Jay Leno | Club Random with Bill Maher

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  I'm in the hall. I see guys carry what I think is a plate glass window. It's a giant cue card. This has the word hello on it.

• 0:42Bill Maher?

  I like the old school pleasures, Jay.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  The old school, the old school. The men and the women are glad of it.

• 0:51Bill Maher?

  Jay?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Bill, what's going on?

• 0:55Bill Maher?

  If that's not Jay, that's an amazing impression.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Well, you are.

• 0:59Bill Maher?

  Stay there, and I don't want you to hurt yourself.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  I'm all right. I got a busted tooth.

• 1:04Bill Maher?

  So, listen, I wrote out the next six Get Well cards. I thought with the price of postage these days.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  I think you're so smart, you save your money.

• 1:13Bill Maher?

  I mean, this one is for when you fall down a flight of stairs. This is something to do with a knitting needle. This is an elevator shaft.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Very good. Well, thank you, thank you, Bill. I'm concerned.

• 1:25Bill Maher?

  Well, how are you, Jay?

• 1:27Speaker 01

  I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm all right, I'm OK.

• 1:29Bill Maher?

  You're Iron Jay.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  I'm OK, I'm all right, I'm all right.

• 1:31Bill Maher?

  You need, I feel like you are proving that you're Iron Jay, and you don't need to. We always thought you were Iron Jay.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  I understand, I understand.

• 1:39Bill Maher?

  But you heal very quickly.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  I do heal quickly.

• 1:43Bill Maher?

  Because like I saw.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Because 10 days ago, this is totally black and white. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, my eye was shut for three days, and I thought, oh, boy. Am I blind in one eye? OK, and then after three days, it opened. Oh, OK, and I was fine.

• 1:56Bill Maher?

  Now, what do you attribute that to? Good Italian genes?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  It was swollen.

• 1:59Bill Maher?

  Scottish, Italian?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, Scottish, Scottish genes. That's what you want. Thinning hair, bad teeth, bad skin. That's what you want, those Scottish genes.

• 2:08Bill Maher?

  But no, combinations are always healthier, just like in dogs.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Well, I guess that's true. I think that's true.

• 2:15Bill Maher?

  The more we are, and of course, when you're two alike, as when you marry your cousin, we know that goes the wrong way.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  That goes the wrong way.

• 2:24Bill Maher?

  So, so that's, because you're not a young man anymore.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  No, I'm not.

• 2:31Bill Maher?

  But you certainly shouldn't be, uh, on your, you're quite hell, but you certainly shouldn't be falling down hills, don't you think?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  I agree, but my only, I had the, it was either walk to an, I said, it doesn't look that steep, down! And then, yeah, I fell down.

• 2:46Bill Maher?

  But you know, Jay, um, when I started, someone told me, your edge is your sanity.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Your what?

• 2:54Bill Maher?

  Your edge.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Your edge.

• 2:55Bill Maher?

  In show business.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:56Bill Maher?

  Is your sanity, because so many people in show business are crazy in their own different ways. I think at the time we were talking about Richard Belzer, you know, who had his own, you know, he was a brilliant comic, but he was sort of self.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  He was a real good actor, too. He did a great job on Homicide in the Streets. He really found the depth of that character.

• 3:14Bill Maher?

  Yes, Detective Munch.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was, it was unique. I hadn't seen a character like that. He made it his own. And I assume it was, I don't, I don't think anybody guided him. I think he just sort of developed it himself. It's pretty good.

• 3:29Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I felt, I felt it was Belzer, as we knew Belzer, as a detective. If Richard Belzer, the comic, had chosen to be a detective, that's exactly what.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Funny, as a comic, he was a good comic, but he was the same comic, he didn't change his act hardly much at all.

• 3:48Bill Maher?

  What? He never wrote a word down.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Well, he, I remember he.

• 3:51Bill Maher?

  He did the same bits, we all did.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Well, when, when he did TV, he would always do kind of this.

• 3:55Bill Maher?

  Oh, well, you know, I mean, again, that's.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  I mean, good improvisational comic, yeah, he was good. He was good.

• 4:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, he was brilliant in The Night Club.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:05Bill Maher?

  And many have found out that, you know, it doesn't translate as well to TV, you know, some performers are hot, as opposed to the cool medium of TV.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 4:15Bill Maher?

  You know, you were number one for over two decades because you understood television.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Why are you putting eye drops in your drink?

• 4:23Bill Maher?

  They're not eye drops.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Oh, I see.

• 4:24Bill Maher?

  I brought them for you.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I thought it was.

• 4:25Bill Maher?

  In case you hurt yourself while you're here.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  I thought they were Visine, I thought you were going.

• 4:30Bill Maher?

  No, this is just a way to have a healthier version of.

• 4:36Bill Maher?

  Well, what are you eating lately? Are you still on, you still on, do you ever eat vegetables? No, are you still the guy who doesn't eat a vegetable?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  I had one in 62 and I didn't like it.

• 4:46Bill Maher?

  What vegetable was it?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  I don't remember. It was, it was a horrible experience. I'm just not a vegetable guy.

• 4:52Bill Maher?

  No, I understand. And you, and look, you're proving that, uh, obviously there's something in our genes that's more powerful than things like how you eat. Because a lot of people would think if you never eat a vegetable, how could you possibly be healthy? But.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  But yeah, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs. I'm not a stress guy and I don't stress. You know, people are all into tight show, must be too much. No, write joke, tell joke, get checked, pretty simple.

• 5:22Bill Maher?

  No, I do do drugs and drink.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Really? Now you see, I learn something every day. This, I, I've known you all these years, now I find out you do drugs.

• 5:32Bill Maher?

  Jay, um, do you know, did you see what the Enquirer said about your spill?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  No, what did they say?

• 5:38Bill Maher?

  They say, well, they, they, it's a conspiracy theory since you've had three accidents.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:46Bill Maher?

  That you actually have gambling debts and you're being beaten up by the mob.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Well, that's what I love the idea that the mob would drive to Greenberg, Pennsylvania,

• 5:56Speaker 01

  wait outside the Hampton Inn and, and, and kind of a sleety kind of rainy day to throw me down the hill. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:05Bill Maher?

  Well, no, that's not what they're saying. Please don't mischaracterize the Enquirer. They're saying throw you down the hill was your cover story, but they just beat you up like the mob always does. And that when you had the other accident where you fell off your motorcycle, wink, wink.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:22Bill Maher?

  Uh, and had your knees.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  No, what happened was the guy had a rope across the driveway and it cut my.

• 6:27Bill Maher?

  Sure he did, Jay.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  I just got a, I, I got a, I got, I got a new face when I, when my face caught fire. And then two months later, it tore my face. I had to call my face guy and I need another face. So I went up and gave me another one, so.

• 6:41Bill Maher?

  But you have the same face. So you're not, you're, it, it, it's interesting. The article started out saying Jay Leno was worth $450 million, has gambling debts. I was like, that is quite a gambling.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Well, I like the idea that they wouldn't just take one of my cars for the gambling debt.

• 6:58Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Why? Because they're worth that much?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  No, you know, I was pretty smart. Yeah, I remember years ago, I was a catch rising star. And I was on stage and this guy, a mob guy comes up to me afterwards. He goes, hey, you funny kid, you funny kid. I'm like, hey. He takes a hundred dollars, he puts it in my pocket.

• 7:17Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Right. Really? You're a funny kid. He goes like this. I said, oh, thank you. I said, look, I don't mean any disrespect, but, uh, you know, give it to the church or, or something. I'm, I don't. He goes, what? I, I, I said, no, I'm okay, but thank you. I, I, I don't want you to, I'm not, I, I appreciate, I'm okay. And he says to me, no, you're a smart kid. You don't take money from people like me. That's smart. And nobody ever bothered me again. Nobody ever bothered me again. I saw the mob kick the crap out of comics left and right.

• 7:46Bill Maher?

  What?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:47Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Well, one person we know, uh, was on stage. Well, I, I, I couldn't.

• 7:54Bill Maher?

  Was he Italian?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:56Bill Maher?

  No?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Well, yes, yes, he was. Yeah, yeah, he was.

• 7:58Bill Maher?

  An Italian name?

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:59Bill Maher?

  I think I know who you're talking about.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Anyway, and just beat the crap out of him because he was.

• 8:06Bill Maher?

  What?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Being a wise ass on stage, you know.

• 8:08Bill Maher?

  To them?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  To them, yeah, that kind of stuff. He's not good. You know, that happened to Carson, you know, Carson.

• 8:14Bill Maher?

  Got beat up?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Well, Carson went to Jillies one night with, um, Bushkin.

• 8:21Bill Maher?

  His lawyer?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they go, they have them drinks, blah, blah, blah. And they start hitting on these two girls, kind of rudely. Turns out they're mob.

• 8:30Bill Maher?

  Oh, malls.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Girlfriends, whatever.

• 8:33Bill Maher?

  Mall.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Called, right? So they threatened to, they put a hit out on Carson. So Carson stops the Tonight Show for the week. He just goes, he leaves because this is real. And then at the time. They had, you remember Joey Colombo? The guy, he had that, that whole Italian civil rights thing going in New York.

• 8:56Bill Maher?

  Sure, of course.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Well, they had the Italians, he had the Italians St. Gianvito's Parade, which was sponsored by the five families. So, nobody in New York would cover it. So Joey Colombo went to NBC and said, "If you cover the, the Italian parade, we'll pull a hit on Carson." And they did, they ordered. You never, you never heard of this, though?

• 9:19Bill Maher?

  I certainly did not.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  You gotta get out, you know, you're smoking too much dope. You gotta get out and see what real people are doing.

• 9:25Bill Maher?

  I bring people in here and they may tell me things.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but yeah, that's, that's true. And, and that was, and that was for real. I mean, you know, it's just.

• 9:34Bill Maher?

  So just for the record, you were not beaten up by the mob?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  No, I was not.

• 9:39Bill Maher?

  Have you ever gambled?

• 9:41Speaker 01

  No, I don't gamble.

• 9:42Bill Maher?

  I, I said it doesn't sound like it.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  No, I don't get it, I don't get it. You know, losing a hundred bucks makes me feel stupid or the winning a thousand dollars makes you feel good. Cause I go, I could have, could have taken my wife to dinner. I could have done something. I don't get it. Plus, I'm dyslexic. So to me, sir, you have 28. What? You have 28? Oh, it's not 21, no, it's 28, sir. Oh, okay, no, no, so I'm not, no. No, I'm not a gambler.

• 10:09Bill Maher?

  No, your, your life is comedy and that's why you're at the Hampton Inn. There's a question, Jake, getting back to my thing about your sanity is your edge. Why is a guy who's worth 450 million dollars staying at the Hampton Inn?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  You know, my plane landed at 1:00 in the morning. I'm there for seven hours. I, I just grab a hotel and I go to bed. Why, where would I stay? You know, I, I remember once we had, MC Hammer came to The Tonight Show and he had 300 people.

• 10:43Bill Maher?

  No, he didn't. Not three hundred.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Three hundred people in his staff. I mean, I don't know if all three hundred were there, but there were hun- there were hundreds of people there. It was like, and they're all cousins, they're all being paid, and then I realized, he's having tax problems. Oh, what could go wrong? You know.

• 11:01Bill Maher?

  But isn't there a middle ground between that and the Hampton Inn? I'm just saying, middle ground to me.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  You'll find me a better hotel in Greenberg, Pennsylvania. You know, I'll say that. Yeah, I mean, what do you, you're a whole little town.

• 11:11Bill Maher?

  But even playing Greenberg, Pennsylvania, it sort of reminds me of Elvis, the day he died. You know where he was headed? Portland, Maine. I mean, well, he's Elvis Presley. You know, I feel like-

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Muhammad Ali fought in Portland, Maine. He was stunning, listen. Big, biggest fight ever up to that point.

• 11:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Portland, Maine.

• 11:31Bill Maher?

  And I have nothing against Portland, Maine. But Elvis, you know, should have and could have, I think, been playing more major venues. He never went to Europe because of that horrible manager.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, the horrible manager. Yeah, that was a sad story. I always liked, I think there's certain empathy for Elvis. I always liked Elvis. He seemed like, you know, he was a great guy. He had African-American backup singers when that was not even, don't even mention it.

• 11:58Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  In the South. Yes, he did. And he always gave credit. He always gave credit to black artists, to Chuck Berry.

• 12:04Bill Maher?

  That's true.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  And everybody else stole their songs and performed them. But Elvis always said where they came from.

• 12:10Bill Maher?

  Speaking of beaten up by the mob story. Do you know the one about Sammy Davis?

• 12:17Speaker 01

  How we lost the eye?

• 12:19Bill Maher?

  Well, no, maybe that was the same thing. No, I thought it was a car accident, wasn't it?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:27Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, the part, the thing I'm referring to is, he was, he met a white girl. I think she was an actress. I think she was kind of semi-famous.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yes, it was, um-

• 12:38Bill Maher?

  Britt something or-

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Britt Eklund.

• 12:40Bill Maher?

  No.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  No, no, Britt Eklund.

• 12:42Bill Maher?

  May Britt? Something like that?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Something like that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:45Bill Maher?

  Something like that, okay.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:45Bill Maher?

  A blonde, white girl.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:47Bill Maher?

  And this is what I've heard. The mob told him, like, either you're gonna break this off- Tonight, you know, or we're gonna kill you.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:00Bill Maher?

  Why it was their business to enforce racism, I don't know, but I guess they took it seriously. And that night, he onstage proposed to one of his African American backup singers to solidify his commitment to living.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know.

• 13:22Bill Maher?

  You've, you've heard, you've never heard that?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  I work with him. Did you ever work with him?

• 13:25Bill Maher?

  No, I saw him once and it was awesome.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  The greatest entertainer ever. I mean, he could act.

• 13:30Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  I saw him on a Twilight Zone where he played, you know, those half hour ones? And he was the little guy and everybody made fun of him and so and so and so in, in, in, in the, uh, in the army, you know? So one of the guys say, hey, let's, let's, uh, let's, let's screw, screw with him, you know? So they had a fake hand grenade and they threw it in the, on the ground in front of, and he jumped on it.

• 13:57Bill Maher?

  Oh, Jesus Christ.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  To save all.

• 13:59Bill Maher?

  Oh, that's the.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the start.

• 14:01Bill Maher?

  I see.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  But he played it so well. It was like, it was just gut wrenching because these guys just trash him, dump water on his head, and it was just always messing with him. He had great empathy.

• 14:11Bill Maher?

  Even when they thought they were just being funny, I mean, one of the things that Dean Martin used to do when they were on stage together, the Rat Pack, him and Frank and Dean, is that he would lift Sammy up, who of course was diminutive.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 14:25Bill Maher?

  And say, thank you for this NAACP award.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  Which today would probably not be the.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  That would not be.

• 14:31Bill Maher?

  For, for, for the double of short and.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  He was the greatest guy. You, if you work with Sammy and you said, it's a beautiful watch. Oh, you technically get, you give it to him.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  With the Amex Gold Card, you can earn four times points at US supermarkets. Because the best nights in start with the grocery run that makes it happen. Apply for the Gold Card at americanexpress.com/explore-gold. Terms and points cap apply.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  I mean, he was that kind of guy. He traveled, when I worked with him, every place he went became his house. So he brought his Barker Lounger chair, his 119 photos, put them on the wall of every dressing room he worked in. Like, when we'd do Harris for a week, you'd go into his room. It was his den at home. It'd have all the pictures, him and Sammy and all the guys.

• 15:51Bill Maher?

  It's insane.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:52Bill Maher?

  Well, that's what I mean about people in show business are insane. It's an insane thing to do for a week.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  You have to understand, though, when he was with the Will Mastin Trio, he's always been a performer since he was a little kid.

• 16:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah, a little kid.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  So you lived on the road. You're like gypsies, you know? You'd be, that was your house. So you brought all your personal things with you. So when he put all those pictures on the wall, he went home every night.

• 16:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but now he's not a child. And he's not on the road all the time.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Well, he was.

• 16:20Bill Maher?

  He...

• 16:21Speaker 01

  How old do you think he was when he died?

• 16:23Bill Maher?

  64.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  I know, isn't that unbelievable? When I was a kid, it was like, life seems about right, you know?

• 16:28Bill Maher?

  It's funny, because I used to do a bit, back, like, when he died in the 90s, about, basically, you know, as I have often, defending libertarianism and doing drugs if you want to. Not basing how we should make drug laws based on the people who fuck up with it.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:46Bill Maher?

  If that's your choice. And I said, Sammy Davis lived that kind of life, drank drugs, you know, and lived to 64. And I used to say, give me 64 Sammy years, then 110 star years, or some Republican like that. Then I got to be 64, and I was like, well...

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

• 17:05Bill Maher?

  Well, let me finish.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  No, but he was a, he was a wonderful human being. He's a great guy. He just, remember him hugging Nixon and then?

• 17:16Bill Maher?

  So what?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  I, I know, but it, but at the time, he was, he was seen as a traitor.

• 17:20Bill Maher?

  It's so funny you mention that because like today, we live in this time when you're not allowed to have friends from the other side or cross lines politically. And I forgot that there's an example of that way back when. A guy who crossed lines politically. Ooh, the worst thing you could ever do, be friends with a Republican, ah, call 911.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:44Bill Maher?

  This, this is what I fucking hate about the left, like, you know, and they're not going to get me over to the Trump side, which they think they will sometimes, but just the idea that, you know, cut your family off for Thanksgiving if they voted for the wrong guy. Fuck off, you fucks.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Well, I, I don't, I don't know.

• 18:00Bill Maher?

  And Sammy, but, but when he hugged Nixon, he was ostracized.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 18:05Bill Maher?

  By the left a lot. That was an early harbinger of that.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Cause you also had Black Panther and you had that whole movement going on. Black Panther. The Black Panther movement is very big on college campus and stuff at, at that time.

• 18:18Bill Maher?

  Seventy-two, is this?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, seventy-one, seventy-two. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:23Bill Maher?

  But I remember what, what Sammy said at the time when they asked him about the Nixon thing, which was, he went through like his economic achievements, the Nixon administration was not an unsuccessful administration before Watergate. And said, you know, you gotta go with the man who has results. Now, I don't remember exactly what the economy was with Nixon. I was thirteen. But that attitude, that idea, I admire so much as opposed to the virtue signaling and the stuff that they do just to make themselves feel better about being allied. You know what? You want to be a good ally? Address the actual problems. Any racial problem in this country, it's not addressed by D E I and having programs like that.

• 19:08Bill Maher?

  It's, it's three things and John McWhorter, the great African-American writer names them. You know, better schools, don't graduate kids who don't know anything and have no skills, more dads and the drug war. Those are the practical things and that, and that, that's not what they care about talking about.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 19:27Bill Maher?

  So Sammy Davis, here's to you.

• 19:31Bill Maher?

  And but that story about the mob threatening to kill him, you don't know that one? You don't think that's true?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  I don't think it's true. He Sammy told me it wasn't true.

• 19:43Bill Maher?

  Oh, you asked him about it?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Well, it just came up.

• 19:46Bill Maher?

  Wow, I didn't know you were that close to him.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I work with him. I own him for him. He was great.

• 19:51Bill Maher?

  You were like Tom Dreeson to Frank Sinatra.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  When he would do Mr. Bojangles, I mean, people would be in tears.

• 19:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'm I when I saw him.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  And he could he could stand up and click his heels. He could kick his feet out to the side. And it was like a marionette. It was like, what?

• 20:07Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  It was unbelievable.

• 20:09Bill Maher?

  So I saw him once I was playing Reno.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:13Bill Maher?

  Which, as we know, what does the sign say? The smallest, largest city?

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Uh, biggest little city in the world.

• 20:19Bill Maher?

  Whatever it is, it's no offense to Reno. I love.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Of course not.

• 20:23Bill Maher?

  But it is no, it's not just a smaller version of Vegas. It's not really a city, a big city.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  You want a great Reno story?

• 20:32Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  I was playing Reno, so maybe I go, let's go. We had no money, so we'll go down to Circus Circus and have the 99 cent dinner or whatever it was. Okay, I walk in, in the middle, they got a boxing ring set up. Okay, I go, it's the next fight, 10. Oh, let's see what this is. Okay, little guy comes out. They called the midgets then. Now we're called little person. You got and they got a kangaroo. All right.

• 20:59Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Now, listen, and the kangaroo is like.

• 21:02Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  They got the kangaroo on a choke.

• 21:03Bill Maher?

  They're fighting?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, no, the kangaroo's got boxing gloves on.

• 21:06Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  And the midget's like, come on here, come on, I'm not scared of you. Come on, and they can't, and they got the kangaroo on a choke chain, right? And they're leading him out. He's like. Dun dun, dun dun, dun dun, dun dun, dun dun. The guy is like, kangaroo, bam, it's just boom. The guy goes down, boom, and then the trainers are out. Well, they give him a little something to eat. They they they squirt water on him. They they pet his fur down, you know, and and the little guy gets up. Ah, it didn't hurt me. And he's got a big waltz on his face. Now, come on, come on. Okay, they lead him a little more. Dun dun, and they just. And this, you know, this is the kangaroo's life. He's, he doesn't know this is a game.

• 21:46Bill Maher?

  Jay, that was what the sixth card was for.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  But anyway, kangaroo's a contender, then boom, hits him again, and now he's out, just out cold. Hey, and they lift the paw up of the kangaroo and the guy lies there. And here's the worst part. Here's the worst. They put the kangaroo back on his chair. They're all posing him down and petting him. The midget's lying on the ground and the guy puts a thing up. Next fight, forty-five minutes. The guy had to do it again. I'm thinking, oh, my God, this is horrible. This is show business. This is the most horrible show business thing I've ever seen in my life. And this guy is like, and, and his face. You know the way my, my face looked when I fell down the hill?

• 22:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  It looked like that. His face, it was like leather because.

• 22:28Bill Maher?

  So a kangaroo can just throw a punch like that, like a.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Oh, Jesus. Yeah. You ever seen kangaroos?

• 22:33Bill Maher?

  I never saw an animal throw a punch. I mean, animals.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Kangaroo's, kangaroo's box. Yeah. Box is kangaroos, of course. Yeah.

• 22:41Bill Maher?

  But I, is there, I mean, if you get, if you get with a bear, he's gonna kill you, but he's not gonna punch you.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  A kangaroo, a kangaroo will punch you.

• 22:50Bill Maher?

  The bear isn't like this.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  The kangaroo will punch you.

• 22:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I see.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Tell that to the midget. He's, he didn't really hit you in the face.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  But this guy, I mean, I'm thinking, that was like the worst show business job I'd ever seen.

• 23:05Bill Maher?

  I think you should write a memoir and call it Tell That to the Midget, Jay Leno Story.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's horrible, horrible.

• 23:12Bill Maher?

  Because you have the best show business stories. You really do.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  It's so stupid.

• 23:16Bill Maher?

  How many shows do you think you, you've done?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I used to do two fifty a year and I do about one seventy-five, maybe two hundred, something like that.

• 23:27Bill Maher?

  You know, I just did my last one.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Why?

• 23:29Bill Maher?

  Two, two days ago.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Why?

• 23:31Bill Maher?

  Because I'm not Iron Jay.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Don't you enjoy, you don't.

• 23:35Bill Maher?

  I do enjoy being on stage. I don't enjoy a hundred other things about it that don't really get better. I don't want to start on how people in hotels don't do anything good. I mean, I get mad when the TV doesn't work. You fall down the hill. But, you know, you show, but I'm staying at the best hotel and they can't get it right.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:54Bill Maher?

  You're, I, I would expect.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yes, but see, nothing funny happens at the best hotel. When you stay at the bad hotels, funny thing. You know what? I, I played Cincinnati once and I stayed at the Hotel Cincinnati, which is a whole, it was a men's hotel.

• 24:10Bill Maher?

  What year is this?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  This is nineteen seventy-one, seventy-two.

• 24:14Bill Maher?

  A men's hotel?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  It was a men's.

• 24:15Bill Maher?

  I don't know what that means.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Men only, a men only.

• 24:18Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Because it was, it was a men's hotel. They, they used to have male and female hotels.

• 24:24Bill Maher?

  What was different about it? That, that there were just urinals?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Well, I'll, I'll tell you what's different. I'm in my, I'm in my room and I hear a noise on the door. What's that? And I, and I see water. And I open the door and go, and there's a guy peeing on my door. And I go, what are you doing? What are you doing? Hey, don't stop that. And he goes, I always pee on this door. And I looked at the door and the paint was all crumbs. Apparently he did always pee on that door. And I went, oh, well, not tonight. I'm, I'm here tonight. All the time. Like, yeah, men's hotel, there'll be like guys.

• 24:58Bill Maher?

  How did he get near your door?

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Guys in the, he's in the hall.

• 25:01Bill Maher?

  It's on the first floor, you're?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  No, it was on the second and third floor. This is a-

• 25:05Bill Maher?

  So he went up two floors to pee?

• 25:07Speaker 01

  No, he, he stayed in one of the rooms.

• 25:09Bill Maher?

  Why didn't he pee in the room?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Cause there's no, there was no bathroom in his room.

• 25:13Bill Maher?

  That's why it's a men's hotel? Cause there was a, a communal bathroom?

• 25:16Speaker 01

  There'd be a communal bathroom, yeah.

• 25:18Bill Maher?

  Jeez, why couldn't you stay there instead of the Hampton and then you'd be, then you'd be okay now?

• 25:22Speaker 01

  It was two bucks a night.

• 25:23Bill Maher?

  Two bucks a night?

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Nineteen seventy-one.

• 25:27Bill Maher?

  I know. I, I just had never heard of, uh-

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:31Bill Maher?

  Anything. But my Reno thing with Sammy, first, let me just say it, because it was the eighties and I was playing there. Playing, yeah, I was opening for somebody, somebody like Melissa Manchester.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 25:44Bill Maher?

  Cause again, just finish with the Reno thing, lovely city, but smaller. So like, big, you could see the big stars. They all played there. But you could see them in a room with four hundred people. I mean, small rooms. Like, almost like a comedy club, very intimate. I saw, um, Dr. Cosby there.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Oh, Bill Cosby, yeah.

• 26:04Bill Maher?

  Yeah, remember was a fan of that comedy, but okay, he was there. And I saw Sammy. Sammy was, first of all, he's sitting in a stool, a cloud of smoke, you know, the cigarette going. And he tells the audience, you know, don't be stupid like me, as he's looking like the coolest guy in the world.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 26:21Bill Maher?

  I never wanted to smoke cigarettes so much than that. It really does work. And then I remember he sang Bojangles, but, oh, but not at the end.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:30Bill Maher?

  And he tells the audience, don't think this is the end. You know, I know you think Bojangles is my big ending song, but I'm just doing it now because I want to change up the show, whatever. And he sang it, and of course it did bring down the house. But everything he did.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was fun.

• 26:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, so, okay, I'm playing Reno in 1984. I cannot compete with your stories, but this is my best Reno story. In 1984, I'm 28, and I have this sport jacket made of leather.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:00Bill Maher?

  Leather. I bought it in the mall. I think I was shopping at the mall with Jerry Seinfeld.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 27:06Bill Maher?

  So I blame him partly for this, first, you know, even suggesting I get this. But, so it's, you know, it's a sport jacket, you know, it's not like a leather, which, but like a sport coat made of leather.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 27:18Bill Maher?

  And the, the opening comic, the one before me, was a woman, and she did like, she ended with like 10 minutes about what assholes macho guys are.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 27:26Bill Maher?

  And then I come out, and the audience just starts laughing at my, and I didn't understand, and I'm, I say to the people, what are you laughing at? And, and they told me that, you know, it's like, she was just making fun of macho assholes that you come out wearing a leather sport coat.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember playing, I was, I was opening for Tom Jones at Caesar's, my first time Caesar's. I come offstage, and I walk out in the front, and this girl comes up and goes, great show. I said, oh, thanks, thanks, yeah, how are you? Good.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  She goes, what are you doing? I'm just gonna get something to eat. Oh, okay, I'll join you.

• 28:07Bill Maher?

  This is before you were married?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, before, yeah, yeah. Okay. I was just sitting there, we're talking, and she goes, you don't have all night. I said, what are you talking about? Well, she was a hooker. I didn't know she was a hooker. She said, "Great show" to everybody. I thought she saw me on stage.

• 28:24Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  So I went, "Oh, oh," I was, I was, "Oh, she liked me."

• 28:27Bill Maher?

  What show was she referring to?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  No, she.

• 28:30Bill Maher?

  She just knew you were on stage?

• 28:32Speaker 01

  No, she, no, she knew I was on stage.

• 28:33Bill Maher?

  But why would you say, "Great show" to somebody?

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Because I just stepped out of the showroom.

• 28:37Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  And she went, "A great show." I said, "Oh, thank you." I'm thinking, "Oh, well, this girl saw the show. This is, you know."

• 28:46Bill Maher?

  That reminds me of David Brenner's great bit. Remember when he said the first time he did The Tonight Show? And he gets on the subway.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. You're funny. Yeah.

• 28:55Bill Maher?

  Right. And the guy in the subway goes, "You're funny."

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:59Bill Maher?

  Brenner's like, "Oh, this is awesome. I'm in show business. People will see me on The Tonight Show." And then the guy comes on, sits next to Brenner, and the guy goes, "You're funny."

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was funny. Yeah.

• 29:10Bill Maher?

  It was great. Oh, Jay, where did the years go?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  I know. There you go.

• 29:16Bill Maher?

  I mean, we. No, I'm, I'm very comfortable with this decision, honestly. All year long, as I knew, and, you know, I didn't book anything in 2025. And I didn't make some announcement, because I might go back to it. You're right. I don't know. I, I. But I have to see whether it's just an addiction or whether I really love it, whether it's worth it, and I don't think.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  You're getting, I, see, to me, to come up with a new joke, like the other day. I came up with a new joke, I was like, "I'll try my new joke on you."

• 29:44Bill Maher?

  I know, but, and I want you to, but that is, that's the sore point. That's, you just hit the bone on this one.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Why?

• 29:51Bill Maher?

  Well, because I know I'm gonna come up with bits. And then it's like, you know, it's like, uh, when you're horny and you can't come, it's just gonna back up in you. I mean, what am I gonna do with the bits, you know, that would be perfect for my next act? I mean, I cut a half hour out of this act to make it fit for 60 minutes. But it's still good stuff that I could start a new act with, as I always did.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but for me, that's half the fun, is just, I keep adding on to it.

• 30:18Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  It's like building a wall. You got a brick, a brick at a time.

• 30:22Bill Maher?

  But you know what? I just, I just don't wanna drag my ass out of bed. I'm not like you. I'm not Iron Jay. I'm not up in the morning anyway. You're up anyway. You only sleep at four hours, right?

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:33Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's, that's very rare in humans.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Well, I, I'm actually, I've been up since four, actually. I went to bed last night.

• 30:41Bill Maher?

  See.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  I went to bed last night at midnight. I usually go to bed at two or three. I don't go to bed at midnight. And then I was up at four. And I was just dragging my ass around reading and doing stuff.

• 30:51Bill Maher?

  But you don't feel shitty?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:53Bill Maher?

  And you don't drink coffee?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  No, no hot liquids. Ah.

• 30:57Bill Maher?

  What, are you Mormon? What do you mean, no hot liquids?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  I don't like hot liquids.

• 31:01Bill Maher?

  Okay. You don't drink, you don't drink?

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Soup is just a way to screw you out of a meal. That's my answer.

• 31:06Bill Maher?

  Well, okay, well, I don't know why we had to shit on soup. I mean, soup's good.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  I'm not a big soup guy.

• 31:15Bill Maher?

  I know, I'm not a big soup guy, but you know, I don't blanketly hate all soup.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  I don't. It's just a way to screw you out of a meal. Oh, I could've had something to eat. Oh, you give me a dish that's wet. Okay, thanks. You know.

• 31:26Bill Maher?

  Well, I think that will serve you well as you, as you go forward in life because a lot of the times what they make fun of older people for is liking soup.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:37Bill Maher?

  And you know, if you're the guy who's still, you're still eating steak.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  That's the old joke, you know, the Jewish joke? Guy's walking down the street. Guy goes, hey, old man, how'd you like some super sex? He goes, soup. Yeah.

• 31:51Bill Maher?

  That worked, that joke worked better back when people used to say the word super.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, number.

• 31:56Bill Maher?

  Now kids are like, what is, I don't get it.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:59Bill Maher?

  Because super around, where was it? The seventies, the eighties? I think David Frost was the first one who said it. It was a British thing. Oh, that's super. That's just super. And then of course.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  There was Glenn Supa, the comic, remember him?

• 32:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, I do remember the name.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Glenn Supa. That was, that was.

• 32:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Well.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 32:18Bill Maher?

  So where are, where are you off to next, Jay? And, and your 170 days on the road?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I don't know. I'll, I'll get, pick up the envelope Monday and see where I'm going.

• 32:27Bill Maher?

  What? You still do it that way?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, so I, I, I.

• 32:32Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  I opened the envelope. Oh, I'm going to Wilmington. Oh, this is great. So I got on the plane, you know, private planes. I fly, land in Wilmington. Camera crew, hey, gentlemen, what's up? Yeah, great, you know, last time I was here, I played a little club downtown. What club was that? You know, I thought it was on Main Street. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah, you don't know it? Yeah. Started talking a little bit. They don't seem to know that. Then the guy picks me up and he's got a bit of an accent.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Then we get to where we're going, everybody else has an accent, and I realize, oh, I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina. I thought I was in Wilmington, Delaware. But when I got off the plane, I was talking about Wilmington, Delaware.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I said, oh, so I gotta, I gotta pay more attention.

• 33:15Bill Maher?

  Jay, you're ridiculous. It's just, it's just, you're just ridiculous. I mean, why, I mean, I mean.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  But see, I'm happy. You're not happy.

• 33:24Bill Maher?

  I'm very happy.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Oh, you're happy, okay.

• 33:26Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I've been happy doing stand-up all the time.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:29Bill Maher?

  And now that, and now that the, the balance has shifted, I think, just, even if it's 51.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  But see, the thing is, once you quit, you can't go back.

• 33:39Bill Maher?

  Yes, you can. What are you talking about? I've done it for over 40 years.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you never really quit. You did the show, you did monologues.

• 33:45Bill Maher?

  No, never quit stand-up. But I'm saying, like, you don't think after over 40 years of doing it, if I took a year off, I'd forget how to do it?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Not a year, but a couple of years. I mean, I've, I've seen people try to do it.

• 33:57Bill Maher?

  No, it would just take a while to, you know, it's like spring training.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, yeah, but people, we live in an era now where people show up and they tape every set. Oh, I saw him, he was terrible. You know, I, I was, I was, I, I mentioned I was doing some new material and a guy said, oh, no, I heard you do this new material two weeks ago. Well, yeah, it's, it's, it's still new material. Yeah, yeah.

• 34:20Bill Maher?

  It's not new.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  I heard you do it two weeks ago.

• 34:22Bill Maher?

  Right. Let me write a new act just for you, sir.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. And that's what people think. That's, that's what people think, yeah, yeah.

• 34:29Bill Maher?

  So you were with this hooker?

• 34:32Speaker 01

  No, I wasn't with her.

• 34:34Bill Maher?

  Jay, you just said you went to dinner with a hooker.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  No, I didn't know she was a hooker.

• 34:38Bill Maher?

  Well, that's what you say now.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  She said, you're wasting my time, you know? I said, what, you, you know, are you gonna pay me or not? I go, for what? I went, oh, I just thought I met a nice girl who said, great show.

• 34:49Bill Maher?

  I mean, the same thing happened to me. I mean, you, I think we all, when we're that age, we're naive.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:56Bill Maher?

  And, yeah, I just, yeah, that's hysterical that they, uh...

• 35:01Bill Maher?

  They actually, you actually, but yeah, she probably at some point.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Guess how long ago it was? I played Caesar and it was the only hotel that far out. There was nothing else around it.

• 35:14Bill Maher?

  I remember that.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so I figured one day I said, I'm gonna go for a walk. So I, I, I leave the hotel. I walk about a half a mile. And I see bellmen in golf carts coming at me at a high rate of speed. They go, get in, get in. I go, why? Get in, get in. There's a flash flood coming. I go, what are you talking about? And then two minutes later, oh, golf carts engulfed in water. Just hilarious. I, I said, where, where did it come? It's flat. Where, where did all this water come from? I don't know where it came from, but it was a flash flood.

• 35:47Bill Maher?

  Where does it come from?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  I, I don't know. It came from the hill somewhere.

• 35:51Bill Maher?

  So you never thought about gathering all these stories and putting out a?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Oh, too much trouble.

• 35:57Bill Maher?

  Too much trouble to write a book.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  I would rather just tell them and have fun. Right. You know, I read that. I went, oh.

• 36:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I put out a book this year and it was.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  The book was great. It's terrific book.

• 36:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, thank you.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  It was really good. I, I, I enjoy, I enjoy those because each one is different, has a unique point of view. No, I thought it was terrific book. I really liked it.

• 36:17Bill Maher?

  It just, but it took so much. I could have never done it without the strike that put us out of work for six months.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:23Bill Maher?

  Um, it was very.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  That's what I did, you know, I had my game show and I figured, you know, I'm a union guy. You know, everybody else, I'm gonna do a union show. This way you keep everybody happy. Okay. Strike! So every, every other game show stayed on. Mine got taken off and then I lost it because, yeah. Others in the union, like, there you go.

• 36:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I was talking to somebody the other day about Broadway and like, I, I couldn't believe that what he was saying was literal, but it is literal. Like, if you have a piece of lint on your suit, you can't pick it off. Like a union person has from wardrobe, has to be from the right department.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  When I did The Tonight Show and we took it to New York City, we had a, uh, some editing stuff in the room. And so we know we shoot shoot a jaywalking thing on the street, whatever. And let's just do a rough edits or see what we like. No, we had to have a guy come in. The guy comes in with, you know, big giant fingers, press stop, they go. I'll play it again. You just saw it. No, just play again. We just saw it. Yeah, I mean, I'm arguing with this guy. And I go, no, just we want to see it again. And he had to press stop, stop, yeah, yeah.

• 37:43Bill Maher?

  I mean, that kind of stuff, stuff that goes so beyond the realm of what anyone, I think, normal person would call common sense. To me, that has been the downfall of the Democrats. Because I don't know if a Democrat is specifically responsible for the person who can't pick lint off your suit.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 38:05Bill Maher?

  But it's in the mind of people and for not not wrong reasons. They associate that with left wing things and they associate Republicans with more like freedom. Uh, and you know libertarianism, getting the government off your back kind of stuff. That was Reagan's big thing.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Did you ever meet Reagan?

• 38:25Bill Maher?

  No. Oh, the eighties? Why, how could I meet Reagan in the eighties?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Well, I I had dinner with him. He was a funny guy.

• 38:32Bill Maher?

  He was a funny guy?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  He was, you know, we're sitting talking.

• 38:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I bet he was.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  He says, Jay, Jay, were you a good student? I said, no, Mr. President, I was a terrible student. I'm I was disliked. Jay, I wasn't a good student either. And every day I kick myself thinking how much further I could have gone if I just applied. And I thought I thought that was the greatest.

• 38:52Bill Maher?

  That is great.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  It's a great.

• 38:53Bill Maher?

  It's a great humble brag.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Jay, you were like an Indian motorcycle. Is that right, Jay? I had an Indian motorcycle bike, probably that thing was fat. You know, yeah, he was a fun guy.

• 39:02Bill Maher?

  Now, where was this, at some state dinner?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  At the White House.

• 39:05Bill Maher?

  Well, he just invited you over?

• 39:07Speaker 01

  No, I I did the one of the.

• 39:08Bill Maher?

  Oh, the Correspondence Dinner or one of those.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Here's a go. I'm backstage, I am waiting to go on. This general comes in, you know.

• 39:15Bill Maher?

  General?

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Well, some military guy.

• 39:17Bill Maher?

  I see, yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  You're a comic, come here. You know who that is? That's my commander in chief. You don't make fun of him. You don't degrade him. You don't want to. He's poking me like this. I go, well, I'm a comedian. No, you're not here in it. He's just yelling at me, you know? I'm thinking, well, I'm, oh, okay. All right. I'm thinking, I'll say, oh, gee, I gotta change my hack. What am I gonna do, you know? So then, so then, uh, he leaves and then what what what was his, um, chief of staff? What was his name?

• 39:44Bill Maher?

  Jim Baker.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  No, no, not Jim Baker.

• 39:46Bill Maher?

  Yes, he was. James Baker.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  The second term, the other guy.

• 39:51Bill Maher?

  After Weinberger? Regan, Donald Regan.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  The guy with the toupee?

• 39:57Bill Maher?

  Donald Regan, and Nancy had him fired.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  No, no, it wasn't Nancy.

• 40:03Bill Maher?

  Well, it was Jim.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  No, he was, he was somebody who had a bad toupee, who was in the, in the administration. And he comes, he goes, come here. We need to go out there, nail Ronnie's ass to the wall. And I go, and I said, well, you know something? This general, you're like, screw him. You don't know what he's talking about. You make fun of that thing. You think it's his hair color? You think his hair is really black? I'm at 74 years old. You know, I go, well, just nail him to the wall. I'm thinking, oh, jeez, I honestly didn't know what to do.

• 40:35Bill Maher?

  What did you do?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Well, my, my opening joke was, I said, I want to congratulate Nancy Reagan. I'm being named humanitarian of the year. I'm glad she beat out that kind of little bitch, Mother Teresa.

• 40:48Bill Maher?

  I remember you saying that joke.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:50Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  And boy, and Reagan fell off the chair. He thought that was so funny.

• 40:54Bill Maher?

  That is funny.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  And he was, oh, okay. And I said, oh, it was okay.

• 40:57Bill Maher?

  It's funny, and it's not a slam on her.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 41:00Bill Maher?

  So they can laugh at that.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:01Bill Maher?

  But that is the worst, the single worst crowd in the world.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 41:04Bill Maher?

  I did it one year because, of course, they can't be seen laughing at the wrong thing. And everything that would be any meaningful joke would have something that would get people upset. I did it one year and I screwed up one line and I was fumfering for it and I finally just, under my breath, came on, oh, fuck it. And the next year, People Magazine wrote about whoever was doing it that year and said, last year, Bill Maher delivered an obscenity laced monologue. One little fuck it.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:37Bill Maher?

  But in the 90s, that was, I guess, pretty.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a joke. It was like, it was like, I remember when I hosted Saturday Night Live. You'd be in the writers' room and Rooney was with me, so we'd be writing jokes. And we noticed the writers wouldn't laugh.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  But some writers were. And I said, yeah, they only laughed at the wrong jokes. Because it was so competitive. It was so competitive. You know, you got picked up for like thirteen weeks at a time. And if you don't score, you don't come back. And now it was a horrible place.

• 42:07Bill Maher?

  You still have writers?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Not anymore, no.

• 42:10Bill Maher?

  You don't use anybody?

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Well, I don't need to now.

• 42:13Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:14Bill Maher?

  But, no, and you, I mean, I've told this to a thousand people during the strike of two thousand and seven, which was different than this one.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:24Bill Maher?

  They weren't that opposed to us going on, which we both did, but we just couldn't use writers.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:32Bill Maher?

  And you wrote your own monologue without any writers, and it didn't look different than when you had a gang of writers. And I always say, nobody else could do that but Jay Leno.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Well, I know that.

• 42:45Bill Maher?

  That is the, Jay, why are you always so compliment resistant?

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Well, I guess it's, you know, I don't, I try not to believe the good stuff or the bad stuff. That's how you get through show business.

• 42:57Bill Maher?

  Well, that's the good stuff.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  You know, because when you host a Tonight Show, it's like people just, everybody's mad about something every day, you know? I mean, I'll tell you one of my favorite Tonight Show stories. I love Charlie Sheen. I don't want to be Charlie Sheen, but I love Charlie Sheen.

• 43:13Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  So one day, Charlie Sheen.

• 43:14Bill Maher?

  Well, you don't want to be him now. In the eighties, it probably was a lot of fun.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  I'd say, gee, it's almost four o'clock, Charlie Sheen's not here. Ring, Jay, it's Charlie Sheen on the phone. Charlie goes, Jay, ma'am, sorry, ma'am, we, Limo got T-boned. You all right? He goes, yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay. Is Joe okay? Yeah, he's fine. Yeah, you're just, I'm got, I said, look, man, just take it easy. He has not had a gospel, just shaken up a little bit. It caught fire, they put it out.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  All right, look, man, just take it, look, we'll get somebody to fill. We'll get a comic, we'll get a comic to fill in, don't worry. Okay, yeah, I can tell. So I said, yeah, yeah.

• 43:53Bill Maher?

  So wait, this happened multiple times because he was always so loaded?

• 43:56Speaker 01

  No, no, this happened, this happened one day.

• 43:59Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  So I said, Charlie had an accent. And they go, oh, you did? Yeah. Oh, okay. Something, check in, call the, you know, whatever the thing. He's fine about Charlie's accent. It's all right. So I said, you know, you got Joe's number, the limo driver? Hello, Joe, Jay Leno. Joe, where at? I'm sitting out in front of Charlie's house. He hasn't come out yet. What? You know, psychopath goes, what are you, nine years old? Like, there's a monster under the bed? You really? The limo gets T-boned on the 101 freeway. It catches fire. You're not injured. You don't think that's a story?

• 44:34Bill Maher?

  And, and?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, hilarious.

• 44:36Bill Maher?

  And what did he say?

• 44:37Speaker 01

  He apologized, and I had him on the show. And he said, he said the greatest thing. He said, you know, I just like hookers and cocaine.

• 44:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  And I went, thank you for the most honest answer ever, ladies and gentlemen. You're hilarious.

• 44:52Bill Maher?

  And there's something wrong with that. But, you know, he has done some things. And I'm amazed at how he is able to skate. And I'm not knocking him. I had a dinner with him once. He couldn't be more charming. I hope, I wish him well. But he has gotten away with things that are so much worse than other people have gotten canceled for.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:13Bill Maher?

  And it's just because?

• 45:14Speaker 01

  But it's a different time, too.

• 45:16Bill Maher?

  No, no. The, the, the women saying he gave me AIDS knowingly? I mean, I can't think of a more cancelable thing than that. That wasn't that long ago. But it just shows, it's not really what you do. It's how much they like you.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:32Bill Maher?

  They like, they just fucking like it. He had a Super Bowl commercial two years ago. Could Louis C.K. get a Super Bowl commercial?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:40Bill Maher?

  No. And Louis C.K. didn't do anything. I mean, this guy, like, hit hookers, hit hookers with other hookers, locks them in the closet, held a knife to one of his wife's throats, is on tape calling his second wife the N-word, and she's not black. I mean, that's, that's pretty. And yet, nothing, because we like him. And by the way, everybody should be treated that way.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:05Bill Maher?

  Because he's not a bad guy.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 46:06Bill Maher?

  At all.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  No, I like that.

• 46:07Bill Maher?

  And we all make mistakes, and he was just who he was.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  That's what I like about showbiz. I could be around Charlie without being Charlie. And that's, Jose's great, because I could be in and amongst all of this and observe it as an observer and really enjoy it, as opposed to being in it, you know? I never went to any PD's parties, you know? But it was funny to stand on the outside.

• 46:29Bill Maher?

  Well, that's not what I've heard.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's me. Yeah, that's me.

• 46:34Bill Maher?

  Well, what do you think's gonna happen with that? Oh.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  I think he's probably gonna prison for the rest of his life.

• 46:41Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  You know, they cut you a break and then you you jump the shark. Okay, now you got this thing with a 13 year old girl.

• 46:49Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  A boy, that's, yeah, that's, that's not good.

• 46:52Bill Maher?

  No.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  That's not good.

• 46:55Bill Maher?

  I've been saying forever that the Me Too movement, which of course was a necessary and should be in anyone's mind welcome corrective, skipped over the one part of society where it was absolutely the worst. I mean, they they got the people like in news and they got the people, the Harvey Weinsteins. You know, they got people, they went after like NPR. They got like eight people, like conductors who were in their 70s who like said the wrong thing. They went after that artist. What's his name? I forget. He's a famous artist, but he was in a wheelchair. And, you know, what was gonna wheel after her and I mean, you know, he couldn't, his dick didn't work.

• 47:40Bill Maher?

  He didn't rape anybody. He, whatever he did, and he went away.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, they just went, but the music industry where it is worse than anything. And has been.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's interesting. I watched, I watched that Leonard Bernstein movie.

• 47:56Bill Maher?

  Me too, Maestro.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Maestro. I thought he did a great job.

• 47:59Bill Maher?

  Bradley Cooper did an amazing job, not a.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  I mean, but here's my thing.

• 48:03Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm watching this movie. Okay, that's great. And I like it, Leonard Bernstein. So he winds up having sex with his student, but he really loved the kids.

• 48:13Bill Maher?

  For people who don't know.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Right, gay sex, but it was okay, cause he loved, he loved the kids. And I go, really? Well, how, how does he get away with that? How do you pull that off? I thought, I was like, wait a minute. I mean, shouldn't he be accountable for?

• 48:30Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  I, I, I go, what did I miss here? You know?

• 48:34Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, the difference in standards of what was seen as, you know, acceptable or even heroic, you know, I mean, James Bond in the 1969 version, he punches Diana Rigg in the face heroically because she wants to come with him on the mission.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 48:55Bill Maher?

  But it's too dangerous and she won't listen to reason.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  You know.

• 48:59Bill Maher?

  Punch and knocks her out. I think there are no medical repercussions to actually inducing a state of unconsciousness. I mean, she went into the blue tent.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Did you know him at all, Sean Connery?

• 49:11Bill Maher?

  I do.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Did you ever meet him?

• 49:13Bill Maher?

  You are so ridiculous. Do you, do I, yeah, me and Sean.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  No, I don't know. Well, I'll tell you something.

• 49:19Bill Maher?

  Oh, I mean, I've got tons of.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  People don't know, he was Mr. Universe, third runner up, 1953.

• 49:23Bill Maher?

  Mr. Universe?

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, third runner up.

• 49:25Bill Maher?

  He's a bodybuilder?

• 49:26Speaker 01

  He was, 1953.

• 49:28Bill Maher?

  Sean Connery?

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Sean Connery, Mr. Universe, third runner up.

• 49:31Bill Maher?

  It must have been different in those days. He wasn't like super overdubbed.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  No, they didn't do it in those, in those days, you were just.

• 49:36Bill Maher?

  Right, you were just good looking.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  A beefy looking guy, you know.

• 49:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I can see that.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  But he was, he was a longshoreman and he was a tough guy.

• 49:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, tough guy.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  And he was doing extras, extra work. And he was in a movie with Lana Turner.

• 49:51Bill Maher?

  Lana Turner.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  And he was flirting with Lana Turner and Lana Turner was going out with Johnny Stompanato. Do you ever hear that name?

• 49:58Bill Maher?

  Actor of the mafia.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, Johnny Stompanato, okay.

• 50:01Bill Maher?

  What family was he?

• 50:02Speaker 01

  So Johnny Stompano, I don't know, Johnny Stompanato, he was about this guy flirting with his girlfriend. So he goes down to the studio, he puts a gun to Sean Connery's head and Sean Connery takes a gun, empties a bullet out, smashes him in the head and goes, "You don't bring a gun to my workplace." Just throws him.

• 50:20Bill Maher?

  Just like in, just like in The Untouchables.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:23Bill Maher?

  Just like the line he had.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  He was, when I would have him on The Tonight Show, he'd go, "Gee, gee, what's the latest filthy joke going about, gee?" And when I'd tell him, he'd laugh like a pirate. He'd laugh like that to the point where the newsroom would go, "Hey, shut up down there. You tell Sean Connery to shut up," you know. He was the only star ever took a shower in those, the old little showers they had.

• 50:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Nobody, he was the only one. Oh, Scotland, in the screaming and yelling, oh.

• 50:51Bill Maher?

  Apropos about who they cancel and don't just because they like them, he, on a Barbara Walters, I think it was, interview. Said outright, sometimes a woman needs a good slap.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 51:03Bill Maher?

  You gotta, you gotta slap them.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  A little pushy.

• 51:07Bill Maher?

  And it was like, oh Sean, you could slap me. You know, if it was, it was Sean, Wallace Shawn who said this, it would not have been funny. It would not have been.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  But he was, he was the most dangerous James Bond. He was really, I never got Roger Moore as the Pilbury.

• 51:25Bill Maher?

  Roger Moore was a lovely man.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  He is a lovely man.

• 51:28Bill Maher?

  Once bought me dinner with about eight people, just because I was with a party, I guess, that knew him. But I remember he picked up the check and I'd never met him and he was charming as fuck. But yeah, he should, he should the better.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  You know, I had my time.

• 51:41Bill Maher?

  But it wasn't all his fault. It was the era.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:44Bill Maher?

  That he did it in, they, the, and you know, just like, it's funny. We were looking at the tribute I wrote to Johnny Carson in 2012 for Newsweek. I don't know if you remember this.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:56Bill Maher?

  And I said, look it up today, because Jay's coming over. And, you know, it was a, a nice tribute to Johnny, but I did say at the end of it, Jay Leonard was the right guy for now. You know, Johnny would not, if Jay went up against Johnny now, Jay would win. And John, and if it was 1965, Johnny would win. He was right for his era and Jay is right for this era.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 52:20Bill Maher?

  And, and, and like Sean Connery was right for his era. It was dangerous. It was the sixties.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Well, see, the idea was.

• 52:27Bill Maher?

  And Roger Moore was the seventies when things were lame and they wanted a lame James Bond.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  You take a thug and you put him in a Savile Row suit so he has, gives off that danger. You know, I, I had, I had Roger Moore.

• 52:38Bill Maher?

  Which was recaptured by Daniel Craig.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, Daniel Craig did a great job.

• 52:42Bill Maher?

  The sense of danger.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  He did a great job.

• 52:44Bill Maher?

  Like this guy, and I had dinner with him and a few people one night and you did get that sense of danger that, you know, you might say something that amused him, but if you didn't, he might punch you in the face.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Right, right, right. I had Roger Moore on the Tonight Show. I said, where are you going on vacation? He goes, I have to go to India. India? Yeah, how often do you go there? Oh, every weekend. I, I say you go to India every weekend? Yes, yes, of course. I look at Debbie and Debbie, that. Oh, isn't that rather involved? Oh, good heavens, no, no, not at all. That's quite a long flight. Oh, no, we drive. I see you drive to India.

• 53:25Bill Maher?

  Okay, you can't. From where? Where were you?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  I know.

• 53:27Bill Maher?

  From Los Angeles?

• 53:28Speaker 01

  And that, well, what, no, what he was, what he was, thought he was saying was Indio, California.

• 53:35Bill Maher?

  Indio.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  But, you know, we're sitting there going, what? You know, what?

• 53:38Bill Maher?

  That's hysterical.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  This edit, you know. I'll tell you one of the great edits of all time. We had Bob, Bob Hope was almost a hundred. I had him on the show. And he didn't like to wear his glasses or his hair in his eyes. He goes, Jay, tell you what. You ask me the 10 questions, I got 10 jokes. You just say the question, I got the jokes memorized. We do, we go down the line. Okay, great. Bob, how you doing? Da da da da, da da da da, big laugh. Hey, Bob, how's that? Da da da da, big laugh. So I'm throwing, and I go, da da da da, and I go, ah, that was funny. Da da da da. Okay. Now, now, now I'm one joke ahead, you know? And it's, I, I said, no, no, let me ask you. Da da da da.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  I said, okay, da da da. So we, we, we had to edit. It was like a nightmare. If you want to see something fun.

• 54:32Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  When you watch some of the Bob Hope shows. He, one day, I'm in the hall, I see guys carry what I think is a plate glass window. It's a giant cue card, just has the word hello on it. Bob wouldn't wear his glasses.

• 54:47Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  No, he wouldn't wear his glasses. So wait, but when you watch, when you.

• 54:51Bill Maher?

  But he couldn't remember hello.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  No, that was the, it's just, they flip them.

• 54:55Bill Maher?

  He couldn't have lived that.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Apparently not. Johnny didn't think he could. But here's the funny part. They would drop the cue cards. They would drop the cue cards like this. The drop, and his hair would go. So when you watch the monologue, after every joke, you see his hair go like this.

• 55:13Bill Maher?

  It must have been a wig at that point.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they, the, the hair would just go up from the cue card dropping down. No, Johnny did not like Hope.

• 55:20Bill Maher?

  I still can't get past, I can't get past he can't remember hello. Come on, man.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  That was how the cue card, just a big hello.

• 55:28Bill Maher?

  I like the old school pleasures, Jay.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  The old school, the men and the women were glad of it. Wooden ships, iron men, that's Bill Maher, ladies and gentlemen. Exactly. Yes, I like the old school.

• 55:44Bill Maher?

  What's that, me coughing?

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Me coughing.

• 55:48Bill Maher?

  Jay, step up to the cool, refreshing flavor of camel.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 55:53Bill Maher?

  There's nothing wrong with a good camel, unfiltered.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  That's my favorite thing. I love watching Mad Men. What's this cancer nonsense that the cigarette comes, you know?

• 56:02Bill Maher?

  You watch Mad Men?

• 56:03Speaker 01

  I love Mad Men.

• 56:04Bill Maher?

  Such a great show.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Isn't that the great show? I watched it twice. I thought it was the best show.

• 56:08Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I should do. I should watch it again. It's been a long enough time.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Oh, it's good. It's really good.

• 56:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, it's so good. I mean, the writing, the acting, I mean, John is perfect in the lead.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  And just how much things cost, you know, secretary is made forty-five dollars a week, you know?

• 56:22Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah. Well, but also the value system.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:26Bill Maher?

  I love the storyline, well, you know, he was always cheating, of course, the wife. And one storyline was with the Jewish.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, right.

• 56:38Bill Maher?

  The Jewish woman who was the scion of the department store because in that era, and of course, this is all accurate, I mean, Jews had their own department store.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:50Bill Maher?

  I mean, these people who today who think, you know, that racism is worse than ever, it's just another one of those silly things that people say. They go, you know what? People were actually alive for this. That's not to say that there isn't work to be done. There always will be work to be done, but it.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I always say, yeah.

• 57:10Bill Maher?

  When my parents got married, a Jew and a Catholic in nineteen fifty-one, that was way more controversial than an interracial marriage today.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I always say what used to be, what is now against the law, used to be the law.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  That's the difference.

• 57:28Bill Maher?

  Well, interesting.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  An Asian could not marry a white person in the fifties, you know?

• 57:33Bill Maher?

  Misogynization.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:36Bill Maher?

  I mean, nineteen sixty-seven was the loving case in the Supreme Court and before then, it was not even legal.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah. No, I mean. It's a shame that the progressives don't seem to want to sell progress. Because it is, after all, the product that they're supporting and should be selling.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Mark Twain said, "I like progress. It's change I don't like." And it's a great quote.

• 58:06Bill Maher?

  And did you know him? Did you have dinner with him?

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Didn't know, didn't know.

• 58:08Bill Maher?

  Did Zelensky come by for that?

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Didn't know, Mark. Didn't know, Mark.

• 58:11Bill Maher?

  No?

• 58:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 58:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, come on, not even-

• 58:13Speaker 01

  Sadly, never had a chance.

• 58:14Bill Maher?

  Not even high school?

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Not even in high school. No, no. This is very sad time.

• 58:19Bill Maher?

  Well, Jay, what's your next accident coming up?

• 58:22Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know, it's great for tickets. People love when rich people get set on fire or have accidents. I mean, they love it. I mean, it's great. People think it's fantastic. It sells tickets.

• 58:36Bill Maher?

  So, you say you do 170 dates now.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  About.

• 58:39Bill Maher?

  You used to do 250.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:41Bill Maher?

  But you must see that there's a pattern there, that you are doing less, that you are... That is a scaling of back-

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Well, I'm doing a little bit less now because I'm taking care of my wife.

• 58:50Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Stuff like that. So, I try to... I come home every night and I try to fly home.

• 58:54Bill Maher?

  You never stayed over places. You would do the gig and come home.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  I would go to Italy on Friday, do the show Saturday, be home again Sunday.

• 59:01Bill Maher?

  Italy?

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:02Bill Maher?

  For the Pope?

• 59:03Speaker 01

  No, not for the Pope. I'm not Catholic.

• 59:05Bill Maher?

  What was he like, Jay?

• 59:06Speaker 01

  I don't know the Pope.

• 59:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, I don't believe that. You had a night. Come on.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Do you know the Pope? You know, the Pope was a bouncer when he was 22 years old?

• 59:16Bill Maher?

  Of course, you know that.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  No, he was. He was. He was a bouncer.

• 59:18Bill Maher?

  Which Pope? The Pope now? Pope Francis?

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Pope Francis. He's a big guy in Argentina. He's the Argentine.

• 59:23Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  He was a bouncer.

• 59:25Bill Maher?

  Francis Bergoglio.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  But he quit the job because he wasn't mean enough. And was then later given to a woman who became a nun. And she got the job.

• 59:34Bill Maher?

  Is that right? How do you know that?

• 59:37Speaker 01

  That's a joke. A nun became a bouncer, you see. No, but he was a bouncer. He was a bouncer.

• 59:45Bill Maher?

  I don't get that joke.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Okay, let me explain the joke.

• 59:48Bill Maher?

  Yeah, dude, explain that to me.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Pope Francis quit being a bouncer because he wasn't mean enough.

• 59:54Bill Maher?

  Yeah, so a nun being meaner.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  The job was then given to a woman who later became a nun. Yeah, let me see. As you see, she was.

• 1:00:02Bill Maher?

  I would just say it was given to a nun. There it is. Nuns were mean. I had nuns. I went to Catholic. I went to catechetism.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  I never did any of that.

• 1:00:11Bill Maher?

  You didn't?

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  I'm not Catholic, no.

• 1:00:14Bill Maher?

  Leno?

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  No, I'm not Catholic. My mother's from Scotland. My mother wouldn't, my mother would not.

• 1:00:19Bill Maher?

  What were they, Calvinist or?

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  No, they just, we really weren't much. My dad, when I was a kid, my dad put his bathroom bomb, drive me up to church and go, "Go in there and listen to the fella." That's what my dad would say. "Go in there and listen to the fella," you know, the preacher.

• 1:00:34Bill Maher?

  The priest?

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, not priest, just a minister. And I would pretend to go in, I'd go down the basement and play with the soda machine.

• 1:00:41Bill Maher?

  But your father wasn't Catholic, Leno?

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  My father was, but not practicing.

• 1:00:45Bill Maher?

  I see.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:00:46Bill Maher?

  And your mother didn't care about the priest?

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  God, no.

• 1:00:49Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  None of that.

• 1:00:50Bill Maher?

  So you had none of formal?

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  No, I had no formal, no.

• 1:00:53Bill Maher?

  But that was weird in that era.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  So I liked everybody, so that's all right.

• 1:00:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it has always been such a contradiction that you can absolutely have certainty about who God is. And then when somebody doesn't agree on that, here in this country anyway, we're like, "Oh, that's cool."

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  You know something? I had a foster kid for a number of years. She lived, she had spina bifida. And she lived to be 21 years old. And she's from the south.

• 1:01:24Bill Maher?

  Does that kill you that early?

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. I met her when she was six. And when she was six, she was cute. And we became good friends. And as she got older and her body got more deformed, you know, she wasn't the cute poster kid anymore. So I got to know her family better and helped take care of her. And they were very religious. And I would go down there, like, we would go to McDonald's and we would hold, have to hold hands and pray while we'd camp. And then one time we're in there and the Madonna song, "Like a Virgin" comes on the radio. And we had to go outside until the song ended. And I'm thinking, "Well, this is stupid."

• 1:02:02Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  Well, just because it's, it's a Madonna song, I don't know. Okay, but then I went to their house. And these people, they adopted every kid nobody wanted. All the, you know, kids from other countries.

• 1:02:19Bill Maher?

  Like Mia Farrow.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 1:02:21Bill Maher?

  Like Mia Farrow.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I guess you say, but they had, they had Vietnamese biracial kids that were, had mentally retarded.

• 1:02:28Bill Maher?

  That's Mia Farrow.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  And they loved these kids and they took care of them. And I said, you know, I'm not doing this. They live their religion. They're better than I am. So I just, I just respect it for what I go, God bless it, you know? The people that don't live it, you know, like the, you know, the Jimmy Swagger types, you know? But these people, they, they lived it and, you know, they took everybody in and they took care of them and they raised them.

• 1:02:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure Mia Farrow loved them in the right way. But that's, that's another story. But Jay, you know what? I can top you anytime. I've adopted over a hundred strippers.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:03:05Bill Maher?

  You know that from all over the country? And I have changed lives from here.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Over 50 girls, no girl under 50, none of those.

• 1:03:16Bill Maher?

  Well, I will not miss the road, but I'm so glad that.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Well, I will, I will bring you tales from the road.

• 1:03:24Bill Maher?

  You're still making tales. That's what's important.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's fun.

• 1:03:28Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, you like, these stories about your, um, health accidents, um, they will be your stories in 10 years.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right. I didn't tell my, my new AI joke I have for you.

• 1:03:41Bill Maher?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  I had an AI experience. I got flipped off by a driverless car.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  It's not a bad joke.

• 1:03:51Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:03:53Bill Maher?

  Do you purposely write or does it just come to you?

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Little of both. You, you, something, I mean, something happened the other night that I got a good bit out of. I was on stage. I said, when you get to be over 65, you, you, you lose muscle mass. You lose like 2% a year. I said, I'm, I'm at the point now where opening a bag of pretzels is like tearing a phone book in half. So this kid who's like 25 goes, what's a phone book? I said, I said, it's a book. Like in your town, everybody's phone number. He go, what? How they get everybody's number? And I go, well, they have the number. He goes, what if you want to be in the book? I said, well, then you pay money to get an unlisted number. So you pay not, that's extortion. I said, you know, we're not having this conversation.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  But I just laugh and say, it was just no idea what a phone book was.

• 1:04:42Bill Maher?

  But that's, but I'm, I'm in surprise that you would not have replaced phone book with another word because I could have told you this, that this is gonna happen. Phone book is, is, you don't wanna like, we're old enough without, without reminding people that we're old.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  I know, but.

• 1:04:59Bill Maher?

  So we can't be like, you know, kids, Bat Masterson once said.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  But you know, you also have to be true to yourself and it, it works for me.

• 1:05:07Bill Maher?

  But there's must be another way to convey that idea without using the word.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  I wouldn't have had the interaction with the guy. And that's what's funny, the guy never, not even understanding the concept of a phone book, you know?

• 1:05:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Explain a paper route to a kid. Why not just get the internet? No, you put a piece of paper, you go to each house. What? What are you talking about? They don't know what you're talking about.

• 1:05:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm not so sure reminding them that we're old is really the best way to go.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  They can just look at us and see.

• 1:05:39Bill Maher?

  They, they, I know, but there's a difference between something that goes on in the mind, which says, okay, they're, they're not young anymore, but they're still hip and they're still funny and they, and we still, they still get across without go, don't give them a reason to roll their eyes. Cause that's what that generation wants to do is roll their eyes at you. Don't give them a reason.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  But see, I don't dwell on it. I, I'll do 40 minutes of material before I even bring that up. And then I'm merely stating the obvious. I mean, I remember one day, the Stones are on one of their endless last tours. And it's in my office and a bunch of interns from the Tonight Show are there. And the Stones came on the news. I said, God, they gotta admit, they still look pretty good. And I look over and they're like. Kids will laugh, look good. Mr. Little, they're like, "It's a lovely guy." I go, "Well, don't they look..." "No, they look awful." I mean, they just thought that was the funniest thing. And it just made me laugh, because I did the same thing when I was a kid.

• 1:06:39Bill Maher?

  Tell the story about you and Mick Jagger at Plato's retreat. Because I know...

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't know that.

• 1:06:44Bill Maher?

  Come on, there must be a... No.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Oh, look at the time. Oh, gosh.

• 1:06:49Bill Maher?

  Give me some rock star stories. Who are your rock star friends? I mean, you know everybody, everybody calls you.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't really have a lot of rock star... You know, one day...

• 1:06:56Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  You know, you know who I got friendly with was Prince. Because he didn't drink.

• 1:07:02Bill Maher?

  Prince, the one nobody could ever get friendly with.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  No, well, I'll tell you a great Prince story. He used to come on the Tonight Show.

• 1:07:10Bill Maher?

  He once talked about politically incorrect.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:13Bill Maher?

  He was a fan. Do you remember that?

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:07:15Bill Maher?

  That meant a lot to me.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, we talked about that.

• 1:07:17Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  But one day, I knew he was coming on the show. So I dress up as a security guard. I have a bald wig on and I have a mustache. You know, I got a big fat suit on. And he pulls in and I go, "Can I have your name, please?" "Prince?" He says, "Prince." "Prince..." "Prince, Prince what?"

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  "Prince, a musician." "Your name is Prince, a musician?" He goes, "No." And now he's getting mad. He goes, "No, I'm on the show. I'm a performer. My name is Prince." I said, "I understand. Prince what? I don't have it now. Prince what?" He goes, "It's not Prince what, it's just Prince." Now he's getting really pissed, you know, and I'm...

• 1:07:55Bill Maher?

  He doesn't see that it's you.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  No, well, I'm starting to laugh. He goes, "You think this is funny?" I go, "Yeah, it's funny, funny." He goes, "What?" "Oh, fuck you." He just... He really... He fell down. He really started laughing, because he really got mad at me.

• 1:08:09Bill Maher?

  That's awesome.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Because he just had this, "Here I am, I'm a huge star, all these Grammys." I get... And the security guard didn't know who I am. But, you know, I said, "No, it's me. I gotta think..." "Oh, oh, oh." Yeah, he was great. He was very funny.

• 1:08:21Bill Maher?

  That's gutsy, because it could have gone the other way.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  No, no, not with him.

• 1:08:24Bill Maher?

  With a rock star.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  He was great. You know, after the show...

• 1:08:26Bill Maher?

  Yeah, there were rock stars who are...

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but he wasn't one of them.

• 1:08:30Bill Maher?

  Good.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  He kept the audience there. And he said, "Can I play a couple of songs, you guys?" "Okay." You know, he played and they kind of jammed with it. And he was great. He was, he was really a nice guy.

• 1:08:40Bill Maher?

  What did he play that night? Do you remember?

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  I don't remember what he played that night.

• 1:08:43Bill Maher?

  What year?

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Well, let me see.

• 1:08:48Bill Maher?

  Nineties?

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  No, no, probably, uh.

• 1:08:51Bill Maher?

  When were you a guest hosting?

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  Six, seven, eight, you know. In, in, in the art years, oh, seven, oh, eight, oh, nine.

• 1:08:58Bill Maher?

  Oh, that, well, far, that far.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I left in fourteen, you know.

• 1:09:05Bill Maher?

  Right. I remember when I did the, they moved you to the ten o'clock thing.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  That was stupid.

• 1:09:11Bill Maher?

  I mean, that whole episode.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  I only took that because they said, if you do this show, I said, I don't think it's gonna work. If you do this show, we'll pay your staff for two years. And I love my staff, and I said, all right, you, you, everybody, two years guaranteed works? You guys wanna do it? Okay, all right, we'll do it. But I, I knew it wouldn't last any day.

• 1:09:29Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Bill Maher?

  Because I thought it would. I thought, oh, that's the right move, because.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  No, I knew it wouldn't work, you know why? Because Cabot tried it. Cabot tried it.

• 1:09:38Bill Maher?

  But you're not Cabot.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  And he tried it in the sixties.

• 1:09:40Bill Maher?

  That's a.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  At ten o'clock.

• 1:09:41Bill Maher?

  That's really.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  And it, it didn't work. Well, not really.

• 1:09:44Bill Maher?

  You were Cabot.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  No, but, but it.

• 1:09:47Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's like pizza versus sushi.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:09:49Bill Maher?

  It's just, you know.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Cabot was.

• 1:09:51Bill Maher?

  More people are gonna choose the pizza. You're the pizza, Jay.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but TV still had a sort of, you know, you know, it's funny when you read early reviews of Johnny. Where's the erudite Jack Parr? Where's that, so and so? You know, Johnny was sort of like the, the people's. Because don't forget, when television, in the fifties, it was Playhouse ninety. A live, a lot, so Olivier had a show where you'd come out and greet people and talk. I mean, it was a very classy medium. And then gradually, gradually, it went to the masses.

• 1:10:25Bill Maher?

  But again, you have to ride the wave that comes from the ocean.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:31Bill Maher?

  I know this as a body surfer, and you rode the wave that was going toward the shore, and you rode it right. I think I've told you this once. I remember talking to a, oh, God, I don't know what year this was, probably the nineties, but, you know, you know, she was a, a young girl and a part of my mentoring program. And I asked her, you know, do you watch Letterman? Do you watch Leno? And she was, oh, no, Leno. And I said, why? She, she said, like, it's just more of a party. You know, you got that. That like the era of the straight talk show was over.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:06Bill Maher?

  People weren't, didn't have that acumen anymore.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:09Bill Maher?

  They didn't have that ability to, certainly when Johnny started, sit through a discussion with Gore Vidal.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:11:17Bill Maher?

  When he did, Johnny used to do an hour forty-five.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  Right, I remember.

• 1:11:21Bill Maher?

  And they would have authors on at the end. I mean, sorry, but you gotta live in the world you're living in, in the society you're living in. And you understood that.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:30Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:11:32Bill Maher?

  You always, and you always kept, you know, in a way we are connected because I feel like I'm the only guy on TV who really isn't like ideologically captured by the left. That is basically my politics, old school liberalism, but I don't hate the other side.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  No, but you have the most honest show on television.

• 1:11:51Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  I always know exactly how you feel. I don't have to agree, but at least I know you're not trying to appease the audience.

• 1:11:59Bill Maher?

  And I don't just go with one side because that's the side.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  I know, no.

• 1:12:03Bill Maher?

  And you, and you, you know, you kept.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Remember, I told you this years ago.

• 1:12:06Bill Maher?

  You kept middle America and the coast.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  I, I told you, you used to sort of get mad because you weren't as popular as some of the other guys. And I said, but you're gonna have longevity. You're gonna be around longer because you're interesting and you make people think. When you start, you're young, people don't wanna think, they just wanna laugh and move.

• 1:12:25Bill Maher?

  Actually, I was more popular than almost all the other guys, and often all of them. If you went by the ratings numbers, it was just media.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:12:37Bill Maher?

  Did not want to acknowledge me. Because I wasn't in the perfectly woke, one true opinion camp.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Right, right. What the reason would be? I remember you used to get so frustrated and I used to think, you know, no, you, it's gonna work out fine, and it has.

• 1:12:51Bill Maher?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  You're on the air for thirty years.

• 1:12:54Bill Maher?

  I know. It's unbelievable.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  I gotta go, I gotta take care of my wife.

• 1:12:57Bill Maher?

  Jay, I was gonna say, it's a shame that the only time we see each other now is when we do this, but I don't really give a fuck why we see each other.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  I love seeing.

• 1:13:09Bill Maher?

  The fact that I can sit here with you and talk to you, I'll do it under any circumstances, even if I have to go under a car and get burned or some shit.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  I will make that happen, my friend.

• 1:13:19Bill Maher?

  Some accident.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Accident again.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Don't thank you.

• 1:13:31Bill Maher?

  All righty, thank you. How about a men... Oh my gosh, a hug from my pal Jay. Hey. You look good, by the way.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Thanks, thanks, yeah.

• 1:13:37Bill Maher?

  How is that opening the pickle jar?

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  I'm doing all right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:47Speaker 04

  You sound horrible. Oh, I feel worse. This flu is not playing around.

• 1:13:51Speaker 05

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