121: Evel Knievel Americana with Craig Ferguson | Soder Podcast | EP 119

All of the remaining dates for the Golden Retriever of Comedy Tour are up. If you live in Boston, we added a nine o'clock show. If you live in Philly, the tickets are there. We also got Durham, Marali, February, 28th, Buffalo, New York, me, Sean Murphy, Pete Revello, what a f---ing show. DanSotter.com for tickets. Thank you very much for watching the podcast. The most important is thank you for coming out to the shows. It's been so f---ing fun. Do I need an intro? Yeah, I mean, I don't. Should I do one myself? No, we don't do intro. That's what I'm saying. But I'm saying to anybody. Maybe we should do one now. You want to try it? Yeah, f--- it. Why not? Let's try an intro, ready? It's like my next, my next guest. My, no, my first guest. My first guest. Yeah, because if you say, because if it's my next guest, then I'm on second, which, what kind of a f---ing loser am I? Maybe the last night shows should die with it. It's like me taking over. Maybe this is the point. I don't think they are dying. They're just turning it at this. And I'm okay with that. You're okay with that, because I'll say, by the way, let's work on the intro first. All right. You might have known him from his work. Many stand-up specials from the late, late show. And from my, one of my favorite all-time shows, The Drew Carey Show. Drew Carey Show. Thank you for saying so. It's a great show. Criminal. Unbelievable, right? It's criminal. It's not remembered the way it should be. Let me tell you what it did. Right, it made me a huge fan of every single person on the cast. Yeah, me there wasn't a weak spot on that show. No, you and Mimi is in the office. And then the first-- First of all, you know, Kathy and I still pal. Really? Kathy is one of the best. And when you see that-- She didn't have her on this podcast. I would love to have her. She is so funny. Yeah. She's like, she's the one of the best improvisers I've ever seen. Why do you think the show doesn't get remembered is one of the greatest shows of all time? Because I would argue it's up there for me. And I mean this, you know, I base the show on how much I love it, by how much I want to watch it when I'm sick. OK. And I would say the Drew Carey Show is up there with Seinfeld for me as a show that I can put on and enjoy while being in a lot of pain. Do you find that-- And I found this with Seinfeld that after all the curb your enthusiasm, Seinfeld is even funnier. Yeah. Because you realize that it's lary-- Do you really realize lary's George? Which I think watching Seinfeld the first time? I don't know. You just go, George isn't a real guy. Right. But then the curb is the proof that lary lives as George. That George is lary. One of the greatest regrets in my life I was asked to do curb and for some reason I couldn't do it. Really? Yeah. And I have no idea what the part was because it was like, I just wasn't available. But they said, we do curb and I was like, I can't. I'm not in time. I couldn't do it. When you guys were doing the Drew Carey Show at ABC, who else was on the lots making stuff? ER. Crazy. With Clooney? Yeah. With Clooney. Who used to play basketball every day? Yeah. And he would come by and pretend that he didn't smoke. So he would not smoke with Ryan Styles at Ryan's trailer. Ryan Styles. Again, this is the Drew Carey Show. I giant of the improvisation. Deerrick. I giant Deerrick Bader. Deerrick Bader. One of the best actors in America. One of the funniest, he has the pants in Napoleon Dynamite. And number two, I was going to say office space where he was, I believe you say something like that. You get your ass kicked. Is one of the greatest lines of all time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you never say you got a case in the Monday. He goes, I believe you say that. It's one of the funniest. He's a great comedy actor. He's a great actor. I know. They're all really cool. All of you got. You were the complete sitcom. The Drew Carey Show was the complete sitcom. You had Drew carrying it so funny. You know, do you remember Ian Gomez in that show? He played Larry. Yes. Yes. Yes. That one of my favorite fucking lines in that, in, in every show but- Didn't him and Drew hate each other? They hated each other. Yes. Yeah. And they were real rivals. And one of the great, there was an episode where it was a kind of race episode. Drew had to get to the top of the Winford Louder building by noon in order to get his promotion. And he goes through all the adventures and it's all hard and all that stuff. And he gets in the elevator to go up. He's just going to make it and Larry's in the elevator. And he's one of the greatest lines in every show, which the elevator's doors closed and he says, "Well, Drew, you made it. Even all the gods with their so-called power couldn't stop you now." How about that? And of course, the elevator, like, cool. Yeah. I always thought Larry was taking off a character from a Drew Carey book called Dirty Jokes and Beer. I don't think so, because Dirty Jokes and Beer, he wrote when we were doing the show. I remember that book coming out. So I was-- that was a book that-- It's a great book, actually. I read that in-- it was high school. I was in high school and I read it. And I loved it so much because I was like, realizing I wanted to do comedy. Yeah. You know, I was the funny kid in school. My friends would come over to my house and smoke pot and I'd make them laugh. Your friends still come over your house and smoke pot. I would not be smoking pot with you today. Do you smoke pot in this house? Yeah. Oh, my God. I thought I could smell it. It's right over there. Yeah, no, I don't-- Just look at the corner. Just look at the corner, you go. Yeah, right. Let's hope that's the only chocolate here. Yeah. Oh, my God. There you go. It's kind of weird. It's a funny thing for me for me, pot, because even when I was drinking, I didn't really smoke pot. Really? See, I smoked pot the entire time I drank. So when I quit drinking, pot state, pot was like, I need to come back to me. Yeah. Well, how long has it been since you quit drinking? In next week, it'll be 34 years. Whoa. Ah, that was fucking great. How did your family of Scotsman react to that? Well, most of them were reasonably supportive. There were one or two people that will remain nameless who said, well, I'll get drinking problems crakes. Some of us, some of us just fucking muscle through it, and that's a way to look at it, I suppose. That's a vibe. Would I first, you know, when I quit, my mom's reaction to it, she makes her own baleys every Christmas with a lot of Jameson, and I went home for Christmas, and she went, I made some baleys, and I went, I quit drinking it, and my mom, I swear to God, took a beat and went forever. Like that. I see. Well, it was a problem. No, no, I know you're a real proper dyed in the wheel comedian, because you've got to have a very specific mom. Yeah. You know, it was like, it was once we were, I was driving down the street in LA and my wife was with me. Remember the Sasha Barron Cohn movie where he was wearing the Mancini? Yeah. You know, the lime green mancini. Right. There's a board for that. And we're driving by, my wife looked up, and she went, his mother must be fucking awful. To be able to put a bikini on in there is like, that's a fucking comedian right there. My mom said that truly unlocked to form you one time, was I had a really horrible taping for a TV set that ended up not being aired, and I had a joke about it. I wish that had never happened to me. Yeah. And then I was like, I had a joke about her dating, and I called her and I was like, is it all right, I'm doing this? And she was like, I put you through it. If you can make a joke about it, I'm fine with it. That's kind of evolved. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. It was cool. You know what it did is it made me go like, oh, your support was actually genuine. Yeah. Oh, that's great, because I know a lot of other people that have talked to their family about jokes, and they're like, you got to edit that. You need to take that out. Have you bumped into that? Well, at the beginning, I mean, no, I don't think they even fucking pay attention to what I'm doing. I think I was like, all right. I think I'm going to tell you an America again, a sexy fucking great. Well, he's no great. He's right. Tell you who's coming on the whole show. Yeah. That stopped in 2014. Yeah. That's a fucking. I mean, people still come out to me and go, I saw your show last night. I'm like, I stopped doing it 12 years ago. You what you said was you were on. Tickety talk. That's what you were on. An old clip. Yeah, he's an old clip. Was that what show was more of a hangover to leave? Was Drew Carey or, I mean, obviously, you're much more involved with the late show. Yeah. But the Drew Carey show, I assume you hit a schedule. Yeah. And that was kind of like a family thing as well. Yeah. There was a vibe to it. And, you know, I mean, like, Kathy and I are still friends. Drew and I are still friends. And it was a kind of a group of us. So it was kind of tough, but I was drifting out of that show towards the last couple of seasons. I'd started writing these movies. Sure. And the movies were getting made so I was kind of like disappearing and I had to, and they were great with it. But I was like, I kind of have to leave for it, you know, eight episodes and they would be okay. Would they, would they film you in blocks? Would they go? No. No, they had to be like, oh, Mr. Wicks pregnant or something and then, and then I had to be gone. Cause that was at the time, Joe Walsh was on the show, do you remember? I remember that. Joe was on the show. That makes so much sense. Cause, you know, what I would I miss about the sitcom era was that you would find out these real world things would happen and you would go, oh, that explains why that character was gone in these. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, stuff goes, I thought that I was watching Brooklyn 99, which is a great show. Great. One of the last great sitcoms. It was an amazing show and Chelsea Pareddi disappears. And she went out of baby. Oh, is that what it was? Yeah. Cause I was trying to figure out. I don't know. Yeah. Her and Jordan Peele had a baby and I think she left the show for a little bit and came back. I could be wrong, but I think that time's upright. Right. So you were saying on the lot you had ER, ER, we had the Lewis and Clark, not Lewis and Clark, Lewis and Clark. Dean Kane and Terry. That's the one. I remember it. I loved it. Watched it weekly. And there was a show called "Friends" Hello, yeah, so you were on the lot when they were doing friends. Oh, yeah, was there like when we started on the Drew Caries show they said we were the ugly friends So funny isn't that fucked up like you're trying to fucking say in that now ugly friends. Uh, that's right Can I tell you though that is for me that was a bigger fan of the Drew Caries show then friends? Yeah, yeah I like that. Yeah, you know, we are the ugly friends. We were the ugly guys guys are way fucking funnier We were pretty funny, you guys were on a show is show for I'm do for a rewatch It's pretty there's parts of it. Did you see the full Monty episode? Yes, of course. Oh my god But the guys from the full Monty were on the show. Yeah, because that was a big thing I think now celebrity is so like It's all mixed together. It's all packed together, and it's not back in the early 2000s and the 90s and early 2000s Everything was so separated that when you got someone like the full Monty. Yeah, it was a big deal Because everything knows kind of like and I I'm kind of okay with that a little bit because I think It demystifies it a bit when you do like a podcast in your house But it's like a huge fucking show where I think there's something really awesome about that. I think there is I think I think the Celebrity used to almost be like a form of currency. Yeah, and I think now that switch to authenticity because there's just authenticity is a form of I think that's the new form. Yeah, I think you're right. Like if you're being yourself the fans can real it realize they know I'm sitting on a couch that I smoke pot and play video games and you know what I mean like I And I would endorse that as that's true. Yeah, if you're not in a some people come here and they go Oh, I thought you were in a studio and you put a fake I'm like no this is all stuff that like fans Give me and I just put up in front of my books because it's like yeah, I had an Anthony Bourdain candle I bought that one that's very cool, but but there's stuff like I think in the age of there's there's too many celebrities now Well, I think I think actually being famous is shit. It is shit It's all my friends that have become very famous or miserable in a way that I go. Oh, well there was a time like you know Back in the day like maybe in the 1920s when you were a silent movie star being famous to be great like you snort cocaine off little people You were doing but by the way they were doing like back then they were doing cocaine for headaches Yeah, yeah, they weren't even like I have a terrible headache. Is there a little person over here? Here's the thing though Put the tray hat on but now we we've kind of we've kind of looked back at her and now we think wait a minute It was good for the famous people, but I wasn't for the little people Yeah, and I think you know if if Charlie Chaplin was snort and cocaine off of my head I'd be like this is kind of fun. This is this is kind of anecdotal But that's how they also had secret families because that energy translated to women going you know that You know buster came through buster Keaton came through. Oh, yeah, did more than just let a house fall down He busted in me. Yeah, I got a little kid. Yeah, a buster nuts But but I don't know if that happened. Can has a state so you he's me dead for a long time. I don't think so I'll push a house on their estate It's crazy. It still works I know now people like buster Keaton don't get the credit for pulling off a stunt because they go that say I you know But that's the thing you know remember the back in the day there would be like evil can evil you probably do you remember evil can Evil I grew up with a stepdad that loved evil can evil right so we would watch him try Yeah, I think that's what you say about evil can evil he tried a lot you know the thing about evil cannibal is like one of the reasons I wanted to be an American was evil cannibal because I was like Jesus Christ this guy's fucking nuts It is and he's great. He just goes at it and that's when he's like you want to watch me jump this river and it was on the wide wide wide Wild world of sports it was on the one of the four channels. Yeah, and it and back then fuck getting fucked up and riding on a motorcycle What was a sport? It was a sport you can jump or I you know I asked I know a story but you can even Yeah, I want to love to hear well, it's a little tricky okay, but so I'm gonna disguise who it's coming from a little bit because there's still people around But this is a story about evil cannibal like he's doing a jump and I have I knew somebody was really good friends with them. Okay with somebody who knew somebody who's really good friends So he does this jump right you go to the top of the jump and they're going to they're looking at the jump before he does it It's like 25 double-decker buses in London or some stupid shit and He's they're looking at the jump and and evil's looking at it and this other guy's looking at the other guy goes you can't do that And he went yeah, no, he went what he said yeah, I know I can't do it, but everybody's here That's so it was like fuck and so he did they're watching it. He does the jump fucking last boss bam Yeah, yeah, the way his body you always like He does that and he lands there and this guy that I'm not gonna say is he runs over and he's he's like oh my god He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. He runs over They get the helmet and evil cannibal says this guy. Hey get that broad out of my room. Oh, yeah, that's so funny He's worried about his wife coming. I'm his dad. I just remember. I Fuck the week. There's a broad in my room Out before my wife gets here because before the road rash No, no, no person. Yeah, there you go. I don't see I don't I that's not a good one isn't the image. Yeah, you can't say that I don't think you I'm friends with little people and I apologize to them the smallest apology No, you know, David Tails album I had to the first thing I heard that I was driving in California. I had to pull off the side of the road when he does that thing about the you know Dude stuff a little person Take me to your Like almost like a follow-up to that joker he goes they don't want to be called Midgets anymore You know what they want to be called little people. Well, that's fine. If you call them little people then you call me a sky God I control the lights When you when you do the late late show, how do you get approached to host because I'll tell you an American late night Pretty big surprises you Scott. Yeah, holding it down. Nobody more surprised me I mean what happened was that I had been on Craig Kilborn's show a couple of times who was the host of the host of the show before me and And the daily show man if you follow Craig Kilborn. Yeah, get ready for your pockets to get fat If you're following if you're if you're getting Craig Kilborn sloppy seconds. Yeah, you're gonna be able to buy a boat. Yeah You John Stewart. Yeah, you I won't lie to you the money was different that I Mean it wasn't podcast in your house money. I don't mean the brag But I got I'm sponsored by a better help. So you know better help. It's never too late to get To get the florist one as well No, we don't do that. We do the big ones. We do a better help. We do a sock dock. That's a big one Enough for me with that. We just want to talk me through the talk. Don't make a job. Yeah, this is where he's in everything with Yeah, yeah, drops the sock doctor Man, you are worried about something going on in your body You know, maybe you got a an ankle that hurts Maybe your hip pops in a weird way and you're like well, who the hell do I go talk to about this? 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We're talking about whatever diet you want to do high protein Calorie smart met a terranium diet Always fresh mevel frozen ready in about two minutes. There's no prep. There's no stress And all you got to do is head to factor meals dot com slash soda 50 off use the code soda 50 off. It's five zero So that's soda five zero off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year Eat like a pro this month with factor news subscriptions only varies by plan one free Practice item per box for one year while subscription is active, but how did you get approached to do well? I don't assume a couple of times and Craig Kilburn quit. He just up and quit after five years. And so they had this idea that they were gonna have rotating hosts and a sort of bake off like America's Got Talent thing to show you who'd be the host. And they said, "Would you like to do it?" And I went, "Yeah, all right." So I did two nights and I was like, "Oh, I fucking love this." And then they boiled it down to four guys who were gonna get the job. It was D.L. Hugley. - Great. - A great comic. I knew I thought it was gonna get it. Mike Lee and Black, also really good. - Right. - They mean Fahey, also really great. - Yeah. - And me. - Oh, wow. - But doing a job that real Americans don't want to do. - That's what we do with all immigrants. - Yeah, yeah. - So. - It's picking strawberries. - Yeah, that's right, it was a different time. - Yeah. - I mean, no. - Oh, oh, you could have been on a farm in Fresno. - Yeah. - But. - It's fucking back, right? - But they had this, we all got a week each. - Yeah. - And then I thought D.L. is gonna get it for sure, 'cause he's like a established, famous guy. - He's the king of comedy. - Right. - He's one of the kings. - He's one of the kings of comedy. The original kings of comedy. And then I thought, Mike Lee and Black, he's right in the late night world. He's very much that thing. - He was also phenomenal on Best Week Ever. - Yeah. - And I love the 90s. He was great at talking about that stuff. I mean, he's also like, you know, improv master. - Right, exactly. And then he's one of the, what's the name of that guy? - Oh yeah, yeah. - The three, Stella. - Stella, right, he's great in that. And then, and then the night I was there to check out, see what it was like, Damien Fahy was doing his show. And I was like, it's fucking great. - Yeah. - There's no way I'm getting this job. And I got it. - Wow. - And that was really it. They boiled it down to four and I got the job. - And it was in LA, you were living in LA. - I was in LA and I was going through a divorce. - Okay. - And while I was making these movies. - Yeah. - And these movies, the independent movies. So you have to be out of town. I was going through a divorce and I had a young son. I thought, I need a job. It's gonna keep me in town. So when they said, you wanna try out for this, I'm like, fuck yeah, because. - Get your creative juices going. You're in town. - Stay in town. - And late night, from what I've noticed is one of the only schedules, it's a schedule. So you actually have to, it's not standup where they go. We need you to go to this city. We need you to go to this. You're there. - A little bit of that. - Even when I was doing that, and even the Drew Carey show as well, all through all of it, I always did standup. - Yeah. - 'Cause you kinda like, no, you're a comedian, so you understand this. If I don't keep doing this, I'm gonna lose my child. - Yeah. - And also, I have to maintain an autonomy with the corporate overlords. - You have to be like, I don't fucking need you. I got my own mind. - Right, so like, if you fuck up, if you, you know, I mean, we didn't call it getting canceled back then. - Yeah, which, it's called getting fired. - Yeah, it's just, it's a stop sign canceled, you're not a sitcom. - Yeah, yeah, it's right. So, so it was kind of like, I always felt I had to go out and do it. So, even although I was doing the show, I would go out, you know, every other weekend, if I didn't have custody that weekend. - Sure. - I was like, on the road, I was in. So, I was doing, I remember one night, John Stewart was hosting the Oscars for the first time. - Sure. - And I was doing Tommy T. Stakehouse and Comedy in Pleasanton. - There you go. - It's in California, shout out. It's where my family lived, Bay Area. - Stakehouse and Comedy. - Well, I don't mean, yeah, that, I don't-- - I'm gonna play that room? - No, I never, I don't love it. - Dude, I graduated high school in Pleasanton. - You gotta go. It's an L-shaped room. It's impossible. - It's impossible. - It's really, it's like a fucking Rubik's Cube underwater with shocks. It's like, oh my God. - When they put together rooms that don't work and stand up and then have stand up there, you're almost impressed with your like, are you trying to get us to stand up for ourselves or to say something 'cause you got this can't work? - Hey, 'cause you have to pivot each way. - You know what, I like to, you ever get this one 'cause this is when I started this was the thing. It was no comedy clubs in Glasgow. And they used to say, all right, it was music clubs. So it would be one band-on and then they would change the equipment and another band-on. So they would say, all right, go up and do five minutes of your stand-up comedy while we change the equipment. - Oh my God. - I was like, what, and these would come, these are clubs that there wasn't comedians. - Sure. - Like very connolly was a comedian. - Yeah. - And then that was it. - Yeah. - And so I got with these punk rock clubs and they'd be shouting before I hit the microphone, they'd be like, "Fuck you!" - Yeah. - "Fuck you, fuck you!" (laughing) - You're like, "I just wanted to tell you my everybody." - It's like, funny thing happened on the way here. - Let me tell you, I just bought a house. You know, it's like fucking hell. - What got you in this stand-up in Scotland? If there isn't a scene, I'm always fascinated by, because I think for, you know, my generation, it was easier. We had watched all this stand-up. We kind of knew what to do without knowing what to do. - Yeah, I think that's right. I think when I came up, it was first, there was a Jackie Robins in effect of Billy Conley, right? Billy Conley. - One of the grace of all time. - Grace of all time. - And aged well. - Yeah. - You go about watching Billy Conley, you're like, "Mother, fucker, that guy is falling." - Amazing. Amazing. And how he started as he was a folk musician. - Sure. - And he'd be playing in bars and he'd be talk between the songs and people used to just go for the bit between the songs. He'd just stop playing songs. That's how he became a folk musician. - Really? - Yeah. - I never knew that was how he started. - Yeah, that's how he got into it. And then, the other, so there was Billy, who I kind of, he's, Billy's 20 years older than me. - Yeah. - So when he's getting famous, like in his early 30s, I'm like early teenage, and he's the guy that we're not allowed to listen to. Like, so we get the album and we're like listening to it. And so I'm like, "Oh, fuck, I want this. I want to be part of this." The coolest comedians are, are to pre-pubescent boys. 'Cause they go like, "This guy, this guy fucking rock." - This guy doesn't need his vegetables. - This guy wears pants with stars. - Yeah, man. - Yeah. - But they're just like, "This guy, you watch it." That's how I felt about, first time I saw Eddie Murphy. - Yeah, another one, yeah, I mean. - Or guys like, Carlin, I remember him, he was like, "Man, this guy just speaks up." - He was so cool. - He's so cool. - Yeah, yeah. - He was cool. You know, I was obviously, I saw older George Carlin, so he's bald with a ponytail. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And to me in my mind, I was like, "This guy, he's bald with a ponytail and he's still cool." - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - 'Cause, yeah, because most guys bald with a ponytail, you're a geography teacher. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And not that, I mean, geography can be cool. - It's great. - Well, it's to be honest, they can. It can be cool. - Mountains and rivers, no one's carrying a little-- - Crop rotation, everybody. Isn't that exciting? - Yeah, let's go. - I don't want to hear about geography. So I'm older and then I'm-- - The exciting world of kelp. - Yeah, and then you get older and you go, I do want to know about kelp. - Actually, I'm interested. - I look down my nose that when I'm a kid, now I'm interested in learning. - Fucking stick around, junior. I'm 63. I'm 63 and now I'm like, you know, for a long time, I was like, "I'm an atheist. This is all bullshit." Now I'm like, you know-- - I might, well, you get closer. - Yeah, you know, you start feeling the horsemen on your shoulder a little bit, you know? Look. - I know. - I'm like, I know. I never said it completely. - That's what's interesting to watch my friends, 'cause I'm in my 40s now, is to watch my friends that were a political punk, I don't care, anarchy, and now they go, it just just taxes under the Republicans might be a little bit better. - Yeah. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, it's good, all of us. - Was it Shane that did that thing about early onset Republican, that fucking masterpiece of comedy? - One of my favorite bits. - Yeah, yeah. - He goes, you first see it when you go, I remember the state farm guy used to be white. And then he goes, and then he's like, and then you go watch it, it's unbeautiful dog. - Yeah, yeah, that guy's fucking great. - He's unbelievable. That's what I love, was like, my favorite part about stand-up is seeing stuff that you go, I'm going through that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Nate Parketsi had one of my favorite lines years ago. We were on the road somewhere, I was open inform him, and he was talking, you know, he does a lot of joke about marriage, and at one point we're driving, and he goes, man, comics in the '80s and '90s, they nailed it about marriage. (laughing) You go back and watch all that material and you go, they're not wrong. - Yeah, they got all out of it right. - It's pretty good. - I know it was a lot of it was like, take my wife, please, but then you listen and you go. - Well, I used to, that, take my wife, please. That was the Hennie Youngman. - Sure. - And I thought, you know, because people got so fucking literal for a while there, if he had gone up and said, take my wife, they were taking his wife. (laughing) - I was like, oh, you said it. - We put it down. - It's because it's that whole thing. I mean, like, isn't this girl? And Anthony Jesan, like, talks about this, and I think he's a great comedian. - He's fantastic. - And he's doing that thing. No, the job is to say a horrible thing, and get away with it. - Yeah. - And that's like, it's a bank robbery. - Yeah. - Going and getting the money. - Gotta get away with it. - You can't shoot the teller. - Yeah. - That's not a bank robbery, that's a slaughter. - Yeah, and that's murder. - Yeah. (laughing) - You gotta go in and, like, the best comedians are the ones that hand the teller, the note, that says I have a gun, and then they do the, they go, fuck, empty the vault. - Give me the money, and you gotta have a gun. - You have a gun? No, but I had a very difficult mother. (laughing) - I had a father that didn't care. - Yeah, there you go. - So when you're getting in, you see Billy Conley go, and then you go, I might be able, were you getting in trouble in school, were you that? - Yeah, I dropped to high school when I was just after my 16th birthday. - Just being like, I don't give a shit. That's fucking, you know, I was a little crazy. - Sure. - And, you know, I, there was drinking drugs, and there was, punk rock was very vivid when I was, like, I came of age. You're not allowed. - So Americans love to suck our own dicks about music, but UK did punk probably better than anybody. - It was pretty intense, man. - It was, like, 'cause to me, I, it's the snarl, Well, it's the UK snorkel, it's that fucking. - You fucking. - Yeah, it's that. - It's the fucking. Oi, fuck you. - And I understand that like you get the Henry Rollins and the Black Flag and you're all scared back. - Hey, none wrong with that. - None wrong with that, yeah. - Bad brains, which I talked Eric Andre about. But to me for some reason in my head, punk rock music is like, the pinnacle of it is UK. - I think. - '76, '77 UK, you know. - You also had the Queen, you had something to go like, fuck you. - Yeah. - But it was, it was, it was fuck you in your majesty. (all laughing) - Queen Mum. - Yeah. - Fuck you, I would have tried, but she is good for tours. - Oh man. - That was always my, the thing where like in America, we can rage against the president and then they die and they're like, fuck you, fucking rock now. And then it's always funny 'cause when royalty dies, everyone except the Irish are like, how rest of the piece of the Irish will I go up the road? - You see, there's a whole mess of stuff that I don't want to fucking talk about. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the, I grew up in all of that too. - Yeah. - You're like, the troubles were going on. I'm in Glasgow, there's a Terry and violence, a Terry and hatred and sugar. - Sure. - So there's real shit. - Brody is scary. - Yeah. And so, doing comedy, it didn't seem like an option at first and that was a drummer in punk bands. - Okay. - Right, so I would be playing in these bands and people would be spitting on you and all that. - Dude, dude, do people-- - See, that's never coming back after COVID, that spit. - No, no, oh, you fucker now, I gotta go test. - Yeah. - How were those fans or just people that just didn't like punk music? And there's like, fuck you, I'm gonna spit on you. - I think, call me, call me, I think there's a lot of that. - 'Cause if you're feeling the need to go spit on someone, I would just be like, was a punk show down the show. - Yeah, yeah, let's go spit. - What it was was, it's kind of like podcasts. No, I mean, look, this is a proper big podcast, but podcasts really, yeah, I mean, I've got a fucking podcast. I'm gonna do this, yeah. - This is correct, you know what I mean? - That's great. - I had a serious XM show for seven years and then I came here. - I did one for two years, I hardly noticed it. - Yeah. - I tell you, and then people now are finding it and they're like, I just found out you did the show with Big J for eight years. You're like, it's all online. You should go back and listen to the catalog. - That's amazing. - Do you have people doing that with the late late show? - Oh yeah, all the time. People will come up to me in the street and say, I watched the show last night. - Oh yeah, I stopped doing it 12 fucking years ago. With the stand up, so this is, I'm glad I get to talk to you the person because I always wanted to do the late late show but they told me that you filmed in clumps that you would film stand up like four at a time. - Yeah, that's because the studio was small and we couldn't get everybody in. So if there was a band on or there was a stand up on, we had to move, I mean, honestly, it was, it was about maybe four times the size of this room is fucking funny. - You know, when Carol Burnett was on, she said, this was the wardrobe when I worked at the studio. - Yeah, that's crazy back in the day with like, the big studio. - Yeah, crazy. - So, cash app, you know cash app. I've been talking about it. It's one of those apps that you can trust to put your money in to pay your friends or maybe if you got to deposit something, boom, boom, whatever, whatever, you got cash app. Well, guess what, cash app just released a new status program for the way people actually spend called cash app green. It unlocks new ways for you to pay, get rewarded, and easily grow or manage your money on your terms. 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Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. - You know what I was talking about winner, we're talking about winner, but also it's about to be swimsuit weather. You have, it creeps up on you so fast. It's like, can't you, I don't know, I'm in sweatpants the next thing you know, you're like, where are my swimsuits? Well, chubbies has got you. If you need a new swimsuit, go with the original, the OG dog chubbies. We're talking about swim trunks that fit you great, show off as much as I as you want to, dry fast. That's the big one. And I'm telling you, they got that stretch fabric that handles swimming laps just as well as it handles lounging poolside. Plus chubbies is celebrating 15 years. The original shorts that redefine proper length shorts are back designed for comfort, built for stretch and designed to give you thigh high confidence. For a limited time, chubbies is giving our listeners 20% off with the code Sodor20@chubbies shorts.com. That's 20% off your order with code Sodor20. Give your thighs the VIP treatment they deserve. Which chubbies? Support our show and tell them that we sent you. - We had to film the stand up in odd ways. - We had to film musicians were on the show that I never met. - See, that was, and I'll tell you, 'cause we can talk about it now, but that was the reason I didn't want to do the show. Was I was like, I'm not gonna meet Craig. - No, and I don't blame you. - They were like, no, you're not, that's why. - 'Cause then you don't get that, come on over, thing. Which you need to go. - I as a guy that grew up without a dad, I am seeking the approval of successful men. - And. - So I didn't do Colbert when Colbert came on the air. It was really big. I was like, I loved Colbert report. I love Stephen Colbert. I was a huge fan of him on the daily show and they're like, always gonna be doing it in the old Letterman studio. I never got to do Letterman. So I was like, oh, I love you Colbert. And they're like, we're filming it in. We filming in chunks. And then they're gonna put it on episodes and I was like, I'm good. I just don't wanna, I don't wanna go. I wanted the-- - I think that's the right choice. Because what happens is if you just do it in a chunk, you don't, it's not the same. I actually feel this now about stand up specials. - Sure. - I don't think I'll ever do another one. - Really? Because you know, the longer I do stand up and I've been doing it now for a long fucking time. - Yeah. - The more I kind of love the purity of it as the immediacy when you talk about authenticity, that's it, you know, that's it now. - Yeah, you're saying something to a crowd and they're gonna choose. They choose collectively if they're gonna laugh. - You like it, you don't like it, you feel the room. It's an art form which, look, I've made some specials. Some of them better than others. I've seen some great specials and people do really good ones. But it's not the same, man. - It's interesting to me when people, when I hear people online talking about going to their first live show, stand up wise. A lot of people just take in specials. They just take in clips online. And then they go to an actual live show and they're like, this is incredible. - I blow your fucking head off, yeah. - It's also why a lot of people are hyper critical about certain comedians stand up where they go. He sucks and you go, I can understand you don't like watching a special. I've seen him in a room, he kills. - You know who's that, that Lano is like that. - Yeah, Lano's one of the greatest stand-ups of all time. - I thought, I didn't a bunch of gigs with Lano in our senior hall, that's awesome. Yeah, it was fantastic, fun. But I was watching him. I was like, God damn, I didn't know he was that good. - Well, I was one of the guys that came up loving Bill Hicks and I knew about Bill Hicks's bit about the Doritos and telling himself you're off the artistic roll call 'cause you took all this money. And I was always like, you know, I was young and full of angst, so I was like, yeah, fuck. Go after Lano, fucking corny asshole. He took it from Letterman, blah, blah, blah. And then I find out the reason that Bill Hicks was so angry at Lano was 'cause he loved his stand-up when Lano was young. - Yeah, he felt he'd sold out. - And then people would talk about it and be like, oh, Lano would come in the comedy store and just bury everything. - Yeah, he's pretty fucking good. - And he still does it. - Yeah, I mean, it's interesting though he's very odd. But Jay, 'cause I said to him one night, we were talking, you know, comics talk, I said you were talking about, you know, bad ones. He's good audience, his stories. And Jay said this thing. I thought, that is fucking weird. He'd be like, you know what I'm saying? - I'm right, that's the way. I was going to do the Lano voice. - Yeah, he did. - He said, you know, if I have a card there, Lano, if they're a little granted, I increased by eight percent. - That's correct. That's a scientist. - Yeah. - I'm like eight percent. I don't even know what eight percent is. - My rear engine's doing that firing. - That's eight percent, eight percent. - It is, I think that is a sign of an iconic career when someone can make a noise and you know it is, yeah. - If I was doing something, I'd go, "Huh!" - Yeah. - If you go, "It's Jay Seinfeld," or like she feels like, "I don't know." - And you go, "That's good." - That's good. - But Lano really is like, "Send it away with me." - Yeah, that's it. - You go, "What are you doing, Jay Lano?" It's like a mediate. - Yeah. - Mine would be like, if people were trying to do me the going, "Alright, alright, that's mine." - That sounds a little bit like a nature-documentary to me. - Okay. - Well, that's alright. - I'm still trying to find out. - Wait, I just accused you of not being able to do yourself. (laughs) - Which people were accusing for years. - Yeah. - You can't even do yourself. - And I went into therapy and now I'm authentic. - You know what's interesting, I think, about comedy. They always struck me about it. Is it the one thing? - Was it so subjective, stand-up comedy, that people would say, when you say that thing, people would say, oh, you suck. - Yeah. - You go, they will say this thing, they go, that's not comedy. And you go, well, what are all these people laughing at then? It's not comedy, you don't see to music. - So that's my, that's not music. - You came from the music world, and then you get into comedy, and I think I grew up idolizing comics and comedy, like I was a comedy, I still am, like a comedy nerd. Like, I fucking cared. Listen to albums, I go back and listen to old albums, and there's something about it where I took it too seriously, and then I moved to New York, and it became this thing of like, I hated people that I thought were doing it wrong, of that whole, like, yeah, I know that feeling. - But then you don't realize that you've become the asshole, because you're going like-- - You become the film student. - Yeah. - That's exactly it, I know. - We were like, no, he doesn't fucking care, he doesn't even know. - He never listened to Lenny Bruce. He never, it's like, no one listens to Lenny Bruce. Shut up, you know what I mean? But that idea, and then what set me free was, and this was a recent epiphany, where I was like, oh, well, it's just like genres and music. - Yeah. - If I'm a singer-songwriter, I'm not gonna be mad about a pop band, or a rapper, or-- - Well, actually, what I noticed now, and this is great about your generation of comics, is you guys actually are getting musicians, is you'll cross over. - Yeah. - Actually, I mean, like, you know, 10 years ago, I talked to a 40-year-old comedian, about Lano, all I'm gonna get is hate. - Yeah. - You know, and now you're like, well, no, he does this, he does that. It's like, I think it's a little more educated. - Sure. - About what it is. - Yeah, because I think that is one of the benefits of the industry losing its absolute power. - I agree. - Because, you know, we're talking about studios and stuff, and I think it's crazy when you look back to those old Hollywood icons, and you realize, well, the only reason they had a mansion, that was the studios mansion. - Yeah. - That Rolls-Royce was the studios. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - The industry had so much control over the individual, that they'd go, if you wanna work for Warner Brothers, I better not see you with a black guy. - And they'd go, like, that's amazing, boy. - That's right. - Why say, I never had a voice, and so defines an era just like that one. - Yeah, but that was exactly it, when they'd be like, I heard you're smoking cigarettes. A lady doesn't smoke cigarettes. They don't not catch out, and they'd go, like, like, can't smoke, or, mirror, one of the big film companies are gonna take away my shirt. - I still feel a little traumatized by that now. - Absolutely. When you were the last-- - We were in that. - You were the last generation to go through your career by going, like, I watched the industry crumble. - Yeah. - I came up under the industry. - Great. - Comedy Central's here. - Yeah, yeah. - The booker for, you know, when the booker for Letterman were to be out. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - The booker for Letterman, or the booker for Conan. You gotta have your tight set. - Yeah, get your set, and all that. - Now, late night is like, please, please come do stand up, and you're like, it's very weird to me because also, your show is very big. My friends getting on that show, it was a big moment in their career. Ron Funches, I remember that a lot of comics going like, I'm doing late night with Craig Ferguson. I'm doing Craig Ferguson. What's funny is, I'm trying to act like this is all formal. You go, I'm doing Craig Ferguson. Everyone said they were doing you. - Yeah, I'm doing it. - I'm doing Craig Ferguson with everybody. - Sadly none of them went. (laughing) But I remember that feeling of like, oh, now you might get fans. It was like this access to fans that now doesn't exist. - Well, I think the whole idea of the word fans as well, I think like, you know who has fans? The Yankees has fans. You know, I mean, maybe the Rolling Stones have fans. I feel like if you're a comedian, if you're a proper comedian, that's not a good vibe. You know, because you need to, you need to make them laugh. And if they're just laughing because of your fans, I see. - But see, that's also where we're at right now, where you say kind of a crossover of rock and roll, where there are comedians that are just names. - Oh, I know. - So they just go, yeah. So they just go, I'm just gonna go watch this guy. But that's always why I argue, because a lot of those people will catch hate and other comedians will go, well, he sucks and you go, well, maybe he's just indoctrined by his fans, but go watch him in the room. - That's why I think- - Because if you watch him in the room, it could be different. - That's why you always have to do it. I think real comics always will play clubs. Doesn't matter if you're playing stadiums, you still go to a good bite. You have to smell the chicken fingers. - Yeah. - Fucking get your fucking joke past the fucking bill coming out in the end of your set. - You need a random glass breaking and you're gonna set up. - Yes. - I didn't know. - No, then it's the job. - Yeah. - And you go, well, it's a whole thing. - Oh, you're great. - Yeah. - I'm saying you're great. - That's the worst is when people are talking and you go, - Positive heckling, it's very bad. - What are you talking about? - You're just saying that you're great. It's like, well, you're fucking up the show. - Yeah. - Well, people come down the front and talk to each other. But you gotta deal with that. That's part of it. - Were you, was there any part of you while you're doing the late, late show that was, you were just like, I can't wait for this to be over so I can just do stand up? Like, was that by the end, by around like 20 or 30? - Yeah, by the end of it, it got a little different. The beginning of, when you first get, like, famous like that. Like, the two cases, you know, you're kind of famous. You're a guy you want to sitcom, you know? - I mean, I, you know, I'm a huge fan of it. And I probably would have been one of those assholes that saw you in it. Drew Kerrio. - Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - My character has a name. - But you would say, Drew Kerrio show. That's it. When the late night show kind of kicked in and started to do them well, I think, I think I went a little crazy for a while. Like, paranoid. - Sure. - You know, and I used to, I don't know if I've ever told Empty this, but I used to do the show every night I had my passport in my suit. Yeah, I was like, if I didn't get the fuck out of here, I'd go straight to the fucking airport. - Got to chase some boring shit, is that it? - I don't know, man. - I'm the rest of you have six different passports. - Yeah, yeah. - Who is this man? There's six different identities. - Jesus Christ, there's great Ferguson. Christ Ferguson was the top cocaine runner for the blocker. - Wait a minute. - Sonola Cartel. - Wait a minute, he doesn't have a limp. - What the fuck? - Kaiser Soze. - This guy was fucking, he's not even Scottie. - He was fucking with us the whole time. - Please, Joey Finkelstein is her jersey. (laughing) - He grew up in Paramis. - We all knew that Scottish broke was face. - That's rubbish. - But when it was, I think that it's that kind of whole thing because your life at that time, I felt like everything was in the power of the TV gods that are no longer there. - That's what it was, where they go like, that's what the cancel, for all these people that use the word canceling, it's from that thing. - I think it's from the sex would go to bad luck. We're gonna have to let you go. And again, they had the power. - Yeah, it was funny. I remember talking to my tour manager. I still remember two, it was just me and the tour manager know in a Ram 1500. That's how I fucking roll. - I love it. - Yeah. - That's what I want. - Yeah, it's the fucking best. - Supplicities. - Listen, I tell you at one point, I had the G4, the bus, the fucking, the orange, the all that. And two things, one, you don't make any fucking money. - No, 'cause all the money's going to that. - Right. And two, it's weirdly not as much fun. - Why do you feel like it's isolating? - Yeah, it becomes about something else. - And you're a circus. - Yeah. - The one thing I'll say, and I'm very vocal about this, you know, Shane's one of my good friends. And I've been very, very happy to watch him keep his humanity through all this of like, but like he's putting an effort to stay the same guy. - You got it. - And so is Nate, where you go. - So you. - Yeah. - I'm kind of finicky. I like, I think I enjoy this so much that I don't want anyone fucking with it. 'Cause I'm just like doing it. I get to have, I mean, when I told Katie that Craig Ferguson was coming over, and she's like, I'm going to the airport, and you got fucking Craig Ferguson. She like, is such a big fan, but to me, it's like, I'm still blown away with the fact that you'd come and hang out on my couch and talk to me while my dog choose her toy and her kennel, you know. - But that, but what you were talking about and what's so great about it is the authenticity. What happened when I was doing late night, people that became my friends, like really became friends, were weird, some of them are very big fucking stars. I became really friendly with Carrie Fisher, who was fucking. - It's priceless. - It was unbelievably nice woman. - And one of the best cameos in 30 Rocks. - Right. - One of the best episodes of 30 Rocks is her coming back as a writer. - She was great. - There's one night she had done a tour of Australia and she came back to the show, and she was just talking about it. And she said, I got you something when I was in Australia. I was like, you did? Did she, did she got me a pair of dried kangaroo testicles? (laughing) - Well, like this kid. - It was beautiful. - Did you ever think in the 70s when you were in Scotland that Princess Leia would give you a second house? - I had some ideas, but. - You were touching the dry up, different house. - I didn't think she'd be handed me testicles from a kangaroo, but it all worked out. - But I understand because what you're basically doing is you're living in this sort of nap dream that is your life. - Yeah, it's weird, it's kind of, it's weird because do you ever get known again when you meet someone super famous that was famous when you were a kid? And you think, what if I just like punch him in the fucking face? - Jerry time, yeah, yeah, really? - Yeah. - So what if I fucking knocked, he was rude to me and I was like, what if I just knocked outside and felt? - Yeah. - And he'd be like, what is that? - What is it? - He had one with a jam. - I was trying to snap the jam away. - And then Lano comes and he's like, this guy, that's guy, that's guy, that's Jerry. - Come down, come down. Jerry, you're keeping less hand up. That's what he is, you're keeping his shoulder. Yeah, you're keeping, you're getting knocked out. You see this, you heard about this? Apparently, these people are getting knocked out 'cause they drop in the list. - I gotta say, your Lano's getting a little camp. - It is, it's getting a little camp. - Where do you work out doing it? - It's a day, it's a day. - It's a day, it's a day, it's a day, it's a day. - Sure, I have cars, it's a day, it's a day, it's a day. - You see this, you heard about this? - Yeah, it's a day. - It's a little sassy land. - It is. - I quite like it. - I still am pissed he took it from Letterman. - Yeah, honestly, with the late night one. - Yeah. - Dave was my guy. - Well, sorry. - Dave was my boss. - Oh, I gotta tell you a Dave story. This is fucking great. So, Dave is a complicated guy. I don't think that's gonna make the news if I say that. - I think that's been written in at least seven books. - Yeah, he's a complicated guy, but he's, the reason I was able to do late night was cause of Dave. 'Cause he owned the time slot. He physically owned it. - Well, 'cause he got fucked over. - Right. - And then he was like, guess what? I'll make your life a living hell and I'll go to CBS. - And he owned, they gave him two hours. So, he actually, CBS couldn't do much about me because Dave owned the time slot. - Really? - Yeah, and because Dave owned the time slot and Dave was making his own show, he's not paying attention. CBS, aren't paying attention. So, I'm fucking dancing horse, robot skin. - Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say the robot. Is that when it busts out the robot? - I know, guys, I'm pretty sure we put a robot, we won't even get it out. - Nobody's even coming, it doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter. Let's get the fucking robot out. But it was, it was an odd kind of feeling 'cause I've always revered Dave, and I still do. - He's the cool, I'm a little scared of him. - He's my friend's cool older brother. - Yeah. - Because I would say Conan was the one that I took possession of. - Right, okay. - That that was like growing up with the Simpsons, him starting at that time was the time that I was staying up late. - Yep, and I was like, oh, and he was silly in a way that I went, it's like a band, again, it's like a band that you claim ownership. - Right, you go. - Where you go? - Where you go, part of the Conan is my god. - Right, it's your, so Dave, if I had anyone, - Sure. - It was, I didn't really have anyone 'cause I didn't grow up here, but Dave, I was like, oh my God, this guy's fucking great, he's genius and all that stuff, and he is. - He's kind of an asshole, which I really like. - So anyway, so, about two years ago, I was doing, I was in an L.A. And I was doing a podcast. I can't remember what podcast it was, but I was doing some of these podcasts, and it was being filmed and I was like, really fucking grungy. I thought, you know, I'm gonna get a new pair of sneakers, at least, I wanna get a pair of sneakers. So I go to the grove, if I go to the Nike store at the grove, just when it opens at 10 a.m. I'll get a pair of sneakers, nobody there, I'll be able to get it done. So I go to the Nike store at the grove at 10 a.m. I open the doors, and I walk, and I'm looking at the sneakers, and I feel as hand on my shoulder. I turn around, it's fucking Dave. David Lairman. - What, he said? - This is what he said. How long have you worked here? - That's great, that's great, that is great. That's like, what the fuck are you doing here? - He was always, to me, that is exactly who Letterman is. He's got the best joke at the right time, and it's like, when he, I know a lot of people in hindsight were like, mad at him for doing that to Paris Hilton. But when Paris Hilton gets out of jail, and then tries to go sell her perfume, and then Dave was like, got a good story, he just immediately, like, say something, where you go, he is the coolest, funniest in the moment. - Yeah, and he's not afraid to own, you know, when he thought, you know what, that wasn't great. He was okay about that. - He was, what was great? I want to tell you what he said in the store though, because after he said how long have you worked here, and like, Dave, what are the fuck are you doing in the Nike store, the groove of 10 a.m. in the morning, he said, ah, I'm doing some fucking podcast, and I thought I'd better get a pair of sneakers. - No, yeah! - Yeah! - This ain't very easy. He's like, I need you to try it out, I'll podcast it, that's fucking great. - Unbelievable, right? - That's so funny that he's like, I gotta do a podcast. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fucking fine. - Podcasts are making two late night legends. - Go to Nike's phone. - Nike's phone. - Yeah. - Just buy some Nike ears. - Yeah, fuck it. - Dan in the morning, yes. - I was like, oh my god, this is fucking weird. If anyone's angry about podcasting, look what it's done to your heroes. - Yeah, yeah, it's bad. - Made 'em go out by fucking shock treatment shoes. - I, you know, it's funny. I think podcasting, do you even get cold that now? It's just a different kind of media. - I think it is a different media. I think the Golden Globes trying to give it an award is fucking stupid. - Yeah. - I think it's just stupid, it's like. - Do you ever met any of them Golden Globers? - I don't care, what the best part is not caring. You know what it is, it's because I got denied so much early on in my career. That finally, when I got stuff to make, that was cool, or people gave a shit about, I was just kinda like, oh, these people are unnecessary. I've never had one of those people book me at a funny bone in Omaha. - No, they won't. - Or book me that somewhere where I need to go do five shows 'cause I just wanna tell jokes. - Yeah, it's weird. The first time I came across a Golden Glove people, I had done an independent movie that was doing pretty well. It was the late '90s, and I had written a movie, and I was in the movie, and it was doing great. And I was very excited about it. Actually, the lead actress was nominated for a Golden Glove. So part of the press thing, you have to go and meet the Hollywood foreign press, right? The people who, it's a hundred people. I was like, this is like a fucking geriatric ward. - They were so old. - Well, they're just old, they're kind of like, not geriatrics, not right. Like this is kind of like a, like a mental hospital or something. - Yeah. - There is like these people. - There is wheel of men in there like. - They're like shouting and stuff. They're like, what the fuck? - So what was it? Was it, you want to stage, and then it's like a hundred? - Yeah, it's like a hundred people, and I was like, and then they all come up and they want to meet their kind of like from the, you know, the Athens penny save. I'm not talking Athens, George, I'm serious. - Yeah. - You know, it's like. - Where they invented arithmetic. - Right, exactly. They're, you know. - Galileo's hub. - They said the Cairo Gazette. - You know what I'm gonna say about it. - It's so fun. - You're like, oh my god. And then. - And then. - Qualum poor weekly. - Yeah. - I was like, what the fuck is going on? And I looked over at the side of the stage, and the guy who ran the film company at times, a guy called Mark Ordeski, and he ran fine line. He went on to make a series of films called The Lord of the Rings trilogy. - Oh. - Anyway. - Not a fan. - He was like, I remember at the time. - I don't like little people in rings. - He said, I remember him saying at the time, I really like to make the Lord of the Rings that's a series of movies. I really like to get that done. And I was like, you know, you're fucking mine. - Yeah. - I don't like it. Anyway. - You're gonna be the- - We keep it such. (laughing) But he was a nice guy, and I was standing up there, and I'm like, looking at us, and I looked over, and he was laughing his ass off, 'cause he knew I was gonna go, what the fuck is this? And the second time I was there with him, I was there with a, I did these how it train your dragon movies, the voice and that. - Yeah. - And I was there with Jerry Butler and I, and Jim and Haesu, and Kit Harrington, and there's like, oh, there's a bunch of fucking big daily actors. And this guy said, you know, it's a question from the floor, and he said, okay, everyone, going down the line, save what project, what you're gonna be doing next after this show, and I was like, oh, fuck, here we go. I'm gonna stop here. So Jerry started up, Jerry and I've been friends for a long time. But Jerry started talking about this movie, he was working on it, it's called The Gods of Egypt. And he was like, oh, the Gods of Egypt need, talk for about five minutes. And he was talking about this film he was doing, and then it comes to me, and I said, I'm thinking again, a cat. (laughing) - And Jerry was like, fuck you, man. - That's correct. He's like, in Egypt, the Gods were different. And you're gone. I don't know how to name them Mr. Nibbles. - Yeah, I've only known him. - You know, do you go for scrapers or do you go for a human name? - What that, you know what that is, is when you were saying you stayed doing stand-up because it kept you sharp even during the late, late show. You know, when I was doing billions, that was kind of always my thing that I would go, we're not taking me off the road. And like, to the point that on the show, there became a moment in between, I think like season two and season three, where the producers were like, hey, we wanna make you a part of the, like, full-on cast. - Right. - And instead of doing a guest, 'cause I was just a guest star in every episode. - Yeah, that's kind of happened to me in the Drew Carey show. - Yeah, yeah. - And the caveat was, I'll get more money, but then they control your schedule. And I went, you can't control it. - I not only did they control your schedule, but they control the perception of you publicly. - Yeah. - Or they want to. - Yeah, 'cause then I saw that. I saw, and that's what my agent at the time said was like, you know, they'll control your schedule. And I was like, absolutely not. Because it was really funny when they would be like, hey, we have a very intense scene we need you. And I wouldn't even be, I'd just be like sitting background for it, but they'd be like, you need to be on camera for this. It's an intense scene and I'd be like, no, I'm going to Yuck Yucks. And they would be like, it was, I remember what the club was. It was rumors in Winnipeg. And they were like, we need you to film Thursday and Friday and I was like, I'll be in Winnipeg. - I'll be in Winnipeg. - And it was, to me, I'm not a very like, fuck authority kind of guy, but it was the first time in my life where I felt like I had ground to stand on where I was like, no Hollywood machine. I'll be going to Winnipeg Manitoba. - I think it's fucking great that that happened. That freedom happened for young artists to do that. It's funny that I hear older comics I've heard a couple of, you know, complaining in private about younger comics and saying, well, all they do is crowd work. I mean, they only do this crowd work. - What do I do? - You go, that's not all they do. That's all you see. - Yeah, 'cause they don't want to burn the material. - You don't want to burn your material in social media, so you just burn up some crowd work. 'Cause you're not gonna do that again. - Yeah. - And I understand that. - It is, you know what it is? It's kind of like, to me, the way I would compare crowd work clips and standup is when they used to put lead in the gasoline in the United States. And you go, I think it made a whole generation of serial killers, but also, at the same time, it fueled our cars. - From the Los Angeles neighborhood. - From the big fat person. - Where do you do for a living? - I fuck me. - Yeah, there's some guy in, that's some guy in Dahmer Dragon going, - Would you fuck me? - Uh oh. - That's his crown wheel. - You fuck me, I fuck me. (laughing) - Now that's all I'm gonna see when I fucking see crown wheel in the dead man. - He's just being gone, man. Hey, what do you do for a living? - It's a lotion on it. It's chicken drink. - This charge has looked at me and he said this. What do I do for a living? - You're fucking dead. - Oh my God. - She's a great big fat person. - Yeah, it's, I don't-- - That movie is one of the movies that if it's, if I'm going through and it's on, I'll watch it at the end. - Can I tell you one of the funniest, it's one of the best movies of all time. - Yep. - Also just funny, he really goes, what did multiple migs say to you? He said I could smell your-- - Yeah, funny I could not. - It's like one of the most favorite Anthony Hopkins lines. - He was a great fucking Anthony Hopkins so he told me the story himself. He said, as he was talking about that movie and he was, he was very excited when the movie came out. He said, I'm gonna be able, world wide star, you know what I'm saying? He's gonna not go for it, I'm just gonna go for it. I was gonna go for a score and I would go to meet him, I just said the queen and he was talking to that and he said, he said, and when it came out, what he used to do was, he would go to movie theaters where it was playing. And wait till the credits rolled at the end and then he would lean forward and say to someone, did you enjoy that? - That's crazy. - That's crazy. That would fuck me up. - I know. - It's Hannibal Lecter. - Yeah, did you enjoy that? - Did you enjoy that? - I don't know. - You were doing your own fucking, focus pull thing, you were doing that. I was watching. - That's what I missed about the old system. Was that Bill Murray could go to a wedding at a hotel bar and buy a drink and go, no one will believe you, that this happened. He would say that to people. He would fuck with them and he'd go, no one will believe you need to leave. But now everyone's got camera phones. - I know. - So now Anthony Hopkins would have had a line down the theater of people going, "Can I get a selfie real quick?" Instead of just, someone walks around and goes, "You know, I saw some on some of the lamps and Anthony fucking Hopkins was sitting by me." - Yeah, yeah, that's a great story. - It's a great story. - I feel like that's what camera phones are destroying more than anything, are good stories to tell each other through, like we're killing the anecdote. - Yeah, yeah, I think there's a feeling, I mean, we talked about authenticity and I've seen this a couple of times now in New York City, young people in coffee shops, reading books. - Brother, it's back. - I love it. - And I love it. - I'm like, God bless you. It truly is like, I'm seeing young people do it 'cause I was yelling until I was horseback in the day of like, you should always read books. It's great before you go to bed, which is good. - Brain waves on it. - Yeah, it's also good for your concentration. - Yep. - And then I just completely fell into internet slop. - Sure, I mean. - And now I'm trying to crawl out of the pool again. And I'm buying, I'm using Stephen King to get back in. - Yep. - But I made a mistake and read a hard book that took me nine, 10 months to read. And then it felt like school. So now I'm jumping back in. - I think that's the, that's the same as what I did. I think it's like stand up. You lose your reading chops a little bit. - Yeah, you have to, you have to fucking get back into it. - But get it with a short book. Colin Quinn recommended it. And I would say this to other people. Read Frankenstein. Read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. - It's short Dracula. I'm gonna read Dracula. - Oh my god. - You know what? - Scariest fucking book. - And it's also way different than all the movies. - Oh yeah. - Someone recently talking about Frankenstein because Guillermo Dottoro put it out on with, and I haven't watched it yet. Apparently that's much shorter to the book. - Yeah, I haven't seen it yet, but. - In the book, it's the thing that everyone's blown away is Frankenstein's not dumb. The monster, not the doctor. The monster he creates isn't like, "Ah, he speaks." And he tells about how he learned how to speak in the family, the blind man that taught him. There's like this great humanity, this heavy, heavy weight of humanity in that book. And it's very short. But Dracula's the next one I'm gonna read. - Dracula's amazing because it's one of those amazing books, and there's a few of them I've read. - So I read Bram Stokers, are you saying? - Yeah, Bram Stokers Dracula. And it's the sense of fucking madness. - Yeah. - Like, there are books that, you know, I spend time in New York City, and we have a place out of town. In the place out of town, it's a little country-fighted. I can't read scary books out there. I've got it. - It's too fucking scary. - It's too scary. Even New York. - There's no fucking, if it's a vampire in New York, it's at a club. - So there's a plate, we go to the cat, we like to go to the cat skills. - I think we know what we're saying. - Yeah. - We go to the cat skills, but I was reading, the book I was reading was, Dante's, I was in, I was during Inferno, 'cause I read, I read the, The Divine Comedy. I read all three. - Yeah, I read all three. - I read all three, yeah. - And you know, the purgatory in the heaven water, harder to read than Inferno, 'cause Inferno's so detailed and so, it's scary. There's moments where, and it's like, it's a rhyming poem, but if you have it broken down, you're like, the things he describes are fucked up. - Do you know what I mean? - The river of blood that Alexander is in. - You know what I think is amazing though, about Dante's Inferno is like, when you get to the deepest level of hell, what is the worst thing an Italian can imagine? - Ice. - It's being called, it's so called. - Because you don't understand Satan. - He sees us all gone. - And so funny that people don't understand at the bottom of hell, is a frozen lake. - Frozen lake, that Satan's frozen it. - Yeah, yeah. - He's like stuck in this lake and he's got three heads. - Yeah. - With the description of the smaller stuff of looking into the pits. - Yeah. - And watching the demons creeper. - You're gonna love Dracula. - I'm him. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're gonna love it, it's. - Craig Ferguson and I are starting a book club. - Yeah, yeah. - It's a big club. We're kind of like Reese. (laughing) - I think Reese with us going, just bring your blanket. - With us going, that's not right, with us going. - With us going, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - With a fork. - With a knife. - I think I'm getting ready to join the Hollywood foreign press, you know what I'm saying? - I love it. - I just got to tell you, man, this has been, it's better than I expected. You're fucking awesome. I've been a fan forever and this is one of those moments where you meet someone and you're like, I was right. 'Cause you don't want the feeling of I was wrong. - You know, I feel like there are younger, comedians, I look at guys who are 20 or so years younger to me and I look at me, you're one of 'em. - Yeah. - And Shane's one of 'em. - Yeah. - But you go, fuck me, it's alive and well. - Oh, that makes me feel. - Yeah, yeah. - I think, you know, I don't know, Shane, we're love hearing that. Just 'cause as someone that grew up loving comedy, - Maybe a little too much. - Yeah, let's understand. - It is like, man, this is the coolest job. And when I see people that have been in it, that I've watched from the time I was young, still feel that way about it. - Oh, yeah. - It makes me go like, that's just, - You know what's great about it as well, is if you were in it for a long time, and this is one of the things I really love about it, when I do clubs and stuff now, or I just do like a theater and you do meet and greets, the audience is getting old with me too. - Yes. - It's the weirdest fucking thing. - Well, we're all getting, we're all getting the same shit. - 'Cause I remember being in my 20s doing jokes about blacking out and now I'm doing jokes about my lower back hurting. And the same guys are out there going like, - Yeah. - Yeah. - You got stretch your hips a little more. - And you go. - I know, I know, I know, it's the end of it. - It used to be, you wake up with your keys and you're like, well, I'm only fucking sleeping in a room without a window. - Yeah, I don't give a shit. Now you're like, do take a bite and see. Do take a bite. - Capital gains, am I right? Am I right? - Yeah, for one case, fuck me. - Check out Craig's podcast, watch everything he's done, and go back and watch the Drew Carey show. These motherfuckers need more credit. They put on an all-time classic and no one gets the credit. - God bless you so much. - Thank you so much for that. - All right, thanks, man. (upbeat music) [ Silence ]