do is this sitcom we've got where you're Uncle Goofy, you know.

54:44This is clearly, I saw the first three episodes. Let me see the first three episodes, which I loved. And it is quite different, I think, from anything you've done before. Oh, yeah. I've always tried to straddle that. You know, coming off of three really funny movies in a row. Throw Mama from the Train, Harry Met Sally, and City Slickers. Those were like really good, funny movies. And then I did Mr. Saturday Night, which to me is still one of my favorite things that I've done as a film. But it was risky because he's not a likable character. The movie is really funny, but it gets hard. It gets edgy, and it didn't open.

55:28And that was tough to take at the time. So I've always tried to do, I don't want to be pigeonholed. But also, even in When Harry Met Sally, you're invested the movie works because you guys are invested in it as actors so you're not just playing it for laughs no it was a great script Nora Ephron yeah rest in peace Rob I'm gonna say rest in peace even though I saw him two nights ago yeah Rob rest in peace we're thinking of you Rob perfect perfect director for that material especially with best friends but pushing that aside to say, I'm not playing you. I got to play this guy. Yeah. And working on that with, and Meg and Bruno and Carrie.

56:19That was a, it's a great story. It's great. It was an amazing experience and it holds up still. Yeah. And new people find it all the time. My granddaughter, who just graduated, let's go from... From the place where we saw each other. Right. Right, yeah. It's a juvenile detention facility. Both our kids went there. They didn't know that I was her grandfather. So there was a film class she was taking, and they show the movie. And, you know, they go, oh, my God. She hadn't seen it before. And it was like a whole renaissance kind of thing. Would you come to the school and talk to us? It's really interesting that it's that movie in particular, and city slickers too is they're evergreens yeah you know and new people keep discovering them and that's that's great that's very thrilling you know you're never supposed to if you're a prosecutor I feel like a prosecutor right now you're never supposed to ask a question you know the answer to is this a series where there could be a season two or does it culminate at the end of the first season this culminates we're talking about where does because your character Eli it's a good character and We're talking about a new, Apple's already hinting around, what could we do next?

57:38We love this. They're going to turn you into a phone. That's what they're going to do. It's the most difficult part I've ever had to play. It gets, boy, I'm just dying to tell you everything because I'm so excited about it. What's such a terrific cast, too. Great cast. Judith Light. Judith Light. Rosie Perez. I'm leaving out somebody. I'm going to show up in the next. Hope Davis. I'll be in the next season. And this amazing young boy. He's terrific. Yeah, he's great. Jacoby. Yeah. He's 10. He plays eight. That's how good he is.

58:15I swore he was nine. That kid's a magician. Am I right? And you were shocked. Yeah. You were shocked. Yeah. Well, he's had a lot of work done. Yeah. And if you need the number of his doctor. I do. All right. Clearly I do. Jacoby Jupe. Yeah. J-U-P-E. He's phenomenal. Yeah. And we have moments together that are so difficult to play. Yeah. We have five directors during the season, and they would come up to him and say, we're going to change the blocking, the camera, where the camera's going. So why don't we rehearse one time? And he goes, no, I've got it. Oh, my God. I'd rather not rehearse. That's incredible.

58:53He could do that. I can't do that. They lead me in here with peanut butter. I shouldn't believe it. There you go. And then they pay. Ah, no! He's so good. He's so good, this kid. The show is called Before. It's on Apple TV Plus. And it's a limited series, but it's really brilliant. And, you know, I've said this before, but we started doing this podcast, as you remember, Sona, just as a fun thing, because I didn't know what a podcast was. And it was an opportunity. I realized very quickly I get to sit and talk to people who I really admire, who've had these brilliant careers and I get to talk to them for an hour about all the things I want to find out.

59:40And it's a mitzvah, as the Irish say. Well, if there's anything else you'd like to find out, I have a good parking spot. So I can stay a little bit longer. This has been an absolute joy. It really has. Thank you so much. Well, can I change what I said in the beginning? Okay. We've never done this, but you'll be the first. Hi, my name is Billy Crystal, and I feel great about being Conan O 'Brien's friend. Oh, that's terrific. Did I go soft? Is that too soft? You went too soft. And you know what? You lost the hardcore edgy audience. You know, the punk rockers. They've left. Punk rockers. The ultra rockers.

1:00:19Yeah, exactly. Billy, really, thank you for being here and congrats on everything. Thank you, man. You know, before we go, Conan and I did... Oh, my God. Yeah. Tell. We were lovers. We together were in the Yankee dressing room at Yankee Stadium. Let me back it up just a little forward and then I'll pass it back to you, which is Billy is going to come on the show back in the day doing the late night show. I'm very excited. I'm not sure Billy had been on before and I'm like, this is great. Billy Crystal's coming on. I'm excited about the whole thing. That day we get a call with Conan, I believe, or maybe it was the night before, but it might've been that day.

1:01:01Does Conan want to come? Billy had an idea. He might like to go to, he knows Conan likes to do things in the field. Would Conan want to go with Billy to Yankee Stadium, shoot it, and we'll get it on the, we'll edit it and get it on the air that night. Right. We said yes. The next thing you know, I'm in a van racing to Yankee Stadium and then you take it away. We go into the locker room and Conan goes through Daryl Strawberry's mail. Yeah. Which is illegal, by the way. He's not just reading open fan letters. He's opening envelopes. I'm opening envelopes. Billy's like, I'm not sure. And I'm like, I got it, Billy.

1:01:35And of course, we also went in, I'm, you know, grew up in Boston, lifetime Boston Red Sox fan. Like a jackass, I'm wearing a t-shirt with a Red Sox jersey over it. Right. You lead me into the clubhouse. There's Joe Torre. Right. Joe Torre probably doesn't watch late night TV. Not quite sure. He thinks you brought Jane Lynch in. So you walk in, he's like, Billy. And I remember he was on an exercise machine. That's right, yeah. He's on an exercise machine. She goes, and we got cameras. And he's like, Billy, great to see you. And he looks over and he looks at me and I've never seen, he sees this asshole in the cathedral.

1:02:15Yeah. And I'm wearing a Red Sox jersey. And all he knows is that if I was not with Billy, I'd have been immediately murdered. You might have been. He just would have pushed a button and I would have been murdered. but we had a blast. We chopped it up. We got it on the air that night. And still I hear from people about it, mostly about a crime I committed. But yeah, Billy, I can't thank you enough for being in here. Oh, I loved it. I loved it. And you're welcome back here anytime. Thank you. And congratulations on the show. Thank you. And congratulations on everything. It's been a trip, man, you know, and more to come.

1:02:55Yes, that's the, you know, I'm going to be 77. Did I just say that? Next March. And boy, I just look forward to more and more and more stuff to do. Yeah. You know, also, you look good, whatever you're doing, whatever. I know that you and Marty short or tight every time Marty sees me. It's one of my favorite lines. He says, Conan, my boy, whatever you're having done, whatever work you're having done, I say 20 % more and then stop. Oh, he's, you know, I love him to pieces. Yes, he's a ridiculous, he's a ridiculous imp. But Billy, God bless. Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorley.

1:03:45Produced by me, Matt Gorley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and Nick Liao. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino Take it away, Jimmy

1:03:59Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair And our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns Additional production support by Mars Melnick Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts And you might find your review read on a future episode Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash Conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.