Jim Gaffigan Returns Again

26:56They went to bed at nine. And so anyway, I was just, I'm so happy that you got to have that experience. And I'll just put it out there. You'd be the perfect host for that show. And you are in the zeitgeist now and they'd be lucky to have you. So from my lips to Lauren's ears. Well, I am standing back. I have no opinion on that. I am, I have all respect. If you're nominated, I will not serve. I have all respect for the process. The convention. I will do as I'm told. I was going to ask you about, because there's something about, I'm just always trying to figure out, especially comedic minds I really admire.

27:41I want to get into a little bit of the workings of where they're from. I know you went to an insanely small high school in Indiana. Like, how small are we talking? There were 105 kids in the entire school. but there were 25 in my graduating class. There were five girls. Oh, my God. And 20 guys. Jesus. But Chief Justice John Roberts went there. Oh, really? And, but it was kind of, yeah. So now I think it's 150 students. It's just blown up. Seven girls. Now it's huge. Now it's six girls. But it was a great experience. And, you know, there's a delusion in those smaller schools where you're like, you know what?

28:29Yeah. And so, like, I didn't have that John Hughes experience where there were the potheads and the jocks and the beautiful people. It's like everyone was everything. So I think that kind of had an impact where I didn't necessarily, I wasn't. So when I got to college, I wasn't swayed by I shouldn't, I should only hang around football players or I should only do this or that. Somewhere you got this ability. There are a lot of comedians I admire, but I know, well, they can kill in front of this crowd, but they should probably stay away from that kind of crowd or vice versa. They have their areas.

29:09I feel like I can't imagine a crowd that you wouldn't kill in front of. you do feel like uh someone who talks to everybody oh well thanks yeah no it is it is weird because having done corporates you've done corporates i've done some corporate but really not not much i've sometimes the assignment is just like it's so bizarre you know make sure you mention yeah and and you know whatever the ceo yeah you make sure you mention you know really get him and something to, I don't know, I get very depressed. And then you look at the CEO and they're like, don't do that. But I used to always... I hear he's a real shithead.

29:47That was my go-to line and they'd be like, hey, we thought you had a joke or something. Yeah, well, sometimes they're like, you can make fun of it, make fun of, you know, Mindy, she's in charge of marketing, go after her. And then you look at Mindy, I don't do that stuff anyway, but then you look at Mindy and she's like, what are you doing? Yeah. I'm just in charge of marketing. It was just that one person's bad idea. Do you know what I mean? And so, but the corporate setting is such a, like, there is part of me that, because I feel like I can work in those corporate settings where that means that it might be all over.

30:24Because, like, I would do a corporate show. I would bomb. And then you get off and they were like, you were great. Yeah. We just don't laugh. No one laughed. They're like, we're too rich to laugh. Yeah. Well, we were golfing all day. So, but you're much better than the guy before who made fun of Mindy. Yeah, yeah. This was one, as I say, I've tried to not do it too much, but there was one, it was, I think, an integration, maybe with the Turner show. I can't say the name of the company, but it was a telecommunications company. And we had to do this. They said, hey, Conan, they're buying time on the show and they really want you to go.

31:03So I remember I got on a plane and flew somewhere and they say they're in there. It's the top. It wasn't an, and I come out, I had wrote jokes because you can't do standard stuff. It's got to be for them. Yeah. And it's got to be about this company and stuff like that. So a lot of work went into it. I walked out there. I want to say it was about maybe 12, I think all guys, and they were in big leather chairs. that reclined slightly. And I looked out, there was a big window behind them and they had projected the famous logo of the company onto a mountain that you could see in the night through the window.

31:46So I walked out there and it was these, and I started doing my, and I thought, oh, this is, I've never felt more like a pathetic, you know, bring the clown in. Yeah. Bring the clown. We're ready for the clown. The court jester. And I could see some of the - Should I challenge the king too much? Yeah. And I could see they weren't really laughing, but they had wry smiles. And occasionally I could see one of them adjust his recliner a little more. And I started to make fun of the fact that the logo was projected onto a mountain. Like this all felt evil. And I'm sort of starting to go off on that.

32:22And one of them deigned to crane his neck to see. Oh yes, it is, isn't it? What is wrong with that? that's as it should be, as it always is. And I just left shivering. And I was, I don't know, it was a terrible experience. Yeah. Have you done a birthday party? That's pretty weird. I did a very famous person's birthday party for no money. Oh, really? I did it as a favor. Oh, that must have went well. If there was no money, that means it's pure death. Was it for the birthday person themselves or one of their children or something? No, it was for the person. It was a famous person who, and it was a personal favor because they had done the show a bunch of times and one of their management said, hey, Conan, would you stop by and just do?

33:10And I remember it again, feeling like, bring him in. You know, it was just, let's see if he amuses us. And I didn't like it. It's fun to perform for real people. But there are people like Regis Feldman would love that. And the people listening are like, who's Regis Filmin? But there are some people, it is kind of in their DNA. People love doing it or love being the recipient? What do you mean? I think someone like, not that I know Regis or knew him, but like there's some people that are like showmen that would be relish the opportunity. It's kind of, even when we did that Pope thing. Oh, we got to talk.

33:51Well, let's back it up quickly. Five months ago, something like that. You contacted me out of the blue and said, would you be willing to go to Rome and meet the Pope? Which is the weirdest to this day. I think it's the third weirdest text I've ever had. The other two I can't say on the air. This text came in and I thought, are you kidding me? And so I contacted you back and then it turned out insane as if some higher power was at work. that my wife, my son, and I were going to be in Italy at Lake Como that week. So literally all we had to do was get on a train and go down and be part of this because they were inviting comedians.

34:33So it's you, me, Chris Rock, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert. Julia Louise Dreyfus. Julia Louise Dreyfus. I mean, the list goes on. David Sedaris. Tig Notaro. Just Rami. just, you know, just really interesting. I mean, it's such a surreal experience. But like in that setting, like I don't know if you remember, because we all went in there. It was like every... First of all, I think they told us to be outside the Vatican at the gates at 6.50 in the morning or something. I mean, the sun is just coming up in Rome. And I thought, doesn't the Pope? He's the Pope. He should be asleep. I would be like hitting the...

35:11If I was the Pope, I would hit my snooze alarm constantly. I would just sleep as late as possible. Yeah, he's like in his 80s. They told us that we were like his third thing of the day, that he gets up at like five in the morning. And so we got there and then they bring us into the Vatican and they sit us down this surreal room. Yeah, and there's comedians from every country. There's probably a humorous take on where there was a meeting and someone was like, well, why don't we bring in the comedians from throughout the world? but the pope was you know it was about humor how we could help i don't know no it was actually he gave his speech his speech was in italian yes so we couldn't understand it but they gave us the printout of what of the speech and it was actually very beautiful it was very beautiful you know it was a very nice unifying idea about comedy and how it relates to bringing people together and i thought well that's and humor is a level of honesty and all that yeah but he didn't have an ender uh and um we were going in i i did notes on the thing and i handed i'm like this here's my rewrite yeah but here's the thing you did it you did it while he was doing it it's just some punch-ups you know i mean some punch-ups you know yeah so that was a very surreal experience so we we are in this room in the vatican and there's comedians from all the different countries like steven merchant there was there were some countries where you're like shouldn't they have more people from like there was no one from the Philippines I've been to the Philippines that's a pretty Catholic country and there were a couple of people like quiz and they were like I'm more of a weatherman light hearted weatherman I'm like well you're not a comedian sometimes I say low pressure front more like high pressure front okay but yeah it was just a little I'm a cartoonist so there's 300, I don't know how many.

37:13All over the world, yeah. All over the world, sitting in this room. It was everyone that couldn't behave in church or synagogue or in the mosque was in this room. And then there would be, because it was his third meeting, there'd be these people that would walk by. The Swiss Guards came out. Yes. The Swiss Guards came out and did this whole, they're wearing the outfit of the Swiss Guard, which is the most, which was designed by. Leonardo DiCaprio, right. Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci designed it. And if Leonardo da Vinci hadn't designed it, they would have changed it a long time ago. Because it looks like a cross between a clown costume and someone who's working at a ground round.

37:57I don't know, it just looks insane. They come out with pikes, they do a whole thing, and then the Pope came out. And they're walking by, so there's people, you feel like you're, it's, so you're just sitting in the room waiting, And there's people, these characters that go by that are from like medieval times. Yes. You're like, what is it? It was a medieval fair. It's like, what is going on? So you think, oh, the Pope's coming. But in that setting, do you remember Jimmy Fallon stood up and did bits? And I was like, he's the king of the clowns. Well, the rest of us were like, well, we got to kind of be respectful.

38:32The rest of us are being kind of respectful. he did like an eight minute Mr. Bean bit where he can't find his chair and he keeps flopping down and falling down.

38:45And he's like, wow, close. And then he gets up and turns the chair around, but it's going the wrong way. And he's like, who's a hubba hooba? But it was very funny. But it was also, it was this meeting of everyone who couldn't behave, who was at one point in eighth grade sent to the principal's office. It was fascinating. My favorite was the part where we're all going up. They line us up and we all go up to shake hands with the Pope. Because that was also fun seeing people's different reactions. It was different. I mean, Stephen Colbert, very, I mean, it was, he's very pious and devout and, you know.

39:21Probably knows more about Catholicism than the Pope. Oh. Right? And also, he asked me the night before, like, I think in front of everybody was, we all went out to dinner and he said, Conan, do you think the Pope is aware of your work? And I said, abso-fucking-lutely not. He's an Argentinian man in his 80s. And you're like, no, there's no way he knows me. I think Stephen was hoping that the Pope was big fans of all of ours. Oh, really? Well, I know that Stephen - Well, he knows you, I think. No, well, I mean, I met him, but I don't think that - Well, he went to your high school. He went to the Pope.

39:59It's you, Roberts, and the Pope. But Stephen did, I think he does the audible or the audio of all the Pope's books. Yes. And he told that to the Pope when he was up there. And the Pope just probably gave him like, get out of here. I asked him. I could see him. If you see the videotape, Stephen's talking to him for a little bit. The rest of us are just going like, hello, your eminence. And you're getting a nice place you got here. And then we move on. and nice job plundering the world's gold over an 800 year period. Nice conquest of South America. No one advertises like you guys, you know, whatever.

40:45But Stephen's talking to him for a bit and I asked Stephen what he talked about and he said, I told him, you know, your holiness, I do your audio book and I narrate it and blah, blah, blah. And he said the Pope used his hand to push him. I used his hand to push him down the line. That's a nice, now get the fuck away from me. Did you bring gold? No, we didn't bring gold. Then I steal your gold. No, you can't do that anymore. I'll get your gold. He's a leprechaun. He's a leprechaun now. I'll get your gold. I'll get your gold, you'll see. That's a spicy meatball. I'll send a conquistador, I'll get your gold.

41:25No, you can't really do that anymore. You want to taste the pizza pie? I've got a pizza pie. Wow, I'm glad they didn't let me perform at that thing. That would have gone badly. But it was crazy. And then they said at the end that we got to, I thought we were getting, I sound like a real dick now, but I thought, well, you've come all this way. Well, for me, I pretended that I flew all the way from LA when I just literally got an Uber from Lake Como and then demanded pay for my airfare back. I didn't do that. But I thought they then they said, like, and then you may tour the Vatican. And but basically they just shoved us through a door.

42:00And then we were in with all the tourists and tourists were like, what are you doing here? It was weird. After that event, they led us into this room and there was this red carpet like media. And I was like, oh, now I know why we're here. But it was kind of what they do in an award show. It's everyone's there to get their media. And I that's and also get there that get the message out. You know what I mean? And which, and as you said, it was a very sincere message. It was beautiful. It was a really nice. It was a nice message. My golden conquistador riff aside. 800 years of plundering still. Yeah, it was a lovely message.

42:39Great example of something that's cool, complicated. Like you've been talking to Julia Louise Dreyfus. There's some complexity. Like at the dinner, she's like, I don't know how I feel about some of this. I'm like, that's why it's interesting because it's complex. Yes. Not where we all went in there, I think, for the most part, with complex feelings about this institution and its place in the modern world. And and and of course, the women who were present had very complicated feelings. And it was really nice to talk about all that. Yeah. I love doing events like that where it's a little bit you're going to anger some people.

43:16Like I did the Al Smith dinner, which is, you know. With Trump there. Trump was there. Kamala Harris did not go. She did not go. And there was, because there was part of me that's like, that was, you know, I'm not a Trump guy. But like there was part of me, and there were plenty of people that were invited. They're like, I'm not even going to sit in the same room as him. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And so there is something where, and so when I did that, I knew there were going to be people on the left and on the right that were going to be angry, which almost kind of ties back to like, you know, that moment of where people are uncomfortable that it's kind of you relish it.

43:56And the challenge, which kind of the no win situation of the Al Smith dinner. But I love history and the association. I usually I'm usually if there's a chance to I have a list of my life will is finite. I was told recently. No, we're only here for a certain amount of time. And I do. I and I'm a history buff. And when I see an opportunity to be whether it's a White House Correspondent Center or something, even when I know it's going to be tough. Yeah, it's a tough room. I think you got to go and be part of that. So it's the L Smith dinner. Yeah. Yeah. And there are people today that on my Twitter.

44:35or X or whatever it's called, will be like, I can't believe you were in the same room with him. And I'm like, well, I don't know. I feel like that's kind of the opposite of discourse. Like you shouldn't. So anyway, that's why I'm running for senator. As Tim Walsh. Who's as your brother. Jim Gaffigan, The Skinny. This is, again, to your being prolific, you've got another special. They have been stunningly successful. you've won countless awards. I think you have every award one can have. I think it's too many and you should give me some. But the skinny, you're addressing weight loss. You're addressing people's obsession and weird feelings about weight loss and food, which is sort of a huge topic right now.

45:22Yeah, I think it's really peculiar how people are secretive about taking an appetite suppressant. Or maybe they aren't secretive. I mean, there's people that walk around with their hair dyed a different color. And we all know that, but nobody would think it was that weird. You've talked about how there is kind of a shaming of people that have a food issue. And then somehow there are other areas where we have a completely different, like drinking can be seen as very cool. Romantic. It's romantic. And the ad. I can't put the bottle down. Yeah. sounds much cooler than i can't put the cream pie i love i love donuts i want a donut yeah i think there is i think that's what this drug i mean this is not humorous but like i think that that's what this drug proves is that like some people the the it's it's might not be psychological it's it's a chemical thing because it's fixed by chemical that they have a chemical I mean, I come from a family that is like big eaters, like, you know, and that's a good sound effect.

46:39But I think the way you did that looks like it would be cookie monster where most of it doesn't go in. The cookies are just such cookies are just bouncing off. That's why you're so hungry. You're not getting much in the mouth. Waste, that cookie monster. Cookie monster never actually tasted a cookie. It just he just turned off the felt backstop of his mouth. It's like he wasn't even really eating it. But this is, but you know, there is a cultural part of it too, which is you talk about it from a Midwestern point of view. I've seen the Boston Irish side of it, which is it is the way in my family that we showed love was eating because it wasn't hugging and saying, I love you.

47:21And I love my parents, love my family. It was just cultural. It wasn't about that. We didn't drink. It was a dry house. And so no one could talk about sex in a million years. I still don't understand how it works. And then what do you have? You have, we're going to cook a giant meal and I'll eat it together, which is we're going to eat tons of ham and potato and all the butter in the world. And that is going to be how we show our affection and love for each other and have a communal moment. celebrate or, you know, uh, lick your wounds by, uh, overeating. Yeah. Like my brother and I was like, ah, I could throw up.

48:06That's what, you know, like when you've eaten so much, you're like, oh, oh, I could throw up. I feel great. You know what I mean? We did it. We did it. Yeah. So, so, uh, you talk about that and you talk about obviously how the drug has changed your life. yeah and but i also think it's temporary meaning we're eventually going to find out that it makes people grow tails or something like that right so i i view this weight loss is completely i don't think i'm going to be not that i'm even super thin but i imagine it's it's an ongoing battle my uh weight right i mean but it's also i mean over the years it was such a part of your comedy too yeah i was just you i mean so funny talking about it and talking about your obsession with food yeah the love affair with food and now it's alcohol no um but uh there is something but the skinny there is about the appetite suppressant but i i use the title the skinny because that's you know you you do this you write the stand up and then kind of the theme you see the theme when you look at the material and and some of the special is about parenting teenagers like I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to parent teenagers because they and I say that with empathy and also exhaustion and part of I don't want to do it anymore is because it's so difficult yeah And I think adult humans, we have a built-in forgetter of the anxiety and the stress of being a teenager because it's painful for them.

49:51So when they're going through it and you're this parent, it's not an easy road, even for the best kids. And so that's some of, you know, so I complain about my kids, but I do that in every special too. But it's a different type of complaining. But then you get to pay that. Then you can say my bitching about you paid for your tuition, paid for this roof. And since they're teenagers, I know they'll never watch the special. So it doesn't matter. They're not your demo. Yes. Well, Jim Gaffigan, The Skinny is now available to stream on Hulu. And Jim, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for lending your comedic genius to my show for over a 30 year period.

50:36and then continuing to come back and do the podcast. I love talking to you. Thanks. And I'm kind of in awe of just, you're so talented and so funny. And I just, when you're around, I'm in a good mood. Oh, well, thank you. So you can't leave. That's very nice. Yeah, I can tell I'm really getting to you when your mouth gets very small. You went, oh, thank you. I don't know what to do. I'm not comfortable with the compliments. Well, then you'll like this part. Very weird. You're a real shitty guy, Jim. Yeah, that's more like it. I don't like the compliments. You know, what are we in group therapy?

51:16Yeah, you got an ugly mug, see? Yeah, that's more like it.

51:30Hey guys, we're coming up on the sixth anniversary of this podcast. That's unbelievable. I know, six years. Yeah. So we're going to do a state of the podcast. Let's remember, we haven't done one of these in a while. This is because, you know me, I'm more of an artistic type. I paint what I see and I'm removed from, of course, the commerce of it all. I'm above that, high up in the clouds. So you don't get paid? No, I get paid and I'm in, if they miss my payment by a day. and if it's one penny off i'm just a dog with a bone i'm all over it but again then i go up in the clouds okay well as always we like to bring adam in adam adam adam sacks the uh the guru the genius the high muckety muck who makes it all run that i i call you you pull the strings i'm about a puppet um you guys are sort of like hand puppets but i'm more of a marionette oh and um what i'm just curious how it's all going.

52:33It's going really well. I feel like I start every state of the podcast like that, but we've been lucky in knocking on wood. We've been lucky enough to have a really good run here six years in the audience is as strong as ever. And I'll get into in a second about where we're expanding our audience. I mean, mostly I wanted to first of all, talk about the big guests we've had because we've had we've been on a run with guests that is just like unbelievable. The show has always had great guests. But, you know, most recently we've had, I just wanted to highlight a few, Tom Hanks, Al Pacino, Jon Stewart, Goldie Hawn, David Oyelowo, Jeff Bridges, Quinta Brunson, Don Cheadle, the Beastie Boys, Ron Howard, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson.

53:09I mean, this is a crazy list of guests. Big names, but also, I thought, great conversations. Everyone came to play. Yeah, totally. And these types of names are not, you know, even a few years ago, maybe four or five years ago, six years ago, these were not people you would ever even like hear on a podcast. It's pretty amazing. Al Pacino, I don't know, he doesn't do a lot of podcasts. It's pretty pretty amazing. Right. Either things are going very well for us or very badly for Al Pacino. And you'd have to decide what that means. And then I think the biggest update that I think, you know, a lot of it is pretty status quo based on last year, but the biggest update that we've done is we're experimenting.

53:43Conan, you probably don't even know this. Oh, I love that you put in there that I'm 1987 Reagan. You may not know that we're experimenting with putting full-length video episodes up. Oh. And it's only just been an experiment so far. That are like an hour long. Yeah, we've done two of them so far. And people watch them? Well, that was the thing. We wanted to see would people watch them. We put up Larry David and Harrison Ford. We put up those full episodes. And yeah, it was an experiment to see would people watch them. Also, I'm waiting with bated breath for the answer. The answer is yes. I mean, we were curious, would it be like something where it was a substitute audience, you know, where it was like cannibalizing the podcast audience?

54:20People would instead listen or watch it on video. But instead, it looks like it's really incremental. Like there's more people. We have a, you know, we have a huge YouTube audience and we had been getting tons of fan requests. Yeah. People were clamoring for this. We put out, we've put out clips now for a few years, obviously video clips. They want to watch it. I know, but they like, okay. I do think, I understand because Harrison Ford, he was, he's so funny in a different way that people aren't always accustomed to, but also to be able to see when you see Harrison Ford, when his, his expressions and his deadpan.

54:54And that's true. It does add something to it. I'm glad. I mean, first of all, I I love this medium. And I was at first skeptical because I love the purity of no, you just hear the voices. But once I started seeing some of the video and some of these people, I thought, no, I like that, too. I was skeptical, too. I was the same way. I like the purity of audio. And, you know, I've been in the space. Matt's been in space forever. And it was always very pure audio only. But the truth is, people want to see the video. YouTube is the number one like media consumption platform in the world, you know, more than any streamer and people are consuming podcasts now.

55:29It's now become the number one platform for podcast consumption. That's weird. Yes. So that is part of the bigger macro trend is that like people are expecting now that they're going, there's going to be a video component to podcasts. Interesting. I'm just glad you said macro trend. I knew there was something that I would say that would just come out that would be pounds on. Yeah, sure. No, that's what this podcast is all about. Bringing business speak into your ear. So we're going to be on camera more. Well, this brings up an interesting thing. None of us are, well, Sony, you might be wearing makeup.

55:59I do. I wear makeup because of the YouTube component. I'm not wearing anything. I think that's clear to the viewers. Have there been comments about my ghastly appearance? I haven't seen any. Visible eye vein? No. He wouldn't tell you if there was. I wouldn't tell you if there was. Yeah. So I'm looking at you. You're staring back at me with your Michael Cera eyes. And I have no idea if you're lying to me or not. I honestly have not seen any comments. Somebody, Chalemi would have come in and dusted your vein if there were comments. Dusted my vein. I don't know what you do to a vein. I also love Chalemi coming in.

56:32Oh my God, he would be the one. I love, wait, let's sit with this for a second. Dusted my vein. Chills, we need a vein dusting. Hey, Conan, Conan, you seem like you're in a pretty good mood today. Let's just say I got my vein dusted last night. Uh-oh, we got a shiny vein, chills. That just sounds like a euphemism. Yeah. Oh, someone looks, someone's in a good mood. Yeah, I got my vein dusted. Woo! A couple of tequilas, got my vein dusted. Oh my God. Yeah, I mean, that's a question is, A, it starts with just some light makeup, which I'm still not doing. Sorry, YouTube. But then it's gonna get into me having radical facial surgery if I wanna stay in the podcast game.

57:13and that and i fled to podcast like a vampire fleeing the sun to get back to his crypt i fled to podcast because i knew this irish melon was rotting fast in the uh in the autumn heat and here i am now on camera well you joked that you tried to like you were it was something different from the late night show and then little by little it's sort of oh yeah you keep adding things and soon it's gonna be yeah we're bringing andy in and a band yeah you want me you want me to get rid of these microphones and I'm like, what do you want? Lav mics? I like the mics. When you talk about your face, we'd be like, oh, no, you look great.

57:48No, you don't have to do that because I get it. Whenever I talk about my face in these terms, everybody just quietly nods. No, I think you look great. I really do. And I think that I do. I do get self-conscious about like, should I be dressing different? I mean, makeup is a thing. How many people watch these videos? Like 30 ,000? Hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. I know. Hundreds of thousands approaching millions. Approaching millions. But also, Sona, can I say something? This is, and this is a compliment. You have beautiful skin. You have skin that has some melanin in it. You have, right?

58:23I do, yeah. You can get a tan. I am Armenian and Greek. You are Armenian and Greek. And so both of those come with some color. Yeah, Gourley and I look like we were just, they found us. Hey, don't take me down with you. I'm sorry. No, it's fair. I'm bringing you with me. but we were trapped in a cave for a couple of years and then they rescued us and when we went into the cave we had a bone marrow disorder so you are very fortunate that i don't i you always look very beautiful you always look like you're wearing makeup even when you're not wearing makeup well that's nice thank you i do get self-conscious about my hair don't you i mean you have your hair is a mess oh yeah it is it is but you have iconic hair don't you want to like Don't you worry about your poof?

59:04I got over that. I got this headset on. Do this, agree to just give up? Because that's what I've done. That's why I'm always just wearing a ball cap. No, I don't. You know what? I have an idea. A guy who fell off a truck. I have an idea. Let's make a headset that has a Conan pompadour attached. A fake one. So when I put my headset on, a Conan pompadour, so the iconic swoop that some of the old fans want to see is there in coif. But we don't have to wear those. No, I think we should sell those in the merch store. What? Headset. Yeah, with the poof. Kind of like the Groucho Marx. Yes, yes. And if you put it, let's say you're listening to your favorite tunes.

59:43I know how kids talk. You're putting on, you listen to your favorite beats. Fun ditties. And, or whatever. Nice. Or you're gaming and you want to put your headset on. You're playing Glip Glorp. You put the headset on and the hair comes right down with it. Yeah, I'll work on the prototype. Seriously. Those will sell like hotcakes, boss. You did it. That was great. Or we could do one with the Sona too, where your hair comes down on top of it. All 90 pounds. Okay. You know what? How about, so the state of the podcast. State of the podcast is good. Well, I have a quick question. Do you remember last time we did state of the podcast and you had run a study on all these?

1:00:20Brand safety. Yeah, brand safety. And I remember asking at that time because there was like some things that were ticking on the chart about like profanity and sexual conversations and stuff. But then on that episode, we ended up using so much profanity talking about it. Did that up our profanity? What has happened in the world of brand safety is the pendulum has swung back to be a little more sane. It was getting so crazy. If you remember some of the, we were not rated well on brand safety and part of it was like, we were talking about war. Do you remember? And it was like, if you talk about war, you get like a red mark.

1:00:55And then obviously all the sex and profanity stuff. But now the war, And of course, the nonstop sex and profanity. We did not change anything after we had that conversation. No, but brands changed. I think brands realized we're being too conservative and we're missing out on, it didn't even have to do with our show, but we're missing out on a lot of good content. The Church of Latter-day Saints is back on as an advertising. Absolutely. Yeah. That's good. Just for a trial, because one of us always has to use one of the products, I had to join the Mormon Church just for that. Oh, okay. Had to. Yeah.

1:01:26Had to. They saw you and assumed that you were there to talk. I really can see you in that. Come in, brother. Yeah. You're very Mormon-y. You are so Mormon-y. Really? Yeah. You think so? You're very Mormon-y. Yeah. You got an LDS vibe. Oh, really? Yeah. And you have several wives. That's true. One thing I will say, though, just in the state of the podcast is this is, I would say this is open-ended. Like, we should check back in in a year and see what the future looks like with video. Because we are, there's a blurring of lines happening in general where there's, you know, YouTube creators have been out there for years doing their YouTube shows.

1:02:00Podcasters have been out there for years doing just audio shows. And there's a blurring of lines where now there's not as much of a differentiation between these different digital content creators. I don't want this to become a TV show. I fled television. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it did. It kind of did. But it's not in content because it's casual conversation. It's off the cuff. And we don't have a plan. But when you say TV show, you're talking about where it's distributed mostly. because it's a video show now. I mean, again, we're just experimenting with it. When I said I don't want it to become a TV show, what I meant was unless there's money in that.

1:02:35Okay, well. Yeah, this is the worst of both worlds because there's not TV money and yet it's on video. All right, well, I was glad. I think this is mostly good news. I think it's all good news. It's all good news. And it's fun to still experiment and see where this is all going. Oh, you know, I'll say again, I've said it many times, but I have more fun doing this than just about anything I can think of. And I've had a lot of fun in my career. I've thoroughly enjoyed doing the late night show, but this is so fun and so loose. So let it become what it's going to become. You're welcome. Oh, thanks a lot.

1:03:15We got you. You're welcome. Yeah, don't worry about a thing. Keep doing it. And I'll hold your hand. Let's hold hands. My hands are a little clammy. Is there like a whale on these? Yeah, I lotion up a lot. You're warm. You're very warm. You are very warm. Yeah, well, talent burns hot. I said you were warm, not hot. I have a lukewarm talent. All right. Peace out, Tupac. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino Take it away, Jimmy

1:04:01Our 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.