Patton Oswalt Returns Again

25:29Whenever I talk to you, I'm reminded that you have this insane knowledge of history and also movies, pop culture. And all I will say is that there's a thread around that you are part of and a bunch of other really sharp, really funny people. And I rarely contribute because I have a knowledge of these things, but I can't keep up with you guys. I feel like someone who's got a single shot Derringer and you all have these very sophisticated gas-powered Russian machine guns firing away. And I'll just keep in. And a combination, the word insane, a combination of genuine knowledge of history and then the most useless showbiz trivia you've ever heard.

26:13In equal amounts. And this is what I want to bring up because we might as well go for it. There's this obsession that you and your cohorts have. And I think I have it a little bit too, but not as much as you guys with, there was, everyone knows Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Lewis and Martin. And then at some point it was decided there should be, it was guess a ripoff or something, but it was these two guys who were supposed to maybe like, okay, Lewis and Martin are kind of winding down. So we've, it's a shameless, it's two guys. One is Sammy Petrillo, the other is Duke Mitchell. And - And it's Martin and Lewis, but it's not Martin and Lewis.

26:54And it's kind of horrifying. Like when they replaced the Duke brothers? I mean, the Duke boys? No, that is, and by the way, I'm not saying this to be joking. That was subtle compared to what we're talking about. Yeah. And like this mutant amplified version of what Martin and Lewis were. They were a nightclub, Sammy Petrello and Duke Mitchell. And Sammy Petrello was doing Jerry Lewis, like almost like it's body horror. Like, it looked like his face was going to come apart. It's so unsettling. It's a real thing. And then they do these movies like Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell meet. They did one movie.

27:28They only did one called Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla. There's no Brooklyn gorilla in the movie. I mean, a guy, Duke gets turned into a gorilla. I can't believe I just tried to qualify that. I just said, well, Duke gets turned into a gorilla, as you know. So there is a gorilla. It's Bela Lugosi at the height of his morphine addiction. It's these two. And that goes on the poster too. At the height of his morphine addiction. You've never seen him like this before. Goof to his eyeballs. We all organized a night to go see it at the New Beverly recently. Yeah, I think I was doing a travel show.

28:04I would have gone to that. I was out of town, but I, you know, I check in on this thread because you guys are going all the time. I mean, you guys are chattering away at 4 a.m. and occasionally, you know, when I'm up in the night to apply a cream or an ointment, I'll check in with you guys and it's like, oh my God, there it is. But you guys have this endless fascination with this mutant version of Jerry Lewis, which is a funny sentence. Yes. Because you don't need a mutant version of Jerry Lewis. No, you really don't. But they found one. They found one. And there they are. Oh my God, it's in the face.

28:35Boy, they both look like them in a bizarro way. Yes, yes. Exactly, yeah. But you can see it. And it's like, you can tell how angry Bela Lugosi is being in this movie. Like he is openly snapping at Sammy Petrillo. And unlike the Jerry Lewis movies where when Jerry's doing his stuff, people are kind of laughing or enjoying it. All the other characters in this movie are openly hostile. It's like, shut up. Stop. Like they're just yelling at him. You're not Martin and Lewis. No, stop this. And then they, I could, listen, let me tell you what this is. Listen, I like how you just said, listen, like this marriage is over.

29:13No, no, no. I want to show you the essence of this thread. One night, we, for some reason, we started all texting and emailing back and forth about soupy sales. Soupy sales, yeah. And then you chimed in and it was, it is 3 a.m. I'm in a tent in Africa. This is the one hour that I get Wi-Fi and you have me looking up soupy sales videos on YouTube. Like you're literally in the cradle. He goes, I'm in the cradle of civilization. You idiots. I'm watching soupy sales videos on YouTube. You know what's amazing is you guys draw me in. Oh yeah. And you were talking about the Ritz brothers. That was. That might've been it.

29:54I think it was the Ritz brothers. The Ritz brothers who were sort of a version, you know, they. Again, mutant Marx brothers. Mutant Marx brothers. And you were talking about one of the Ritz brothers and I am in Ghana and I'm shooting a travel show. Yes, that's right. and I'm shooting a travel show and I can't sleep and it's three in the morning and my phone goes I'm like, what the hell? Maybe it's Liza contacting me to say that our house was just stolen and I look at it and you guys are all talking about Harry Ritz Harry Ritz, he was the funny one I wanted him to leave his brothers he wouldn't do it he wouldn't do it he was loyal but then he made this movie late in his career and I don't know it's kind of embarrassing and I'm suddenly looking at clips of it And then I come in to Harry Ritz's defense.

30:42And I'm like, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, you're again, I am in the cradle of civilization. Yeah, in a tent. I should be over. On the veldt. You should be like connected to the, here's what made me laugh so hard. I've never mentioned this to you. When you said, I'm in a tent in Ghana and I'm looking at Ritz Brothers videos on YouTube. I just picture like there's this like a like a cheetah or something like in the bush, like looking over. And there's this all silent tent and some of this little light goes on in the tent.

31:14You hear his Mr. Fenton had his head. He went his way one day. Oh, oh. And you hear these little Rich Brothers songs. This cat's like, oh, fuck is that weirdo doing? Just trying to get away from it. But that happened at one point. This little glow went on in a tent. And that was Conan because of us. Oh, my God. I just love, but I just, I had to bring that up because if you guys want to amuse yourselves, Sammy Petrillo, Duke Mitchell are, and also there was this feel, there was this almost sense, I remember reading an interview with Jerry Lewis where he blessed these guys. He was like, I blessed them at first.

31:52He blessed them because he said, well, someone's got to keep it going because we're almost, you know, we're winding it down and I want to, I'm tired. and so I want someone to take over being Jerry Lewis. And I thought, that's not how it works. We don't need someone else. Maybe you should go away for a while. I just love the idea that I would say, you know what? I'm stepping, I can't step down yet because I haven't found someone else who can be that would have the funny name and the hair and the, you know, the pitchy voice. I haven't found someone who would disconnect from the atmosphere of Africa to watch soupy sales getting hit with a pie at 3 a.m.

32:37And I'll know that when I see it in his eyes. I'll know it, but I haven't found it yet. And then I can rest. Then I know. Then I can retire to my ancestral mance and write my memoirs when I find another idiot to do this shit that I'm doing. But I think one of the reasons that we are so obsessed with this stuff is because showbiz is a very rough up, This is nothing new, but showbiz is very up and down, and there can be extremes of up and down. And some people, they think the up will last forever, and it doesn't. And you still have to show up when you're not necessarily doing what might be the most glorious or looked at work.

33:16And this past week with, you know, like Netflix is a joke. I know that a lot of people are like, well, this guy's in an arena. But you get to do comedy. You still get to do it, and you get to show up. like Nicolas Cage has made some bad movies, but he was never bad in them. He showed up and did something unique. And even with, when you watch Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla, as pissed as Bela is with Sammy Petrillo, who's literally hanging on him. And one time he openly yells at him and it's clearly not in the script. He just is like, go closer cages. I just screams at him, but he's still showing up and doing the work.

33:54Like he's, and that always fuels me when I see it. That's why I'm obsessed with that level of showbiz. You and I have several things in common, I believe. Our height. Our height. Our brute strength. Yeah. Our Celtic blood. But, you know, like, one of the things that I think you've made this point and I've made this point, which is that we weren't class clowns. I was never a class clown. And, in fact, I never liked the class clown. Not that I was jealous. I just thought he's making too much noise. And I was very quiet and kind of shy about being funny. I wasn't the class clown, but I was in the class clown clique.

34:38In other words, we were the comedy nerds, but we weren't the, hey, it was the, we knew all the routines. We knew all that. I mean, we like went deep when other kids were like quoting Monty Python. My group could quote Derek and Clive. and like we would always go for the even deeper stuff yeah you know yeah it was that that's the kind of comedy we liked and so you would you're not the kind of person that would get up in front of everyone else and do something when you're in high school or grade school I'd feel a little no yeah not quite yeah so when you get into stand-up did you have to fight through a reluctance to get up in front of people to in order to do it yeah I had to well it's weird um for the first thing that I did was because I was so reluctant to go up, I did this bigger version of myself to hide the fact that I'm not comfortable with myself being up here.

35:32So it was a very much a stage persona and a stage presence. And it took me like six years to work through that. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco, um, four years into it. I started seeing comedians like Brian Posehn and Margaret Cho and Greg Barron and Greg Proops that were actually themselves on stage rather than, hey, I'm talking to you now. You're going on. I got to get into my state. They could literally be mid-sentence and go, I'll be right back. And they would just go up and talk. And so now it doesn't really feel like I'm nervous when I'm on stage because I've become so comfortable just being up there and going, this is what's going on.

36:06And here, you know, and I've also got over the whole, let me point out what's stupid about the world. And here's my cool take. Now my point of view is so much more, listen to this idiotic thing I did. You're not going to believe this. like it's more insightful that way. But it's weird. I had to get over that by first embracing that out of nervousness. And then now I can just kind of be myself. It takes years to grind that out of you to the point where you can go up and say, I know who I am. You know who I am. Yeah. That's one of the things, on the one hand, I'm so glad with a lot of the new online media and cell phones and social media that people have way easier access to the gatekeepers don't quite have the power that they used to have.

36:50I don't think there are gatekeepers. Really, there's not really anymore. But the one bad thing about it is what you just talked about, the years that it takes for you to get through that persona sometimes and become yourself. A lot of people, because they're immediately filming themselves as they start, they don't have those years in the wilderness that people like my generation had where you figure out who you are. And a lot of people are getting stuck in a very early persona that they're comfortable with. but as they grow and mature and evolve they're like i don't want to do that anymore i want to do this thing you know like i just think of all of the the the rock stars that we know and love now that what if they had been stuck in their early personas forever well i brought you know my example was if the current world had existed in 1962 yeah everyone would have been sick of the beatles before they even got to the ed sullivan show yes because they would have seen i mean no no matter where you are in the world, you've seen thousands of hours of videos of them in the Cavern Club.

37:48And then British Beatlemania, they're touring, they're in the Netherlands, they're in Germany. And then they're coming to the Ed Sullivan show. Yeah, we know, we know them. And you know what? I think their best work was their early work. To us, that was the big introduction after they had been, had their legendary. Where did they come from? Where did this come from? These haircuts. Yeah. And we would have seen a version of the Beatles and that's how we would have pegged them. they would have been the ones in the German strip club in Hamburg in the leather jackets, lighting condoms on fire and throwing them into the audience and doing antics and being crazy.

38:22Like, that's the Beatles I know. And then by the time Brian Epstein got a hold of him, made them the ones that became, they're like, I don't know, put the lead, you guys are goofballs. Yeah. Yeah. We wouldn't have accepted it. No, I think that's, it's weird to say, but it was a luxury. Although now there seems to be a quiet rebellion against that where there does seem to be, whatever the generation after alpha a lot of them seem to be like you don't need to film me yet i'm we'll wait till i figure it out which is what because they're learning from the mistakes of the ones that came before them yeah a lot of the influencers that are now trapped in the oh god i gotta i gotta mukbang again that's what people are watching i gotta eat 10 cans of baked beans if i want to sell my new book i don't know anyway my guest today is conan o 'brien Conan, you got a show coming out?

39:09Yeah. Conan, why are you wearing a yachting cap? Something I thought I tried in 1982 that I thought I should bring back out again. You look like an idiot. You know, one of the things that your fame and your success is not wasted on you because you get to do all these things that you're genuinely passionate about. You get to dip into these projects and these things, not just stand up, but there are so many different ways that you have taken your, you know, natural ingrained obsessions. And then you get to jump into you're in this Star Trek strange new world. Yeah. And you're like, this is I could picture you if someone suggested this to you when you were 11 or 12, you'd say that's that's insane.

39:58That could never happen. Right. And also the fact that I am in a show that is being made by people that grew up at the same time as me, that loved Star Trek, that also went, but what if this thing happened? Like, everything that you love, you will always then, but then why don't they add this aspect to it? So the fact that, yeah, I'm playing a Vulcan, but it's a Vulcan who's obsessed with human culture. and um his name's doug his name is he's a vulcan named doug which is my favorite thing but his parents were obsessed so they gave him it's the same way as like people like hippies giving their kids names you know like like american uh indian names or yeah first name turned into like star shine yeah exactly so um why wouldn't that happen in another culture why wouldn't they try to do that and he unlike spock who has has kind of struck this balance he's so clumsy with it yeah but because he really loves it and that's a really real thing with an artistic edge with an artistic edge i love that um because his art even logical how can you be a vulcan who's like well that is i mean i'm not it's i'm just curious how it all comes together uh it comes together of i have to play it of all of my the way that i usually am passionate about something like a movie or But what if I have to, I'm forced by my biology to always filter it through this calm logic.

41:22And what would that feel like? So it's always this like kind of bubbling underneath. And you can see him wanting to, you know, kind of pop up a little bit. But he's like, no, that's not what Vulcans do. I'm not capable of doing that even though I'm feeling it. Does he wake and bake? Is he? He's constantly still very logical. call i'm going to require a couple of days of bed rotting like there's you know like i don't really know what what a vulcan artist would do like that yeah how would he i am not feeling this which is strange because i should not be ruled by my feelings and yet there is not oh i never thought of it well you know what i'm doing some more episodes so maybe they'll just talk about that yeah yeah exactly you know it's it's a possibility i'm there's another obsession i've had and my uh Head writer Mike Sweeney has it as well.

42:12We're both obsessed with the show that ran pretty much at the same time as Star Trek called Lost in Space. Oh, boy. Lost in Space is insane. Truly insane. When you watch Star Trek, it looks like the highest art possible when you compare it to Lost in Space. And there are these clips that you can watch on YouTube of, and the character to keep your eye on is Dr. Smith. Dr. Zachary Smith. For many reasons. For many reasons. He's played by Jonathan Harris, who doesn't just chew scenery. He inhales it into his lungs and then shits it out. It is amazing. Truly incredible. And the storylines, I think everyone was on acid who wrote this TV show, but the other day I happened on one where an alien Ray turns Dr.

43:01Smith into a hippie and he's got long hippie hair and he's dancing. And of course, you know, you're like, and there's a crazy wacky because clearly the show is trying to get down with the scene. Yeah, it's a bunch of 51-year-old writers probably at a Renmar or Warner Brothers like, see this in the paper? Can we work this into the, work this in an episode, the hippie thing? Yeah. But how would there be hippies in space? A ray? Just a ray? No, everything's just a ray. Yeah, yeah. And then they would clearly, to come up with ideas, go to the prop shop at Warner Brothers or wherever, and they'd say, hey, I just found a giant Cleopatra uniform.

43:46Okay, there's a big puff of smoke, and a Cleopatra alien shows up, and she has a ray that turns them all into mummies. Yeah. Like, they just worked backwards from the costumes that were available. What's available. Yeah. somebody pointed out there's a there's an episode of the outer limits uh that is was the basis of the movie the terminator it's written by harlan allison called soldier and there's a helmet that this future soldier wears in his future soldier battles and that helmet is the helmet that robin williams wears in the opening episode of morgan mindy when he comes to earth same one again it's same one but they were just like we need like gary marshall he should wear some kind of Out of space.

44:29Can we use this? Like they're just in the, like you said, they're in the warehouse. They put the, that's this alien thing. Once like the famous guy in Empire Strikes Back evacuating Cloud City is carrying the space equipment, but it's actually an ice cream maker. An ice cream maker, yeah. You can hear it churning away. And they've given him a name and a whole backstory. That's right. They've written him into the thing. He's a guy. And that ice cream maker. it was an ice cream maker? Someone found out. I don't know. If you look at it, someone matched it At the time, they just clearly just spray painted it white and go here.

45:01Yeah. But then they worked that prop into the first season of The Mandalorian. That's right. It's a thing for transporting biological matter. So they had to work that into the - Yeah, ice cream. Yeah, so that's where they worked that in. You could, I mean, we live in this world that's so, I mean, people decry, oh, the internet era. Are we losing our humanity? Like, yeah, but think of the connections you can make. Yes. You could do an amazing documentary where you, someone could make an amazing documentary where they track a prop that's made in the 1950s for like a goofy movie. But then it shows up here, but then it shows up there because people didn't throw stuff away.

45:41No. And it went back into the prop room. I've been in some of the prop warehouses. There's stuff like, oh, if you shoot this from a different angle, this could work as this. yeah but all those there's a uh tom sharpling who i mentioned earlier does the best show does hilarious so funny he did this thing i i think about it like once a week and i didn't know this till he pointed out you know the show the monsters yeah of course yeah there's 73 episodes of that show do you know how many seasons they ran two two two yeah and they so they were cranking that thing out and tom was like this is a writing session on the monsters have we put herman in a like a baby bonnet holding a rattle yet.

46:25All right, write that in. I'm going to go to Musso and Frank's, have four martinis and a steak and then drunk drive home. I'll see you tomorrow. Like that is how those shows were. What do we have? What can we use? Yeah. We, we got to do 38 of these, but also no one was thinking about reruns. No, no one was thinking about this being a body of work box set or box set. No one's thinking about that. But everyone's thinking, get this thing done, get it out, and then let's do another one. Let's get our check, and then we'll go to Musso and Frank's and drink at one o 'clock in the afternoon. Oh, and there's Jack Webb at the next table, and he's completely smashed.

47:01Yeah, and he's six martinis ahead. Yeah. But you look at these shows and you just see they weren't afraid to use all the same plots. Nope. There's an old - Same actors. Yeah. Over and over. And the same, the plots over and over and over again. Same actors within the same show, different characters all the time. And one thing they did was, I don't know how many times when I was a kid growing up watching different TV sitcoms and reruns, I'd see the two people have a fight. So it's like the skipper and Gilligan on Gilligan's Island have an argument. So they paint a line down the middle of the hut.

47:36And then it's, you stay on your side. I'll stay on mine. But your side has the door. Then you'll have to use the window. You know, but your side, my side has the food. Well, then you could, you know, it's, and, and then you'd watch the Munsters and, and Grandpa and Herman have a fight and they paint a line down the middle of the room. And then you watch the monkeys and they do it. And you're just like, no one had any shame about number 17. Yeah. Let's crank it up for this week. Yeah. Let's do a number nine on them. We got to get, listen, I got to get my martinis. It's, it's 1230. And it always was a white line too, that even down to that detail.

48:12Yeah. And you know, yeah. that kind of stuff is and also they they didn't understand well they didn't because no one could predict it YouTube freeze frame you know being able to capture little moments we're like oh my god look at this in the background you know there's there's an episode of that that show the Naked City yes yeah which was shot just handheld in New York in the early 60s which now it's so valuable because A it's all this stuff in New York that doesn't exist anymore that they just casually filmed and also it's all the first roles people like Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall and they're all in this.

48:44It's like day players. But there's an episode with Burgess Meredith where he plays a Greenwich Village poet who wakes up drunk and there's been a murder and he doesn't know. And he stops at a newsstand to look at the paper like, what day is it? And behind him on the newsstand is copies of Amazing Fantasy number 15, which is the first appearance of Spider-Man. Oh, wow. Just hanging there. And the prop person just put those up. Or they went to that newsstand. Can we just film here? Fine. Done. and then just walked. And you know when the comics came the next week, the guy was like, well, these didn't sell.

49:18Boom. Like that's millions of dollars of props just hanging there in the background.

49:30Well, Father's Day is coming up. Hint, hint. June 21st. We're not your children. What? My children are not getting me anything. So it's up to you guys to get me Father's Day. They have never bought into Father's Day, but you guys are going to. You're my employees and you have to. Well, guess what? Luckily, Macy's has a wide range of options, the expertise to help you find the perfect gift. Macy's is the answer for Father's Day. David, as my sort of surrogate son. Okay, aw, that's nice. The son that I hired to buy me things. Exactly. I hope that you're prepared for this Father's Day, and I hope you've consulted Macy's.

50:13Oh, I sure I have done both of those things. First. Oh, there you go. You love a pun. We got you a shirt that says The Grillfather. I love that shirt because you know what? I love the Godfather movies, and I love grilling, and they've combined them with The Grillfather. And are you ready to combine it even more? Let's see the next gift. Ooh. A ninja indoor grill. That looks really good. It does. And then, you know, sometimes when you're grilling, You know, you might want to get rid of that scent, that smell. So we got you some Dior cologne. Oh, is that Sauvage? It's Sauvage. Oh, my God. I love Sauvage.

50:45And I love that it does mask the scent of charred meat really well. Yeah. So happy Father's Day from us and Macy's. You know what? I want to say thank you. Those are cool gifts. I love it. Check out Macy's online gift guide for more ideas at macy's.com slash gift guide.

51:05Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Yeah, like all the time. Yeah, I did that with an all-potato restaurant. Oh, no.

51:17Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, like impressions, but then they don't see revenue. You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Sean? Oh, yeah, all the time. Yeah, LinkedIn has a word for that, bullspend. Bullspend. Yeah, instead you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn ads. Cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend$250 and get a$250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com slash Conan. Terms apply.

51:52No one used to think there would ever be freeze frame available. So they, and more in line with what we were saying, which is people were just cranking the stuff out and moving on. No one ever thought that there'd be whole cults of people that love to hate watch and then have the power of freeze frame. so recently I think Matt O 'Brien and I or Sweeney and I were watching one of the Death Wish movies with Charles Bronson and there's a scene where Charles Bronson wants to kill these guys in a restaurant and it's the most insane plot he comes in pretending to be a wine salesman he takes out I'm not kidding he takes out you know he should just go in there with a gun and kill the people who are sitting in the booth that's what he does in every other scene right I This one, he comes in, pretends to be a wine salesman and he goes over to their table and says, hey, I got this wine here.

52:42You might like it. It's a good wine. And they're like, huh, well, we're okay. And he goes, I spoke it like a true wine expert. And he goes, hey, it's red. You ever see red wine? You ever see red? Bet you didn't think that. I wanna see something new with red. It's wet and it's red. And it's wet on your mouth. You can sip it. And he says, I think he opens the bottle and he sets it down in front of them. And then he gets real nervous. And a guy says, who's sitting at the table with the other mob figure says, hey, don't I know you? And he goes, I don't think so. I gotta go. And he's trying to get away because clearly something's up with this bottle of wine.

53:16And the guy goes, I think I know you. And then Charles Bronson squirms away. And basically he runs off and runs into the kitchen of the restaurant, covers his ears like Wile E. Coyote. And there's a huge explosion. You cut back to the table. There's a huge explosion. Freeze frame. You have freeze frame now. So what they did was. Yay, here we go. Cut to Charles Bronson running away and going to the kitchen, putting his hands over his ears. They cut back to the table. They replaced the mobsters with mannequins. Oh boy. And put them in the same suits. It looks terrible and it's just two frames, but you can freeze on it.

53:56And suddenly these guys are mannequins. And then I guess they tried a real explosion, but it didn't work. So they just did one of those things where they made smoke go in front of the film in some awful way. So you see these guys freeze frame and then a cloud. And you're like, they were just trying to get through the day. And I'm watching it over and over. You have it? Yeah. Over and over and over again. And I'm just overjoyed. Do you want to see the whole clip or just the mannequins? I want to see it all. I can edit it down. Let's see it. Yeah, edit it down. Go ahead. Let it roll. Let's have some fun.

54:30Oh, Chuck By the way, when they rigged this explosion Charles had already left Mr. Bronson's already left, just do this He's not here anymore He starts by convincing him that he's really He's got a good wine This is late Death Wish, you can tell by his costume too Yeah, exactly Not bad Let's see what your customers say No, I don't think that's a good idea They'll love it I'm just gonna randomly pour liquor for you. I'm a guy off the street. Lucky day today. A bottle of wine on the house. Hey, not bad. Hey, don't I know you from someplace? I don't think so. Is that Danny Trejo? Yeah. It's Danny Trejo.

55:14I know your face. Did you ever live in San Francisco? I'm from Idaho. I got a brother in Idaho. What city? I'm from Idaho. Boise? Boise. I know you. I never thought. Look! Oh wait, you gotta go back and freeze. Oh my god. Go back and freeze. Okay! Oh my god! Oh wow! Looks like a ride at Knott's Berry Farm. Oh my god. Isn't that great? Why? Why? You know, the sunglasses guy's not so bad, but the Danny Trejo guy. Danny Trejo, they did not. But I mean, that is, isn't that one of the great? You want to put a mustache on this Gregory Peck mannequin we have is close enough. I don't know what to tell you.

56:02Look at the stains on the ceiling. Oh my God, no, I just, I just, but here's the thing. I always say there's good and bad in everything. And when people decry this new era we're in, I think of the joy that I have had on YouTube being able to freeze frame people just trying to get through the day or they're making this TV show in the 60s. They're doing the best they can. They don't think anyone's ever going to look at it. It'll air once. Who's going to watch it again? Why would you? They're never going to. Wait a minute. Someone's going to. There's going to be a thing called DVDs. They're going to collect every episode and put it in a.

56:39That doesn't make sense. Who would do that? It's going to be on a cloud that anyone can see at any time. And people are going to have radio shows where they criticize it over and over and over again. Yeah, people are gonna have, hang on, a redheaded giant's gonna freeze frame this? Him, he's gonna sit with a hobbit and they're gonna laugh at our work? That doesn't make sense. That'll never happen, you're in la la land. We'll be right back with more Redheaded Giant and a Hobbit. Talk to me about tea and scotch. This is, you've done, is this your 10th? 11th. 11th. But who's counting? Yeah, who's, well, I mean, that's, I didn't even realize it was my 11th till we were they were putting together all the promo materials and went there I was like this is my 11th right so that's yeah that's a I don't mean at this point now I'm not trying to think in terms of I think that like posterity reputation and cool are just traps yeah they get get in the way of you doing the work you're supposed to be doing it's other people that that short out your legacy later do the work now yeah and it but it took me a little while I was getting in my own head about stuff and now I'm just like Like, no, I get to do comedy and people want to come see me and I get to do venues that I really love.

57:53And this is me at a very, very small club. I did a club. It's in Madison called Comedy on Maine. Comedy on State a couple of years ago. And it was, I hadn't done a club in like years. And they're like, hey, I was getting ready for doing another special. They went, why don't you do this little club to get ready? And the show was so electric. The audience is right there. And I was like, how do I shoot something in this space small? So that's what I did. I directed it. We set up the, you can see the other cameras, the lights. Like I wanted it to look raw. I wanted it to be, I just, and I don't fault anyone being in big theaters and arenas.

58:30That's fine. But there's some, I just don't, it's like some rock and roll. When it gets too gigantic, it kind of loses the. No, I've had the same thought many times that that's why some music just sounds amazing in a small club. It's why some food just, I don't know what it is, but it tastes better when it's a small restaurant. Or a stand that you've grabbed and now you're walking around like you're just right there. Yeah. I had a small studio for the late night show. 6A was a very small studio. And I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking, this is too small. We need something bigger because we're going to have two crazy ideas.

59:05We're going to have a Triumph the Comic Dog and we're going to have, you know, you know, all these crazy characters and we're going to do this big stuff. It turned out it was such a blessing to have this small space. And I think that's something that's I now don't take for I don't take it for granted. I think it's really good. Something like this is even in that even in that small space, you feel that clock ticking until the next commercial break. Yeah, we can get at things that you can't get at on a TV panel segment because there's no clock ticking. We're going to talk and talk and we'll cut out some of the rough spots, but we're actually talking.

59:39And there's a whole different, it's what you always said about SCTV, it's the least needy sketch show ever done. And this format is not needy. And doing this smaller club, there was so less neediness about it because we're all right here. I'm not like, oh God, I got this big theater. I got to make that count. This is like, we're doing a few shows, this little club. I can be loose. Yeah. And what I'm learning, especially from, I don't know if you've seen Josh Johnson, right? Yeah. Incredible. The turnover now is so much quicker. I can shoot this stuff, get it up on, I'm on a new platform called 800 pound gorilla, gorilla, gorilla comedy plus, and, and get it up on YouTube so much quicker and be so much more immediate.

1:00:26And so that feels like, oh, one less gatekeeper. Yeah. You know, now I can just, and I can set up the next one. Like once this comes out June 9th, I'll never do that material again. I'm working on the new stuff and it just keeps me working. And there's just so much less pressure. Yeah. It just feels so much better. Yeah. You know, the, uh, and the themes you're exploring, are they new themes? Well, there, is there anything new in this that, that, I mean, obviously your stuff is always, it's always fresh material, but is there a theme that has surprised you that's come along at this stage in your life?

1:01:01Yeah, the thing that has surprised me is I'm becoming way more. And I was kind of touching on this a little bit in the last special, We All Scream, too, is that I'm becoming way more comfortable with being overwhelmed and not having an answer to things. And I think that comes with I'm a big believer in you got to know when it's time to let the next generation kind of come up and maybe they have the answers that you don't. I think a lot of people white knuckle their youth and they white knuckle their authority and you got to go and you can still I'm going to do comedy forever. I love doing stand up, but there will be this embracing of this is beyond me.

1:01:39Like I do a whole thing about AI and the whole point of the bit is at one point I'm like, I don't have an ending to this because this is such a massive subject. subject, but that is so much more honest that I'm overwhelmed by the horror of this. And I think that's a thing that a lot of comedians are nervous to embrace is that you will eventually come to a point where you're like, I don't know what this is. I don't know what is happening. This is, you know, I did my part. You guys got to do your part. I'm going to talk about the weirdness now off to the sides. When someone tells me they're not sure, I am immediately attracted to them.

1:02:18I like them and I trust them. When someone tells me I know exactly what's going to happen and I know all things, I want nothing to do with them. And there's a kind of comedy that I've never been a big fan of, which is I know and you don't. Let me tell you how it is. I'm here to tell you how it is. I'm here to tell you how it is. And then I've always liked people that admit that they're down in the muck with me i'm in the muck yeah we're all in the muck yeah find it help me find a way out here it's what we talked about the last time i was on the show that your your term wisdom rock yeah you hate wisdom rock it's that let me take my hand no you're 20 and and there's a lot of that now in um stand-up i think uh mark maron said there's some comedians doing comedy there's some comedians holding rallies yes and uh and that was such a yes that's kind of what's going on and we need to get back to the confidence of someone that can get up there and go i have no idea yeah i don't know what is going on um maybe we will get to that but that's that's where i am and i'm so much more comfortable being yeah in that and and also being able to look back at some of my earlier stuff where i was doing the tell you guys how it is oh you're 23 that's why you're saying that because you know which is a that's also kind of real wisdom is when you're like let me tell you what an idiot i was i used to say this kind of stuff yeah if you can laugh at yourself at that period yeah so there's a lot of that and there's a lot of just very raw um there's there's a lot of uh my my daughter it's it's it's the relationship now who's a teenager and so now it's becoming more about oh she's actually right about this and i'm not and maybe I need to like, okay, you figure this out.

1:04:12It's also an interesting place to get to where it used to be like, oh, here's this goofy thing that my daughter did and we got to help guide her. Now it's like, oh, my daughter just explained this thing to me that I didn't understand and just completely laid it out for me. So that's really interesting. The roles have shifted. How old are your kids now? During their late forties. Oh, wow. So about to move out? I had my daughter when I was nine.

1:04:40No, I have a daughter who's 22 and a son is 20. But you know what? They've been smarter than me for so long. And you will attest to that. Absolutely. When they were a kid, little kids, and would come by the office, they were not having my bullshit. Anything technology related, we'd just be like, ask Beckett. This was when he was like six years old. The times that I've handed my phone or iPad over to Alice and go, Please, help me. Yeah. Make it do the thing. make the scream go away I've handed that thing to her oh boy yeah well Tea and Scotch is coming out it's gonna be on YouTube June 9th June 9th and I'm really looking forward to it thanks you're always funny and delightful I just gonna end with this you were on my TV show 44 times oh my god yeah I thought I looked that up today and even the the computer was upset.

1:05:38That's too many! As many as anybody, right? I think you've been, this is the fourth time. So, yeah, which doesn't... But it's always funny. Like, when you were on the show on TBS, as long as I've been working for Koma, when we knew you were coming on, we knew we were going to laugh. And that it was going to be just a really good interview. Well, but also, when I came on to this show, I knew that, yes, we would do pre-interviews, but it was always like, it'll turn into just us going, oh man, this thing. Yeah, yeah. And that's going to be better than anything. That's going to be better than anything.

1:06:09It's the stuff that, you know. It was dessert. It was like, oh, I can relax a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was always very, and I know I speak for a lot of comedians who were like, oh, when you're on Conan, you're just, you're actually talking with someone else that understands comedy and is not looking for a, got to get a punchline every 10 seconds. It's, hey, we can just chill. Let's talk. And it always ended up being way more funny because of that. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, it's a mitzvah, a blessing. Anytime you come by, please come back for anything and everything. My daughter and her friends watch old Conan clips, the NBC show.

1:06:45And freeze frame it. Look, Conan's a mannequin. You didn't even try to hide that stuff, though. No, you embrace it. I would embrace it. You embrace it the same way that SCTV were like, we don't have any money. Look at this. Yeah, yeah. But I just love the way that they will react to, like, whenever I showed her Artie Kendall, the singing ghost. Yes. Yeah. And her whole thing was like, he just makes it worse and worse. Like, every time he's like, well, let me do this one. And then it's 10 times more. Like, they just love that it just never lets up. Brian Stack is a crooner ghost who would come on the show.

1:07:21And he was a ghost. And then he would sing, because he died in the 30s, he would sing songs that were sexist, racist, you know, all this stuff. But also that he thinks you're like, you're welcome. Here's a nice little song. And it's always the worst thing you've ever heard. Oh, I got a little something about the Irish. Oh, the Irish love to drink. All this stuff that's not appropriate anymore. And then I think in one episode I said, I'm surprised people stood for this. And he went, well, they didn't. I was killed by a mob. I'm sorry. I've watched this. I'm surprised you weren't murdered. He goes, I was murdered.

1:07:57A bunch of women threw me down a well. and then you're like, well, good. He goes, hey, you have a hot Irish temper. I wrote a little song about the Irish. And then it's the worst thing you've ever, and also, but like that stuff of, by the way, and I remember I watched the very first Artie Kendall sketch. I was in a hotel room in New York. I watched, it's the one, the very first one where you don't let him finish his third song because you're just like, no, we're cutting away. And I had to rewatch it to say that I also, it's about the Irish, Irish people. brains are made of corn yeah and um and i and i texted brian stack i was like i am laughing so hard at this guy already can't pull and now there's like collections on it's like youtube is like this mini criterion collection yeah of great comedy sketches now no i i just uh always love shout out to brian stack and shout out to and also my favorite conceit is that i was always supposed to be the host who would but i would entertain all our sketches were me saying okay we'll be What's that, sir?

1:08:59Yes, I'm a beekeeper. And I'd be like, well, okay. You can have, like, I in no way say no. This is a show. I'm always saying, ah, well. Okay, what are your nine rules for living forever? Mummy from the future. I don't know what guy came in off the street. Yeah, I'm a crazy man off the street. Okay, crazy man. Take your 10 minutes. It's like you're at the bottom of the decision-making ladder on a show that you're hosting. That I'm hosting that has my name in it. Pat Noles-Wald, we salute you. We love you. Come on back 44 times, please. Oh, I will. Thank you. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley.

1:09:45Produced by me, Matt Gourley. 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.

1:10:00Our 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.

1:10:35And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

1:10:50This episode of Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend is brought to you by six all new McCafe drinks at McDonald's. You're a McDonald's lover, Sona. I know that. Love my Mickey D's, boo. Many times you'd buy, you and I would be in the car together and you would say, let's hit McDonald's. I'm talking six new all McCafe drinks. Did you know that? Six. Crafted sodas made with your favorite sodas and topped with velvety cold foam like a Sprite Berry Blast made with Sprite and blue raspberry syrup. Don't miss the dirty Dr. Pepper and Orange Dream 2. And there are refreshers made with fruit flavors and add-ins like popping boba and freeze-dried dragon fruit.

1:11:30Try the Blackberry Passion Fruit Refresher, Mango Pineapple Refresher, or the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher with freeze-dried strawberries. Man, McDonald's is off the charts. Yeah, baby. There you go. Try the all new McCafe drinks now at McDonald's or at Sonical's in McKay days.

1:11:54I'm just going to say it. There's a Hyundai hybrid for everyone. There sure is. Yep. The Santa Fe hybrid SUV seats up to seven. Tucson hybrid SUV features standard H-track all-wheel drive. The Sonata Hybrid Limited Sedan has exceptional performance and handling. And get up to an EPA. Estimated 52 highway miles per gallon with the sporty Elantra Hybrid Limited Sedan. All Hyundai hybrids come with first-class safety features, advanced tech, stellar design, and America's best warranty. It's a good one. It is a good one. Hard to beat all those stats. America's best warranty claims based on total package of warranty programs.

1:12:32Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call and give you a phone number. Write it down. Okay. 562-314-4603 for more details.