Episode 89 - Andy Richter
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck, Nick?
Marc:Nice to be here.
Marc:Hope you're doing well.
Marc:Hope your weekend went well.
Marc:Hope your life is going well.
Marc:You know, 4th of July is just coming to a wrap here in my neighborhood.
Marc:I live in a Mexican neighborhood, so obviously the 4th of July has been going for the last three and a half weeks.
Marc:The 4th of July is actually an extended holiday that runs from around June 6th or 7th.
Marc:to about July 8th or 9th.
Marc:It is now, as I record this, around there.
Marc:And it seems like the fireworks have subsided and everything is doing all right.
Marc:On today's show, Andy Richter from the Conan O'Brien Show's version 1 and 2 and soon to be 3.
Marc:pow i think i just blew my fucking gasket in my goddamn head i gotta go to fucking yoga that's what i've been doing i've been going to yoga on sundays look i'm no i'm no zen master i don't go for the spirituality of it i don't go for the meditative element of it i go because it's flow yoga it's power yoga you keep moving you sweat your balls off and you feel like you've done something
Marc:And I got it.
Marc:I'm telling you, I'm putting on a few pounds.
Marc:And, you know, I know I talked about this before.
Marc:I'll man up about it.
Marc:But it's either like, you know, I accept it or I go back to nicotine.
Marc:I've done every I've gone back to hard drugs because of fat, because of what I come from.
Marc:But I'm going to yoga tomorrow.
Marc:I'm going to go to Joe's yoga class.
Marc:I've been going to Joe's yoga class on and off for like since I've come out here since like eight years at Sunday at the Y in Hollywood.
Marc:Joe's power yoga.
Marc:Hello, everybody.
Marc:I see some new faces.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:I hope I hope everybody's feeling good this Sunday morning.
Marc:I hope you're ready for an exciting practice.
Marc:If you have any injuries, please tell me.
Marc:I'm sorry, but I would just like to be honest.
Marc:I think I'd like to be honest at this power yoga session.
Marc:You know, sometimes I wonder about yoga instructors because it's clear there are paths you can take when your life hits the skids.
Marc:You know, some people some people become born again Christians.
Marc:Others become massage therapists and yoga instructors.
Marc:It seems like there's a similar trajectory.
Marc:Like, you know, it's like, oh, my God, I've hit bottom.
Marc:You know, I don't know where to turn.
Marc:I'll turn to Jesus or I'll become a yoga instructor or massage therapist.
Marc:But I always sense it underneath it, underneath the, I'm not denying anybody their peace of mind or saying that it's not legitimate or saying that yoga doesn't help.
Marc:But I'd sort of like to hear a little bit of honesty at some point in a yoga class where it's like, please, I want everybody to take a deep breath, breathe in and let it out.
Marc:Oh, let's take three inhales and exhales.
Marc:and let it out oh that's one and two that's right let it out i didn't want to be doing this folks breathe in and breathe out i tried to make it as a screenwriter i didn't make it i didn't know what to do i was drinking and i decided to do yoga
Marc:Okay, let's get into our downward dogs.
Marc:I hate my life.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I hate being alone.
Marc:I don't like the fact that I didn't make it in my chosen profession.
Marc:All right, bend up.
Marc:All right, work your feet back and forth.
Marc:Right foot, left foot, right foot.
Marc:I hate my parents.
Marc:Left foot.
Marc:I really wish that my dad would accept me.
Marc:Right foot.
Marc:And okay, let's move down into a full vinyasa.
Marc:into upward dog okay open it up pull back push back up into a downward dog and I really really want to die I do not want to be doing this breathe in and breathe out I failed I failed breathe in
Marc:And breathe out.
Marc:Push out.
Marc:Push out all of the failure.
Marc:Push out all of the bitterness.
Marc:I fucking hate this.
Marc:I hate this.
Marc:I gotta go.
Marc:You guys do your own practice.
Marc:I'll leave my iPod here.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:There was something that happened today, though.
Marc:I went and bought a cooler.
Marc:I wanted to buy a cooler.
Marc:I went to Vons Market, bought a bag, bought a bag that said keeps things frozen things frozen for up to three or four hours in this.
Marc:You know, it's got the space age tinfoily, you know, supersonic insulated silvery, you know, like nothing freezes, you know, dead people come back to life in the bag kind of shit.
Marc:One of those, it was insulated with that stuff, the stuff that they make the survival blankets out of.
Marc:And it was just a bag with a handle and a zipper.
Marc:And it was like 13 bucks.
Marc:So I packed it up with food, and I went up there with the girl.
Marc:And literally two days in, the zipper broke.
Marc:It was unfixable.
Marc:It was crap.
Marc:It was probably made in China.
Marc:It was garbage.
Marc:It was $13.
Marc:It turned out to be garbage.
Marc:I wanted it to be supersonic space-age stuff that kept my food fresh and good forever.
Marc:But it didn't even last two fucking days, and I was furious.
Marc:I get hung up on this shit.
Marc:I get hung up on it.
Marc:And all I'm thinking is like, I got to take that back for peace of mind to save some face.
Marc:I mean, the way they want us to think about it is like, what, it was 13 bucks.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:No, if I looked at the Coleman coolers, I could have got a Coleman cooler.
Marc:We know the name Coleman.
Marc:It means something.
Marc:It means we remember it.
Marc:They make lanterns and things for being outside.
Marc:And I knew I should have gotten that, but I got the bag and it breaks in two days.
Marc:And I'm obsessed.
Marc:I'm obsessed.
Marc:I'm going to bring that back.
Marc:I'm going to make a scene.
Marc:I'm going to the manager at Vaughn's.
Marc:I want justice.
Marc:I want this replaced.
Marc:I actually don't want this at all.
Marc:I want a fucking Coleman cooler that I'm probably not going to use.
Marc:I only use this thing once.
Marc:I don't camp.
Marc:I don't go out that much, but we needed it for this particular trip.
Marc:But I was furious that I wasn't going to be the guy that said, fuck it.
Marc:You know, it's only 13 bucks.
Marc:That's bullshit.
Marc:And I planned this big stand I was going to have with the manager at Bonds.
Marc:And there is nothing better than meeting, than going to do something like that and realize that you're dealing with a manager that doesn't give a fuck.
Marc:That is the best moment.
Marc:When you walk in and they're like, I don't fucking care.
Marc:get another one, get a credit.
Marc:I don't give a shit.
Marc:There's a lot.
Marc:I just love that where they're, they're being their, their customer service is great because they got nothing to lose.
Marc:That's the greatest type of manager.
Marc:They're not trying to kiss anyone's ass.
Marc:They're not, you know, whoever they're beholden to is not going to judge them for that, but they've got nothing to lose by just giving you whatever the fuck it is that you need or want.
Marc:And I even like that attitude.
Marc:Don't even pretend that you're helping me out.
Marc:I walked in there.
Marc:I'm like, hey, man, you know, I got that slight edge.
Marc:Like, you know, I bought this like two days ago and the zipper broke and this guy just, I go, you the manager?
Marc:He goes, yeah.
Marc:He just looks at me and I'm like, he goes, well, you want another one?
Marc:I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:Maybe I want a cooler.
Marc:He's like, all right, just go over there.
Marc:Go to customer service and, you know, she'll give you credit.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, thanks.
Marc:And thanks for not kissing my ass or pretending like you give a shit.
Marc:Thank you for that.
Marc:Thank you for showing me
Marc:That you don't give a fuck about this because it has no bearing on your job.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:I'd much rather that than you kiss my ass or give me a hard time.
Marc:Let's enjoy the show, folks, because I got Andy Richter on the show.
Marc:Andy and I were buddies.
Marc:You know, I've been doing the Conan O'Brien show when it started.
Marc:I remember me and Andy used to smoke in his dressing room.
Marc:That was back when we both smoked.
Marc:Looking forward to seeing where Andy is, where the future of Andy Richter is and where the future of the Conan O'Brien show is and how he's doing in general.
Marc:So we're going to sweat it out here in the garage.
Marc:Enjoy.
Marc:I have to be up front with you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't know who I am, do you?
Marc:I have an idea.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's that, but there's also this fact that I, for some reason, horrendous gas.
Marc:I have surprising gas.
Guest:Because of the not smoking?
Marc:I don't know what it's for.
Marc:I don't know if it's a cabbage salad that I ate or perhaps the chickpeas and kale.
Guest:And it's not just noise, it's potency.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I wish it was noisy.
Marc:I don't even hear it happen.
Marc:And I don't even know it happens until I'm surrounded by something.
Marc:Have you ever had gas?
Guest:You know, if you don't feel it happen, that's from years of abuse.
Guest:That's what that's from.
Guest:I feel it.
Guest:I know it's when it's poop.
Guest:Oh, jeez, I must have farted.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I haven't been in touch with that area for a while.
Guest:But have you ever surprised yourself with the smell?
Guest:Where you're like, oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:Where you're like, what's that even connected to?
Guest:Well, being married, too, the thing is that a fart at night, like you are aware, and you're sort of aware...
Guest:like you know you fart a few times and you know like ah it's just all show yeah yeah but then when it's really horrible and then like laying in bed like there have been times too when i've been laying in bed and like had to get up and go into the bathroom yeah to fart just out of kindness to my wife because i don't want to wake her up with the foul stench of my rotting innards
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, that's horrible when you have to literally where you fart and you're both sitting there and you're not sure what's going to happen.
Marc:You're like, oh, God, I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm so sorry.
Marc:You have to apologize.
Marc:Sweetheart.
Marc:Andy Richter is in my garage here at the Cat Ranch.
Marc:I know that you are currently unemployed.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Although this is actually with potential.
Guest:I actually sort of feel like this is...
Guest:a lull before some actual real good employment.
Marc:Are you back in?
Marc:You're part of the gang, right?
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to do Conan's next show on TBS, and then I also may be a game show host.
Guest:I may be simultaneously a talk show sidekick and a game show host.
Guest:Did you see that for yourself when you were starting out?
Guest:I didn't see that for myself a month ago.
Guest:What game show?
Guest:Pyramid, the $25,000 pyramid or whatever fill in the dollar amount pyramid.
Guest:Holy shit, you're the new Dick Clark?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Or Bill Cullen.
Guest:Or I think the most recent one was Donny Osmond, I think was the last.
Guest:So I've got some pretty Mormon shoes to fill.
Guest:I'll say.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Get yourself a couple of wives.
Marc:And some weird underwear.
Marc:Weird underwear and perhaps a tie.
Marc:And you have ties.
Marc:I don't know where I was going with that.
Guest:No, they... Yeah, no, so we did a pilot for it last week.
Guest:And a pilot means...
Guest:We did three of them.
Guest:We were scheduled to do two of them.
Guest:Is it currently on the air?
Guest:It is not.
Guest:So they're retooling the whole pyramid.
Guest:Retooling it to be on, and the aim is to put it on weekday mornings on CBS along with...
Guest:The Price is Right, the Let's Make a Deal, and then us, because I guess they canceled a gazillion-year-old soap opera or something?
Marc:Yeah, I have no idea.
Guest:I have daytime TV.
Guest:Well, no, I'm telling you what I was told by the people that hired me to do the job.
Marc:Well, I'm trying to figure out.
Marc:I auditioned for a game show once, and I couldn't wrap my brain around the game show.
Marc:I could not do the hosting and the game.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were you able to do that?
Marc:I can't remember the game.
Marc:It's like one guy decides to give the clues, and the other one gets the clues.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's almost like password, but it's not password.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Isn't that pyramid?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, kind of like that.
Marc:Like a pyramid that thing turns around, and it's like, you know, people with bees in their asses.
Guest:There's two... Well, it would never be that interesting.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:It's always a little more... It's things...
Guest:things abraham lincoln would say or famous susans yes exactly right um and but there's a first part that's a little looser uh where the there's a celebrity and then a contestant and this and then they trade off and saying and you get a list of uh things then it's just basically word association without saying the word right kind of in that passwordy kind of way well like so you get you get a word in your head and let's do it do one with me
Guest:Okay.
Marc:It's hard, right, to make them up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You need a special payment.
Guest:This is the thing that you hang ornaments on on December.
Guest:Christmas ass.
Guest:Christmas cock.
Guest:See, but you're not playing right.
Guest:Oh, Christmas tree.
Guest:You're just trying to make old ladies mad.
Guest:You would go on and like, what fits with my asshole?
Guest:My balls.
Guest:Fuck you, grandma.
Guest:Yeah, that's every answer.
Guest:It's like, do another one.
Guest:Just do another one.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He was the president that was married to Jackie O. I hate my parents.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Right?
Yeah.
Guest:Not the time.
Guest:Oh, sorry.
Guest:That's during the chat part.
Guest:When we go, so, hey, Mark, I understand.
Guest:You're from Los Angeles.
Guest:You live in Los Angeles.
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:I hate my parents.
Guest:I hate them.
Guest:That's what I do.
Guest:Oh, you meant for a living.
Guest:That's what I do for a living, too.
Marc:It's all because of that.
Marc:Well, I hope you get the job if you want the job, and I'm glad that Conan's going to the thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I don't even understand.
Marc:Like, I've known you, because we used to meet backstage occasionally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I apologize for the heat again.
Marc:Are you okay over there?
Guest:No, that's all right.
Guest:I'm fine.
Guest:I actually, I was playing tennis, so I already was sweaty and gross.
Guest:Oh, good, good.
Guest:So I'm just doubling up.
Marc:I'm holding my gas in, too, out of respect.
Guest:Please do.
Marc:Out of respect.
Marc:You could pause and step outside.
Marc:No, I'm going to hold it.
Marc:I don't have to do it yet.
Marc:All right.
Marc:They've been, like, surprising.
Marc:Like, the farts that I'm having are so bad that I wish that someone's around so I could go, did you hear that?
Marc:Like, they go on so long.
Marc:I'm like, oh, my God, where was I hiding that?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's like a magic trick.
Guest:I have found lately that airline travel has made me very gassy.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And it just seems like someone hooks up air.
Guest:And while I was on the Conan tour, I came home one time at 4 o'clock in the morning and was doing my best to not wake up the entire household, but was having the loudest, most trumpeting, like bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.
Guest:Kind of farts.
Guest:And then I was kind of hilarious to try and, you know, maybe think, I'm going to put that in a script someday.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How is that not funny?
Guest:A cat burglar with horrible gas.
Marc:You should just, like, picture, like, a quiet street neighborhood at night.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, maybe, and just all the homes are dark, and you just hear, like...
Marc:And the light comes on.
Marc:I don't know where it fits in.
Marc:Oh, you're home.
Marc:Yeah, it could fit into any sitcom.
Marc:It sure could.
Marc:It could fit into any movie.
Marc:Okay, so I've known you since the beginning of Conan.
Marc:We were there at the beginning.
Marc:You were obviously the co-host there, and I would come in occasionally, and we would smoke cigarettes in your office back in the day when we smoked cigarettes.
Marc:And we were both aggravated and angry, but making the best of things.
Marc:And the one thing I never knew about you, and it turns out I still don't, is where the hell do you come from?
Guest:Oh.
Marc:What is your background?
Guest:I come from the Midwestern part of the United States.
Guest:Chicago?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Outside of there.
Guest:Illinois.
Guest:Born in, you know, I was born in Michigan, but it's all around the Great Lakes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you came up doing what?
Marc:Improv.
Marc:Oh, so you were part of Second City?
Guest:I never did Second City because at the time that I had started, which would have been...
Guest:1989.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Second City was kind of shitty.
Guest:It was sort of being poorly managed and was resting on its laurels.
Guest:We made John Belushi?
Guest:Yeah, that kind of thing.
Guest:And the thing that you really... Well, what it did do, as opposed to other improv places in town...
Guest:Specifically, the ImprovOlympic, which is where I was.
Guest:The ImprovOlympic had Del Close, who was sort of the... He was like a wizard, right?
Guest:The brain master of... Modern improv was pretty much a creation of his...
Guest:It was called the... The Herald.
Marc:The Herald.
Marc:The long form that he did.
Marc:That was the Del Close.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was a very good teacher and a very inspirational teacher.
Guest:You knew him?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I took classes with him.
Guest:Second City had...
Guest:I don't know how many levels of classes that you went through, at the end of which you got a T-shirt, and the big thing that you could possibly get was a chance to travel around in a van and get on what they called tourco, travel around in a van doing nickels and may bits at community centers in Kankakee, Illinois.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And that did not appeal.
Guest:Even though that was the way to make some money.
Marc:That wasn't the showbiz trajectory.
Guest:Yeah, that just didn't seem like fun to me.
Guest:And also, Second City was very...
Guest:They were very stingy with the stage time.
Guest:And I realized early on that stage time was what was going to teach you how to do comedy.
Guest:And the ImprovOlympic, if you were good, because the woman that ran the thing, she was sort of the business end of it, Sharna Halpern.
Guest:If you were good, she made money off you.
Guest:So she needed to get the good people on stage as quickly as possible to have a two drink minimum.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, which is kind of a usury kind of situation, but so is every beginning of show business.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Show business is business.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, I got on a team pretty quickly and just kind of came up that way.
Guest:How did Conan find you?
Guest:How did they find you?
Guest:Well...
Guest:There was the thing where I started to actually make a living, not a good living, but a living.
Guest:In Chicago, I also worked at a theater called the Annoyance Theater.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they did a thing called the Real Live Brady Bunch.
Guest:I remember that.
Guest:It was Brady Bunch shows on stage.
Marc:I remember when that was a big thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they brought it to New York.
Guest:It was a dopey thing that we did that just- Took off.
Guest:Coincided nicely with all that disco nostalgia.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it became a huge phenomenon.
Guest:But it was a phenomenon, too, because it was really funny.
Guest:They were really talented, funny, comedic actors.
Marc:Well, that one who played Jan was on SNL.
Marc:What was her name?
Marc:What happened to her?
Guest:Melanie Hutzel.
Guest:Right, Melanie Hutzel.
Guest:Are you friends with her?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She...
Guest:You know, she was on SNL for a couple seasons, and she still performs around town and stuff.
Marc:But is she done with it?
Guest:Well, she's got a couple kids, but I think she does a couple of one-woman shows, and I think she's still kind of plugging away.
Guest:I mean, my sister-in-law, Becky Thayer, was Marsha.
Guest:She was sort of the genesis of the whole thing, because she resembles Maureen McCormick, and is an amazing imitation of her, and is also a fantastically funny comedic actress.
Guest:Yeah, she's very respected, your sister-in-law.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And she's still here in town.
Guest:You know, she's working at things.
Marc:And she's still married to the comic artist?
Marc:Yes, Tony Millionaire is her.
Marc:Who's a very talented guy.
Marc:And your wife is a very talented writer and performer.
Marc:Yes, Sarah Thire.
Marc:And the Thire sisters used to do that magazine.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Do they still do it?
Marc:Well, Sarah... It was Sarah...
Guest:Thier zine, was it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She did sort of a- Was it still around?
Guest:A literary zine.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:We got children.
Guest:But she did write a book.
Guest:She wrote a book called Dark at the Roots that came out a couple years ago.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:I mean pretty well.
Marc:Yeah, and she introduced my ex-wife to her agent and that- Oh, right, right.
Marc:But I'm over that.
Marc:No problem with that.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:Let go.
Guest:Can I?
Guest:Let go and let God.
Guest:I don't know what that means.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I know what it means.
Guest:I don't know what that means.
Guest:I do know what it means.
Guest:It means cry.
Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:What's the problem with her having a book deal?
Guest:I mean, did she talk about you in some way?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:There's no problem other than she left me and bankrupt me.
Marc:There's no problem other than that.
Marc:And I'm over the first, you know what?
Marc:We don't need to talk about it.
Marc:I'm glad she's doing well.
Marc:She just had a baby, but I'm glad she's happy.
Marc:But look, hey.
Marc:You obviously did something wrong.
Marc:I was an asshole.
Marc:I was a very difficult man.
Marc:I'm a difficult man, Andy.
Marc:But we all knew that.
Guest:But I saw a beautiful lady in your house there.
Guest:What are you doing right with her?
Guest:She's a sex wave that I have.
Marc:A volunteer.
Marc:She's a volunteer sex wave, which you can get in Hollywood.
Guest:And she was watching Freaks and Geeks, so you only allow her to watch 10-year-old television.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's a weird thing.
Guest:You fucking watch that Freaks and Geeks.
Guest:And after that, you watch some fucking Doogie Howser, bitch.
Ha ha!
Guest:You know how I work.
Marc:All right, so they pull you out of the Brady Bunch thing, and you get hired?
Guest:No, the Brady Bunch was in New York, went to L.A.
Guest:It was very successful and popular in both places.
Guest:My friend Beth Cahill, who was on Saturday Night Live the same season that Melanie Hutzel was, introduced me to Robert Smigel while we were in New York doing the Brady Bunch.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Robert and I...
Guest:Then I was in L.A.
Guest:doing the Brady Bunch, and Robert came out to write the ill-fated Hans and Franz pump you up movie.
Guest:Movie, sure.
Guest:So he and I hung out that summer, which was the summer of 92.
Guest:And then I heard Conan O'Brien.
Guest:You didn't know Conan?
Guest:I did not know Conan.
Guest:And then...
Guest:Months later, I was back in LA.
Guest:I had gotten a part in the movie Cabin Boy.
Guest:I remember that.
Guest:I had left the Brady Bunch, and I was in LA by myself this time, because before it was like a whole troop of us had moved to LA.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just heard this guy, Conan O'Brien, is taking over for David Letterman, and he's a Simpsons writer.
Guest:And in fact, I remember sitting Jeff Garland.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He fits into everything.
Guest:Yeah, who's from Chicago, who I've known for years and years.
Guest:He was doing a pilot.
Guest:at the Desilu Studios, that old studio over on Las Palmas or something.
Marc:He was very confidently doing a pilot.
Guest:Yes, about him being a cop.
Guest:I'm a cop.
Guest:I'm a cop.
Guest:I arrest people.
Guest:Yeah, and I eat lunch sometimes.
Guest:I can smell a perp.
Guest:um yeah but so and and i sat in front of bob odenkirk and carol leafer as they discuss conan getting this job and stuff totally giant ear eavesdropping what was bob saying can you believe conan o'brien's gonna get the job it was no he was just saying you know like he'll be great and all this stuff and um and then
Guest:Shortly thereafter, I got a call from Robert, to whom I hadn't spoken in months, saying, hey, I'm going to be doing this show.
Guest:This guy, Conan, is a friend of mine.
Guest:I'm going to be doing the show.
Guest:I'm going to be producing the show.
Guest:Do you want to meet with him?
Guest:He's still in L.A.
Guest:and and maybe get a job as a writer and I said absolutely and so Conan and I met at a delicatessen at juniors deli which I think was my call juniors in on Westwood and Westwood Boulevard yeah because I lived over there he and I met and hit it off and kind of instantly
Guest:had the rapport that we have right uh which is reveling in the same right retarded nonsense right he gets all lit up and wired and you go right right right exactly you are right yeah yeah
Guest:You are.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:You're just right about things.
Marc:But he's like, I remember going in there at the beginning, and I remember seeing you and seeing him, and he's a very intense, tightly wrapped guy in a lot of ways, and he's frenetic.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And you were always a little calmer, much calmer, actually.
Marc:And I always thought in the beginning, or even as time went on, what...
Marc:Was it a struggle?
Marc:I mean, not to deal with him, but I just know that, you know, I could just imagine that he, on a bad day, has got to be pretty crazy.
Marc:And that at the beginning of the show, in its original format, it must have been pretty crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, it was unbelievably stressful.
Guest:And there were some really awful motherfuckers that treated us like shit.
Guest:And who made it, you know...
Guest:But it's not any unique story about the business people who have a network in which they supply entertainment, making the people that actually create the entertainment feel miserable about themselves, treat them like shit, and treat them as if...
Guest:they don't know what they're doing.
Marc:And this is what you went through in 94 or whenever that was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Conan actually, Conan and Jeff Ross shielded us very well from all of it.
Guest:They were very good like parents in terms of not letting us know that we were about to be evicted.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But we understood some of it and I witnessed some of it from these people.
Marc:But the amazing thing is that out of that first crew, you had Smigel, you had Louis C.K., you had Dino Stamathopoulos, or however you pronounce his last name.
Marc:There were several writers on there.
Marc:You guys were doing something very adventurous and infantile and genius.
Guest:Well, it was even, because I look at early shows.
Marc:And I say infantile in a positive way.
Guest:I understand it in a positive way.
Guest:I look at the early shows.
Guest:And it hurts my eyeballs to see me on television and him too.
Guest:Just didn't know how to do it.
Guest:Just sounded fucking stupid and awful.
Guest:It was a little awkward.
Guest:But we had this defensive wall of comedy that was built around us from Robert and all those guys that you mentioned and more.
Guest:And especially, it was just the amount of comedy that we would put on was just astounding.
Guest:We would have basically...
Guest:Within each act, we'd have three separate bits.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And even in the middle, we'd stop interviews to have a comedy bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the pre-taping.
Guest:I mean, I remember at one point early on from doing remotes on the weekends and then editing them.
Guest:I went through, there was something like 28 straight days that I worked with no weekend, just every day, at least 12 or 13, 14 hours of just putting on- Comedy.
Guest:Yeah, this show, which now, I mean, on a Tonight Show, I showed up at 11 and left at 7.
Guest:Right, it's a different racket.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, I don't want to fast forward too quickly, but I mean, I know that you left... I don't remember what the circumstances are, but you went on to pursue a career, you know, in Conan's... Yeah.
Marc:But it was a choice.
Marc:It wasn't some weird thing.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was definitely a choice.
Guest:It was... It was out of...
Guest:Boredom was a big thing.
Guest:And then kind of just frustration that feeling like I was doing the same thing over and over and over again.
Marc:Were you ever happy in that job?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:Early on, and when I was... Early on, I was absolutely happy.
Guest:And after about...
Guest:Four years or so, five years or so, I started to get unhappy because, number one, I was younger.
Guest:This thing, I kind of had fallen into this thing.
Guest:When I got hired for this, I had...
Guest:in my mind, started my comedic film career.
Guest:I had been on Cabin Boy and people liked what I did on that movie and it was fun to be there.
Guest:And I went to film school with the notion of working in movies.
Marc:So you did Cabin Boy and then you get this other gig and now you're like, I gotta stand down.
Guest:Well, it wasn't heavily that way, but it certainly was.
Guest:An interesting side trip from the way that I was going there's like to go like be a talk show sidekick.
Guest:Oh, all right I'll try that because it can only help and I mean it's making a living and show business and Who am I to turn down work at this point?
Guest:Before years in every day.
Guest:Yeah, I felt like I want to get back over on that other track again because right now because it was hard to to talk to casting people and
Guest:They just thought that I was a spokesmodel or I was a broadcaster.
Guest:They didn't think of me as an actor so much anymore.
Guest:And even after I made an announcement, I'm leaving the Conan show, I'm going to be moving to primetime television and film work, I still would meet people.
Guest:After the first table read of my first television show, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, some big muckety-muck at fucking Paramount comes up to me and goes, wow, you can act.
Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, well, you're fucking paying me to act.
Guest:You didn't check that out ahead of time?
Guest:But then I'm like, well, it's a town full of singers that can't sing.
Marc:Well, it's also a town full of people that are like, he seems like an operating piece on the board.
Marc:I mean, he's a name.
Marc:Andy Richter is a piece that we can use.
Guest:So then when you do something... It's also, too, when they can't have you, when you're unavailable, it just makes them... The whole world is a fucking junior high sock hop.
Guest:Oh, yeah, definitely.
Guest:And if, like, that girl's been dancing with that other guy forever, oh, my God, she's not dancing with in this dance.
Guest:I simply must dance with her, you know?
Marc:And then there's also the negative side of that, which is sort of like, that fucker.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you did that when you did Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and how far did that go?
Guest:We did two partial seasons.
Guest:We were mid-season replacement both seasons, and that was because...
Guest:And again, another sort of pattern of television that I found, all the young energetic development people that you really like and that really are cool, they really love you and they push you, push you, push you, and they push you up the ladder, corporate ladder, and then you get to that wall of dumb fucking white men who no one...
Guest:No one's told them they've been wrong about anything except maybe their wives when they divorced them.
Guest:But they've just been told they're right about everything for the last 10 or 15 years.
Marc:Well, they try not to take responsibility for anything.
Marc:No.
Marc:So they're really just like... They should just have...
Marc:Fall guy on their business card.
Marc:All they're trying to do is avoid being blamed for failure, right?
Guest:Well, there was a guy at Fox called Sandy Grushow who ran- I remember that guy.
Guest:Ran kind of, I think, both the network stuff and the production company stuff for television.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he just, from what I hear, just didn't understand the show, didn't like the show, maybe didn't like me.
Marc:What year was that?
Marc:Because I had to deal with them, and he was the guy.
Marc:This would have been- 2003, 2002?
Guest:Three?
Guest:That would have been right at the end of his tenure.
Guest:Because Gail Berman, who was in charge of the programming at the network, but still had to answer to him.
Guest:All of those people, and Gail, I really like, all of those people kind of championing us are the only reasons we were on for two seasons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that we came back again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because he was like, I don't get it.
Guest:Like, we lacked what I refer to as exploding titty.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, the stuff that all those white men understand.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They go, oh, yeah, yeah, I get it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Exploding titty.
Guest:Check out those titties.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was perfect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A director that I know, a very respected television director, once in a casting session sat behind.
Guest:He said it was a studio president, a television production studio president, watching an actress.
Guest:Because the casting session, they narrow it down to three or four people.
Guest:This is for the listeners.
Guest:They narrow it down to three or four people, and then you come in and you basically perform in a room for all the bigwigs, and then they hash it out.
Guest:Terrendous.
Guest:Yeah, it's a humiliating, artificial, gross process.
Guest:It's like slave buying.
Marc:It's a slave market.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Well, can we see his teeth?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Turn him around.
Guest:But this director friend of mine actually witnessed this studio president writing on his notepad, because he's writing notes about each woman.
Guest:He wrote, I wouldn't fuck her.
Guest:Like, actually had to write it out for himself to remind himself, oh, yeah, that one, I wouldn't fuck her.
Guest:So she couldn't possibly play Jim Belushi's wife or whatever it was.
Marc:Oh, that's ridiculous.
Marc:You know, it's awful.
Marc:The business is awful.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's great, which is, you know.
Marc:No, no, I know.
Marc:It's fun, and that's why it's so fucking awful.
Marc:All the horrible things about it are true.
Guest:But if it goes your way, then it's very exciting.
Guest:Which is why, I mean, because the only thing I really believe in is some form of yin and yang.
Guest:Do you believe in that?
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:I mean, but just in some sort of... Karma?
Guest:Equalizer.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, not in any kind of specific way, but just the fact that...
Guest:If something's really good and something's really awesome, there's a price for it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in this case, doing what we do for a living, the actual doing of it and the fact that you get money for it is so unique in the world because most people just have to eat bowls of shit for a living that they can't even make it on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's going to suck.
Guest:It's got to suck somehow.
Guest:It's got to be awful in many, many ways.
Marc:I realize that we have a lot to be grateful for and thankful for.
Marc:I know, I know.
Guest:And I also get bored with having to preface everything with like, of course I feel lucky.
Marc:But the thing is that, okay, so you did that show and then you did the Private Eye show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How many did you make of that?
Guest:Well, in between there, I did a show called Quintuplets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which I just was an actor in.
Guest:That was on Fox.
Guest:That was on Fox for one season.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, you know, it was like a really good cast, but it was kind of typical.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Slightly dirty Fox family comedy.
Marc:And then, yeah, and then the private eye show, John Groff.
Guest:Yeah, Jonathan Groff.
Guest:Was the head writer?
Guest:Yeah, and Conan actually, it was Conan's idea.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:The idea of the show about a...
Guest:uh a cpa who rents the office space of a retired private investigator and then starts taking private eye work because there's not a lot of cpa work right um it was funny yeah that was conan's idea he had that idea for that show and then he and jonathan groff and i think he'd had it for a few years and they had it to he they finally sat down to do it together
Guest:And they thought that I would be good for it.
Marc:How many episodes did that go?
Marc:That was only like six, I think.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So now I want to get the picture now.
Marc:So now all of a sudden, okay, this weird deal that Conan made 10 years ago to take The Tonight Show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It happens.
Marc:Now, I remember when he made that deal.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And I remember talking to him about it.
Marc:Now, well, that's interesting because when he made that deal, I'm trying to figure out how I want to phrase this because I've been doing his show for as long as you were on that show.
Marc:I've been doing that show since the beginning.
Guest:What, like 30 some times or something?
Marc:Well, yeah, 45 times, whatever.
Marc:Who's counting?
Marc:You are.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So he makes that deal, and I remember that deal, and I remember thinking, is that something he would really want to do?
Marc:I knew the deal was sweet, but the whole thing struck me as odd, that really Jay Leno's just going to walk away from the show and just say, I'm done.
Marc:There's Conan.
Marc:Let him have it.
Marc:Now, you guys, you took over the show.
Marc:It looked great.
Marc:It's never looked better.
Marc:Conan got the hang of it.
Marc:You came back out of nowhere.
Marc:I was like, holy shit, there's Andy.
Marc:He gets insurance again.
Marc:That was my first thought.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I saw Andy.
Marc:I'm like, oh, Andy's got his health insurance.
Marc:Is that how you felt?
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Well, I mean, I had three kids.
Guest:network sitcoms that I was the quote-unquote star of.
Guest:And there, you know, in this Western civilization we live in, there's something about threes and about chances and about you getting three of them and then fuck you.
Guest:So I was intensely aware, and I actually was developing a sketch comedy for Comedy Central, but it was part of just the...
Guest:being chewed up and spit out of the primetime machine.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which, you know, so it goes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, and I actually, at that point, when Conan asked me if I wanted to do that, I really felt like, oh, my God, getting to go somewhere...
Guest:Where, first of all, what's beautiful about the job is when I'm the star of a sitcom, I have to talk to all those people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When I'm the sidekick on a talk show, he talks to all those people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so all I got to do is show up to work...
Guest:where everybody likes me, where I like everybody else.
Guest:Do a couple jokes.
Guest:Be funny, you know, and, you know, write some bits, but mostly just add to the bits while I'm doing them, which is what I'm kind of best at.
Guest:Anyway, it's when I add the most content to the show is when I'm just fucking around live.
Guest:It was perfect, especially I'm older.
Guest:I got a lot of shit out of my system in terms of I wonder if I can carry something on my own.
Guest:And the answer is, well, yeah, you can.
Guest:Not for very long, apparently, but you can.
Guest:So, you know, it's like, all right, well, I did that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got kids.
Guest:So, like, now it's like I don't –
Guest:So it was sort of a godsend.
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:It was absolutely a godsend.
Guest:Such a huge relief to just be able to go somewhere and be funny on television without all the fucking bullshit and all the jumping through hoops.
Marc:And get your health insurance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, people forget that we still work for a living.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when I saw you, I was like, well, thank God Andy's got a gig.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Where the hell's he been?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Were you in a dark place?
No.
Guest:It would come and go, where things would happen and it would be okay.
Guest:But yeah, no, it got kind of scary, and there were some home equity loans that were done.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:But definitely, yeah.
Guest:No, because when I would work- But you were already out here.
Guest:You were the only guy that was actually already out.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I'd been out here since 2001.
Guest:So you didn't have that thing where it's like, I abrooted my life.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Nothing like that.
Marc:How many of those guys went back?
Marc:Are they all still out here?
Marc:Only a couple.
Guest:Only a couple.
Guest:Some of them have gone back just to do-
Guest:You know, like guys like stage managers going back to just kind of do some award shows.
Marc:But Smiley's still here and Brian Kiley and Sweeney.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And you guys are signed up.
Marc:You're going.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Everyone's going to TBS.
Guest:As far as I know, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm not pretty to all of that.
Guest:And it will be...
Guest:it will be it's not the tonight show it's a startup on a cable network so you know there's well that's good in one sense but there's not as much money is basically what it is yeah so in terms of who's going to be able to come and you know i don't know i don't it i don't know if we'll be able to support the entire staff that we did before and that's not because i have any insider information let me ask you something that's because you just don't know yeah
Marc:So, OK, so now my feeling was, is that like knowing Conan and having seen him evolve and grow and see him find his voice and figure out how to do a show.
Marc:Everybody watched him publicly learn how to do what he does on television.
Marc:And then you're back there.
Marc:And when I watched The Tonight Show and then when they put Jay before you, what was the feeling there at work?
Marc:Did you feel like that they were setting you up to fail?
Guest:No, but that's also because... And I don't think it's that unique phenomenon, but I felt at the time, I didn't want to feel that way at the time.
Guest:I wanted to be optimistic about it because it's my life and it's my future.
Guest:And I don't want... I cannot exist...
Guest:Going around looking for snakes under every table, you know, I mean, and it's the same way when you work on it.
Guest:And I've had because I've had a lot of friends.
Guest:I myself have worked on things that are kind of shitty.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that you just know are dumb, but you have to tell yourself.
Guest:you know, this is pretty good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then when you're done, you're like, oh, my God, that was fucking awful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you got to tell yourself.
Guest:And it's not... I'm not saying that our show is bad, but you brainwash yourself into thinking, this is good.
Guest:They like it.
Guest:It has a future.
Guest:I have a future.
Guest:And so, you know, having Jay go on at 10...
Guest:I felt like, some people like, it'll never work.
Guest:Other people, I think it could be great.
Guest:I felt like, well, I don't know whether it'll work or not.
Guest:My personal feeling at the time was, it's an interesting experiment.
Guest:I wish it was someone else conducting it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I did not see Jay Leno, like him or not, he is not the guy that you're going to put at the front of your new experimental experiment.
Guest:Tonight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Genre breaker.
Guest:You know, that's going to that's going to re change.
Guest:That's going to, you know, rearrange the map of how network television is programmed.
Marc:Yeah, I just, you know, I just felt like when I watched it, it was clear to me that there wasn't there was.
Marc:There was bad faith all around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That Conan, you guys did such a great job with how the show looked and sort of stepping into the mantle without changing it too much to alienate but trying to do the job.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I felt that right from the beginning, and I don't know if I was reading into this,
Marc:that even when the show started, there was obviously nerves, and people got used to it.
Marc:They got more comfortable.
Marc:But then, I think, as panic started to set in, and then when they put Jay in there, that you guys were literally asked to... It was sort of like doing a show in front of a firing squad.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I have to assume that the energy between what Conan was experiencing and what was going on around him, he's already nervous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I just had to...
Marc:I had to assume that this is a horrible performance situation that these guys have been put in.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:We didn't, you know, you try to compartmentalize.
Guest:I mean, I'm a world-class compartmentalizer.
Marc:I wish I was better at it.
Guest:And you just kind of have to.
Guest:You have to put all that stuff aside and go, all right, look, our lead-in sucks.
Guest:you know, across the country, the local news is down in some places up to 50%.
Guest:Because of Jay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At a minimum, it was down 25% across the country, which to me was always interesting when people like...
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Dick Ebersole comes out and starts ragging about us and saying, like, you can't blame your lead in.
Guest:It's like, well, why isn't he bitching about... Why isn't he telling all the local news is, you guys are fucking up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All of a sudden, you know, coincidentally with Conan being shitty, you guys are shitty too, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is all just bullshit.
Guest:It's just... It was all bullshit.
Guest:It was... They put Jay in there.
Guest:Well, everything was done because...
Guest:Because Jeff Zucker is the last thing he did before he did this was he was the producer of the Today Show, which is about solving problems as they come up and putting out fires and moving on.
Guest:So when Conan O'Brien comes to you and says, somebody else, and there were a couple other people going to offer him a ton of money to leave late night and go over there.
Guest:He can't match the money, but what he can say is say, well, you know what, how about in five years we give you the Tonight Show?
Guest:Okay, so a fire is put out.
Guest:You know, the five years turns into six, actually, because it just turned into six.
Guest:Then you get to those six years, a new fire starts.
Guest:Jay doesn't want to leave.
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:Put him on a tent.
Guest:Okay, that fires out.
Guest:Here's a new fire.
Guest:The local news is in the shitter.
Guest:Jay's in the shitter.
Guest:Conan's in the shitter.
Guest:What do we do?
Guest:Let's fuck up 60 years of television tradition and have The Tonight Show start at 12.05.
Guest:And we'll put Jay on for a half an hour to just do the part of the show, the only part of the show that anyone watches or that he even seems to check in for the first half hour.
Guest:And then Conan will go there.
Guest:And that was the point at which...
Guest:Conan said no no but every one of those decisions was made without any kind of thought for the future in my opinion right there were some sort of devious things that happened but I think that they're all in there's like a devious hindsight that happens where let's put Jay on at 10 great idea hey wait a minute
Guest:Even if Jay blows at 10, we still, you know, he's still in a holding pattern.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he, we just pop him back in there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because we actually, you know, this deal we made with Conan, you know, that's, we're not so crazy about that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Why do, you know, because they don't want.
Marc:That's the bad faith.
Guest:Yeah, they don't want to stir shit up really with looking to the future, which is, which is the forward thinking thing.
Guest:to put Conan O'Brien in in place of Jay Leno, who's been on the air for 18 years, whose demographics are shitty.
Guest:They're just shitty.
Marc:In terms of who they are?
Guest:In terms of who they are and what people buy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They're old.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm sorry, old people listening...
Guest:The advertising world thinks you're shitty.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they don't think you're worth anyone's time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they covet younger people.
Guest:We could make that audience younger.
Guest:We could have raised more money.
Guest:But you can't just do that with a flip of a switch.
Guest:It takes some time.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Nobody was willing to do that.
Guest:Nobody really wants to take that because there's a possibility that it doesn't work out that way.
Guest:And they like to make things...
Guest:stockholders and all that shit and all those people you got to answer to and all the money, money, money.
Marc:Do you think eventually you could have gotten the numbers that Jay got?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Without a doubt.
Guest:I think that if we had had...
Guest:Think of how many years did Jay Leno, if we're talking about lead-in, just how many years he had just rich, fertile soil being laid at his feet for him to plant in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you had...
Guest:er and yeah all of you know the must-see tv and all those years of nbc just ass kicking fields just green feeding right into him you know rising and uh and then we get on and we had the summer because we came you know there was like a few months yeah we had the summer within within a number of weeks we had ray we had lowered the the median age of the
Guest:tonight show viewer by i think over 12 years no shit yeah yeah um our numbers our actual number numbers weren't as big um but i think that they would have continued and they would have grown you know we could you know who knows i'm not saying like that we were a sure thing but i think that we certainly
Guest:I think that there was much more of a future in us than there was in him.
Guest:And the ultimate decision was made on the fact that it costs a lot more money to get rid of him than it did to us.
Marc:Right, and also Zucker just kind of said, you know, fuck it.
Marc:His gamble was it's going to cost more to get rid of Jay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he said, well, you know what?
Marc:I bet you this just becomes a glitch in that we stick Jay back in there and people will think this whole thing was a hallucination.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Looking ahead then, what have the pep talks been around the TBS deal in terms of what has Conan said to you?
Marc:What do you feel like this show's going to be?
Guest:Oh, well, what Conan and I have said to each other, and I mean, there's not a lot of like, oh, now we strategize.
Guest:You know, we just don't talk about stuff like that.
Guest:What have the live shows been like?
Guest:Oh, the live shows were great.
Guest:What did you guys do?
Guest:We basically did...
Guest:Like a musical review comedy, you know, comedy bit.
Guest:It was like comedy bits from the show interspersed with musical stuff.
Guest:You know, there's a band on stage, so you got to make it musical to make it more friendly for a live audience.
Guest:And people dug it?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it kind of was... At times, it was absurd.
Guest:I mean, I...
Guest:And this is my neuroses.
Guest:I felt like, you know, this is a funny show.
Guest:This is a good show.
Guest:Because we took about a month to put it together.
Guest:We had about two weeks to rehearse it to really put it together.
Guest:And there was a time when I was kind of worried, like, holy shit, how are we going to do something for 90 minutes on a live show in all these different cities?
Guest:How are we going to...
Guest:And throughout the rehearsal process, I felt like, okay, you know what?
Guest:This is fun.
Guest:There's some good stuff in here.
Guest:This is a funny show.
Guest:This is 90 minutes of entertainment.
Guest:This is a good, funny show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then we started doing it and people went bananas, ape shit, like, and I felt like, you know, it's not that good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a good show, but Jesus, kids, calm down.
Marc:Well, they rallied behind him.
Marc:I think he became sort of a cause.
Guest:He became a cause.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, and Conan's aware of that.
Marc:Well, was part of the drive to do the live shows a sort of like a political campaign to cross the country at the back of a train going, hello, I'm still here.
Guest:A victory lap sort of?
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, not a victory lap, just sort of like, let's rally the troops because we're getting ready to launch.
Guest:Well, I mean...
Guest:Maybe it became that, but the main thing it was was he couldn't be on TV.
Guest:He couldn't even be on the internet.
Guest:He couldn't have done a podcast.
Guest:He can't right now.
Guest:He can't until September.
Guest:He was on 60 Minutes, but that's different because that's an interview.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:He can't provide entertainment anywhere until September, except in a live arena.
Guest:I wouldn't be surprised if his wife said, you got to do something.
Guest:You can't sit in this house.
Guest:Like you said, he runs on a high RPM and he needs a lot of outlet.
Guest:Yeah, he's very intense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we did that.
Guest:And also it was...
Guest:He paid a lot of people out of his pocket until, I think, up until June.
Guest:He made sure that people were paid out of his own pocket up until June.
Guest:But it was harder to pay the band out of some reason for some kind of union reason.
Guest:So that was a big... One of the big things was to get the band paid, like to give the band...
Marc:Oh, so really the secret mission was to get the band paid.
Guest:To get the band paid and to just keep going.
Guest:To just kind of keep going, yeah.
Guest:And then to go do that, it's unusual for us to go do that.
Guest:So it did kind of have to be answered, why are we doing this?
Guest:Which is the first half hour of the show was kind of him doing a bit of a stand-up bit about...
Guest:You know, why are we doing this, which seemed very vital for the first three weeks or so of the tour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then towards the end, especially after the TBS deal was announced, it seemed more and more sort of like, oh, this is yesterday's news.
Guest:But, you know, we'd written the show, had a limited shelf life.
Guest:And so we just did it.
Marc:And you had a pretty good time.
Guest:I had a great time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So now the TBS show is going to start in September.
Guest:It's going to start November 8th, I think, is the air date.
Marc:And what's the word out?
Marc:Let's get back to that question.
Marc:What do you feel the format's going to be?
Marc:Is it going to be the 1230 show, basically?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I really don't.
Guest:We haven't had any of those kind of discussions about it.
Guest:Well, we've had discussions about not having that discussion.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:while we were out on tour because i actually haven't talked to conan since the tour left because he went to connecticut and just started to decompress and uh in fact i just emailed him yesterday just to ask him if he was back here yet um but he had we talked about how we didn't feel like we were even
Marc:able to start thinking about what the hell the show would be but do you feel like the pressure's off a little bit and you're excited to sort of get like there's something about you know tbs is going to be supportive you know there's less money at stake the ratings are not this it's not the same game that maybe you can build something organically all of those things and all of those things and we're not feeling we're not we're not becoming the caretakers of a beloved
Guest:Right.
Marc:But also I have to imagine that in some respects in the minds of Conan and the writers that you're going to have to tweak it enough so that it becomes something original again.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:To you guys.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So that no one's going to make these comparisons when the numbers come out or anything else.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It has to be its own thing again.
Guest:But...
Guest:I just know from our process that that kind of thinking, that will be the cart, and the horse will be what's going to be funny and what feels right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And what seems like, you know, there is a marketplace that you have to be aware of, and what, you know, where is there a vacuum?
Guest:Like, what's not out there in the marketplace right now?
Guest:That's going to be interesting.
Guest:So, I mean, it's all, those are all questions that we have to decide, and I don't, you know,
Guest:I definitely know that from the late night show to the tonight show, there was certainly a level.
Guest:Conan used to tell, you know, he started saying, like, I just don't see, you know, it's the tonight show.
Guest:We can't have a trap door open up and an old sea captain come out and go like, hey, you, O'Brien, get over here.
Guest:You know, we get it just at the tonight show.
Marc:He said that.
Guest:Yeah, he said things like that.
Marc:You think he was wrong?
Guest:Yeah, no, I don't think he was wrong.
Guest:I don't think he was wrong because... Well, number one, it's his show, and what you say is right and wrong.
Guest:No, I understand.
Guest:But I don't think he was wrong because I just think he's right.
Guest:I think that The Tonight Show is about...
Guest:It's bigger.
Guest:Is about a talk show.
Guest:And when we did The Tonight Show, it was about him and me and the band being in that studio interviewing famous people.
Marc:And also, I think that the absurd comedy bits had to be, I think the way he was thinking is like, we can do what we did, but it's going to have to be bigger.
Marc:It's going to have to fit this stage.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Well, it's not so much the bigness of it.
Guest:It's the, all right.
Guest:everybody at 12 35 we could say to the audience we are going to change the reality now yeah like now all of a sudden there's going to be a ghost that comes in here and this is going to be for the next four minutes a little ghost story yeah are you with us yeah and the audience being mostly college kids and unemployed people said yes it's a very small studio that studio yeah that too that that's helpful too um
Guest:But at The Tonight Show, it's the Tonight Show.
Guest:You can't have a Dracula.
Marc:It's hard to make it small and to shift the reality.
Guest:There were bits that we would try and rehearse
Guest:uh that would feel we'd go no that feels more 12 30 and i can tell you this isn't me i prefer 12 30 that's much more to my taste yeah but when you're doing a show like that you gotta it's not for you that you're doing it you know and you you have to consider
Guest:They call it a host.
Guest:Just like when you got people at your house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you got company, you got to make them comfortable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't, like, I'm going to have a dinner party and challenge those motherfuckers to, you know, eat the food I serve.
Guest:Yeah, to update their ethos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'll show them.
Guest:Welcome, asshole.
Guest:And we have talked about the fact that it will be fun to, like I say, not...
Guest:fucking worry about that well not you know not have to worry about doing a living up to this franchise starting something new something that you know he's definitely said this is the first time i've haven't been handed something or handed off something i shouldn't say handed like it was a gift but i mean you know like now he's interesting out on his own and he hasn't like
Guest:the torch has not been passed because it was from Letterman and then it was from Leno.
Guest:So now it's his.
Guest:And for me, the most exciting thing, having done this long enough, the only thing that I trust anymore, because I've been, I was the fucking sidekick on The Tonight Show and that vaporized after seven months.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, there's not a better, more tenured position in show business.
Guest:Right.
Guest:for what I do than that.
Guest:And it went away.
Guest:So I know things go away.
Guest:But one thing that does not go away is ownership.
Guest:And Conan has ownership of this show.
Guest:So he's the boss.
Guest:So we do not have to worry that much.
Guest:Outside of being horrible, dismal failures, which isn't going to happen, we know what we're doing enough that, shit, we can compete with all the other garbage on television.
Marc:Hell yeah, and also it's a great opportunity, like maybe some of this live show stuff is about him sort of trying to feel his way around some stuff on stage again and try to take ownership.
Marc:I mean, actually, when he put it that way where he wasn't handed this, and even on a format level, he can sort of define it however he wants.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That it's sort of exciting creatively.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:And let's talk a little bit before we go about your personal life.
Marc:Everything's good.
Marc:Yeah, everything's great.
Marc:Wife is good.
Guest:As I get older, one of the...
Guest:things working against my career is that I don't give a shit about anything but going home and... Hanging out.
Guest:Hanging out with the kids and swimming with them and cooking dinner.
Guest:How old are they now?
Guest:I have a nine-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl.
Guest:And that's like this... Doing this tour was really fun, but...
Guest:Like Conan said at one point, he's like, it's just really hard to go and do these shows and then go home.
Guest:And the very next day, someone says, could you unload the dishwasher?
Guest:And you're like, last night, 5,000 people were screaming my name.
Guest:But I, you know, and I told him, I said, yeah, but the dishwasher, that's, that's the real thing.
Guest:Like, that's the thing that the other, the other thing I, there's something in me.
Guest:And I've never had 5,000 people scream my name.
Guest:I mean, but I, well, I have.
Guest:I mean, I was on the tour and I came out and people, you know, occasionally, yeah, you know, but that shit I don't trust.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like unloading the dishwasher like that, I feel like I trust this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like this is important.
Guest:This will be there tomorrow.
Guest:I got to unload this dishwasher to show these people, you know, who like it or not are going to be the ones wiping my ass.
Yeah.
Guest:I gotta show them, look, I downloaded the dishwasher.
Guest:You're gonna have to roll me over.
Marc:Oh, beautiful.
Marc:In a nursing home bed someday.
Marc:And how about demons-wise?
Marc:You don't smoke.
Marc:You've been off them since you quit.
Marc:No, I don't smoke cigarettes.
Marc:It's been a long time, right?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Do you remember when we used to smoke?
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Well, how long has it been for you?
Guest:I quit on, and I just remember it was September 17th, 2001.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it was right after 9-11.
Guest:But that was sort of just coincidental because I was starting to work because it had gotten to the point where I tried to quit smoking a number of times.
Guest:And then we quit when my wife got pregnant because she quit too.
Guest:She struggled with it a lot.
Guest:And then I started up again after my son was born.
Guest:I went to work on a movie in Canada and started smoking $8 cigarettes in Canada.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Every winter I was losing my voice twice, three times.
Guest:And I was starting to film this network television show that had my name in the fucking title.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I just really felt like I cannot lose my voice.
Guest:I have to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was just ready, too.
Guest:I was just ready.
Guest:It was such a disgusting, gross habit, and I was not enjoying it.
Guest:I rarely had that moment of that first cigarette and going like, ah.
Guest:It was all just, I really felt like I was just jerking off with shit lubricant every time I did it.
Marc:Yeah, it's the worst.
Marc:Everything with me, though, now I'm like, you know, because I just got off nicotine again.
Marc:I haven't smoked in like 10 years.
Marc:Now I'm shoving ice cream into my face.
Marc:It never fucking ends.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you have a food thing?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, well, I have a food thing, but I have... I mean, I've always been kind of the fat boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'm active, but I certainly could lose 30 or 40 pounds.
Guest:That's the main thing.
Guest:That's the main thing for me is just... I would love to lose weight, but a lot of that is kind of like...
Guest:It's just not that I'm not really, you know, like not drinking.
Guest:Like that would, whenever I've had occasion for like whatever, like a health reason or whatever to not drink.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:weight just flies off yeah like i don't like i had this i had this health thing a few years ago and and i so i didn't drink for a couple of months i lost like 10 pounds yeah in a week and a half oh yeah and i don't even really drink that much yeah you know i probably have i probably have like a glass of vodka four nights a week yeah but that in itself that's like an extra meal practice you know yeah yeah yeah you know
Marc:And what, but you're not, you were never a big drinker.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I have never, no, the only thing I ever felt out of control with was weed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was, that was, I was, that was prior to when I actually had healthcare and could afford antidepressants.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was kind of self-medicating.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:And now health, and now weed is on, you can get it.
Marc:It's part of healthcare.
Guest:I don't think my insurance, I haven't checked with SAG insurance, but I don't think they cover it.
Marc:Oh, so you're on antidepressants?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Have been for years.
Marc:You got a family history?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They live in a fucking black cloud house.
Guest:A house made of, not plaster, but my entire family.
Guest:My entire family, you know.
Guest:The motto is, come sit on the couch with me and judge.
You know?
Guest:why go out and do things just sit here with me but your parents aren't together right no okay no my parents have been divorced for many many years uh largely because of my father's homosexuality that that's sort of that was that was a deal breaker apparently and how's i mean they tried to overcome it but it just got in the way how does that
Guest:His gayness really got in the way.
Guest:How did that work out, trying to overcome it?
Guest:Not well.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I was four.
Guest:I was four.
Guest:You missed the drama of it?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I mean, you know, it was serial drama for many, many years and in many ways goes on to this day.
Guest:But it's, you know, it's life.
Guest:It's life, you know?
Guest:Do they get along now?
Guest:In as much as they get along with anybody.
Guest:Honestly, at this point, it's more like a sibling relationship.
Guest:And my dad will still spend holidays with my mother.
Guest:And they really are... They're still family in that they have... My brother and me, they have children together.
Guest:But even beyond that, they're family because...
Guest:My dad was my aunt's best friend in high school.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Okay, so your mother's sister?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:My mother's older sister.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my dad knew my mom since she was, you know, like a preteen, and then they, you know, fell in love later on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which now, in retrospect, through modernized, it's like, number one, my aunt is the biggest fag hag in the world, and the fact that her best friend was this guy that...
Guest:Went to like a working class high school in Springfield, Illinois in seersucker suits and dusty bucks.
Guest:No one knew?
Guest:It's so hilarious.
Guest:And my mom tells me stories like, you know, when he finally came out to her...
Guest:She said that she thought he was cheating on her, but she didn't have the foggiest notion that it was with men.
Guest:And that she said, she said, and right after he said it, you know, this whole wave of memories of incidents of things that I should have seen came to me.
Guest:And I said, like what?
Guest:And she goes...
Guest:One time he was coming over to my house and he was late and we didn't know.
Guest:I got worried.
Guest:He was hours late.
Guest:And then he got over and he was really, really worried.
Guest:And he was very upset.
Guest:And he said that he was... And this is in Springfield, Illinois.
Guest:He was driving by the train station.
Guest:And he said to me, and you know all those men that hang out behind the train station?
Guest:I pulled my car in there because...
Guest:I wanted to ask them, why do you do these things?
Guest:Why do you do this?
Guest:I couldn't believe that anyone would want to do that stuff.
Guest:And one of them got in the car with me and then grabbed my car keys and said, I'm going to run away with your car keys and you'll be stranded here unless you give me all the money in your wallet.
Guest:and i had to give him all the money in my wallet that was his story that was his story and my mom was just so upset and like oh and so sympathetic of course in retrospect it's like he was robbed by you got robbed you got robbed by a guy who was you uh you were hoping to have some kind of suck off party yeah you know oh that's hilarious yeah and she said and looking back at it i just was like how could i have
Marc:been so naive it's like well you're from yeah you're born in 1940 a lot of people are though the weird thing is is you know how people say like you know they know they don't know sometimes like you know they don't know secretly or any other way sometimes you get you get locked in your perception of somebody right until somebody shakes you out of it right you keep it right right most people aren't even having a relationship with the person they're with they're having the relationship with the idea that they have of the person that you're with
Guest:I always take people at their word, and anybody that I've ever known who's been closeted or anything, if they say, or nobody's ever straight up, but they talk about girlfriends or whatever, I'll go, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then later it comes out, oh, they're gay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everyone's like, you idiot, didn't you know?
Guest:And I was like, no, because he said he had girlfriends.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I just took him at his word.
Guest:So you don't judge on that level?
Guest:Well, I don't judge on that level, and I don't give a shit.
Yeah.
Guest:If you say you got girlfriends, you're straight.
Guest:I'm not going to think about you any more than that.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:You know, I don't have time for you.
Marc:Oh, that's hilarious.
Marc:So you get along with your old man and everything?
Marc:Not so much anymore.
Guest:When did that happen?
Guest:Oh, that happened recently.
Guest:We had a... At this age, it's supposed to go the other way.
Marc:I know, I know, I know.
Guest:Uh...
Guest:it's a lot of like personal stuff it's like you know it's it's it's stuff that i'm i mean i'll be pretty forthcoming but this is all kind of stuff that i there's too many people involved sure it's all inner family fighting oh okay and um and a lot of uh a lot of just plain old craziness sure crazy kind of abusiveness and just sort of having to feel like enough's enough
Guest:okay you know like until you say you're sorry about certain things yeah yeah no access yeah well then you know it's gonna be it's gonna be pretty surface i mean there's there's still kids you know there's still grandchildren that want their grandpa yeah but we're not gonna there can't be a lot of right until things get fixed right and i'm sitting here waiting for him to get fixed i know yeah like i've i made i it's out there yeah
Guest:Fix it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's in your hands.
Marc:All it takes is a little opening of the heart.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, I know that one.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't talk to my old man for years.
Marc:Well, I hope it works out.
Marc:It was great seeing you.
Marc:I'm happy as hell that you're going to have the job and the show and that your family's well and everything else.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And it was great catching up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Andy Richter, I appreciate it.
Marc:Thank you, Mark.
Thank you.
Marc:All right, that's the show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed it.
Marc:Please, folks, go to WTFPod.com and give me some money.
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Marc:Because I'm building a deck that I had to build so when I invite you to a party, you wouldn't fall and end up in a wheelchair.
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Marc:But you can get on the mailing list, please.
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Marc:And if you are in Minneapolis, please come see me on the 17th of July at the Triple Rock Social Club.
Marc:If you're in New York or Brooklyn, please come see me on the 18th or 19th at Union Hall.
Marc:working up my hour for London.
Marc:Or please come see me at Comics on the 21st where we're doing two live WTFs, 7.30 and 9.30.
Marc:Please go to punchlinemagazine.com for all your comedy news and go to standuprecords.com to pick up on some of those artists over there, you know, like Maria Bamford, Stan Hope, myself.
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Marc:Did I cover it?
Marc:Did I cover it?
Marc:Got it.
Marc:I'm so glad you guys like this show.
Marc:Pow.
Marc:Talk to you later.