Jimmy Carr

22:06I get very upset when he goes out drinking because those are my organs he's fucking with. I'm trying to kill you. Okay, I must know more about you because I'm curious, a lot of my favorite people in comedy, it's rare that I talk to somebody who I really like who just knew when they were very young and got started very young. A lot of us, myself included, we were interested in it but didn't quite know how to attack it. You were a bit of a late bloomer. I think, yeah, for comedy. I didn't start comedy until I was about maybe 25, 26. Yeah. So I had a proper job first, which is, it's very useful in show business.

22:42I think if you go straight from school into showbiz, then it's very difficult to be grateful. It's very difficult to appreciate how great it is. Right. And how fun life is just kind of messing around. And your previous job was working for - An oil company. Like a big oil company, yeah. So that was good. Yeah. That was good. You've never looked back once. You're never tempted to go. Those guys, yeah, they're still doing great, right? I haven't looked in on them recently, but I imagine they're doing great. Can I ask you something? Until Mother Earth says her safe word, we can keep screwing her, right?

23:13Is that not right? Oh, no. I don't know much about environmentalism, but I know a thing or two about BDSM, and I'm pretty sure. I'm picturing now Earth with a ball gag in its mouth. Oh, no. Until Earth says its safe word. Yeah, we're going to take it right up to the line. I think we did that a while ago. So yeah, came to it late. I think the thing with comics, I mean, I don't know what your go-to is. When I meet sort of comics that I've met before, if we're in a car ride or whatever, green room, my question is always, which of your parents were sick? I always think there's one parent that was either physically or mentally sick and you had to be the thermostat for mood.

23:51And then the pathology of most comedians I know and most comedians that I love is they have to be able to change the thermostat of mood in a room. Because really, when you think about what we do in a room, you come in and you change the... We're drug dealers. Dopamine and serotonin. Those are the two drugs we're dealing in. So that constant surprise, if you don't quite know where the joke is coming, you know there's a joke, but you don't know when, and then the serotonin of the feel-good. It's great. And they'll never take me alive because the drugs are already on you. Right. Sick is a big word.

24:20And so I don't know if I'd be prepared to say that in my experience. But what I will say is that there's a sensitivity to wanting everyone in the room to be okay. As you say, being the thermostat. So if something's off or if someone's unhappy or if there's any sort of repeated unhappiness that runs along, you want to try and lift that mood. So that's where it's a little bit of a magical trick. God, we went serious. No, no, don't worry. We'll take all that out. After you're gone, I'm going to do 20 minutes of berating you, and that will be inserted. And we'll just use defensive squeaks for your voice.

25:03Okay. And people will say, well, you know, Conan really got the best of Jimmy there, didn't he? If you're interested, the insertion was the reason he was me too. Attempted it.

25:17So you're 25. That's when you start. And your style is these, as I said, there are comedians that tell stories. They find their way to the laughs here and there on their journey. And that is not you. No, I was always my love language is the one liner. Yeah, I'm trying to develop something. I mean, in the new special, I'm trying to develop some longer stories because I've got a good fastball, but I don't have much in the bag. I wanted to kind of develop a little bit. So I really kind of made a decision a couple of years ago. Try different things. all the time. I try different styles, try different, you know, try and mix it, which I've kind of done a little bit, but it's, I was very influenced by Stephen Wright and Emo Phillips and Rita Rudner and all those kind of great gag to gag comics.

25:58I don't know. I think there's something wonderful about that. You're not wasting anyone's time. Oh my God. I mean, I remember just being in. Knocking out the, knocking out the hits, laugh to laugh. When I was a teenager and seeing Stephen Wright and just the jokes, they felt like little jewels. Like, you know, they just, they were dense and they were so smart and he would just keep handing them out. And you felt like this guy is holding a sack of rubies and he just keeps taking them out and passing them to the audience. That's how it felt to me. Yeah, I'm seeing him just being blown away by - Yeah, the power of his intellect.

26:36And then his delivery was so self-assured and also very much nothing special happening here. I'm just a guy talking. Yeah. And then these amazing, so he influenced you. Oh, Emo Phillips as well. I don't think Emo gets quite. Emo, I think, was bigger in the UK in the 80s than he was here. He was quite a big deal. Yeah. He was great. Yeah, but then I loved all the stuff like Billy Connolly. I love Bill Hicks. But in the end, your sense of humor chooses you. I think what you laugh at is kind of, it's very exposing. And I like kind of dark stuff and I like short one-liners. And that's what I can kind of go to very easily.

27:10But it's weird. You don't, like, if I was making a plan at the beginning of my career, I would have been a storyteller because I only need five ideas to fill an hour. Brilliant. Right, right. I would have been much more cost effective. Right. Whereas I'm running about 300 jokes in an hour. It's a lot of work. Yeah. Although, yeah, it's easier to build from Lego than marble.

27:33Let's call it what it is. Also easier to change your mind. You just attach that piece, the yellow piece, and put in the blue piece. Well, it's a lot of kind of beta testing. It's a lot of, you know, in my act, it's a lot of beta. Oh, is that word better than that word? Well, I'll try it a different way tonight, a different way tonight, a different way tonight. trying new stuff all the time. So you're constantly kind of writing. So now we get to this other issue, which is you do a Netflix special. And unlike 70 years ago, when you could then tour with that act for 15 years on vaudeville, or actually some people would have a really good hour and a half and they would, or, or hour and 15 minutes, and they would tour with it for 50 years because that was their act.

28:08That's an amazing footage of like these guys called Morecambe and Wise. Yes, I know Morecambe and Wise. UK double act and it's them at the Croydon Fairfield halls where I get to play and it's them it's them doing their hour and they never put it on TV they were huge TV stars and they never put it on TV they just recorded it once it's like one shot of them doing it but it's a perfect volvillian hour yeah it's gorgeous no I mean as soon as the Netflix thing drops I've got one day off and then I start the new tour okay so this is what's incredible is you do the Netflix thing and then that's out. Then there's the sense that, is there the sense that I have got to reinvent the wheel now?

28:43Because - But this is the stoic thing. You do it every night. Every night of the tour, at the end of 90 minutes, I pull out a piece of paper from my pocket. I think I've got the one from last night with new jokes written on it. And I try the new jokes. And so every night you try new stuff. And then so at the end of a year, let's say you do 10 jokes a night and half of them work. Well, at the end of the year, you have the new show. and then you sort of retry them and, you know, beta test or whatever. And you're kind of, you're building up, you're building up, you're building up. Then obviously you do a couple of previews where you put it all in a row and see, does it make sense?

29:13And are there, you know, too many things that are similar or whatever? But it's there. Do you have jokes that you tell that don't work, but you enjoy them so you keep them in? I've got, no, not much. I think the, I'm in the service industry. Ultimately, we all are. We all are. I'm just not sure what the service is here. We're called Time Wasters Incorporated. We're here to waste an hour of your fucking time, Jenny. To get you to the grave. But that thing of, that thing of like, the - Everyone leaves this podcast calling their representation. What was that? What was that? I'm a busy man. What a waste of time.

29:52He used to be on the telly. See, I did that for you as well. This is - But now he's on the talkie. Maybe we should, maybe we should record this at double speed. A lot of people listen at double speed. I think we should start recording at double speed. What was I talking about? Gags, I don't know. So testing, I write some things and I love, I suppose it's that thing though. The audience is a genius. Lenny Bruce said that first, I think. And the audience tell you what is and what isn't funny and what is and what isn't acceptable. And you tell the joke and sometimes an audience just stares back at you and it's nothing.

30:24It's very rare you can rescue one of those. Sometimes you tell a joke and it just gets a laugh. It's B material. It's kind of nothing. It's never gonna make it onto a special or into a tour. It's fine. It's joke shaped But nothing special if you really love it then you go away and you change it and you change it and you change it Until eventually gets a big laugh, but then it's a different joke, right? But somehow you feel like oh well it's kind of connected to the thing there was something there Yeah, sometimes and sometimes it comes back years later. Sometimes it's just you know It's part of a bigger routine.

30:50It's a weird thing with when you do wordplay or puns or something If you just do one it's kind of okay if you do two fine if you do three It's an applause break if you do sort of three in a row because it's a sort of a feat So sometimes it's like putting those things together where you've kind of thought of it, it's fine, but actually together with something else, it'll work. You have to be cognizant of so much material when you're doing your act. Do you ever find yourself not knowing? You know, I don't know which one goes here because if you say, if you do 300 jokes and you're at number 211. I'll tell you what the killer is, two shows a night.

31:23Yeah. The killer is two shows a night because halfway through the second show and someone's just heckled and you've dealt with that and then you go, the hell am I talking about? where are we i can't remember what city i'm in never mind what joke i'm on right and that i would say four seconds of panic is a lifetime and then obviously you remember yeah it's all you're always fine but there's like a moment of oh here we are it's strange because it almost feels like something you need einstein to explain but if you're on stage i know exactly where i was i was at the beacon theater because i was just back there and this was a number of years ago and i was talking And then at one point, and things were going great, but at one point, I absolutely forgot not only where I was in my act, but why I was who I was.

32:08Am I dressed? I mean, everything just went away. And I remember - This is your DMT story. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Why did I lick the back of a frog before walking on stage? What was I thinking? That's not my pre-show ritual. I thought I'd try a new ritual. I didn't know it was that kind of frog. And so you almost feel like you've drifted out of your body, but then you realize, I can't. There's so many people here watching. There's whatever, 2 ,000 people here watching, whatever it is. I need to get back in there and figure this shit out. So you go through this whole journey and you do it. And then I realized later on, if you were watching in the audience, you're watching three seconds.

32:47But to me, it felt like this journey to get back into myself. It's interesting that thing of like it's a lovely experience as well to be on stage and to be sort of that present You sometimes have a moment like that, but it's it's kind of fine It's interesting that thing of like it's a very unique experience always kind of being on stage People sort of go I do a lot of dates on the tour and people sort of go You get bored of it or whatever, but it always feels different You get to travel you get to go different places the different audience. It feels different every show It's kind of that it's like a unique experience and I always think like people don't want more time.

33:18They want more memories. And actually doing this sort of job, you just sort of meet interesting people, you chat to interesting people. It's always kind of a bit different. It's good for that, I think. Have you found, because you pretty much, you travel widely, you tour widely, have you found a place where you felt, yeah, it doesn't work for me here, or it's not, the Jimmy Carr sensibility doesn't work here, or have you found that it's completely universal? Pretty universal in terms of like, I think people that come and see me, it's self-selecting. Self-selecting. So very few people would come and buy a ticket to my show and go, oh my God, he's very rude, isn't he?

33:53Why is he so rude? Why is there so much filth in this? Why is he talking about all the worst things in the world? Why can't he be nice? He's got no singing voice. This is awful. Like, they know what they're, at this point, they know what they've, they've done a little bit of a Google and come along. I mean, I always think like, a good proportion of my income, I should be very grateful for this, but a good proportion is people that have been dragged along by their other half. Yeah. Like, I don't know what, I don't know, but there's a percentage of my audience every night that are, okay, I guess, I guess we went to the, I guess we went to the game on Saturday.

34:26So we're doing this for you now. Fine. Fine. No, he's fine. No, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. Could have been shorter. You know what I don't, I must be get haunted by this, but people always overshare. And I'm very fortunate to have many people tell me that they really enjoy my nonsense. But invariably, there's some proportion of those people who say, I mean, my wife, not a fan. Of course, I'm intrigued. Like, I want to talk to her. I don't want to talk to the guy that likes me. I'm more interested in talking to the person who's not - I talk to the person that doesn't like me a lot because they come up to me in the street constantly.

35:08A stream of people. Can I get a photo with you? My mom really likes you. My brother really likes you. My cousin is a huge fan. It's never them. I've never met anyone who's a fan of me. It's always someone in an airport going, can I get a picture with you? Apparently you're famous. Come here. Yeah. Well, if I have to explain I'm famous, then I guess I'm not. I'm fine with that. You came up to me. But at least they don't tell you they actively dislike you. Those are the people I'm interested in. I want to talk to them. Matt, let's talk. Let me get my notes out. Then you pull out a giant tome. of reasons I hate Conan.

35:43We live obviously in a very sensitive era and this has not deterred you in any way. You like to walk that line. I don't know if that's intentional, but - It's just my sense of humor. It's your sense of humor. I still only think it's that thing where you go, if you think about friendship, right? What is friendship? It's someone you talk to with no filter. That's your best friend is a person with the least amount of filter. And work colleagues like these guys, a huge filter, right? Actually, shockingly, no. There's really no filter here. I don't know. I don't think we have. I don't think Sona and I have any filter.

36:15No, no. We've known each other many years. Well, that thing, though, that thing of like how you make, that's how I gauge friendship. And I kind of think with stand-up comedy, you go, when the audience comes to see you, you're acting like a friend. So there's different ways to do that. There's some people that are incredibly open and honest about their lives and just let you in. And that's one kind of way to, you know, demonstrate friendship. But some people just say anything they think is funny. And they don't think, oh, maybe the audience won't be able to get this. Maybe they won't understand it's a joke.

36:39And I like to just go, well, this is what I think is hilarious. It's a weird thing. I think comedians are showbiz adjacent. A friend said this to me recently. You know Robbie Williams, the singer? He's a really nice guy. And he said, I'm an entertainer in the true sense. If you don't love me, I don't love me. Which I found heartbreaking. And I thought, well, comedians haven't got that. Comedians are like, we desperately, desperately want to be loved entirely on our own terms. It's that weird thing if you go, I'm going to say this unsayable thing. I mean the cancel culture thing is like it's very fun for journalists to write about but it's not real is it?

37:14I mean you can all sort of the biggest comics in the world are saying you know outrageous things but it's just that thing that comedy has a role to play that's what it's meant to do I think and whether it's pushing it in terms of subject matter or level of intimacy or what you can talk about that Overton window of what you can and can't talk about shifts through time so actually there's stuff like my outrageous jokes but there's also people opening up about their lives. You know, you see Mark Maron and Hannah Gadsby and people talking about their experiences. And that's another way it's opening up and expanding.

37:45So it's, I don't know, I think it's a problem. I've had people approach me on the street, actually not too far from our studio here, literally like a block. Someone rode up to me on a bicycle and he was lamenting and he wanted to, I think, connect with me. He's just like, man, Conan, isn't it tough? Cancel culture. I mean, guys like you, you can't say anything anymore. And I thought, that's just not true. I don't believe that's true. No. I don't feel that there's things that I want to say that I can't say. There's a weird thing going on, though, where there's a little bit of, in the wider world outside of comedy, there is a thing, there's preference falsification going on now.

38:26Say that again. Preference falsification? It just sounded pretty. I just wanted to hear it. No, no. You know what I mean? I don't know what you mean by preference falsification. So if you look at opinion polls now, they don't work as well as they did 10 years ago. So there's a thing where people know what the right thing to say is. And cancel culture, there's nothing from above, right? There's no authoritarian leader telling us what we can and can't say. And really, you look at the world now and you go, the basket of things that you cannot say is so much smaller than it was 20 years ago. There was blasphemy.

38:54You look at George Carlin, seven things you couldn't say on TV. You can say anything now. It's open. The issue now is kind of self-censorship. is the idea that people feel like, well, I don't want to say the thing. So I think there's a cathartic element to come and see a comedy show because you go, oh, this guy, this guy doesn't seem to give a fuck. He's saying whatever he wants. And that, I think it engenders. I think people have very interesting conversations afterwards where they feel a bit looser. Yeah. I think with all comedy shows, actually, I think it doesn't matter whether, you know, edgy, not edgy.

39:21It doesn't really make any odds. I think it's just, it puts people in a state of, okay, this is fun. We can laugh at stuff. I think if someone's being intelligent and honest and they've crafted their work, I don't know what subject they can't bring up. I may not like all of it, but it feels to me that I more prefer, I think a lot of it is, do I trust the person who's up here talking? Are they intelligent? Do they, in general, like humanity or inclined to like humanity somewhat? Do they have antipathy? Are they malicious? What's the intention? I mean, let's face facts. Intention and context mean a lot.

40:02There's a big difference between being homeless and camping. Okay. And but you can sort of do a journalistic article where you pretend you don't realize that and just say, well, he said this thing. This is a statement, a statement of fact, rather than realizing it was a joke and the audience laughed and they all knew people laugh at the wrong thing because they know what the right thing is. Yeah, it's interesting. Are my theories comedians leak? I think they leak. I think you watch someone do one-liners for an hour. and weirdly I've said nothing about myself and given everything away. People know who I am.

40:32They have a sense of, okay, that's fine. And it's that equal opportunities offender thing of just going, well, if I hit everyone, then no one feels like they're being got. But I don't even agree with the language that sometimes you use, that idea of punching down. People kind of, you know, you're punching down. You go, sorry, you think there's people below me? What? What now? I'll stop you there. Who's below me then? Who? No, give me the list. Who's below me? I mean, obviously, I'm a cis, heterosexual male. So who's under me in your hierarchy of humans? Right. It's nonsense. Right. How much do you credit your Irishness, your UK-ness?

41:14I mean, I know that you were much more Irish than I had known. Yeah, I mean, I carry an Irish passport. I would credit my mother was a very funny woman and had very little filter. like she would have been seen as i think a lot of people would think she was embarrassing i was never embarrassed by anything i think that was yeah i had the uh the the vaccine for that early on of like just so much embarrassment bulletproof i liked that thing of like she was able to kind of you know change she was also depressive and very down uh and just this this wonderful kind of character and i think that thing of like it's a specific person that you kind of you go okay so that that thing that she had a very different sense of humor but you know being able to kind of uh do that.

41:56I don't know whether that's linked to Irishness. I don't know. I suppose. It's funny. I bring it up just because I obviously in my house growing up, that was your get out of jail free card from any kind of feelings of anxiety, restraint. The mood here isn't great. Anything that would happen in any household to get out of jail free card was, I used to call it if you could kind of run the table, if we would sit at the kitchen table and I could get something going. And then everyone's laughing and I get on a roll and I can see that I'm getting everybody. That to me was your sprung. It's just this way to, and you can almost talk about anything you can talk about.

42:40In a way, you can allude to things that were taboo at the table. I thought, used to think there might be something kind of a little Irish here because it's such a Catholic culture. It's such a repressed culture that I'm able to touch on things. And then I saw the same thing with a lot of my Jewish friends, that it worked the same way in their culture. And I think that there were ways that they could, I don't know, sort of, it was a jailbreak. They could get out of the tension in the room by being outrageously funny. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just true. I think there is something about that.

43:16There's a real – it's those things as well with, you know, any big family unit, anything where the tribe is more important than the individual is going to be – it's that thing of like you can stand out by – you know, because we all desperately want to fit in and then we desperately want to stand out. And in Irish culture, you are not supposed to stand out because then you're – Oh. Well, that's more – the very British thing of the tall poppy. Yeah, the tall poppy. And it's a UK thing in general, which is, oh, who do you think you are? Oh, so you think you're Jimmy Carr, do you? You know, and look at you with your nice suit and your sold out shows and your popular Netflix specials.

43:54Must be nice. It's a weird thing. The must be nice thing is the – it's interesting though because people want what you've got. But they never want to do what you had to do to get it. So the thing of like you're chatting there about, you know, childhoods and the pathology that goes into being a comedian and thinking about this all the time. It's an odd pathology. There's an odd thing going on there. When you spoke earlier about you wouldn't say either of your parents was sick. It seems to betray there's something going on there. Of course. There was something in the house. And there's always kind of – there's always something.

44:27There's always kind of a reason to get into this. I don't think well-balanced people feel the need to do this. I've said this maybe 100 times on this podcast, but I will keep saying it because it bears repeating. My father is a very smart, very highly educated scientist in medicine. And yeah, he looked at me once and said, oh, I understand. You're making your living off of something that should probably be treated. And he wasn't making a joke. He was saying, I see now you. And basically then - Sorry, my father said that. I'm not a therapist. I feel like - Yeah. So you've said this before on the show and they've done nothing to help you.

45:04We laugh. Nothing. They haven't reached out. But his father's not helping. His father's correct. Nothing's not helping. We laugh a lot. But Jimmy, I will tell you. You're just encouraging him. But I will tell you. He needs a hug is what he needs. No, this is how we make our money. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dance monkey. Don't kill the magic bird. We don't want him to get treated. He makes the golden eggs. Yeah. But my father then went on to explain how synapses work and how if there's a misfiring synapse that creates an error, but people find that error funny, then you can make your living off of that.

45:37And I listened to this for quite a while and wasn't upset. Was just like, huh, the old man's onto something. Anyway.

45:49I had a great chat once with Robert Dunbar. Do you know Robert Dunbar? I do not. The Dunbar numbers, like the number of people in a friendship group often gets quoted because of social media. But so gorillas have a Dunbar number of about 60. They get to a pod of, I think it's a pod with gorillas, about 60. and then they go, well, we can't groom each other anymore. You know, number 65 goes, I don't even know these guys. They never pick any nits out of my hair. Come on, let's start a new pod. And they start a new pod. And 60 is a good number, but you don't get to specialization with 60. So why did we develop beyond 60?

46:20Well, we got to 150. That's the Dunbar number for like 100 ,000 years. So we got to this bigger group. And the reason we were able to do that was remote grooming. And remote grooming was laughter. Laughter predates language by about a million years. It's a different part of the throat that developed much earlier. So it's a weird thing that like the importance of what comedy brings can't be overstated. I think your father was being mean, but I think he was onto something. And I think there is, it's a weird thing. How dare you talk about my father that way. He's a saint.

47:00when you think about it though it's that thing of like the the ha-ha and the aha moment what does comedy reward linguistic ability and pattern recognition and uh it's it's all of the good things it's all of the things that make it and pattern recognition is basically the skill of humanity yeah it's the the incredible thing we kind of work together and this idea of specialization through larger groups through this development of language it's uh yeah it's it's an incredibly important thing. You just made me realize that the title of this podcast is Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend. And that essentially what I'm doing is taking this modern technology, and I had increased the pod through television, but then tried to specialize and take this technology and say, I want to make this pod, podcast, but you use the word pod as in your friend group.

47:46I'm trying to make this friend group, humans should have 150 friends, and I'm trying to get to like 150 billion. Because it's never enough. It's never enough. 150 billion. Yes, we have to go to other planets. Yeah, we've got a ways to go. Yeah, we've got to go to the planets. The beginning of infinity, isn't it? Jimmy, I have taken more time than I intended to and I apologize for that, but I'm not sorry because sorry, not sorry, as they say in our culture, because it's been lovely talking to you, seriously. It is really, it's really interesting doing this as opposed to coming on the show. Because I was always so excited to come on your show.

48:24I mean, it was such a big deal. You'd kind of fly over it. It was so kind of glamorous and fun to do. It's such a privilege to come and do that. I'm so grateful. Well, you were always such a perfect comic and such an original voice. Is this the longest a podcast has gone without a mention of Foursquare? Foursquare? You've got the wrong podcast, buddy. You've got the wrong decade. Who are we sponsored by? Who are we shilling? Who are we shilling? Let's chill something. Okay. Well, basically - We do our ads separately in general. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And Jimmy, everyone wants in on this podcast.

48:59It's a big podcast. You seem to refuse that, but we get, I mean, we got a lot of huge sponsors. Blackwater is behind us now. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, geez. Blackwater, the defense industry, the people that are coming up with a better landmine. Yeah. That's us. It's really the best. We're huge in the defense industry. Yeah. And also fracking. The new - The fracking is big with this podcast. I didn't know this. Oh, you pretended not to know so you can keep buying your fancy earrings with turquoise. Now, is there any, what about the cobalt people? Are the cobalt people involved? Oh, we're after the cobalt people.

49:32Yeah. Somehow just the concept of gerrymandering advertises on this podcast. It's really strange. You would have been a tremendous gerrymanderer. Oh. You really missed your calling. He's right. Oh, listen. Yeah. Actually, that would maybe be a better title, The Gerrymander. In the same vein, just the concept of greed and ill will are sponsors of this podcast. Yeah, that's right. The Seven Sins. We're sponsored by the Seven Deadly Sins. Jimmy has a special on Netflix, which I have not seen yet. It has not been made available to me, which I'm very bitter about. I spoke to the people at Netflix and they said it's$19 a month and you have to just pay.

50:16Fuck that. No, that's money out of my children's mouths because my children eat$20 bills. Jimmy Carr, Natural Born Killers is streaming. Natural Born Killer for, I've never heard of Natural Born Killers. I don't know what you could mean. I called it Natural Born Killer. So that's a different thing. So if Mr. Tarantino's watching, I don't know what you're talking about. I think it was Oliver Stone. Well, he wrote it. Oliver Stone wrote it and - No, Tarantino wrote it. Tarantino wrote it, Oliver Stone directed it. Okay, so we're all right and we're all wrong. No. No, just me. Jimmy Carr, natural born killer.

50:54No S at the end, is now streaming on Netflix. And I'm going to be watching it because... If it's made available to you. Let's see. No, I'm going to watch it at a friend's house. Through the window. I am not... That's you? That's me. I'm always asking you when are you going to watch Jimmy Carr's latest special. You always say, I don't know, tonight at nine. Why do you ask? Nothing. And then you hear a rustling outside your house. Can I just make a public service announcement? I would recommend you watch my Netflix special, Jimmy Carr, Natural Born Killer on Netflix, but close the curtains. Oh, I have a little stick.

51:28Draw your blinds. I have a little stick that parts the curtains. Creeps like me have those. I don't have windows, just blinds. I have one of those. It's like a Warner Brothers cartoon. I can make a little peephole by drilling on the wall. Jimmy, thank you so much for making the time and continued success to you, sir. You deserve it. What a pleasure talking to you. Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you. No one will overhear this. This one is just going right in the bin. In the vault. We throw every third one away. Sorry, you just landed on the deck. Just because we can.

52:02Yeah. It's a thing. And we've had some amazing third guests. Yeah. And then we just, you know, Tom Cruise, amazing revelations. It was the third guest that week and we threw him out. Yeah. It's for the best.

52:24All right. Well, I am in New York right now, but still able to talk to my good pals, Matt Gorley, Sonoma Sessian, through the magic of technology. So you guys are in Los Angeles. I'm here in New York. I'm in New York because I'm doing promotion for Conan O 'Brien Must Go, The show that sort of was born out of the podcast. And I'm very excited about it. And so went on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last night. And did you guys, I don't know if you guys saw it, but I gave you two a shout out on television. Real television. I mean, I wasn't going to watch it, but then you said you gave us a shout out.

53:03And so that's why I watched it. Yeah. Same. And I just watched that two seconds. He's watched this in two seconds. I had Amanda cue it up for me. Gourley didn't even listen to me mention Sona. He just, he just, he cut it down to just Matt Gourley and then cut out the Sona part. Yeah, it's my new ringtone. Yeah, it was, no, it was, I had an absolute blast and it was, it was fun. I was curious how I would feel seeing that sixth floor again because that was such a big part of my life when I did the late night show for 16 years and hadn't been there in so long. And Jimmy's studio is 6B. Mine was 6A.

53:41That's where Letterman's show took place. That's where we did our show for 16 years. And Jimmy's across the hall in 6B. And so it was just going right back home again. And I just liked being there. I enjoyed it. And it felt good. It felt, I didn't, I was a little, I was thinking, am I going to feel, am I going to get in my head about going back to this place that has so many strong memories? And I just immediately felt at home and happy to be there. And the Tonight Show staff could not have been nicer. It was really a good time. People seem really excited to see you, which was nice. Yeah, you got a big standing ovation, right?

54:20Yes, I made it clear before the show that everyone who stands will get$15 ,000. Oh, we all stand? Can I stand now? It's too late. I've been standing for this whole segment. That was just for that studio audience. That's$130 ,000. No, it was just for that studio audience. And then I kind of, it's a little controversial. I left without paying anyone. Oh, no. Yeah, and they're furious. The whole audience is enraged. They're looking for me. They found out where I'm staying at my hotel, so I had to flee through the basement. Yeah. But no, it was nice. It was very nice. I had a great time. And I'm enjoying being in New York.

54:57I like walking around. People are very friendly. Sona, I know you get freaked out when you come to New York just because you're not a New Yorker. I'm not. But I am jealous you got to see our friend Questlove at The Tonight Show, who is probably listening right now to this podcast. Questlove is a loyal listener to the podcast. And, of course, it was a thrill. They played my old theme when I came out. Roots, such an amazing band. So to hear them play that theme was magical. to be in the room with those guys when they're doing their thing is an incredible treat. And then, uh, quest love is working on a project that he asked me to help him with afterwards.

55:39And, um, so I, I got to spend a little more time with him and he's such, such a delightful hang. He's, he knows everything about everything. And so I'm always, and you could tell that from his podcast appearance. He knows everything about television and music and pop culture, and it's all connected in his mind in this incredible way. It's fantastic. Yeah, he's a lovely guy. I just want to let his brain pour all over me. Okay, that's disgusting. Okay, why would you say that? That's a weird thing to say. No, no, no. That would kill Questlove if his brain was taken from his skull and crumbled over you.

56:22No, Questlove, if you're listening, I want you alive and well. and I'm sorry about what Matt said. Matt wants you dead, Questlove. He wants your mind crushed and crumbled over his body. I want his brain liquefied and just poured over me. Oh, so Questlove is going to survive that? That's on him. I don't know. I can't guarantee it. It's up to him to survive it. Yeah, I can't guarantee that. That's not my business. I'm a stupid judge and I find you innocent, Matt Gourley. I did it. This judge finds that you were just trying to compliment Questlove. And now a sip of Questlove's brain. That's nice.

57:04It's nice you're over there. Every time I go to New York with you, people are really excited to see you. It's like you come home, even though that's not like your home home. I'm from Boston, which is supposed to be the storied, hated rival of New York. But New Yorkers seem to give me a pass on that. As long as I don't wear a Red Sox cap, they let me slide. But it's been very nice and been walking around town with David Hopping. I'm going to give David Hopping a shout out. And he's fun because he's from Carlinville, Illinois. And it is a very small, small town. And every time we go to New York, you can see he's looking up at the buildings.

57:47He's never seen a building before? Well, I mean. He's probably been there 30 times. I know. It's still, he never gets over it. And he marvels that there's a sewage system and hot and cold running water. And it's just, it's fun because he has such a different experience that when he comes to New York, it's fun to see it through his eyes. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I get it. He thought you had to pay to take an elevator like it was a ride at Disneyland. And I said, no, you don't have to, it's not a ride. It's not Mr. Toad's wild ride. That's a good one. Yeah, he's with me right now. David, why don't you come over here and just say a quick hello.

58:24You just listened to me describe you as the ultimate hick. How do you feel about that? It's fine. You're fine with it? Yeah, you having a good time while you're here so far? I'm having a great time, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hi, David. I'm back over here. Incredible. Hi, David. As you can see, he's just bowled over by his experience here. He's monosyllabic. He looked exactly the same. I know, he's got a latte. Oh, I know what made it. He looks like a New Yorker. I know what made David's life last night, which is David and I got back to the hotel. Who is sitting over in the corner, but Kaley Cuoco, who has been a guest on our.

58:55And she's such a fantastic person. I mean, she just is as nice a person as you could imagine and really funny. And so I go over and I sit down with her and David's with me. And David is just mesmerized. And then you tell her that you're an insane Kaley Cuoco fan. Yeah, I am a big fan. The microphone is what you talk into. I told her I'm a big fan. Okay. I don't know what your problem is. You're allowed to say more than one. I don't have a gun on you right now. What is your problem? He took a photo with Kaylee and he told her that he's just a massive fan. And I could see Kaylee getting nervous.

59:31I don't think she was nervous. And then I called security and I had David taken away. And then I had you beaten. None of that. There's nothing. Okay, that didn't happen. It's okay. No. You don't believe him. Okay, well, that's good improv. Good denying. Good job, David. That didn't happen. We have a volunteer from the audience. Okay, we're in a candy store. No, we're not. Anyway, we saw Kaley Cuoco. I think that's exciting. I've seen so many. I get excited when I see celebrities. And my life has been interviewing them. But when I'm somewhere and I see someone from television, I'm like, gosh, they're on TV.

1:00:07Who's the most excited person you've ever met? Wait, let me rephrase that. Wait, what? the most excited you've been most excited to thank you yes i mean i feel like the answer to that is your friend eric reif yeah my college roommate eric reif when i get together with him we have the most obscure interests we walk around central park and we just lecture each other about you know lyndon johnson's press secretary it's the most obscure arguments that you can imagine like i I gotta go, Kaylee Cuoco. I gotta go talk about Eisenhower's second term with my friend Eric. This sounds pretty good. She's like, yeah, Conan, do you want to maybe get dinner or something?

1:00:49I can't. I've got to go hang out with my college roommate because we're going to talk about Dwight Eisenhower's third stroke in the White House. He dribbled for three days before he came back around. Yeah. So nerd power always coming. Conan, everyone's going to be there. It's going to be the coolest dinner party ever. Yeah. Kelly Cuoco is like, I'm telling you all the big stars are going to be there. All these very cool, attractive stars want to meet you and hang out with you. I can't. I've got to go see my college roommate. We just found out some new facts about Rutherford B. Hayes. His foreign policy is not what you think it was.

1:01:36kaylee anyway my eternal love to kaylee cuoco for being so cool to run into and uh yeah let's get into it we've got uh we've got to get on with the show we've got more to do this is the last part of the show conan this is not an intro you know what i never listen to this piece of shit so why would i know where it goes anyway all i wanted to do was get it out there that kaylee cuoco seemed kind of happy to see me. And that's a huge deal in my book. Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. And cue credits.

1:02:32Our 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. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.