Jimmy Kimmel

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets Podcast.
My guest today is the one and only Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy, Bob,
how are you? I'm doing? Okay, let's start from the beginning.
Do you ever pinch yourself that you have a late
night show, you host the Oscars, the Emmy's, you're the
face of ABC. I mean, do you ever say, how wow,

(00:30):
this is unbelievable. How did I get here? No? You
know what I do is I make it all negative.
I try to focus on the negative and the things
that I don't want to do. But you're right, and
in fact, I was. I was just thinking about this
because I was thinking about a dinner I had at
my house with a bunch of comedians, and um, you

(00:50):
has some guys that I always loved, and I thought, wow,
I hope I never get over that feeling of two things.
Number one, I can't believe these guys are in my house,
and then number two, I can't believe this is my house.
Let's just go back for a second. Was the negative
thing a joke? Because don't forget a Letterman. Letterman is

(01:14):
you know, uh famous for being self loathing and finding
the cloud in any silver lining. I am not self
loathing by any means. I you know, I think I
have relatively good self esteem. But I don't want to
do anything I have to do. Even if I enjoy
doing the thing I have to do, I want to
do it. It's a weird thing. It's like anything that's

(01:35):
on the schedule as my enemy. Uh my dream day
is something that has no appointments on it. So you know,
I know it's not the greatest way to look at things.
It's actually a very bad way to look at things.
But it does seem to be conssistent throughout my career. Okay,
so let's say you have a day with nothing on

(01:55):
the schedule. Is that end up being great? Were does
the day drag? Oh? The day never drags. There always
a million things to do. And my wife makes fun
of me because we have a beach house and we'll
go there on the weekends and I'll just sit at
the table in the kitchen and work all day with
the door open. She's like, you know, you never even

(02:18):
you didn't even look, you didn't go outside all day.
It's like, I know, I just need to catch up.
I just I that's what relaxes me being caught up
on that huge list of things to do? Do you
actually have a list? Keep a list? I do I
keep a list? Is it a physical or do you
keep it in an app? I keep it in you know,
the notes app. I keep mind too. It goes to

(02:42):
do April, and then I don't get to most of
the things, and it becomes to do May one and
so on. Now do you have certain things that just
stay at the bottom month after month after month. Let
me look at it right now and I'll tell you
this will be in true thing. Okay, um, yeah, there

(03:03):
are certain things that, um that do stay at the bottom.
One that aren't urgent, and there are things that I
hope to get to, but like I have to make
a video for a charity that doesn't have a real
hard deadline, so I haven't gotten to that. There's a
listed something that says t shirts. I don't even know
what that means. Uh. There's something that says fire pits

(03:26):
with a question mark next to it. So well, it's
funny because at the bottom I have this I have
to make this phone call to this rock star I
know pretty well, but I know what's gonna be like
two or three hours, and I haven't quite geared myself
up for it. And now it's been like five months,
and I said, well, if I cross it off, does
that mean I'm not doing it or just that it's

(03:46):
in my mind? But let's go back. Is it just
a hurdle that once something's on the schedule and you start,
you forget it, you know your anxiety or you're not
wanting to do it just a years or do you
have to kind of get revved up and get into it.
Um No, I'm okay. Once I get you know, I
have so many things to do that it's just like

(04:08):
I'm like a like a hooker in some ways, it's
just like, all right, let's he here we go. All right,
let's just do this. And there are a lot of meetings.
The meanings are the things the thing that I don't
necessarily care for. But most of it's fine. Most of
it is me doing what I call homeworks, is editing
scripts and going through hundreds of ideas and figuring things out. Yeah,

(04:32):
that kind of thing. Okay, let's separate their meetings that
are business and meetings for the show. What percentage of
there meetings for the show and what percentage or meetings
for external stuff for the show for external stuff. Okay,
so during COVID, were those meetings done via zoom or

(04:53):
conference call or what they're mostly still being done via zoom.
I don't know if you know this, Bob, but COVID
is not over yet. I know that Steve Cropper thinks
it is. But well, I will tell you it's a
very strange thing if we get into this, because I'm
taking it very seriously. I know. I mean you probably
do too, those of us who know a lot of
different people. I know a lot of people have died,

(05:15):
and it's definitely possible. And in my particular case, I
take the one drug that if you take it, the
vaccine doesn't work. So I have been vaccinated months ago,
and they now have a test that can literally show
how many antibodies you have. And the threshold on the
test is one. Most people have over twenty. I have

(05:37):
point one. So I don't go down my whole avenue.
But I will say I'm taking it unbelievably seriously. Other
than doctors, I'm not seeing anybody. I'm going hike in
the mountains. Otherwise I'm home. I'd close up your nose
holes if I was you. I mean, just that's a boy.
That's scary. I'm sorry you're going through that. That is,

(05:57):
but I will tell you I was just at it.
I just did a shoot this morning at a gymnastics place,
and I'm trying to learn to do a cartwheel and
one of the people neither can I by the way,
none of one of the people that works there. You know,
we were putting a mask and somebody's like, yeah, her
husband passed away from COVID. It's like, oh my god,

(06:18):
you know it's you. It's easy to forget that these
numbers that you see on CNN, that there people, and
that people lose their loved ones to this, and that
it's not just an inconvenience, which I think is what
it is for probably most people, just in inconvenience. That's

(06:38):
more than an inconvenience. Well, there's so many things there.
I mean, well, people don't realize is someday they're gonna die,
even like Sumner Redstone or as Jerry Seinfeld says, we're
here to be replaced. And what they when you die,
I don't care who you are. Life goes on. So
you think what you're doing is so important. It's really

(07:00):
a strange thing. But when you have these meetings, do
you run the meeting? Um? Not? Usually no, who runs
the meeting? The meeting is usually focused on me, So
it depends on what department I'm talking to. They're usually
pitching me stuff or trying to get my take on something.
Usually I don't run the meeting, no, okay, But in

(07:20):
the meeting it demands your attention the whole time. Yeah,
so you're not doodling. You're not, you know, surfing the
web while you're doing this whatever. I am doodling, but
but my not different part of my brain is paying attention. Okay.
Can one say that you're moving so fast and there's
so much in the landscape that really you don't have

(07:43):
time to think about it and what it means. Yeah,
there are a lot of things I don't have time.
There are things I wish I'd had more time to
think through. But you know, the worst part of this
job is being asked a million questions and knowing, unless
you're a lunatic, knowing that yeah, a certain percentage of

(08:03):
your answers have to be wrong. There again't all be right.
So you could ask like two questions in a day,
and that doesn't even count picking between jokes or bits
or whatever it is, and um, a certain percentage of
them are not going to be right. And it's you know,
that's just something that you have to accept. You know.

(08:24):
I go to a therapist for that because it's very hard.
He says, just make a decision, whether it's right or wrong.
It's you know, it's what you've already achieved that you
know that a certain number will inherently be wrong. But
I will tell you, Bob, I'll tell you a weird thing.
I can make a million decisions when it comes to
work or you know, comedy or material whatever, But when
it comes to trying to figure out what to do

(08:47):
for vacation, I am I mean, and my wife is
this way too. We cannot ever make a decision. It
becomes like we almost always make the decision at the
last minute. Well, we're absolutely us two, but because we
just can't, it's just two. It's overwhelming and it's a
weird thing. And we have talked about it, like why

(09:07):
is this Why can't we figure this out? Why is
this so difficult? And I don't know what the answer is.
I really don't. Generally speaking, of you, the kind of
guy who doesn't plan ahead. I know, I very much
plan ahead, very much. So so it's only in this
one area that you're stifled, so to speak. And so
how many weeks a year are you off from the show?

(09:30):
I am off? Now I have a new arrangement with
ABC where I take the summers off I am off from,
which is really just July and August. So I'm off
July and August, and then we have I think, um
six weeks spread throughout the rest of the year. Okay,
you know famously Johnny went to four days, but Letterman

(09:55):
had five shows a week, even though he did two
on one day. To take the summer off, must have
been pretty confident in your status to even ask for it. Yeah.
Actually I didn't even ask for it. I was thinking
maybe that maybe I've had enough. I don't know if
I can continue going at this pace. And either my
agent or ABC or some combination of the two said,

(10:18):
well what if you had the summer off? And I said, well,
that would be great, and I think I could that
I think could keep me going for a little while. Okay,
so you have a summer off, you have young children.
What's the general plan. Now. You know that's hard for me, Bob,
I can't figure it out. Well, let's start for the beginning.
Your house is in the South Bay, right, your beach house. Yes, okay,

(10:41):
that's a big thing in l A. Because most people
are north, they are Malibu. Whatever. How did you decide
to be south? I have had I have a very
small house. Our house is square feet and I have
had it since. I've had it for sixteen years, I think.
And I love it down there. I like people on

(11:03):
the beach. I don't like Malibu. I don't like I
just don't like the way it goes, you know. I
like to see umbrellas and children and families and groups
of people on the beach. I enjoy it. Nobody bothers
me down there. People are very nice, and it's just
it just relaxes me. When I I come over there.

(11:25):
There's a little hill that I go down to go
down to the beach. When I go over that hill
on Friday, I feel a sense of relief and it's like, oh,
this is the weekend. It's happening. And do you have
anybody's who have houses down there? Um? Almost my whole
family lives down there. My parents my in laws, my cousins. Uh,

(11:45):
so we have a lot of friends down there. Okay,
let's queer switch gears completely. Uh. The reason we're doing
this podcast not that is we had a series of
emails about the whole late night world and you were
telling me that primarily or a big factor is creating
stuff to post online. Can you tell us a little

(12:08):
bit more about that, amplify that. Well, I don't know
if I put it that way. I just you were talking,
you know, I think you, um, you are a harbinger
of death when it comes to all of our businesses
that we've loved throughout the years, throughout our childhood, and um,
you know, for the most part, you're right. But I
do think that what people miss and people are so

(12:31):
focused on, like Nielsen ratings when it comes to and
I'm not talking about primetime television. I'm talking about late
night television. If you were to look at the Nielsen ratings,
you'd say, wow, things have really gone downhill. But if
you look at the reality of late night television, it's
that people are watching it on YouTube. People are millions
of people every night are watching my monologue and Cold

(12:55):
Bear's monologue and Falon's and Seth Meyers and James Cornet
Are they just we actually um offered our product up
for free to YouTube and we get almost nothing in return.
And now people don't have to watch our show anymore
because they know they get it there. Well, one thing
we did discuss. You weren't sure the answer to this
is to what degree it is monetized on YouTube? Um,

(13:19):
well it is monetized. But the I mean you're talking
about compared to television rate revenue, You're you're talking about
probably ten of our revenue comes from YouTube. Okay, So
what is the goal? Is the goal you say a
lot of people they're watching, they never watch you on
regular television when you're on for an hour, So it's

(13:42):
not revenue. Is it to keep your name in the game?
Is it for personal satisfaction? What is it all about? Well,
it just kind of happened, is the truth. It was.
Um we started The reason we even started a YouTube
channel was because we made this video called I'm Fucking
Damon and everyone was posting it and it was getting

(14:03):
millions of views on a lot of people's pages and
it had nothing to do with the revenue. I just
didn't like the way some people were posting it. Some
of them were cutting out the interest and it was
like messy. I didn't like how it was being presented,
so I said we should we should start our own
YouTube channel so we can post these videos in the
way we want them to be posted and then viral

(14:28):
videos from late night television shows just for those people.
Were just for those people who may not be you know,
your biggest fan. What year are we talking about, Um,
we are talking about Let's see when was that video? Maybe? Okay,
I can figure it out because it was made for
my forty birthday, but then there was a writers strike
so we had to hold it. I think it was
two thousand eight beginning. So this was really early YouTube,

(14:51):
before all the influenzer craziness, never mind Instagram, etcetera. Yes,
it was very early. I'm I'm certain we were the
first show late night shoot to have a YouTube channel.
So then we started posting our videos there just because
you know, you want people as many people to see
your stuff as possible. It seemed like a way, uh

(15:12):
to catalog your show and your best bits, and then
people could go and look at something you're particularly proud of.
We none of us realized that it would go completely
upside down and most people will be watching on YouTube,
you know, and that's what has happened. But you can't
really put it back in the box, you know. It's
it's you can't just get off YouTube. It's not because

(15:34):
you'd have to coordinate with all of the shows to
get off YouTube, and then you'd have pirates putting the
stuff up anyway, and it usually takes twenty four hours
to get it taken down, so it would just be
you'd wind up just like chasing your dog around in circles.
What did ABC say about this? They, you know, they
felt the same way. They're like, yeah, fine, you know, uh,

(15:56):
let's we'll put it on you We'll go on YouTube, okay,
because some of these channels they insistence on their own
domain page and they kill it on YouTube, etcetera. You
got no static or you were so early that the
paradigm was set before they realized what was happening. Yeah,
and we were all in the same boat. None of
us saw this as the basically outlet from I mean,

(16:18):
we're we're all we're all doing shows for YouTube and
being paid by someone else to do them, which is
a great spot to be in if your YouTube. Okay,
but let's talk about Jimmy Kimmel. So now you're creating
a show every night. To what degree in the back
of your mind are you thinking does this work on YouTube?

(16:40):
Very little? I I always try to remember what I'm doing,
what I was doing at the beginning. Um. I have
an idea of what is going to work. But I
do not program the show for YouTube. Do you watch
the YouTube numbers? Yes, we do look at the YouTube numbers.
You particularly you watch them. I look at it every week.

(17:02):
I get a report on on it every weekend, and
every once in a while there's something. If I'm particularly
interested to see how it's doing, how it's playing, I
will look. Okay, Now you must know what works and
doesn't work on YouTube, right, I have a pretty good idea. Yeah,
So what works generally and what doesn't work? The monologue

(17:22):
is works best of all, um the um uh, certain
comedy bits, when you really put your foot into them,
those will play very well. Mean tweets. Um. There's certain
bits that we do regularly that do well because people
know to look for them. What doesn't do well is music. Weirdly, Um,

(17:47):
of course we have it's difficult because there are licensing
agreements that prevent us from posting many of the performances
that we have. So it actually surprises me a little
bit because I would think that music would be more
popular on YouTube than it is. Uh, just going back,

(18:08):
what is the life span? Obviously these things live on
YouTube essentially forever. But if you do something, do people
then watch within twenty four hours or is it a week?
What you know? What's the wind of the greatest number
of people watch a clip? Definitely the first twenty four hours. Um,
it will extend to a few days usually, But then

(18:31):
what happens, which is interesting is you build this catalog
of material and people will will come back to that
material and um bits that you did ten years ago
and watch that stuff and it gives you a kind
of a huge viewer base. Okay, do you have any

(18:52):
idea because the monologues are in the neighborhood at ten minutes,
do you have any idea what percentage of people who
start stay for the whole monologue? Um? I don't know.
I did know at one time. The monologues are usually
around fourteen minutes, fourteen fifteen minutes. Um, I know that
they do well when they're long people. I think most

(19:14):
people tend to watch the whole thing. Okay, now your
monologue is a little bit don't. Let's start from the beginning.
You were not a stand up comic before. Maybe we'll
get to that later. But Johnny used to do his
monologue and it was almost like it was clear he
didn't write the jokes, and he'd be laughing at the jokes. Okay,

(19:35):
and then Letterman made a whole thing of you know,
the joke doesn't have to be good, etcetera. But you
have changed the monologue, and you'll have footage and all
kinds of things within the monologue. It's just that when
you've even Bill Maher and HBO, he does his five
to ten minutes. Then we go into the show. Whose
idea was to change it up like that? Um, it

(19:56):
wasn't really anyone's idea. Just happened. It's just I wish
I could say there was some master plan, but it
when I started the show. First of all, Regis called
me and he gave me. I said, give me some advice, Regis,
and he said, well start, how do you know Regis?
I I you know Regis and I gravitated to each

(20:17):
other somehow, Um, I've done it. I've done Regis when
I was hosting The Man Show and oh Regis. I
know how I know Regis because he liked I was
on Fox NFL Sunday. I was a prognosticator and Regis
is a big football fan and he liked me from that.
And I was actually contested on Who Wants to Be
a Millionaire long before I had the talk show at

(20:40):
ABC when Regis was the host, and um, Regis and
I had a little chemistry. Somehow he got a kick
out of me, and I out of him. So Regis
called me and he um. He gave me the advice
to make the monologue my own. He said, the rest
of the show is about other people. It's about the guests,
about the music and whatever you have going on. But

(21:01):
the monologue that is your time. That's that should be,
that's yours, and don't forget that. Don't turn it over
to others. Um, do the monologue. Be the guy who
does the monologue. And I was like, okay, thanks. What
My plan when I started was I had nothing written.
I had no jokes written. The first year and a

(21:23):
half of the show, I would go in, I'd sit there.
I didn't even stand up, and I bullshit my way
through the monologue like it was a radio show. And
as like as I I became more discriminating, I started
evaluating the show a bit more closely. I got over
the like, oh my god, we're just lucky we got

(21:44):
this show on the air tonight phase of the of
the job. I started writing more, and I started refining
well and planning and doing and shooting bits with real content,
and um uh, these are things that I don't know
why I wasn't doing them. I looked back on those

(22:04):
early shows and I go, I thought I was pretty smart.
I guess I wasn't. I had no idea what I
was doing. It was a big mess. Everything was a mess.
It was just a fucking disaster. It's a miracle that
we made it to the second year. Okay, so is
your show the type where you're open to anything someone

(22:24):
comes in with a wild idea. Do you tend to
say yes? So you're the kind of guy says no. Um,
I don't know how to answer that. I know what
works for our show, and I know what doesn't, and
I know I've learned over the years that there's always
this idea when you started talk show. Then I'm gonna
mix it. I'm not gonna do it the way everybody
else did, and I'm gonna bit's. I'm gonna revolutionize this

(22:46):
and and what you wind up doing is something that's
not a late night talk show. You wind up doing
something else. And maybe what you're doing is good, but
it's not. You know, it's like being a baseball player.
In a lot of ways. You still have to have, um,
you know, ninety ft between the bases and sixty six
inches to the pitchers mound, and yeah, maybe there's gonna

(23:09):
be a little bit of variable when it comes to
where the outfield fences or the shape of the field itself,
but ultimately you just have to you have to work
within a box or else you're not doing a late
night talk show in the same way these morning television shows,
you know the Today Show, um, you know Good Morning America.
They're kind of doing the same thing but with different people.

(23:32):
And that is you learn what the viewer wants to
see at that time, that's what they want to say.
We've done these big shows where we've had these like
we had krentin Tarantino direct our show. Once we had um,
you know all these different we've done, these unusual bits
were like I'd get on a bus and do the

(23:52):
show from the bus for the whole night, and you know,
all these crazy stuff that took a huge amount of work,
and it always rates badly. It's weird. It's like people
just want to see the show, Like, all right, you
with your whatever the funk you're doing. I don't know,
but people want to see you do a monologue and
then go sit down at the desk and then throw

(24:14):
it to either a comedian or a band. Okay, you
have a young family, You're doing a five night a
week show. To what how do you keep up? I mean,
how much time do you have to surf the web
just to get a feel for it on these varying sites.
To what degree do you have to immerse yourself in

(24:35):
the world of the people who are the guests, whether
watch a movie, read a book, whatever. How do you
manage all that? It's a lot. I you know, my
schedules basically, I go to the work and go to
work in the morning, I come home, I get home
at about six o'clock. The next two hours or for
the kids, and then the next four hours or for homework.

(24:56):
So I put the kids to bed, and then I'll
go through all my emails and all the stuff I
couldn't get to while I was planning the show. I
um will if I have a movie I need to
watch or TV show I need to watch, I'll do that,
and then um it all starts over again the next day,
So there's not a there's not a lot of time

(25:16):
for um me to do anything other than work on
the next day show. Do you ever just fly blind? Say, man,
I've been studying too much. I do this so well.
I can have anybody as a guest. I don't really
have to prepare. No. Never, I don't never do that. Yeah, never.
But let's assume it was a test like the Tarantino show.

(25:38):
Could you do it? I could do it, and some
of them would be good. Some of them might even
be better than the way I do it now, but
some of them would be very bad. And I go
for consistency, and I don't want to get lazy. And
I think when you start getting lazy, that's when you
should stop doing the show. I still want the monologue

(26:00):
every night. I wanted to be as good as it
possibly can be given our time constraints and um, the
constraints of the world. But every night I work on
it as hard as I can until the moment I
have to step on the stage, and then I do it.
And there's times like I'm very good at reading a teleprompter.
I can you can wake me up in the middle

(26:21):
of the night, and I could read a teleprompter very well.
But every night, even though I don't enjoy it, it's
probably my least favorite part of the day. I go through.
I read through my script and I committed to as
much to memory as I possibly can because I know
that it's gonna make it three better if I do,

(26:44):
and that three percent makes a huge difference. That's what
people don't realize. Okay, you grow up in New York
until like you're nine or ten. What's that about? What's
that like? UM? Brooklyn typical lower middle class upbringing mill

(27:05):
basin down at the bottom of Brooklyn, UM an Italian
Jewish neighborhood, running around with kids, Mets fan um, flipping
baseball cards, playing stickball in the street. And UM I
moved when I was in fourth grade. That's when my
family decided to Okay, you're in New York Okay, you're
going to school. You're good athlete. Um, i'd say intermediate.

(27:30):
I say, I wouldn't say I was a good athlete,
but okay, not bad. But you played a lot. You're
always game to be in the game. How good a
student were you? Very good student? That's very good student.
Did everybody else? Did you go to public school or
Catholic school? Public school? Okay? Did everybody realize that you
were doing that? Well? Yes, I was. I know it

(27:52):
sounds like a German. I was always the smartest kid
in my class. Okay, so you were the smartest kid
in your class. Did people resent that? No? I was
also the funniest kid in my class. Okay, would you
also say you were the most popular kid in your class? No?
Well yes, um, in the way that I didn't want
to be not not with girls, for sure, and not

(28:13):
nobody was. Let's start with New York. You leave it
here in fourth grade? So girls aren't that big an issue? No,
they were a big issue. Yeah, I mean they weren't
an issue, but yeah, there's definitely. I mean I was
interested in girls from kindergarten on. Okay, wait, how many
kids in your family? We don't know there's three kids
in my family, and where are you in the hierarchy?
You're the only So all the hopes and dreams are you?

(28:35):
What kind of personality does your have? What did your
father have at the time? My father is the kind
of guy that will tell you about his knee operation
for four hours straight. What if you try to interrupt him,
he'll he'll get back on. You can't get him off track.
It's impossible. Okay, does he tell a good story? No?

(28:56):
Your mother verbal? Nonverbal? My mother was class wit in
her giant high school in Brooklyn, Madison and very verbal,
literally never stops talking. Okay, So how didn't work between
your mother and father? He's telling a long story, she's
the witch. She's talking. Who can get a worded edgewise? Well, he,

(29:17):
my dad operates. They just talk simultaneously. And I'm not
joking at all. Like you can be sitting in between
them and they're both talking to you, and you look
to them with you know, a look of amusement at first,
and going like you can both see that you're both
talking to me, And I know I have two years,

(29:37):
but I only have one brain and I can't process
both of this stuff. But my dad talks at a
very My dad's like it goes like this, like, so
your mother, we made a car rental, Uh, we're going
to Avis and that was a thousand dollars. So then
I looked, I got my discount from American Spread. And
then my mother is at full volume talking about something else.

(29:58):
So it's it's almost I wouldn't say it's harmony. It isn't.
It's a cacophony, for sure, but they managed to just
talk at the same time constantly. Okay, and how did
you deal with this, dude? Were you quiet or did
you jump into I was pretty quiet. I picked my spots,
and I really think that's what attracted me to radio,

(30:21):
is just being just never really being heard in the house.
Okay and usually Okay, how far a part of the
other two kids in the family from you. My sisters
three years younger and my brother is nine years younger,
well nine years younger. It's like a whole another generation. Okay,
what's your sister think about all this? About? What about

(30:42):
my cacophony? And there's no room for anybody? And now
she comes along, you know, I have to tell you, um, well,
first of all, just to give you an idea of
what it was like in my house. Um my sister's
birth announcement. My wife discovered this as my mother was
showing her my baby book My sister's birth announcement said,
and I quote, Jimmy has a sister. And it's not

(31:06):
the way it really played in the favory. It kind
of did. Yeah, my my sister was my father's favorite,
and um my brother. I think yeah, I think it
was you know, mom with the sons and dad with
the daughter. Okay, now, somebody who's like the class wit
usually gets sent to the office this trouble. The parents

(31:30):
are called in. Not every day, but you don't go unscathed.
Did that happen with you? Oh? Yes, absolutely, I mean
it wasn't so it was, you know what, you put
yourself in a position when you decided to be the
I was more of the class clown in the class
with probably, But when you put yourself in that position,
you have to be prepared for shrapnel. You're gonna get it.

(31:53):
I mean, because every once in a while, the teacher's
gonna get really mad. My favorite teachers were the ones
that that laughed along with the rest of the class.
And I had a couple of great ones who you know,
who really you know in the way, that's your first audience, right.
So I had these teachers that got a kick out
of me, and I think part of it was because
I was such a good student, so they didn't hold

(32:15):
it against me. But then every once in a while,
I have a teacher that would just lose their minds. Okay,
your parents would be called in, since your mother is
such a wit, what would she say about your behavior?
I don't think you know. I went to always really
big public schools, so there wasn't a whole lot of
parents being called in. Most of the punishment was meted

(32:36):
out within the confines of the school, like I'd have
to go sit in the hall, and which is a
weird punishment. It was like, I'd rather be in the hall.
I don't know what kind of punishment this is, but
uh it was. Uh. My parents didn't get called to
school a lot. I was always nervous they were gonna
find out what I was up to. Um, But only

(32:58):
when I was adulted I realized my mother was probably
up to the same stuff. Okay, and your father and
mother were both of them working in Brooklyn, or just
your father just my father and what was he doing
at the time he worked for My dad didn't get
his high school diploma. He he went and got his
g e D. Okay, couple, wait wait wait wait wait

(33:18):
before we go there, your father, how many generations in America?
My father many generations in America. Okay, so it wasn't
like he was an immigrant dropping out of high school.
What do his parents think about him dropping out high school?
You know what they didn't know? I think, um, I
think my You know, my grandfather on my dad's side

(33:41):
was an elevator operator for his whole life. That's what
he did. So the idea that you would you would
be expected to achieve something that wasn't something. We didn't
have that in my family. You know. My grandfather on
my mom's side, who was still like the funniest person
I've ever met my life, was an upholsterer and a

(34:02):
film splicer for his whole life. And both my grandmothers
were moms. They didn't they went home and they cooked
and did all that stuff. But there wasn't I mean,
my dad was first of all. Definitely, my dad got
a g D and then went to like night school
to get his college degree. He was. Oh, so he
ended up getting his college degree. He got his college degree. Yes,

(34:24):
and um, there aren't many college degrees in our family. Okay,
how about your two siblings? My neither one, none of us,
none of us have a college degree. Okay, how did
your parents meet? They met at a bowling alley in Brooklyn.
Was an instant attraction or what's the legend? I think so?

(34:45):
I think it was. And they got married very young.
My my mom was twenty when they got married. My
dad was twenty two. And when did you come? I
came when my mom was twenty one. I came, um
a little over a year after they were married. Okay,
so your parents come in good front you one day
say we're moving to Las Vegas. When you're a young kid,

(35:08):
that's like the worst thing that could ever happen. You're
leaving all your friends, etcetera. Not really, because my grandparents
lived there and my cousins lived there. They moved two
years out of us, so you know, we're it's a
very tight Italian family. We were, we were excited. I was,
you know. And also when I was nine years old,
you don't know what's going on. It's like, oh, alright,

(35:30):
we're moving to Las Vegas, you know, so we'll live there.
And I had some good friends in Brooklyn, but we
were kids, is you know, kids move on to other kids.
Did you stay in touch with him? You ever seen him? Since?
I do. Actually, there's my best friend as a kid,
as a kid named Paul Kaplan. He's not a kid anymore,
he's an adult man. He was the craziest kid in

(35:52):
the class. I was always attracted to the craziest kid
in the class. He really was a nut, this kid,
and he still is a nut. In fact, he was
one of the um bleacher creatures at the Yankees games.
You know those guys, And it makes perfect sense. And
of course he's the guy. It's Paul Kaplan. And I
know he won't mind me telling this story. Got hit

(36:14):
by lightning in his living room. Who tell this story?
He could actually look it up and find it in
the news. Paul was sitting on his couch in Staten
Island watching a Yankees game and an errant bolt of
lightning came down his chimney and burnt his couch and
his hair and his TV and him and everything. And

(36:37):
whether after effects or like, is he okay? You know,
it's hard to tell because it seemed like he'd been
hit by a bolt of lightning before he was hit
by a bolt of lightning. Okay, you moved to Vegas.
What is your father do in Vegas? My dad? We
moved there with no job. So my dad was working
at Equitable and IBM in New York. He was like

(36:58):
a computer program when computers were the size of a house.
And we moved to Vegas and um we my dad
got a job at a company called Suma Corporation, which
was owned by Howard Hughes, who was not alive at
the time, but they owned seven hotels in Las Vegas.
And my dad got a job in management information services,

(37:21):
which I still don't know exactly what that is, but
I do know that one of the things that he
was involved in was setting the odds on the slot machines,
so they were just the slot machines. Whatever the payout is.
He was involved in that. So what was his viewpoint
on gambling? What was the mantra in the house? The
gambling was not encouraged. And in fact, my dad made

(37:43):
a big impression on me, one of the few big
impressions that he made advice wise, we were walking through
one of the casinos and he goes, you see this
beautiful hotel. I said, yeah, he goes, you think they
built this from people winning? And I went, oh, no,
I guess not. I haven't read this. Las Vega us
a monument to losers. The whole town wouldn't exist. Okay,

(38:06):
need let's just say the weather is a little bit
different in Vegas than it is in Brooklyn. To what
degree you adjust depressed and so, I mean it is
really hot there in the degree a hundred and nine,
you know, it was it's cold in the winter to
in Vegas it can get pretty cold. In fact, it's
snowed the first year we moved to Vegas. Um. But

(38:29):
you know, I was a kid that did whatever. You know,
whether it's scorching hot or freezing cold, you're out in
the street playing. Okay, So in the summer, even though
it's a hundred degrees you were out making mischief very
much so. And in fact, my partner in that mischief
is a guy named Clito Escobido. He was he lived
right across the street from me, and we became best

(38:52):
friends almost immediately, and he is my band leader on
my show Wow amazing connection. You're very loyal guy. So
you're going to school. You go to public school in Vegas? Yes?
And or is it the repetition of the same thing.
You're the best student in the funny of the class clown. Yes. Yes.
In fact, when I moved to Vegas, I was way

(39:14):
ahead of the other The kids in Brooklyn were as
far as public school goes, were quite a bit ahead
of the students in Las Vegas at that time, So
I was like a year and a half ahead as
far as what we're a learning host. Okay, you say
you've always been interested in girls, So how does that
start playing out? Um? Uh, it didn't didn't play out.

(39:40):
I would be quietly interested in them, terribly shy. Um
never would I. I mean I once that in the
sixth grade, I asked a girl named Lynn Englestad to
the dance, and it took every bit of courage I
had to ask her, and she immediately said yes, and
she as I recalled, she's a beautiful girl, and I

(40:00):
just I was so taken by her, and I couldn't
believe she said yes and then went on the day
of the dance, which was like an after school thing.
I was two. I was so embarrassed I hid from
her the whole time. Okay, I understand that. What happened
the next four years in high school nothing. You got

(40:24):
married at a very young age. I know that's because
I thought I'd never have a girlfriend. I was like,
I better get married to this one. And why did
that marriage end? Um? She hated me. Yeah, we didn't
get along. I think was the problem. And so you
have your first kid at what age? That's a lot

(40:46):
of responsibility. She turns thirty in August. What's she up to?
She's an artist. She lives in the Mojave Desert. She
makes ceramics, and she's doing very well. Wow. And your
other kid from that marriage is my son. He is
twenty seven. He is he works on my show. He
makes funny videos with his friends, and he's interested in

(41:10):
doing the type of nonsense that I do. How did
the those both of those kids get along with Molly
and the younger kids? Oh? Great, they get they get
a look great. In fact, is our son's fourth birthday
yesterday and the day before yesterday, and um, it was
my birthday yesterday. So for a minute there I thought, oh,
wait a minute, what's your birthdate. Ap Okay, this is

(41:33):
one we came, you know what. We were happy that
he came on the twenty one because you know what
April is, of course, not just Donor Day, but Hitler's birthday.
And you don't want that. But uh, just in case
there is something to astrology, you don't want your kids
born on Hitler's birthday. But they get along great. I
mean they I mean they all love each other. And

(41:55):
to what degree do you have contact with your first wife? Uh?
Not a ton. We you know, our kids are getting married,
are olders. Kids are scheduled to get married this year
and next year. So that has brought us together a bit,
and we get along now. Fine, it's just when we're
living in the same house, it was hard. And did
she get remarried. No, she but she has a long

(42:16):
term partner and she on the payroll. You mean as
far as alimony goes. Yes, yeah, she doesn't want to
get married. Okay, when someone looks at you're reading my mind, Bob.
When someone looks at your career, those of us who

(42:37):
were in l A know this ship doesn't happen by accident.
People are not successful by accident. So it's a personality.
I mean, my interaction with you have been significant yet limited.
You're very open, you're very warm, you know the same
type of thing like me and the girl said, comes
come down to the show, come hang out. It's like,

(42:59):
you know, it's all it was overwhelming. I couldn't go.
But uh, is you know what kind of guy are you? Are?
You just a guy's guy and you know everybody, and
therefore opportunities come along. Um. No, I am a very
hard worker. I am. I always have been, always, I

(43:21):
mean since I was when I was when I was
in high school, I worked seventy hours a week. In
addition to going to high school, I worked at a
pizza place, and I worked at a clothing store. And
I just, I don't know, I think maybe it's anxiety
or something, but I was always worried about money. When
I was in radio, I was, you know, really just

(43:42):
barely making it for a long period of time, ten
years of really just kind of like going to the
A T M And hoping that I will have more
than twenty dollars so I can withdraw to twenty dollars
to have lunch type of deal. And so that has
always been with me, and that is you know, that
makes it hard to turn things down, but you have to,

(44:04):
you know. But definitely it when you go the first
like thirty something years of your life and then career
not having any money at all, it's um it really
can like your priority. You know this the things that
you you have to explain to your younger self or
sometimes difficult. I mean it's you know, they're like, wait,

(44:27):
I'm gonna say no to this. It'll take me an hour.
I can make this much money, and you know, it's
a constant struggle. Okay, but let's talk about musicians. The
guy whose name is on you know, not Elton John,
not Rod Stewart, not Drake, but the people who work
with them, who are actually players, irrelevant of their personalities,

(44:51):
they are unbelievable networkers. They maintain relationships with a lot
of people because it's all gig work, and they know
one point they're gonna work a relationship, they're gonna give
a relationship. Was that at your experience in l A, No,
not at all. I didn't know anybody, and I never
intended to do anything other than be a radio disc jockey.

(45:13):
I did not think I would be good at at
at and being an actor. I'm still not an actor.
I'm very aware of that. I did. I just wanted
to make money. You know. I was on the radio
and people thought I was funny, and they would call
me and say, hey, do you want to write for this?
Or would you like to audition for this? And I'd

(45:35):
be like okay, and then you know, most of them
went nowhere. But occasionally I would happen upon something that
was um that worked out, and I had a weird
you know who Fred Silverman is, right of course, so
Fred Silverman for those who know, it's the only person
who ran ABC, NBC and CBS. And this is when
not simultaneously, but simultaneously, but this is when everyone was watching.

(45:59):
This is you know, the set of these and eighties
and a titan of the television industry. But now he's
an old guy and he's mostly retired, but it's got
a production company that keeps them busy. And I get
a job writing for a game show, so I'd go
do my radio show and then afterwards I spent a
few hours writing questions and jokes for this game show

(46:19):
they were putting together. Have any idea do you remember
what you were getting paid? Um? Probably four hundred dollars
a week something like that, which was great for me,
I mean, which I was excited about. So and I
meet this guy named Alan Rutcker, who's a great guy
and who wrote U History of White People in America

(46:41):
with Mark mull and I enjoy hanging around with him.
So I stay a little longer than I've been planning to,
and I start now hosting the run throughs. They do
run throughs to work out a game show, and work
out most every show, well literally a little bit slower
started writing for the game show. Any writers are there?

(47:01):
Just me and Alan? Okay, who is doing the run through?
Before you? No one? There was no show before we
worked it out. Okay, did you say, hey, I'll be
the guy doing the run through or did someone say, hey,
you know, just have him do it. It wasn't either
of those things. It was we were writing the material

(47:21):
and and then somebody had to read it aloud, and
so that became me. So I would do this and
we try to figure out O this and the show
was terrible. It was not working at all. It made
no sense. So but they were paying us, and I
thought I liked Alan, and so I was like, whatever,
so I would host the run through and then there

(47:44):
we were gonna they were gonna find a host for
the show. And in fact, they were interested in getting
Kevin and Bean, the guys I worked for at k Rock,
to audition. They wanted them to audition separately, and they
were gonna bring in all these hosts that people know well.
Ll Fred Silverman comes in to see the final run
through and he's I mean, he's great, look and he

(48:06):
looks like an old TV executive. He's got a glass
of iced tea in his hand at all that gets
refilled at all times, and uh, you know, big belly,
and he's he's dressed immaculately and he sits down and
we do the run through and Fred says, and I
swear to god this happened. Fred goes canceled the host auditions.
This kid is the host. Didn't even know what my

(48:26):
name was. Wow, And I was like what. He's like yeah,
um and um it was I was like just to stop. Yeah,
were you doing stick as the host? I mean I
was walking around okay, and but not with the intention
of being the host. You know, that didn't my mind.

(48:48):
And in fact, I knew this show was not getting on,
so it wouldn't it didn't even matter. But what happened
was we presented this show to a lot of buyers.
We had a um you know, we had a presentation
where all these different buyers from these different networks came in,
and many of them liked me. They didn't had no
interest in the show. But one in particular was Michael Davies,

(49:10):
who went on to produce Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire and who produced a show called Win ben Stein's Money,
which was my first show, and he called me afterwards.
He's like, I thought you were really funny and I'd
love to have you come audition for this show When
ben Stein's Money. We were planning to do it with
ben Stein solo, but we feel like we need a sidekick.

(49:32):
And I said, well that sounds funny, that sounds like
a good idea. The game show host plays against the contestants.
And so I went in and it was great, right,
I mean, it really worked. Immediately Ben loved me, I
loved him, and that was it. I was. Then I
was the host of a show that one Comedy Central
its first Emmy, I think, and was on every night

(49:53):
twice a night. Um, you know we were on uh
just before the daily show, um, every night, and um,
that's really how it started for me. Okay, how much
money were you making a k Rock? K Rock I
was making when I started. I was making fifty dollars
a year. When I left, I was making like and

(50:16):
how many years were you there? I was there for
five years. Okay, how did you get that gig? I
got that gig in a weird way. Guy named Kevin
Weatherly is a great program director. Um was. Everyone at
k Rock was from Phoenix, Arizona, and that's where I
went to college, and that's where my parents lived for

(50:36):
a long time. So I would call into this radio station,
k z z P. You know that station. Actually I
don't huge in the eighties, I think they had the
biggest market share of almost any radio station in the country,
A huge HR station, very very popular. And I would
call into the afternoon guys Mike Elliott and Kent Voss

(50:57):
and they took a liking to me. And then I
got to know this guy, who is your goal? In calling?
I just like being on the radio. I was, you know,
excited to be on the radio. You know, I'd call in.
They tape a bit with me, I do character or
something like that, and and then okay, well you're going
to you we're going to University of Arizona. Are you
studying radio and television? First of all, how dare you

(51:19):
Arizona State University? Whichever? You know? I'm not obviously I'm
not Arizona Fluid based on I didn't know the station. No,
I went no, I was not studying uh that I
was studying English. Okay, And you didn't finish because because
I got a job as a disc jockey and a
morning as a morning radio disc jockey in Seattle. And

(51:40):
how long had you been at college. I've been there
like two and a half years. I went to you
and l V for a year two So you're none
of this is planned. None of this is I gotta
break my way out of the boonies. I gotta be somebody.
No not, so you're calling into the station. Continue, I

(52:03):
called into the station. I actually gave them an idea
that they used and became a really big deal for them.
There was we had a governor named ev Meekum who
was like the first of the great Republican racists that
made the news. He uh, he was a he got
elected kind of by accident because there were three people

(52:24):
on the ballot and the ballot was split. He got elected.
He one of his first orders of business was to
do away with Martin Luther King day as a Yeah
remember that, remember that? Yeah, they were boycotted by and
so anyway, you remember that song brand new lover by
dead or Alive? Of course I wrote this brand new
governor while we need as a brand new governor. They

(52:46):
recorded it and became a big deal. In effect, you
too asked they heard it when they came to town
to record Rattle and Hum, and they asked the radio
station for cop a copy of it, and they played
it in the sun Devil Stadium before their concert, which
was like, you know, it's crazy. I was, this is

(53:07):
you know, I was just a kid, and you know
that I have this happened. You actually even hear it
in the background as Bono is sitting by the pool
um in the Rattle and Hum documentary, and and so
they were like, wow, that was great, and they trusted me,
and I started doing a lot of stuff with them.
And when when did you start getting paid by them?

(53:28):
I never got paid by them, but one of the guys,
Kent Voss got a job doing mornings in Seattle and
took me with him as his producer slash sidekick and
making how much? And you're married at this point, yes,
but no kids at this point, no kids yet. No,
but it's not a lot of money. And in fact,

(53:48):
the general manager told me I'd be making thirty thousand
dollars a year. And when I got up there, I
looked at my paycheck, the first one I got, and
I thought, well, it's doesn't add up right now. It
seems to add up to exactly twenty thousand dollars a year.
And I went into his office and I said, hey,
you know, um you told me it was thirty thousand.
He said, no, I didn't. I said, I even have

(54:11):
my notes, right, these are the notes I made when
you call you? And he's like, nope, sorry. I was like, fuck,
what am I gonna do? So then Kent had to
live with us because we couldn't afford the house that
we'd rented on twenty thousand dollars a year. So Kent said, okay,
I'll stay with you guys and we'll split the rent.

(54:31):
And that's just how that worked out. Okay, So how
do you get from there to k ROCK. I got
from there, we were fired there, moved back in with
my parents and Phoenix. Finally got a job in Tampa
at Q one oh five, another huge radio station. UM
I was the producer and on air character guy. Then
I got a job. I got fired from that job,

(54:52):
got a job in Palm Springs. I worked there for
uh eighteen months. I did not get fired. I got
a in Tucson with one of the guys I worked
with back at kazy ZP. We worked there for ten
months and got fired. And then I got a job
at k Rock through Kevin Weatherly, who was the music
director and van driver in in Phoenix and who I

(55:17):
met at a wedding in Cleveland and hung out with
for a few days. And at the end of it
he was like, you're really funny. I think you'd be
great on Kevin and Bean show. Okay, you get fired
multiple times. Everybody in radio knows that, but Jimmy Kimmel

(55:40):
gets fired. Does the sky fall or do you say,
no problem, I'll get another gig. The sky falls and
falls hard, and and I turned into you remember R
and R. You know, the of course radio and record
So that was really the only way to get a
job unless you knew somebody, and I didn't know anybody
at all. So every Thursday, R and R will be

(56:02):
delivered to my house, and the nightmare was when it
was delayed by a day in the mail and I
would be waiting out by the mailbox at my parents
house after we've been fired for that R and R
to come so I could go through the want ads
and get those cassettes in the mail immediately, because I know,
I know that every radio station has a box of
cassettes on the floor of the program director's office that

(56:24):
never get listened to. And we always thought, oh, if
we can get it there first, maybe they will listen
to it first they've placed this ad and hopefully somebody
will hear it and hire us. And that was just
that's not how it went. We wound up getting a
job at Actually, guy Mike Elliott, who we worked with
in Phoenix, got a job as the morning man at

(56:46):
Q one O five in Tampa and he had them
he sent for us basically, so we he got us
the jobs there. So it all comes down to who
you know. Well, yeah, but for me, it was the
same read people over and over again. Hey, it's still
the people you knew. So all of a sudden, instead
of being behind the mic, you're in front of the camera.

(57:10):
That's a big switch. What was going through your head?
By the way, I disagree with the it comes down
to who you know, because you also have to be
able to do your job. A lot of people that
goes without saying okay, alright, especially when it comes to entertainment.
People are lining up to work for free. Okay, But
if you're trying to get a job through an ad,

(57:32):
odds are you will never get it, never mind their
ads where they're never really even gonna hire anybody. So
it's ultimately something you know through personal relationship. In my experience, Yeah,
I mean when you got to a certain level, like
you say, k Rock, you get phone calls, you get
emails out of the blue. Right, that's that's many steps

(57:53):
down the road. Yes, it was a lot of steps
down the road. So now that you're in front of
the camera, does a light bulb go off? And you
had to say, wait a second, I see a whole
new opportunity that maybe I'm not really a radio guy,
I'm a TV guy. Yeah, but not it wasn't a
light bulb so much as it was a uh it

(58:14):
was on a dimmer switch, if it was a light bulb,
because I just kind of really just saw these as
opportunities to make a little extra money. When I started
wind ben STIGs money. And for the first two seasons,
I made five fifty dollars a show. We won an Emmy,
We won an Emmy, and I made five I think,

(58:35):
what what's your agents say? Um? He said, You're lucky
to have a job. I think the most I ever
made was like eleven dollars a show. And keep in mind, like,
if you like, if the ratings we had on that
show would make it like one of the now, if
we had those ratings, it would be one of the
top ten shows on television. You know, you know, you

(58:56):
look back and you go, oh wow, these networks were
really making out because if they can still make money
now with the ratings they currently have, who the hell
knows how much money they were making back then? A lot? Okay,
So who represents you now, James baby Doll Dixon. I
can tell my audience about him, well, he is um.

(59:19):
He was described as built Carter as a character right
out of a Damon Damon Runyan novel. He is. He
curses a lot, he smokes a lot. He is the
Tan beyond belief at all times. He is um a character,
the the character of characters. He is a brazen man.

(59:41):
He asks for things that no decent person would ever
ask for when he comes out to visit. He doesn't
stay in a hotel. He stays in my house. We
have a guesthouse next to my house. He won't stay
in it because he wants to be in the house
with us. He smokes in my house even though I've
asked him not to a million times. He litters. He
is He's the last living human who doesn't know littering

(01:00:05):
is not a good thing to do. He is just
a character. Okay, So how did he become your agent?
How did you meet him? I met him he was
an agent at William Morris. I had a different agent
at William Morris, but he was my uh Daniel Kelson,
who is the producer of The Man Show. He was
his agent, and so we got to know him and
we just got such a kick out of him. We

(01:00:27):
became very close and Um, he's one of my best friends.
He really is, and he is a nut. So what's
his skill. The key has you keep working with him.
His skill is he is a great negotiator, and even
though he asks for the moon at all times and
then wants them to throw Mars in with it, he

(01:00:49):
everyone loves him, which is flipping the story around. You
give good hang. So that must have helped your career
because the natures, especially when you do filmed entertain Man
or you know, these shows, there's a lot of hanging around. Yeah, okay,
so people just like Fred Silverman, they said this is
a good guy to have around. Yea, Fred didn't know

(01:01:12):
me at all. In fact, I'm saying that is the start.
And once you start having a job with all these
you know, okay, what do we know? You're on wind
Benstein's money. Then ultimately you do the Man Show. There's
crank anchors and all this other stuff. This doesn't happen
for most people. Okay. And you're telling me that you're

(01:01:34):
not really a hustler, that you're not out coming up
with gigs, unless you want to say that, I have
an inaccurate impression. I am a hustler in the way
that I will sit at my computer or for a
time my typewriter and work on projects and come up
with a million ideas and then um some of them.

(01:01:56):
I mean, I have you see this cabinet behind me,
but you can't this. Yeah. Yeah, they can set the podcast,
but I can. I have all my different project There
are projects from when I was in high school that
I have saved up. And it's funny because you go
back to that stuff sometimes, like you know, somebody wants something.
You're like, oh, you know what, I wrote something that

(01:02:17):
might work for this when I was twenty two years old,
and then you dig through and you find it and
you freshen it up, and uh, suddenly it's new again.
Suddenly finally somebody is going to hear it or see it.
And I just work a lot. I've just always been
interested in, um, in coming up with a show or

(01:02:38):
cartoon or something. I you know, I just okay, So
you're the type of guy we're hanging out, you say, hey,
you give you give somebody your script or what your address?
You don't want to send you something? No, I wouldn't
do that, um, but I might tell you an idea.
I mean, I remember how I got Crank Anchor sold
to Comedy Central. Was I was at dinner here with

(01:03:00):
the president of the network at the time, and I
told him I had this. I was like, you know,
it would be a great idea if we took crank calls.
And at the time I wanted to be Acclaimation show,
and later we turned it into puppets, but um, if
we and we made them into a show, and he's like,
that's a great idea. I want to do that. I
never really pitched it. I just kind of floated it

(01:03:22):
out there. Okay, how did the Man Show come to happen?
The Man Show was, Uh. First of all, Adam Carolla
and I were characters on Kevin and Bean Show at
k Rock, and we were very became very good friends.
And uh, he did a character called Mr. Bertram, which
was a shop teacher who would use the state He
would call in to give messages to his students who

(01:03:45):
were on the way into school. That was the conceit,
and he became wildly popular, so popular, in fact, they
hired him to do love Line on kay Rock, which
is a syndicated show, and then uh, love Line on MTV.
And at the same time, I've been doing when Ben
Stein's Money, and I was the sports guy at k
Rock and Adam and I would go to lunch every

(01:04:07):
day and we talked for three hours and it just
eventually occurred to me that we could probably put that
time better to better use by working on a show together.
So we started talking about doing a radio show together,
which is our initial idea. We wanted to do afternoons
at UM at the local FM talk station, but they

(01:04:29):
weren't interested in us doing that. Weirdly, Comedy Central was.
In fact, we sold the Manchow to ABC through that
same guy, Michael Davies, who hired me for when ben
Stein's money. I told him the idea, I said, what
about if what if we did a show for guys?
Um Oprah was super popular at the time, the shows
only for men, and we tell women they're not allowed

(01:04:51):
to watch it. And he's like, I like that idea,
and he pitched it to ABC and they bought a pilot.
We went and pitched it and ABC made a pilot,
which one they saw it, they were like, oh no,
we're never we will never put anything like this on
our air waves. But a lot of other networks like
Facts and Comedy Central made offers. Once the tape started

(01:05:11):
to circulate around UH to what degree would you be
able to do that show today. I think you would
be able to do it, but you wouldn't be able
to get sponsors for it. I think it would be
very popular, but with there would be no commercials. And
to what degree are you talking with Adam Carolla at
this point? Always? You know, we're like brothers. We you know,

(01:05:34):
we don't talk a lot on the phone, but we
love each other, and um, you know we check in.
Uh yeah, we texted, okay. But the reason I asked
this is his politics are pretty to the right left.
Well yes, um, uh, mine are definitely to the left
and they always have been my whole life. Um, but

(01:05:58):
his politics, I think are better described as all over
the place. But the only exposure he gets is from
the right. So you'll see him on Fox News screaming
about nonsense, and um, that's because they're the ones that
put him on. If other people put him on, you

(01:06:19):
might hear some of his other opinions, which are pretty liberal.
Are you know he's gotten socially? Uh, he's the guy's
is pretty liberal. But yeah, he's definitely moved in that
direction much more now than he was in the past,
and it has an affected your relationship I don't love it.
I don't love it, but I love him. Okay, So

(01:06:42):
he was on keless x I was on that station,
and then the station flipped format and he went to
a podcast. He was very early on that. But needs
to say, there's so many other people in that sphere
at this point in time, and therefore he has been
somewhat marginalized, as has everybody this Internet era. There's so
much input. Do you think there's a chance to bring

(01:07:04):
him back to a wider audience And did you ever
think about working or with him or having him come
on your show? Well, he's you know, he's been on
my show. I didn't mean as a guest. I didn't
state that. Well, oh, um no, I mean I don't
really bring anybody on my show. And it's just me
and Dillermo standing in the corner really and occasionally my

(01:07:26):
cousin Sal does something. And Adams really carved out a
nice situation for himself because he doesn't have a boss
and he doesn't have to worry about the things that
a lot of people have to worry about, and he
seems to attract a number of sponsors who are comfortable
with the content, and he's got his own world that

(01:07:48):
he's created. I mean, he really has his own world.
He's got all his race cars in this warehouse and
he does his podcast from there, and he seems pretty
happy with it. Okay, let's jumped forward for those who
were not students. What year do you start hosting the
late night program? I started two thousand three. Okay, this

(01:08:09):
is important because the landscape is completely different then. Okay,
you know we have Letterman, we have Leno. Letterman is
beating Leno until all of a sudden he hosts the
Oscars and that hurts his ratings because people see him.
Timeline is a little off, but he was hosting late night.
When he did did the Oscars, Letterman, Leonar Leno and

(01:08:34):
he just want just get the Uh. Dave was on
it twelve thirty and then he went to one. He
went to eleven thirty. Uh ninety two was it? Um?
It was yeah, right around there, and then he did
the Oscars like nine, three, four or five. Um, gosh,

(01:08:57):
I don't know exactly what. Okay, So continue, continue to
your narrative. When I when I when I went on
the air, I was on at midnight actually twelve o
five and Dave and j were on, and then I
think Craig Kilbourne was on A twelve thirty and Conan
was on A twelve thirty. I guess what I was saying,

(01:09:18):
and it wasn't making the point clearly that you have
these two institutions. Okay, Letterman in Leno and to a degree,
everybody's fighting for scraps. Then Dave says he's gonna call
it the day this were already in the j went
to ten, then came back to eleven thirty, and they

(01:09:39):
announced at the Olympics that for the Olympics they're gonna
blow him out and they're gonna bring Jimmy in. So
all of a sudden, it's a whole new landscape. And
you have been there chugging along, but you weren't Letterman
or Leno but building your audience. What did one went
through your mind when all of a sudden you say,
wait a second, they're rejiggering the whole landscape here. Well,

(01:10:05):
they definitely My show definitely played some role in them
replacing Jay with Jimmy, and Jimmy show much more so.
Obviously he was doing very well at twelve thirty, but
I was gaining on Jay, and they got nervous. Now,
unlike Howard you have interacted with Jay. He famously got

(01:10:29):
into it with him on Squeen. Do you ever see
Jay anymore? Ever talked to him every once in a while,
you know, I've kind of I used to. It's funny,
I I this grudge I had against Jay Leno really
was not about me. It was about Dave and the
fact that I thought Dave deserved the Tonight show. And

(01:10:49):
and you know, if you read any account of how
Jay got it, it's just a little bit sneaky. And
so I always just had that in my in my head.
And now, you know, especially since Dave has like done
some stuff with Jay, and I was like, why am
I still fighting this war? So Jay has been very
nice to me. He's uh, he's he he is. Um.

(01:11:13):
He called me when my son had his heart surgery,
and he's done some nice stuff for charity for somebody
that is important to me. And uh, we've we we
don't have that. We're not friends, but we don't have
that um negativity between us anymore. Okay, let's go back
to that point where you're making headway on his ratings.

(01:11:36):
Are you fully aware of that and are you driving
and and are you saying, man, we are on a role.
How do we keep this role going? Yeah, we're just saying, hey,
first of all, you guys have to put us on
at eleven thirty. You know, we want to be on
at eleven thirty so we can really compete with these
other shows. And they took him a very long time
to come to that decision, but they did. To what

(01:12:00):
degree was the show different from when you went on
at twelve oh five. I'm not talking about Letterman changing
the show, which I thought was a mistake for the
earlier I like when he were the boxing shoes and
you know, didn't wear the suits. But I'm talking about
how much did you learn along the way, such a
when you hit you were really ready. Um. I don't

(01:12:20):
know that I was ready, but I thought I was ready.
I you know, you you do get better at this
as it goes on, and um, you know that's why
it is so unfair to judge someone based on their
first show or first week of shows, because it's it
bears no resemblance to what they do years later. But
I felt I was ready and I really wanted to

(01:12:42):
and I could see that, you know, Dave and Jay
were getting older and they weren't gonna be on forever,
and I wanted to establish a foothold at that spot
before the next shows came in. You know, that's that
was what we wanted. And um it took a lot
of convincing to get them there. Okay, So Jimmy comes on,

(01:13:02):
what do we know? Johnny did a show that was
really a talk show. Dave really did a show that
was a comedy show, completely changed the landscape of late
night television. Jimmy comes on. He is great at skits,
not a great interviewer. What do you think of Fallon
as competition at the time, and it comes out to

(01:13:25):
great ratings. Listen, it was like if for a time
it felt like you were in the corner of the
ring being pummeled. It was just like the ratings that
he was getting for a long period of time or astronomical.
They were like, what what is going on? And they

(01:13:47):
were putting on home run viral bit after home run
viral bit, and it was really like he almost had
to just like rope a dope it and just try
to wait it out because there was no other choice.
It really became a phenomenon beyond late night television. What
did you think about Colbert getting the gig? I think

(01:14:09):
that was absolutely the right choice. I was always a
big fan of his. Always I thought it wouldn't work,
and of course it didn't work at first, and then
he changed some of the people working with him, and
then all of a sudden Trump gets elected and Colbert
starts talking politics and Fallon is a man out of time.

(01:14:36):
It definitely, it was definitely well. I don't think any
of us would describe that as a positive turn of events.
You know. I think if you gave Stephen the choice
between No Trump and his show, Finding It's It's Mark,
I think he would go for no Trump. But yeah,
definitely changed what t late night television was for and

(01:15:00):
what it was about. It. It definitely made the trivial
seemed trivial, whereas before that it was all trivial. Okay,
Now you evolved to the point where you're making news
for your political stance. Needles to say, it is to
the left, and anybody in the public eye knows that

(01:15:24):
if you do that, there are people who will relentlessly
usually the same people attack you, if for no other reason,
telling you your stay out of this lane. So what
were the decisions to go in that area and to
what degree? With our stones and you know, slings and
arrows thrown at you, there was no decision made. It

(01:15:44):
was so plainly obvious that we couldn't ignore what was
going on, and that what the things that I said
had to be said. And I knew that I knew
what I know my audience, I mean, you know, I
came from the Man Show. My audience was the most

(01:16:04):
republican audience of any show on late night. And but
sometimes circumstances dictate, uh, what you are going to do,
and in this case, they very much did. And I
knew that it was going to split my audience in
less than half. But what else? What am I gonna do?

(01:16:27):
Ignore what this maniac is doing to our country? I mean,
it's it's It was not even an option. And there
was a time where ABC was uncomfortable with it, and
they gently a couple of times tried to get me stop,
and um, you know, I remember a conversation I had
with UM, with someone who was running the network at

(01:16:48):
the time. I was like, hey, listen, Um, you know,
I get it. I understand where you're coming from. I
know you want to get the biggest number possible. But
this is what I'm gonna do. So let's just be
honest and if if this is not acceptable to you,
I understand that, but I'm going to go I'm going

(01:17:09):
to keep doing this. So, UM, I just want to
be honest with you, be upfront, and then I'm not
gonna pull punches. I'm not gonna reel it in. This
is how it's gonna be. I get it if you
don't want me on your air anymore, but this is
what I'm gonna do on your air every night. To
what were your active politically prior to Trump selection? Um,

(01:17:32):
most of my activity was related to charity. I wasn't,
but I was. I've always been interested in politics. I
have always been a Democrat. My parents are very liberal.
Of course, that's where I got it, I'm sure, and
I've always been. But I've never donated to a candidate

(01:17:52):
or anything like that. Um. You know, I always felt
strongly about who I was voting for, but I I
never had actually done anything other than vote. So you're
doing the show. You have writers, What do the writers
provide and what do you provide? Well? Um, every day

(01:18:14):
I get like thirty pages of material email to me.
I go through all of it and I pick what
I want to use, and then um as the day
goes on. I have a writer named Josh who sits
next to me, and he will put together a monologue
and I will follow closely behind him, editing the monologue

(01:18:36):
as we go, so I'm like a paragraph behind him
at all times. And I do a great deal of writing.
There are sometimes where I use a lot of the
writer's material, and there's sometimes where I go, Okay, I
just this is something I need to just write on
my own. When it comes to personal experiences or when
it comes to serious subjects, generally I will do that

(01:19:00):
sort of thing myself. Okay. You reach seven figures of
people every night, and compared to other outlets, that's a
very significant number. But it is less of the audience
than it was in the pre internet era. As we talked,
to what degree does this frustrate you, I say, it's not.

(01:19:21):
You're not the only one. Everybody in the landscape. The
only person who had universal mind share was Trump himself. Okay,
but whereas you know, when I went to high school,
everybody went in on Tuesday and talked about what was
on laughing. We don't all we're not even all on
the same page. So someone who is making content on

(01:19:41):
a regular basis, servicing a base audience is your goal. Well,
how do I grow my audience or how do I
do something so special that it goes above the fray
and it gets noticed. I always just I'm a niche performer. Inherently,
I've always been that. I was. I was the third

(01:20:01):
banana on the radio show here in l A. Some
might even consider me the fourth banana after Mr Burcham
I was. I did a very um niche game show
on Comedy Central. I did a show that was, you know,
just for men on a cable channel, and I was
on Probably the most mainstream thing I've I've ever done

(01:20:21):
is making football picks on Fox on Sunday Morning. So
I've never felt like I should be reaching a huge audience.
I've always been happy with the audience that I that
I get. Um yeah, and but really most of my
effort goes into how can we make this as funny

(01:20:42):
as possible? Is never about like how do we you
know what I mean? Of course, I'll look at you know,
if the ABC promo department has ideas, I'll be like, oh, yeah,
maybe we could do this, But it's never about It's
never if you. I think if you focus on that,
you fail. I just you know, I think like if
you think about I know you talk a lot about

(01:21:03):
musicians and making a record, I think if you sit
down and try to make a hit record, you're already
on the wrong track. I you know, I mean, I
know it works out sometimes, but you know that's that's
not how you should do it. That's a longer discussion,
and I agree with you conceptually. But moving on about you, Yeah,
you're a niche performer who ends up hosting the Oscars,

(01:21:27):
doing a better job that anyone has done at least
in decades. It is acknowledged you do it again. So yes,
all of a sudden, you do float above the fray. Yeah,
and but that doesn't mean I'm not still a niche
performer at heart. And uh, you know, I'm not your

(01:21:51):
classic television host by any stretch of the imagination. I've
got a New York accent, I'm not particularly handsome, I'm
not necessarily I'm not the guy that would walk in
an audition for a job and nail it. I'm somebody
that kind of grows on you, I think, and who
tries to be for me? I just try to I

(01:22:13):
feel like and I always felt like this when I
was on the radio. It's not about hitting a home
run today, it's about hitting a double every day for
years in a row. And that's and if I can
do that, I'm happy. Okay, that may be your perspective,
but you are literally the face of ABC. You do
the upfronts, never mind their big events. I can't talk

(01:22:35):
about an equivalent face of the other major networks. But
think about this though, Bob. Yes, maybe I am. I
guess maybe one of the more prominent personalities, and maybe
I'm the face of ABC. But ABC isn't isn't what
ABC was when we were young, you know. I mean
we think still think of it everything you're saying. But

(01:22:57):
let me dive to my ultimate point here. Okay, when
you talk about important subjects on your show, there's inherently
influence there. I can't tell you how many people turn
into your show or already agree with you, or disagree
with to tune you out, whatever, but it's influence. We
have seen this with Fox News. There is power there

(01:23:20):
and I'm sure if you sit in your office having
a right. There's occasionally something so heinous they just have
to talk about it. But most of the time you're
saying I feel this, and this needs to be amplified,
and there's influence in there, and you have a much
larger audience than everybody. It's like in the New York
Times yesterday they talked about these anti protester laws being

(01:23:43):
passed in different states, such it, if you hit a
protester in the street with your car, you can't be
held liable. Okay, I mean that's just insane. I don't
it was in the New York Times. I think the
more people know about that, the better it is. You
have a much bigger platform than almost anybody. Yes, everybody's

(01:24:05):
platform is smaller than it used to be. But saying that,
you were very high in the network that still exists
in the in the hierarchy, and to sort of what
degree do you say I have a certain power and
I have a certain responsibility. Not only that I think
I can influence people. Um, I know I agree with

(01:24:29):
all of that. I mean I do, yes, I do
have a certain amount of influence power whatever, how whatever
you want to call it. Um, I know this based
on my own experiences. I know this based on listening
to Bruce Springsteen when I was a kid, and that
helping to shape my worldview how I I think about politics,

(01:24:52):
how I think about You know, you're a kid who
graduates high school in n you don't know a lot
about Vietnam um. And then you hear you hear, you know,
Bruce Springsteen sing Born in the USA, and you think
it's a Rara America song. And then you realize like, oh, okay,

(01:25:13):
well that isn't what it is, and oh wow, that
I didn't know that stuff, and and uh, you know,
you're influenced by it and influenced in not just as
when it comes to important things and unimportant things, and
so um, I just try to say what I believe.

(01:25:34):
I remember this reporter wrote something as guy he's still
a popular guy, and he's he was a nice guy.
But he wrote something about a friend of mine, Carson Daley,
and he wrote something about him being a douche. And
I was upset because we'd had a dinner and Carson
was there, and I called him and I said, Hey,
do you think Carson is a douche? And he said, no,

(01:25:57):
I don't think that I said, well, why did you
write that, he goes I don't know. I guess I
don't know it worked because everybody at that time was saying,
you know, his image was like that he was some
kind of a douche. And I remember just I said,
you know, maybe when you're writing, I don't know if
you want to take any advice from me. Only say
things you mean, and you know it's hard to stick

(01:26:19):
to that, but I try to. Okay, but let's what
degree do you believe that you have influence. I know
I have influence, I just don't have a real measure
of it. And I think sometimes I have more influenced
than others. I think, and if there is anything important
that we're doing on late night television, it's reminding people

(01:26:41):
that what was going on was crazy, because I think
it would be maybe easy to forget that, especially if
you're not somebody who is really connected to the news.
I mean, I know so many people you think it's
the biggest story in the world. They don't know anything
about it. You know, smart people, people who you know
are have big careers and whatever, but they just don't
pay attention. I think what we offer is um maybe

(01:27:02):
information it's um like when you when you give a
dog a pill, you know you put some you put
some peanut butter on it. Okay, talking about something really important,
your weight. You went on late night TV. You became
very thin, thinner than you were before. Everybody has been
on TV knows two things. Yes, the camera does add weight,

(01:27:23):
and no one likes how they look on television. So
to what degree were you conscious of your weight? And
to what degree are you conscious now and watching what
you eat and exercising, etcetera. Yeah, I mean I'm conscious
of what I eat and exercising. I just don't actually
do I don't do the things that I need to do.

(01:27:45):
I um, I am an extreme person. I like when
I lost weight, and I've been pretty heavy for like
ten years on on the show. When I decided to
lose weight, it was almost like a game. It was
almost like, well, let's see if I can do this.
And it's just starved myself for like six weeks and
that's how I got my weight down. And it wasn't

(01:28:07):
any It wasn't healthy, that's for sure, but it is
I have to say probably the great my biggest daily
shruggle is that because I love to eat and um,
you know, I'm come home sometimes and make dinner for
the family and then I just sit there and watch
them eat it. And it's terrible. If there's one thing

(01:28:29):
I could buy, it would be the ability to eat
anything I want. That would be the you know, that
would be better than any house or car or anything.
And what do we do? The The exercise? Um, to the
degree of zero. I exercise. I was exercising for a while.
I had a guy that would come to my house

(01:28:49):
that I really got along with. UM and then COVID
happened and he couldn't come to the house, and now
he doesn't come to the house anymore. And left to
my own devices, I will always find something else to do. Okay,
filling a couple of holes. Are you still a sports guy?
I have? I yes, I do. I I enjoy sports.

(01:29:10):
I mostly pay attention around the playoff time, but I
have I will say that the last four or five
years have made sports seem less important to me. And
what about football and c t E. UM, I think
that it is. UM. I I feel guilty sometimes watching sports. Uh.

(01:29:34):
Football is not my favorite of the sports. Baseball is,
and it's less of an issue obviously there. But I
have a hard time watching boxing, um because I know
what happens to those guys in the long run, and
I feel like it's like it's not so much different
from watching cock fighting. UM. But I think I am

(01:29:58):
somewhat willfully ignorant when it comes to watching football and guests. Now,
the show's Letterman changed this. It used to be on
Johnny the gifts just came Letterman. You have to come
with the story. It became a comedy bit. How do
you view this and what makes a good or bad guest? Well,
if you have a great story, I am that's a

(01:30:21):
good day for me because it's a lot less work
and I can just sit there and enjoy and keep
the story moving. Um. Some guests are harder than others.
We definitely do things the way Letterman did, where we
have a pre interview and if the guest has nothing
to talk about, they sit on the phone with the

(01:30:43):
producer for a long time and then they come to
me and say, hey, there's this that this person can
talk about, or this and this, and I say I'm
not interested in that, or I am interested in this,
And then sometimes the best interviews, it all gets cast
aside and we get to none of that material. It's
more of a safety net than anything. But if somebody
is a great story, you want to make sure you

(01:31:05):
get to it. And if somebody is a great joke.
The good thing about knowing what it is before and
is you don't want to step on their punch line.
You don't want to step on the end of it.
And you know, as a comedian, you're always like kind
of thinking like, where's the funny line at the end
of this, and you don't want to take that from them.
You want to make sure that that that there's room

(01:31:25):
for them to be funny. And your two favorite guests
Charles Barkley is uh somebody that I'm always very very
happy to have on the show. I love I love him. Um,
It's really hard to narrow it down to two, but
I will say it was always a thrill to have

(01:31:46):
Don Rickles on the show. That was fun. Okay, So
looking forward, how much long are you gonna do this? Um?
Probably not that much longer. And when you stop doing this,
what do you plan to do? I will You know
one thing I know is that whatever I think is

(01:32:09):
going to happen, that never seems to be the way
it goes, and that things come out of the blue.
And sometimes I get excited about things and I can't
control myself and I go, oh, yeah, I should definitely
do this. And sometimes before you know what, you're off
to the races and committed to something. You now realize
that you have to be committed to. But I will

(01:32:32):
definitely produce television shows. I will, um, probably send jokes
to other late night hosts when I think of them
if I feel I don't have an outlet. Um. And
I actually bought a fishing lodge in Idaho that I
am enjoying remodeling and and fixing up. And um, I'm

(01:32:54):
planning to spend a good amount of time there. Would
you ever retire? Um not. I don't know that I
ever fully retired. Maybe I will. I'll always do something
I like to draw. That's really what I love to do. Yes,
And um, I will always keep myself busy. I always
have a project and I'm I'm working on Let's go

(01:33:16):
back to the hunting uh fishing lodge that I assume
is in the Panhandle of Idaho, which is where Mark
Ferman and a lot of white nationalists move to. It's
actually not. It's it's on it's on the it's an
hour from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Really yeah, on the borders. Yeah,

(01:33:40):
Okay that that sort of catches me off guard because
everybody else I know as a house like in Sandpoint, etcetera.
How'd you end up getting a place there? I went
fishing there one summer and I said that I caught
a lot of fish. I shouldn't have a place here.
And so I knew the places for sale, and I
started keeping an eye on it. And I have this

(01:34:01):
buddy named Oliver White who's got a couple of fishing
lodges and in the Bahamas and he um, and the
hurricane actually demolished his fishing lodge, and I said, would
you want to work on this with me? And would
you want to be the guy that runs this lodge?
And he said yes, And um, you know, because obviously
it's not something you can do alone and you need

(01:34:22):
somebody who really knows what they're doing. And we've been
working on this for the last year and a half.
So this will be a commercial enterprise people, Okay. And
it's up and running now. Yeah, it's been open since Okay,
So what's the name of it? Since we're talking, called
the South Fork Lodge. Okay, And you grew up in
Las Vegas when you become such a big fisherman, I

(01:34:44):
used to fish in Las Vegas. In fact, Cleto who
I mentioned earlier, who is also in my band, UM
would take us to Lake Mead and we go fishing.
We almost never caught anything, but we loved it more
than anything. And when I'm out on the river fishing
is when I really am able to stop and enjoy life. Okay,

(01:35:08):
what do you do with all your money? Um? I
spend it on the fishing lodge. I do a lot
of stuff with with my money. Um Uh, I donated
all to charity. I you know what I like to
do good things with the money. Um. I bought my
parents a house, about my in laws a house. Um

(01:35:33):
I bought the fishing lodge. And um, I don't love
the stock market. I don't love any of that stuff.
To me, it's like it's gambling. Is a bunch of
people making money without actually doing anything or making anything. Um.
So I like, I'm more interested in real estate than Okay,

(01:35:53):
but you're handsomely paid, so I must assume there is
uh cash stock or something somewhere where you know your
liquid assets? Where are those? Um my liquid assets? I
don't really know. I don't really I was gonna be
my next question. You don't know someone's managing that. You
don't think about it. I don't think about it. I'm I.

(01:36:14):
I know I have enough money and um uh, and
I know I'm not being robbed. That's the extent of it. Oh,
believe me, A lot of people have been robbed. Okay,
so both you and me, even though I'm older than you,
we grew up in a completely different America. Yeah, what's
gonna happen in America? Well, um, I like to think

(01:36:37):
we're gonna we're going to reunite. But it doesn't feel
like it right now, that's for sure. It doesn't even
feel like I mean, even something like COVID. This should
have united us. This should have been the thing. This
should have been our World War where everybody pitched in
and helped each other. And instead it became another right

(01:37:02):
versus left situation, which is just absolutely crazy. And I
don't think anyone expected it. And I don't know that
it's going on in other countries other than the countries
that are influenced by the way we do things, and
who see like, oh, okay, if I take that anti
mask position, I'm going to attract a certain amount of

(01:37:22):
people who don't trust the government and blah blah all
that bullshit. Um I don't feel that optimistic. I really don't. Um.
I hope I'm I very much hope I'm off and
that there will be a time where we um are
all Americans again. I mean, you know, I have a

(01:37:43):
flag on my house and um uh. And people sometimes
get the wrong idea, which bothers me. It's like, like, hey,
this is not their symbol. This is our symbol. This
is You're supposed to love this country and be patriotic,
and I'll do all those things that we learned. We're
also supposed to be critical of our country, and we're

(01:38:05):
also supposed to be welcoming to people from other countries,
and we're supposed to help people who are poor. And
this idea of America first is a disgusting notion. It's
it's disgusting. It's it's not that's not America. America inherently is.
It was a refuge for people from all over the
world to come and work together and build something. And

(01:38:28):
obviously you know that there have been the groups that
have been discriminated against in horrible ways. Um, but ultimately
we I think we all when you and I were kids,
used to feel like we're America. You know, we're all
rooting for the same team. And um, now we seem

(01:38:48):
to have two teams living under the same roof. Let's
just drill down a little bit. We have now reached
the point where everybody wants a COVID vaccine has one.
How do we nvince the how can you help convince
or other people help convince the people who won't get
to give vaccine to get vaccinated. I can't, Bob, I'm

(01:39:10):
I do not have that cash at However, there are
people like Donald Trump, for instance, who did get the vaccine,
who credits himself greatly for developing the vaccine and speeding
the production of the vaccine. And why he hasn't turned well,
I know why he hasn't turned the corner on that
and just outright said you need to get the vaccine.

(01:39:33):
Why he didn't put out a picture of himself with
a needle in his arm shows his his his selfishness,
his that he did that he cares more about his
about keeping everyone under his his horrible little umbrella than
he does about their actual lives. These people are their
lives are in danger because the people who they followed

(01:39:57):
don't care about them, and they need to do or
those people who who do have the trust of that community.
The musicians and the athletes and the you know UFC fire.
You know, these people need to speak out and they
need to tell people, especially the ones who are getting

(01:40:17):
the shots. We know there are lots of Republicans getting
the shots. Why where are they Why aren't they telling
people telling their people to do it? Because the more
I tell them to do it, the less they're gonna
do it. Wow. Okay, and you're a student of the game.
What's going to happen with the landscape? Let me painted

(01:40:38):
for a second. Used to be network television and the movies.
Now we have internet platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, etcetera. That's
one thing. We have network television and the networks were
smart because they ended up buying some of the cable channels.
It's just not ABC anymore, just like it's not just

(01:40:59):
not BC or CBS. But we know the ratings for
the networks have gone down. There are a lot of
channels on that are built into the cable system, that
are supported by us paying for cable that don't exist otherwise.
We have the movie studios that are only making a

(01:41:20):
certain kind of movie. We have multiple streaming platforms. How
do you see this all playing out? I love it.
I think it's great. I think the idea that some
sixteen year old kid can have his or her own
TikTok video popular channel and get millions of people watching

(01:41:40):
and actually make a living, uh, is a great thing.
I wish I had that when I was a kid.
I think I believe I wish I did too. And
it was so hard. I mean, I just think about
my career. It was so hard to get on the radio.
It was just so hard to get in in a
in a studio in front of a microphone. And I
will is under the thumb of these companies I worked for,

(01:42:03):
because when I got fired, there wasn't enough. I couldn't
go across the street. You know, the radio stations consolidated
and it made it impossible you had to move to
another city if you wanted to stay in that music format.
And the idea now that anybody can can have a podcast,
and that everybody's got a shot at it becoming popular,

(01:42:25):
and that I mean, I just think it like it
opens the doors to the best talent. It gives you practice,
which is something you really, you know, you can't get
from calling in every once in a while to a
radio station. It gives you those reps that you need
to um, you know, to host something later in your career.

(01:42:46):
And I think it's great. I think you know just
what you said about the movies, and they're only making
these movies, these huge superhero movies, this kind of stuff.
The punishment for that is going to be they're gonna
be a million little mini movies, studios making a million
little what we call them TV shows because they're not
in theaters. But who cares about theaters anymore? And I

(01:43:09):
think that the power structure is completely upside down, and
I don't think that's bad for anyone other than the
people who are at the top of it. And the
future of talk shows, the future of talk shows will
be shows that have much smaller audiences but have particular subjects.

(01:43:29):
And you will be able to find a talk show
that you love because it really pushes every You'll be
able to find a talk show about um, you know,
sculpting and clay, you know, and those people on those
shows aren't necessarily gonna make fifteen million dollars a year,
but they might make a hundred thousand dollars a year.

(01:43:51):
And that's you know. I mean, if you can do
what you love and make a living from it, that's
as good as it gets. And who do you listen
to for information? I mostly read, UM, I listened to
Howard all the time. Not necessary for information, but just
for entertainment, and um, that takes up most of my

(01:44:13):
And I always read your newsletter as well. I I
always read it. Um, I don't, but I always read it,
and I think it's I it is amazing how much
how much material you put out and how many um
thoughts you have on Israeli television shows. They're the best.

(01:44:33):
All the television shows I'm got happen to be Jewish.
But I didn't say, oh, I gotta sit at home
watch is really television. You know what's gonna happen, Bob
is you're eventually. It hasn't happened yet, but the relentlessness
of the newsletter is eventually going to convince me to
watch an Israeli television show. And when that does, I
will send you an it happens, I will send you

(01:44:55):
an email letting you know you've won. Okay, I got
a couple, you know, because just to stay there for
you know, they have a new season of Stistle. So
a lot of people are watching this. You've made this up.
There's nothing. Well the reason I mentioned it. This is
about super orthodox people in Israel, so you don't want
to recommend it to non Jews. But all of a sudden,

(01:45:16):
the non Jews have called on. I mean, it's one
thing where you say you gotta watch this show. Okay,
this is not that show, and then you say, well,
maybe you want to watch Game, which is about the
modern Orthodox. They're Orthodox, but they have regular jobs. Okay,
came now. But Prisoners of War was considered to be

(01:45:38):
the best uh foreign TV show of the last decade.
And that is first of all, it's very heavy and
really great. But okay, let's just talk about the streaming
TV for a minute. Okay, there are a couple of
unbelievable shows that everybody should see. If you watch cops shows,
the best cop show made you read a spiral? Have

(01:46:01):
you seen spiral? I've not seen it. No French show.
Unbelievable did you say French show? Yes, not deep meaning okay,
but incredible. Have you watched have you watched Morgan? I'm
not watching it. I've seen You've seen you write about it.
But for me, even pleasure is part of my job.

(01:46:24):
So when I watch shows, I need to watch things that,
uh that are going to that I can talk. You know.
You know Howard Watson watches nothing but shitty television shows.
That's because he know he's accumulating material. It's if he
watches a show that's really good, there's not much to
say about it, you know. So for me, like I

(01:46:47):
don't want to watch The Bachelor, but it's part of
my job, and then it eats up a lot of
like viewing time. And there are a lot of movies
I don't want to watch, or TV shows, but I
have the guest on, so I have to watch their show.
So I don't have the luxury of watching Schmischel or whatever,
Smuggli or whatever you watch. And I understand your point,

(01:47:08):
and I understand the point you mean about Howard. Ironically,
some of these shows would help with your material. But
the interesting thing, especially with COVID, people have watched so
much television that they're finally looking for new television. People
are lazy, So let's just watch what everybody else watches
some of this stuff. If you watched Morgan, which is

(01:47:29):
basically a Danish political show, the woman who is the
star is so charismatic and there's certain ways she behaves
in a right end. Person is so evil and it
talks about politics that would give you material because it
would stimulate something. Back. Have you watched Patriot? Yes? I have,

(01:47:51):
and it's a very odd show and you know, not
that much happens, and you watch it, but you can't
stop watching it. One of my favorite shows of the
decade is it's so weird, like that that through line
with the singing what's happening on the show is such
sounds like such a stupid idea, and yet it is great.

(01:48:13):
You know, it's a cult people who've seen her. So
what else have you seen? The like? Um? You know,
the Patriot is one of those few shows that I'm
able to watch from my own I was able to
watch from my own pleasure, you know, because most of
the stuff I watches is because I have to watch it.
But um, what do I you know, I watch um

(01:48:35):
Better Things Pamela Adlin show, very good. She there's something
magical about her. You know, she's a she's a pip squeak.
She can be sensitive, but she also can throw it
out with an edge. She's a tremendously natural actress too.
U and and I find I love that show. So

(01:48:56):
just having watched that show, did you watch a zse
on sorry shows none? Yes? Yes, yes, that was phenomenal. Yes? Really?
Did you watch Rami on Hulu? Yes? Rami is great? Yes? Yes?
Because okay, so continue, you're gonna mention something beyond you
know it's funny. I I don't know why. It's always

(01:49:17):
hard for me. And then once we're done, I'll think
of eleventh things I didn't mean to when people say
what records you're listening to? If you had something in
the top of your head, I don't want to push you.
The only other show I want to definitely mention, though, Chad.
Have you seen Chad? No? What is Chad? This is
a show on TBS and I watched it because I
had to because I had the star on the show

(01:49:39):
and is very, very funny, and I think you would
like it. Well, what's it about It is about a
it's a an adult woman playing a teenage boy and
a Ranian boy, and um, he is a hopeless nerd
and as weird a character as you've seen on TV.

(01:50:00):
And it's just very well done. I want to talk
about one other show though. There's a show called The Bureau,
another friend show about the French CIA. The first season
not as good a one it turns out they do.
That's fascinating because their secondary characters they're always were overpowered
by the Americans. And the other thing is they can

(01:50:22):
operate in countries where we can't, Like I ran okay,
but it comes very tense as it goes along, very
much like you know, what you would expect from a movie.
But uh, you know what kills us. I only watch
shows with my wife, so uh, if you know are
we have we have a few hours together, so when

(01:50:44):
we watch stuff we watched together and m and so
we have to pick shows that are of mutual interest. Well,
I find the same thing. It's like when I watch
certainly you know Israeli show Our Boys was too violent
for my girlfriend who I live with been together sixteen
years next month, just as I say, my girlfriend, But uh,

(01:51:06):
the other thing is go mora. Do you know the show? Yes,
I you know what many of my friends have. My
girlfriend won't watch it, so I you know, I only
got through one episode. If I don't watch with her,
my mind wanders. It's funny. So it's the same thing
everybody talks about Peaky Blinders said. My girlfriend didn't like it.
I mean it's not I could watch it myself, but

(01:51:27):
not really happening. And ever read a book? Have I
ever read a book? No? Now? Do you have any
time to read a book? Not much, but for work.
I just I had to read Hunter Biden's book. Um,
I had him on the show. That was the last
one I read. Hunter guilty of any of the ship.

(01:51:47):
The Republicans say, the laptop, it's ridiculous. How about Bayner's book?
You can have been around? No, no, no, no, he's
he's he's suddenly very compassionate. I find that annoying. Okay,
that's good. Who have you not had on that you
want to have on? Not too many people. I've had
almost everybody, but Madonna is somebody I had a I

(01:52:10):
had the hots from Madonna when I was in high school.
And she's never been on the show. Do you think
you would be able to do your show if she
came on or she would take over. She probably take
off for you. It would be anybody you haven't met
that you'd like to meet. Um, you know, I Banksy
to me is a very interesting character who I would

(01:52:31):
love to have on the show. I think if your
own any Banksy, I do, I have a couple of them. Yeah.
What do you think about the self destroying uh artwork?
I love it. I's he's brilliant. It's it's just uh,
you know, I can't get enough of that kind of thing.
Ther irreverence, the irreverence, the creativity, this even weird prank

(01:52:55):
element to it. And um also just putting a pin
in all that art ship. Okay, since we're there, n
f T S, what's you take? You know? I think
I kind of know what they are. I've you know,
I think when you hit a certain age, or at
least from me, like I now have lost the ability
to read directions and figure out how to do things,

(01:53:17):
Like my brain is not a sponge anymore, it's a rock.
And um, I think I have a basic idea of
what they are. They seem to be imaginary baseball cards.
As far as they are, you understand it completely. And
that was the best way for me to understand that
a guy what imaginary baseball? Did somebody say that because

(01:53:38):
I said none of them? He didn't use the term.
You can own the term. It's great, but that's what
he exactly said. I was a baseball card collector. I
just want an interest, just like people own baseball cards.
They're gonna have these, you know, fake baseball cards. And
I felt the same way about it, as you're just ridiculous. Spot.
Maybe we should start selling imaginary baseball cards. I think

(01:53:59):
you know, the window is already closed. I've got a
jim Rice that I think people will be really interested
in right now here. It is. Oh, I could see it.
The appers to close. Jimmy. I won't keep you any longer.
You know, it's interesting because you always try to find
the hot point, and now I realized the hot point
would be just having the conversation. I should have just

(01:54:20):
brought up bullshit like a friend instead of all this
other stuff. It's like when Howard he had mad Dog on,
did you listen to okay? Mad Dog kissed? Howard's asked
way too hard okay, and then they you know, they
cover something usually, but then he asked, mad dogs take

(01:54:42):
the last half hour. I don't know if you heard that. Brilliant. Okay,
he should ask him anything. Godfather one, Godfather too. He
had a take on everything, And you say, god, I
would love to sit with this guy because what I
love to do most is argue about all this fucking ship. Right. Yeah, yeah,
you know there's if I can think of one person
in my life, it's Adam Carolla, who has a take

(01:55:04):
on literally any subject and a funny take usually. And
in fact, I was walking with this this journalist Bill
Carter at the beginning of my show, and I was
telling him about Adam. I said, Adam has a take
on give him. Look when we see him next. We're
walking around the corner. I said, give him I think
anything you can think of. And he's like, I think.

(01:55:26):
He had like a cocktail in his hand with one
of those little red drinking straws, and here comes at
him around the corner and he goes, Adam, what do
you think of these little And I was like, yeah,
that was strawn and they're straws, but they're not straws.
They're like he went in the whole thing. I was
like seeing there you go. I know, as I say,
I happen to like mad Dog. You know. That was

(01:55:47):
one of the weird things where we went to went
to satellite and lost a good percentage of his audience
was supposed to Howard. But I think we've come to
the end of the feeling we've known. Jimmy. I really
have to thank you for taking all this. That was fun.
Thanks Bob, appreciate you having me and uh, it's good
to chat with you with words instead of typing Yes.
Until next time. This is Bob Lefts. Thanks

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Bob Lefsetz

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