Howie Mandel: Count Chocula

0:28I can't do the T that hard. behind me, he's the guest, obviously. And you should see what's going on behind the camera. Someday we'll give you a tour. But this guy has his finger in many pies. He has a great podcast. Howie Mendel does stuff. Obviously, he's been on a host of America Got Talent since before I was born. And we've never met. We've never met. And it's rare when I get somebody who's been around forever to talk to. So here comes Howie, direct from his Batcave.

1:07Bustin' truck, baby. You familiar with that phrase? That's a tour, concert, rock and roll. Yeah, the old, what's it, Summer Stock Theater. Oh, God. You're a big theater guy. Yeah, I never did theater. We can talk, right? We good? We're rolling? Preamble. I don't want to miss any of the gold that's spewing. I don't think any gold has spewed yet. There's just, we've spewed. We don't need to do time countdowns, any three, two, one, click. We'll do one more time. Three, two, one. Well, how are they going to do it if we're not, how are they going to be able to time it? I don't know. For people that don't understand, you're a movie star.

1:45In the movie business, the audio is recorded separately than the visual. That's right. So they do this. So if it's out of sync, they can look at my hands coming together and sync that sound. But if you are clapping at the same time and what, like how to. I don't know. I don't know. You'd think I'd be more technical. But it would be great if this episode was totally out of sync. It would be. We could just loop it like, that'd be good. Mike Myers does a great out of sync bit. He does? What is it? I don't know. I think it's in one of the, memory is serving, it's in one of the Austin Powers. The one you were in?

2:30I don't think it's in that one.

2:35That's really bad. That's why I'm not Mike Myers. That was not a good version. But you're a funny guy. I try. You know, I grew up loving comedy. I grew up, I mean, I was alive and was like a young, impressionable, really young kid for the first year of SNL. Like, I mean, with Chevy and Volusia. I was a young child for, I think about, I don't know if some of my people are here, but how long was I young? Can we get some research? When did Howie stop becoming young? I know I was about 11. I was 11 years old for like almost a year. But I don't know all the rest of my youth. I'm older than you. A lot older than you.

3:17How old are you? I'm going to be 70 this year. No way. Yes way. Oh, that makes me so happy. That I'm almost dead? No, that you look so fucking good and seem so like I would never, ever, ever, ever guess. Said the guy sitting there in great shape with a full head of hair to the bald man with the white beard who doesn't remember how long he was young. I mean, listen, I don't, walk me through the, because people who listen to my podcast know that I'm nothing if not just a narcissistic, you know, vanity. Literally, nobody cares more about - You're hard on the T on your title. Literally. Literally.

4:02Literally. I can't do the T that hard. Do it, hit it as hard as you can. Literally. I wouldn't say that. I would never say that. Literally. How about do it like a British person does it? literally where they put a sh i'm not good with i'm not good with english accents they put an sh into it do they literally oh here comes my acting juice like they told me not to hey thanks man look at this this is acting juice what is it um it's um three espresso shots and just a smidge of milk just enough to color it wow acting juice caffeine now you're saying do a British accent. I'm not allowed. I'm so afraid of doing a British accent.

4:45They told me they would cancel me if I said, and I work with a lot of British people. I work with Simon Cowell and all these guys. If I tried to say you cannot with a British accent, then I could get canceled. Yes, yes, because that sounds like another word. You cunt. That's right. You can't. You cunt say the word cunt. Cunt. You can't do it. Dracula. You know what kind of sugary cereals I used to like when I was a kid? Cunt Chocula. You don't like them anymore? You still like them. You just don't eat them. Dude, I love just a handful of fucking Captain Crunch. Everything. I used to go, and I'm not exaggerating.

5:32I used to go cuckoo. For Cocoa Puffs. No, there was this little strawberry thing I liked. What is a little strawberry thing? I was just fucking with you. I was going to say. Kuka for Coca Puffs. And it's so sad that that stuff is literally, we now literally know. You're changing the way I've ever said the word. I listen, I like hearing you say it, but it's not how I would say it. Well, and also apparently I use it incorrectly. Apparently, there is a... They changed the dictionary version of it. Because of you. I'm not saying it was because of me. Yeah, I think you are. You're insinuating. I'm not.

6:15You are insinuating right now. I think the story insinuates. But there is... There are now... The dictionary has accepted the incorrect usage. What does it mean? That has been...

6:32Literally meant... I believe, until it was properly misused. By you. It is the definition of exactly,

6:46a euphemism for exactly, right? Yeah, the literal translation of what it means, the literal, if you took the word, exactly, this is not really what they mean, but if you take it literally, and then how did you use it?

7:06it's as a indicator of something that is already obvious. It was your catchphrase, right? On Parks and Recreation. Was that in the script or is it something you brought to it? When I wrapped, Mike Schur, the brilliant creator writer of Parks and Recreation, sent me, framed his original notes from our very first meeting. and in the very first meeting Mike has written says literally a lot. So I think it was A, I probably overused the word and I hammer it so hard. Somebody pointed out to me a scene in Wayne's World that's 1993. 93? In my character, I go, I say, and so, and so, and he literally lost his mind.

8:07So even in Wayne's world, I was butchering the word and hammering it. So it's become my, it's my catchphrase. I'd never had a catchphrase. It's an honor. It's an honor. It really is. Because when we grew up watching TV, everybody had it. Fonzie had A, and Jimmy J.J. Walker had, dynamite dynamite right i mean literally literally again there it is literally everyone had one literally everyone have you had a catchphrase yeah hit me with it deal or no deal yes okay so it's funny you bring that up you do have that you brought it up you said it was funny i should say it's funny that i brought that up now that i am hosting the floor you're very good you think i do you're an expert i i'm not an expert i I just know what I like and I don't think, here's my take.

9:01I didn't want to do a game show. Me neither. Well, you were a movie star. You know, like I talk about people who have been around as long as we have been around. I think I started around the same time you started, late 70s. There seemed to be, and I'm using the wrong term, but a hierarchy of, you know, a movie star wouldn't do TV. TV star or a movie star wouldn't do a commercial. Yep. A comedian wouldn't do a game show when irony is your currency. You know what I mean? You'd make fun. You would kind of mimic a game show. What is the capital of it? So in 2005, I was literally leaving the business.

9:46I was over it. I had had some great success. I had made enough money. I'm my entrepreneurial spirit outweighs my show business spirit. I like I like real estate. I like other businesses. At that time, I had done a series, a dramatic series. I started with Denzel, you know, elsewhere. I had done sitcoms and pilots. I had done movies. I walked away from movies. I didn't love doing movies. We can talk about that later. But my favorite thing and still to this day is stand up comedy. live stand-up comedy. And in 2005, by 2005, I had gone from selling out arenas to barely getting, you know, 50 or 60 tickets sold at a club, like in Cleveland.

10:41I was auditioning for Five Lines and Under for like a little spot on maybe a weekly sitcom. And I was getting the shit kicked out of me, you know, just out of my ego. And I said, well, like, what am I doing this for? And I'm not going to get any further in this. And as luck would have it, I get a call. I've told this story before, but I get a call from my manager and it says NBC is doing this primetime game show, which was unusual. I think up until that point, Millionaire was like the big one of our generation. That's right. But they're doing a primetime game show. They're going to run five nights a week and they can't do it without you.

11:26They want you. And I just went, I hung up the phone. I said, listen, my career is in the fucking toilet and now I'm going to be the laughing star. This is not the nail I want in the coffin of my career. And Michael, who's my manager, Michael Rodenberg, my best friend for life. Do you know who he is? Rodenberg? Three Arts. Yeah. Yeah, because he produced. Of course. Yeah. He came out here. He lived on my couch while he was going to law school. I was Three Arts' first client. Wow. I was his first client as a lawyer. I've known him since he was 12. Holy smokes. Okay, yeah. So he calls me. He goes, you know, they called me back.

12:00They want to just sit down with you. I go, I don't want to be on a fucking game show. He goes, well, it's all over the world. NBC is going to put it on primetime five nights a week. And I said, that's even more. That's like five nails in my fucking cup. Then he said to me, will you just meet with them? And I go, you know what? I don't even want to go to a meeting. I'll tell you what's happening right now. I am at Jerry's Deli in the Valley having some soup. If whoever cannot do this without me would like to join me for soup, I'm happy to wait here and tell me what this brilliant idea is. I'll be here for another hour.

12:37So as luck would have it, Rob Smith from Endemol came out to the Valley. And I'll show you, and your guy can even take a picture of this. He comes out, he's got this card that he cut. It looked like not a bright student had made an after-school project. It's not like he didn't go to Kinko. He had made lines, 26 squares. And then he cut out, he printed these little briefcases. And he moved my soup and he put this card down. And he put all these briefcases from 1 to 26. and he says, one of these has a million dollars and I pick one, but don't show yourself. So I pick one and he goes, okay, now I'm gonna ask you to open up six cases and whatever you pick is not in your case, right?

13:28That made no sense. I'm opening these papers and my soup, I'm eating soup and opening the cases and he's not a host. And he goes, that's the show. I go, that's the show. And at this time, Punk'd was really big. And I thought I was being punked. That somebody just sat me at a deli, one of my friends, who knew that my career was in the shitter and was going to pitch a show that's not a show. There's no trivia. There's no skill. And here I am with a big piece of cardboard turning over. And he just keeps saying, open the case, open the case. And he goes, and that's the show. And I go, and you're telling me this is what NBC, this fucking stupid-ass hour that you just spent with me is what the network bought?

14:10And he goes, yeah, we can't do it without you. So I go home. This is a Friday. I go home. Was he able to articulate what about you he wanted, other than the fact that you're you and you're great? It was like, we need your X, Y, or Z. He didn't articulate that. But in another two minutes in this story, you will hear exactly what it is that they couldn't, the reason that they could not do it without me. And I'll tell you why. So this is a Friday. I go home and my wife says, what is it? I said, I think I got punked, but nobody revealed themselves. They showed me the shitty thing. And they said that it's five nights a week on NBC.

14:48She goes, Howie, you're miserable. I've always been dealing with my mental health. And when my mental health is bad, everybody around me is having a miserable time. So she goes, just do it. What the fuck do you care? You're walking away from the business. Take a check. Take another check. And just it doesn't matter. It's not like you're trying to get anything else. Take the deal. so I said, yeah, it kind of makes sense, so I called them on, I called them back an hour later, and I said, you know what, I'll call Michael, I'll do it, and he gets them on the phone, and they go, thank God, we could have, this will not go without you, you are perfect for this, you are absolutely perfect for this, and I go, when, when do you, when are you taping, like, what's your schedule, he goes, Monday, I go, Monday, well, don't you have to build a set, because it's built, I said, well, you said there's like 26 models, don't you have to cast the models, they're all cast.

15:40So what was perfect about me is I was the first one that didn't say no. I can't tell you what number on that fucking list. I found that later. Like I know Ellen was offered it and she said no. So what was so perfect about me? I am the last piece of shit dredge. When you have nobody else to turn to, Howie Mandel may save the day.

16:17I even found out that the head of the network was going, nobody's going to want to watch Howie Mandel say deal or no deal. But here's what happened. So I said to them under one, I have one, I don't make, I'm not demanding, but if there's one thing I'd like, can I hire a friend who's a comedian to write for me? because I want to be somewhat, I'm going to be on prime time. I don't think this is a show. I don't know what it is, but maybe I can be a little bit entertaining or maybe I can even showcase myself and some of the comedy I do. So I'd like to have a writer. So they hire a writer and I'm sitting all weekend, all Saturday, all Sunday with him and we're writing funny, you know, little thing quips to say about the case, little things to say about the models, little, you know, and I worked really hard, you know, I work really hard and prepare for everything.

17:05well I didn't prepare for this other than this interview yes but anyway so um I go on Monday and on Monday um you know I I do the the big lead up to the and this is deal or no deal is the first time I say it and let's bring out our first contestant and my first contestant I've done 500 episodes of deal or no deal my first contestant was a young woman by the name of Karen Van. And Karen Van, I'll never forget her name, was there. And you know this. You've been in show business all your life. And now being on a game show, you'll even see it more because you're dealing with people who have not been on television.

17:45And if they get on this set, like the floor, which is this, like your set, is a fucking spaceship. It's a beast. It's a beast. But for somebody who doesn't even, it's even more. For somebody who comes from the middle of America and they're standing there and they're flown to Europe like on yours. And there's lights and there's cameras and there's Rob Lowe and there's everything. They're mesmerized by that and distracted by that. So I talked to this woman and I said, tell me about yourself. And she says, I have like three children and we live in an apartment. I've never, I just lost my job. We have no health insurance.

18:25We have nothing. And she picks a case and opens up the first couple of cases. and I try to be funny and you could see that she's giggly and having a good time and it's really not unfocused kind of. You could tell she's not focused. And the first offer comes in and this is the first time I've ever said to a real person, like real, the banker tells me, you know, we'll give her right now to go home$20 ,000. Like even for me, like that was such a knee jerk. $20 ,000, yeah. It's$20 ,000. So I go, the offer is$20 ,000. Deal or no deal? I said it like that. And she goes, no deal. And I just got taken aback because, you know, I kind of do understand.

19:06I didn't grow up rich and I worked really hard for my money. And I'm thinking, I can't remember where she's from, but she was from Oklahoma. She was from Ohio, someplace where I said like$20 ,000. You didn't even think$20 ,000 is probably more than you've ever had in a bank account. $20 ,000 is definitely a down payment on a home at that time in 2005 outside of LA or New York. Yep. $20 ,000 will definitely buy health insurance. It would put one of your kids into college. And without a thought, you're just giggly and you're laughing. So what happened is I got really, part of my mental health is my empathy outweighs anything sometimes and in the moment.

19:49And I felt like I don't want to be responsible for you having such a good time that you're making bad decisions. So this is not important. You're a real person. I see your children there. I see your three boys there. This is real. So on the next offer, I slowed down and got my cadence. I slowed down. I threw away all the jokes because I said, I don't want to be responsible for a distraction that fucks you up and makes you not. So I would say, Karen Van, the offer now is$40 ,000. $40 ,000, Karen. have you ever had$40 ,000? No. What would$40 ,000 do to your life right now? And she would tell me, and it would be like, I've never even seen that kind of money.

20:42So you could take$40 ,000 right now, but if you don't, if you don't, you have to open up four more cases. Now, the chances of this one being a million are one in 26. The chances of you opening up higher amounts are also really good and your offer could go down. So I'm going to ask you. And I started talking to her like I talked to my children. Yeah, right. And I started going, deal or no deal? Which gave it some gravity so you would take a moment. And that's how they talk. I was so upset with myself after I finished taping because it was the first time in my life where I didn't play a character.

21:23I wasn't doing standup. I wasn't doing jokes. I was just being Howie. And I just wanted you to leave in a better position than you came to the show in. And I was so embarrassed. When I went home, my wife said, how did it go? And I said, oh, fuck. I did nothing. I did nothing. And I said, I couldn't even stand up. I was so tight the whole day because I wanted you to make the right decisions. And when people didn't make the right decision, it was so hard for me not to throttle them and go, what the fuck are you doing? And it was also so they would stop me in the teleprompter because I'd go, Karen, $40 ,000 is a guarantee.

22:07Right. This is a chance. is the guarantee worth giving up for this. And they go, stop, don't lead her into taking the money because I would have never, I don't gamble. So I would have taken the money. So they would get mad at me because they felt like I was kind of espousing on what I believe that they should do. I was so embarrassed at the end of the taping because I told my wife, I felt like naked out there. I felt like I was just, they were watching, you know, two hours of me with my kids and not being hopefully witty or funny or entertaining or an interesting character or anything. I was just being Howie.

22:46And so much so that it was going to air over the Christmas week. I said, we got to get out of the fucking country. I don't want to see this before social media or anything. We flew to the Caribbean. I flew to some island that didn't have, we didn't have TV and we didn't have internet. And I just wanted to be with my family. And on Monday morning, that guy, Rob is his name, Rob Smith. Rob called me, or Tuesday morning, Rob called me, got a hold of me on the island and said, you're not going to believe it. 20 million people watched. I go, really? And at first I got really excited, then I got really scared.

23:20So now 20 million people saw me do some shit that I'm not very proud of, but they must have had a really good campaign. He calls me the next day it's 25 million. The next day, it went up every week. It was a smash hit. At Friday, over 100 million people watched that week, every episode. It went up, up, up. It saved NBC. NBC was in the fucking toilet. They didn't have anything like it. In fact, that's why we got burnt out. We were the only thing that was doing anything. So when I flew back, I landed from the Caribbean. I landed in Miami. It was the first time you talk about a catchphrase. I landed in Miami.

23:58I got off the plane. I walked into the terminal. And the first person I saw, not even five seconds, goes, deal or no deal. And I went deal. And then the next person went deal. Oh, it's the deal guy. Deal. It's the first time I ever had a catchphrase. And that is to date with all the things I've done, probably the brightest light, most success I've ever had in my career. That took off like crazy. Fox, your buddies, the next game show that came out in prime time, they hired Jeff Foxworthy to do Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Then they hired all these other ones. That's right. This is my camera.

24:41You're welcome, Steve Harvey. Yeah. And then they, but so I got an understanding to what people relate to. And I don't know you at all. I watch you on your show and you have an authenticity and you create dramatic moments and funny moments and joy is, I don't think a lot of people can do what you do. And I think you're really good. And I think good game show hosting, there are few and far between. And I think that's a testament to why your show is, you know, I don't know if you're, if you know the stats, but how many game shows come out a year, there's a reason why you've had success. And there's a reason why it gets renewed.

25:30And there's a reason why. And I think not because I was a host, but I think it is the host. You can have a really good game, badly hosted. It'll fuck up. You can have an okay game, really well hosted where you create drama in moments. Maybe there isn't drama because you know the person and you hook it in. And I think it's a testament to who you are. You know, you're a storyteller, you know, because you write books, you act, you tell stories and create characters. And I feel like sometimes you're looking, you know, you see the drama in the moment. Right. You could just you could just be you could just say, and this happened.

26:08Oh, that's correct. All right. So you got that square in the thing. You move forward in that. You're telling me a great dramatic story where I'm on the edge of my seat. And I think that the host drives that. And I think you do that very well. That's thank you so much. That means a lot to me because I remember a deal or no deal coming out. And you're right. I mean, it was revolutionary. The suitcases, the models, you, the wall, like you immediately. And it's so funny that you say, wait a minute, this doesn't have any trivia or any, but it's so instantly compelling. And that's humanity. And that's what the floor is.

26:43Absolutely. It's instantly compelling. The barrier of entry. There's like, what I love about doing the floor is eight-year-olds come up to me who watch it with their parents. And in a world where the parents are watching Netflix and they were watching Nickelodeon or whatever the hell, everybody's siloed off to be a part of something that families can sit and watch together and both feel equally invested. That's the dream. And I love being able to orchestrate the emotions you were like. But that's it, orchestrating emotions. Yes. Because there are, and I'm not knocking any other game show, but there are game shows just because of, even if I don't know the answer to the trivia question, I love to watch how they react to it or who they are going to, whether what their decisions are going to be in gameplay.