09-10-24 Interview - Billy Gardell is A Funny, Funny Man

BILLY GARDELL IS A FUNNY, FUNNY MAN And he is at Comedy Works next week to perform. He's built a solid acting career while continuining to do very funny comedy and he joins me at 12:30 for a minute. Buy your tickets to his show at the Landmark location here.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me now is a guy that you have probably
seen somewhere, because Billy Gardell has been doing his job
as a stand up comedian and then comedic actor on
so many different TV shows and movies and everything else.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
And now he's back on the road.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Because well, he didn't have anything better to do, so
he thought, why not, I'll just go back to Denver
to Comedy Works the Landmark in a week or so
and see the great people of Denver. But now he's
going to talk to you first. Billy Gardell, Welcome to
the show.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Thanks, Mandy Hollow is good to sit again.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's good to see you. You look fantastic.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Can we just start right there, because you are a
great example as a guy who said, Okay, this whole
big guy thing is not physically healthy for me anymore,
and I'm going to do something about it. Tell me
a little bit about that journey for a second.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Well, I always say I went from a young Jackie
Gleason and now an old Paul Move. That's kind of
what that was my transition. I had to you know,
after Mike and Ball, which was just a life changer
for me career wise. You know, my health was getting
bad because of being you know, you can be big
for a long time, but you can't outrun those numbers

(01:10):
when they start clicking up.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
And then I started losing weight.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
On Bob Hart's Abashola and but I was in that
then a lot of heavy people suffer. I was gaining
and losing the same thirty pounds for about five years.
And then you know, when when COVID first came out,
like my doctor was like, listen, you need to really
be careful because at that time I had, like you
know when it said all the most dangerous things like

(01:34):
sleep out in the asthma, type two diabetes smoker, like
I was like, bingo got a full card. So I
had to I had to really look hard at changing
my health. And so I decided to just stop everything
else and get healthy and uh and now, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
It's weird, man, I made myself unrecognizable.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
The only time people catch catch wind to me is
like when I talked is you know my dad said
my voice was like a car horn.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
It should be on an ambulance on the way and
there's been an accident.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
But otherwise, man, it's it's it's been a weird transition,
and that has kind of made me want to write
about that.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
And then my kid went.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Off to college, so we're empty nesters now and it
made me want to write about that. And then my
wife and I just celebrated twenty three years, so these
things start started percolating, and that little itch came and
I was like, I'm going to get back up.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
And I had some buddies that were really really encouraging
to get back up.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
Ian Bag and Steve Byrne and Jay Leno and Christopher Titus.
These were all guys that were they weren't letting me
completely go away. And then finally I just went over
to an open mic night and jumped back up, and
boy wanted to hit you.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
It hits you.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
And now I just it feels like the early days. Man,
I feel like I'm starting my band over. So it's
really it's kind of really cool.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
I mean, and I've always wanted to play. Yeah, I
want to ask.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
You listeners please come out and watch the show, because
I've always wanted to play the comedy books.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Even when I was a younger.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Comic, I never heard anything but phenomenal things about these clubs.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
So I'm very excited to complay the comedy works South
in the Landmark. I believe.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, you're at the Landmark. Yeah, you're at the Landmark.
They are.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Whenever I talk to comedians, they all say this is
one of their favorite clubs to play. We are great
audiences because everyone is stoned all the time, so.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
You're receptive to comedy. And you know, talking.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
About you've been in comedy since you were in your
like lateeens, early twenties.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, I started when I was seventeen.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
My first open mic night was December twenty eighth, nineteen
eighty seven. Back when life was pretty fun. We had
a pretty fun time being from gen X.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Man. I mean, we had our troubles.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
I was telling my kid this look, I go, and
I tell his buddies, take the phone and take a
one day a week break from it. I know you
can't get off of it, but take a day away.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
I go.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
That's how we got through it in gen X. I
go the follows program to tell you everything's horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
I go. But we had bad stuff too.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
We had we had aids, we had cracked, we had homelessness.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
I went a contra fair like. There was stuff going on.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
But Friday night we were at the club, so instead
of it being horrible every day, it was like horrible, horrible, horrible,
I'll stop the world and now for you, and then
we would go back to it on Monday.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
So I just talk.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
I'm trying to come from a place where I can
give the youngsters some life action. Gen X, I wass
telling them think of me as the ghost of Christmas path.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
I'm here to help you.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, I mean, I agree. I talk about stuff like
this all the time. And I have a fifteen year
old daughter who's definitely jen Alpha, and she's so dismissive
of when I talk about the olden days when we
only had three channels on television, and.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Then she's just.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Like, Mom, what is wrong with you?

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I go, you guys, you think you have it better,
but in so many ways you have it worse. Like
my parents didn't know where I was from ninth till
twelfth grade, Like no clue where I was.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
And it was fine. They were like, she's always over clothes.
It's fine.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
If you were in gen X. Nobody was watching us.
They used to have a commercial at ten o'clock. It's
ten pm. Do you know where your children are? They
had to remind them they had kids, you know what
I mean. But like I said, I think there's a
I think the stuff we can teach them that might help,
you know what I mean. I think there's see you know,
I'm a big believer. You know, remember the song video
killed the radio. So of course I think that's what

(05:19):
social media has done the television and the movies.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
And I think it was a mistake.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
That I absolutely agree with that.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
I mean, you talk about a shift that is not
I mean, we weren't depressed. If we were depressed or
had anxiety when we were kids, our friends would have
just been like, suck it up, Buttercup, let's go.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
And it would have been over. There's no time to
wallow when you're a gen xer.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
I think gen X definitely has to suck it up.
But we were also pretty open with.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Each other, which I think these kids kind of have.
I watched them.

Speaker 4 (05:53):
They're very kind with each other, but they're very traumatized.
And I don't think that's fair to lay all that
on them. Because we raised the generation of housecats, and
that's because we were just fair running through the streets,
and so we overworried for our kids. So some of
that's on us, you know, So I try to I
try to hit the middle of the road with that,
like I call balls and strikes, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, Billy Gardella is my guest. He's going to be
at Landmark Comedy Works. Not this weekend, the following weekend.
I look today, either tickets available. I am going to
come to one of your shows for sure. I just
I mean again, could you add that, Nae?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Because we're getting.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Older, Billy, could you add like a two thirty maybe
a four o'clock show for you know, the elderly among
us who have to be in bed by nine thirty.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
West and Mandy, I'd be happy with with a three
o'clock dinner and a five o'clock show. I'm talking with that.
I'm just fine. We could all be home by eight o'clock.
That'd be wonderful. We would make it the g there's
some pretty early showtimes. One on Thursday, one on Friday, too, Saturday.
And it's nineteen twenty and twenty one.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
I want to ask you one more question before we
run out of time, because I'm about to do this
on my program here tonight is the big presidential debate.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
We're about to.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Like, I'm going to ask my listeners to either come
up with an over under that we can put together
for tonight's debate, or maybe a bingo card square.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Do you ever talk about politics?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Because I have to say, at this moment in time,
it is almost hard to make fun of politics because
we're in such an absurd time period.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's almost too strange to make fun of it.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
I actually don't talk about politics on stage for that reason.
I don't think at this point where we're at, we
we can change anybody else's mind. It's kind of you know,
I know they always say there's undecided people. I'm not
sure what they're undecided about. It's pretty clear what's going on.
You're one way or the other. But the one thing

(07:42):
I do try to to encourage is to give you
you know, I'm from Pittsburgh, so I'm a mister Rogers guy.
Give your neighbors some room, compassion. I always vote for compassion.
What do I think is the most compassionate. And then
when my dad taught me to vote, you know, he's
an old Navy guy, and he said, never listen to
the politicians and never listen to the news. Go to

(08:02):
us dot gov Org and look at their voting records.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
That's all you need to know, because they're going to
tell you whatever they need to tell you in your time.
But if you go look at their voting records, whatever
you're going to vote for, look up their voting records.
Do they vote in accordance to things that will help
your family and maybe help.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
America as a whole without all.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
The rhetoric, because I think we're in this cycle now
where we watch whatever news we want to watch, we
hear a talking head and then we scream that at
someone else, and I don't think that's the way forward.
I think the way forward is to hold them accountable
for their votes, what do they vote on, and let
people evolve in their issues, like if they see something.
This is one thing I wish politicians would do, all
of them think, no matter what, you have to be perfect.

(08:44):
I think that American people would like to hear someone go,
you know, I felt this way, but now I feel
this way because I'm changing to be.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Honest man and go forward and look what is best
for the whole. You know, our common welfare and must
come first.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
That's Billy Gardelle. Everybody go see him. Not this weekend
coming up at the Comedy Works Landmark. We've got to
give him a warm Denver welcome. This is his first
trip to comedy Works, so you're popping your Comedy Works
cherry on this one and.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
You're gonna have a great time. Billy. It's good to
see you, Billy. I appreciate you making time today.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
Mary, you're the best. I appreciate you. Thank you very
much for your support and your continued support over the years.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
All right, thanks, that's Billy Gardell and you can see
him at Comedy Works