Denis Leary

Comedian and actor Denis Leary feels like he could give a f*** about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Denis sits down with Conan to discuss their shared Worcester roots and finding out they’re related, making healthy lifestyle choices, founding the Emerson Comedy Workshop while in college, and shooting his television series Going Dutch entirely in Ireland. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

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

• 0:03Conan O'Brien?

  One in four Americans targeted by scams ended up falling for them.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  I did.

• 0:07Conan O'Brien?

  For me, it would be four out of four. Did you fall for a scam?

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam once.

• 0:10Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my God. Incredible.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  They didn't steal much.

• 0:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, still, you got taken for a ride.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  I did.

• 0:15Conan O'Brien?

  And you just put it out there that you're easy to scam.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  I am.

• 0:18Conan O'Brien?

  One accident, a little click, can expose your information, putting you at risk of identity theft. Thankfully, there's LifeLock. LifeLock has live, US-based restoration specialists who will be with you every step of the way to fix your identity theft from first alert to full restoration. Join now and save up to 30% off your first year. This is a good thing to have in your back pocket, don't you think?

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I need this.

• 0:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you do need it. You need it fast. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 0:51Conan O'Brien?

  Now, Sona, clearly, I'm a very important person to you.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:54Conan O'Brien?

  Just accept the premise and we'll move ahead.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 0:57Conan O'Brien?

  I'm a very important person to you. What would you get me from Macy's for the holidays?

• 1:02Speaker 01

  A vase.

• 1:04Conan O'Brien?

  No, I don't want a vase. I want something better.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  A jacket.

• 1:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, nice jacket. I love a nice jacket.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that jacket. Nice jacket.

• 1:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so now you have to do it, because you said you would.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Aw, man, I didn't know you were doing that.

• 1:14Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I know the holidays are months away, but it's never too early, Sona, to find gifts that I will love, gifts I will wear, and surprises that make the season unforgettable for me. Macy's Gift Guide makes holiday shopping easy with beauty favorites, stylish fashion, jewelry, cozy essentials, must-have toys, home upgrades, and picks for every person on your list. Coach handbags, Breville appliances, Lego UG, and more, all in one place. You can skip the scrolling and shop with confidence. Shop now in-store or online at macy's.com/giftguide.

• 1:51Conan O'Brien?

  Hi.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  My name is Dennis Leary.

• 1:56Conan O'Brien?

  And I feel like I could give a fuck about being Conan O'Brien's friend 'cause I'm already his fucking cousin. It's true. It's true. You know, first of all, we were just acquired by PBS, so... I'm gonna reduce... You're gonna reduce the fuckage? Yeah.

• 2:35Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, joined as always by Sotom Obession.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, hi.

• 2:41Conan O'Brien?

  Matt Gourley. Hi. And I'm gonna let people have a little peek behind the scenes of how we work here. I noticed something recently, which is we always have the interviews start with the guest saying, "Hello, my name is," and then blank. And I feel blank about being Conan O'Brien's friend, and we give them a physical piece of paper. And that's the way we've been doing it now for, is it five years? Six years? Almost eight. It's over seven years. Oh my god, speeding towards the grave. All right.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 3:10Conan O'Brien?

  Anyway, walking hurriedly towards the grave.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:12Conan O'Brien?

  And what I noticed is that guests, not every guest, but maybe one in three, they get fidgety, and so there's this piece of paper in front of them, and they would do this a lot with their paper and slide it around. And it would distract me. I think sometimes you would hear it, Eduardo? Yes, every now and then. And I just started to notice, there must be a better way. And so finally, for the first time recently, we started, I suggested, isn't there a better way where there's no physical piece of paper? So we started putting it up on a screen over there on the wall, so there's nothing in front of them and they can't fidget. We try it out for the first time recently, and we're doing it. The guest says, "Hello, my name is blank, and I feel blank about being Conan O'Brien's friend," and we're off to the races, everything's great, and then I start to hear...

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 4:01Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm like, what the hell? And I look over and you, Matt Gourley.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:06Conan O'Brien?

  The podcast maestro.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  I didn't even say I was good.

• 4:09Conan O'Brien?

  You were like, you were shuffling your paper.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I don't have it.

• 4:13Conan O'Brien?

  Crinkling it and uncrinkling it. And I kept looking at you and you were looking at me. You weren't picking up on my signal. And then I had to point at you during the interview at your paper. And you made this oops face.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:26Conan O'Brien?

  What were you doing?

• 4:26Speaker 03

  In my defense, it was in the Kevin Nealon episode.

• 4:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  And you guys were just insane.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  So I think I was just like disassociating, you know?

• 4:35Conan O'Brien?

  Because it was uncomfortable.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Because no, no, it wasn't uncomfortable. I just normally don't do that kind of thing. But I was rolling the corner of my paper.

• 4:41Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my God, it was so loud.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  I apologize, yeah.

• 4:44Conan O'Brien?

  Well, no, listen, apology not accepted.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Oh, then apology rescinded.

• 4:48Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, how do I get that apology back? Because now I'm reconsidering and I would like the apology.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  You have to really show me that you want it.

• 4:53Conan O'Brien?

  Where is it stored, the apology?

• 4:55Speaker 03

  At my apology safety deposit box.

• 4:57Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, I've got to get in there. That's my new heist movie with my friends. Me and my friends, gotta get into that vault and get that apology back.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 5:07Conan O'Brien?

  The worst heist movie ever.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  The worst for an apology.

• 5:12Conan O'Brien?

  It's all of us in some villa in France that we can't afford because we got no money. And we're all toasting each other as I unbox the apology.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Wait, and you open it and there's nothing in there?

• 5:23Conan O'Brien?

  You just hear, "I apologize." Comes out and it disappears into the air.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  My voice into the ether?

• 5:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  So anticlimactic.

• 5:30Conan O'Brien?

  And then someone comes in and says, "Get down to my villa."

• 5:34Conan O'Brien?

  You don't pay anything.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Your Italian accent.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  I thought they were French.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  I know, what is, was that a French?

• 5:39Conan O'Brien?

  An Italian can own a villa in France. And in this movie, because I can't afford the really good French villa, I go to the Italian villa in France, asshole Eduardo.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Oh, so the Italian villas are subpar is what you're saying?

• 5:55Conan O'Brien?

  No, this one just happens to be, I would never generalize. But this guy really doesn't have his shit together. Except he's on it with the billing. Anyway.

• 6:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so I think I have to start taking paper away from you because I'm gonna have other interviews.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  It happened one time in hundreds, three, almost 400 interviews.

• 6:14Conan O'Brien?

  But it happened the first time that we had removed, that was the best part. It was the first time I had removed paper from the guest to try and stop this problem. When I hear crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, and I'm like, who's ordering crinkle cut fries? And I look over and there's Matt Gordon.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  Also, you're not above this. You're often doodling on your paper.

• 6:35Conan O'Brien?

  Doodling is different. That is an artist expressing himself.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 6:39Conan O'Brien?

  You owe me an apology. Oh, like you know about noises that come up in the, oh yeah, you do listen to the podcast. Do I make a lot of ding ding ding noises?

• 6:47Speaker 03

  No, what you do is this.

• 6:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:50Conan O'Brien?

  That's me, well, I'm very, I have a high moral standard.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  But the audience wouldn't know that. I cut them all out.

• 6:57Conan O'Brien?

  That's me disapproving of the morality of the people around me.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  Really?

• 7:01Conan O'Brien?

  I'm tisk, tisking them. That's not all.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  So I should leave those in?

• 7:05Conan O'Brien?

  No, you should take them out, but you should put them in a box and put them in a safety deposit box.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  I've got one of those.

• 7:10Conan O'Brien?

  Movie ends with me and my gang at a, at a, at an Italian villa in Switzerland. No, an Italian villa in Ireland.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  What?

• 7:21Conan O'Brien?

  And we open up the box and all these come out. And then a guy comes in and says, "Are you in the bill, you bill? Now get out or I throw this pile of potatoes at you."

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 7:32Conan O'Brien?

  Ireland.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Cause it's Ireland.

• 7:33Conan O'Brien?

  I tied it all together. God, he's good. Who's talking? Conan. About who? Himself. Uh, anyway, no more paper for you, no more paper for me, and I'll try not to do.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, why do you guys need paper?

• 7:46Speaker 03

  You do it.

• 7:46Conan O'Brien?

  No, but when?

• 7:47Speaker 03

  You do it, um, usually as you're about to begin a thought. So you go like, another thing you always say coming into a response to a guest is, "You know, it's interesting that," or "It's very funny that," and then you'll go, and then say something.

• 8:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:01Conan O'Brien?

  It's very erotic when I think about it.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  It's erotic?

• 8:04Conan O'Brien?

  Do you think that's a turn on for women?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  What define erotic?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. What do you mean? Yeah, what do you?

• 8:09Conan O'Brien?

  When I was single, when I was single, I used to go.

• 8:14Conan O'Brien?

  Oh yeah, this is really good. Oh my god.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Girls love it when guys make creepy noises at them. Like, that really works for a lot of girls.

• 8:22Conan O'Brien?

  Summoning a horse.

• 8:25Conan O'Brien?

  And that's me, I'm in the bathroom there, in the bedroom. Oh. I'm just talking to the mirror. Oh. I don't know what's happening in this scenario.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  What? I don't know what happened. You know what? Why do you guys even need paper? Like, I never have paper in front of me. Just don't have paper. What do you need it for?

• 8:40Conan O'Brien?

  I have to write notes.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I gotta write notes?

• 8:41Conan O'Brien?

  When you were my assistant, you never had any paper around you. Yeah. I used to ask you to write things down, and you wouldn't do it.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but look who's not, who's not making noise. This guy.

• 8:55Conan O'Brien?

  Will you admit that you rarely had paper, uh, when you were my assistant?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  You know why I didn't have paper? Because I was using an iPad with the writing stylus, because I was trying to save paper.

• 9:05Conan O'Brien?

  You were drawing dicks and butts. You were drawing dicks and butts with your stylus.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  But I was also taking certain notes. It wasn't all just, it wasn't all dicks and butts.

• 9:14Conan O'Brien?

  I remember the time I, I went over your notes. I looked over your shoulder and you were drawing butts.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Okay. I, I think there was a reason that I was drawing butts. Ray, remember when Gourley made a lot of noise with paper?

• 9:28Conan O'Brien?

  You know what? You're right.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:31Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, I love it.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  I just, um, also remember when he sneezes and blows his nose a lot?

• 9:37Conan O'Brien?

  Remember when you spilled water all over the table?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  That was one time.

• 9:40Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, remember?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  That was one time.

• 9:42Conan O'Brien?

  When we got along and made a great podcast? No, I don't. I don't either.

• 9:49Conan O'Brien?

  All right. All right. Let's get started. Yes, uh.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  You threw your papers on the floor.

• 9:54Conan O'Brien?

  To prove a point.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Here we go, here we go. Adam gave me.

• 9:56Conan O'Brien?

  Here we go. No, I didn't know if we were doing, if that was a segment. I like forgot, is that a segment? Is that, no, I'm, I'm serious, I don't know. My guest today is a comedian and actor who you can now see in season two of the Fox comedy, Going Dutch. Are we related? Are we not? We just don't know, but you'll find out.

• 10:18Conan O'Brien?

  Denis Leary, welcome.

• 10:23Conan O'Brien?

  I want to say one thing before we get started, which is you and I have known each other a long time. We've hung out, we've enjoyed each other's company. You always go out of your way to tell me that you've been listening to the podcast and then tell me what happened on the podcast. So some people say, "I love the podcast," and you can tell they're just reading it off their phone that I have a podcast. Yeah. But Dennis is a true blue fan and he's always going on and on about two other people in the room who aren't me.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Okay, alright.

• 10:50Conan O'Brien?

  Misenrages me.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Alright, so listen, this is a perfect opportunity for me to say this. I don't know what this means. I don't really fucking listen to podcasts, okay? So, but I listened to this because it was on the radio and I drive everywhere. Even in Manhattan, I drive everywhere. In Brooklyn, I drive everywhere. So, I fucking was like, "Oh my god, Conan has a podcast." And, once I got in, now, one of my favorite things on the old TV show.

• 11:15Conan O'Brien?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  I can't remember which iteration.

• 11:17Conan O'Brien?

  Who knows?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Called it... But, when you and Sona were doing the bits.

• 11:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Okay, those film bits were fucking genius.

• 11:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Right? So I love those. So, once I started listening to this, I just told these guys this backstage.

• 11:31Conan O'Brien?

  I know.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  I was like, "Listen, I like the podcast. I like, most of the people that are on this show, I know. I've either worked with or I've hung out with or I've known for like, forever before we were famous, like Ben Stiller, whoever, right?"

• 11:42Conan O'Brien?

  Sure, yeah.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  So, I'm interested, but not, what really brings me in is when these two, when Gourley and fucking Sona are arguing and shitting on you.

• 11:51Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  And some of the funniest fucking shit.

• 11:54Conan O'Brien?

  Fuck you, man! Yeah! Fuck you!

• 11:56Speaker 02

  It's so...

• 11:57Conan O'Brien?

  Maybe, maybe a little more artistic than that.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 11:59Conan O'Brien?

  Not just, yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Go suck a dick!

• 12:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yes! Hey, that's better. Now you're on to something.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  It's so fucking funny. And also, it's just when you're firing back at them, that's really my favorite part. So, like, when I met Sona just before, you, I've been here for like, four hours. Conan doesn't get here until like, a minute before you start shooting, he's too big of a star.

• 12:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  I was downstairs...

• 12:21Conan O'Brien?

  And you could hear my helicopter landing on the roof of the building.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Well, I thought, does it land where the pool used to be? Why the fuck would you? Why would you?

• 12:28Conan O'Brien?

  There was a pool when we bought this building.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  There was a pool.

• 12:30Conan O'Brien?

  And I covered it right away.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  You covered it up. Why? Because you can't go in the sun. What about everybody else? Sona obviously can go in the sun.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yes, I can. I wanna.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Take it away. Take it away. I can't go in the sun anymore at all. I used to go in the sun all the time. I can't. Now I'm just, every time I go in the sun, I get a melanoma.

• 12:48Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, so, wait, it happens instantly?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Instantly. If that light here, this light, this light is gonna have melanoma before the podcast is over.

• 12:58Conan O'Brien?

  This is how I know that we are related, is that.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  It's from the skin cans.

• 13:04Conan O'Brien?

  You are, it's so funny, cause people get hung up, you know, like, who's, what's your skin color, race, all that kinda stuff, and we're not just white. You are a deathly pallor, and I think I'm whiter than you, except.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Yes, but we're not even white. We're like, we're into a different, it's like translucent. You guys are ultraviolet.

• 13:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yes.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  It's like a UV form of, of skin.

• 13:30Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  It's see-through.

• 13:31Conan O'Brien?

  We emit light.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:33Conan O'Brien?

  That's how white we are.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  You're prisms.

• 13:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, people have used me in, people have used me in mines to get copper out.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  We are literally walking lamps, okay? So.

• 13:46Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, here he comes. Good, good.

• 13:49Conan O'Brien?

  Open the old text.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  I can't fucking find my phone. Get Conan over here. Conan, look in there.

• 13:55Conan O'Brien?

  Always keep a Conan or a dentist by the bed.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  That's so fucking funny.

• 13:58Conan O'Brien?

  Just right there, in case there's an emergency. All right, let's crack into this right away, because there's a lot to talk about.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  I wanna say another thing.

• 14:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  About how old we are.

• 14:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Cause it's, when he told me, I just out of the, I know, I just did a gig with you. I know how old you are. But, and I'm not, in my mind, I think I'm like 40.

• 14:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  And then when I see somebody like you who's in my age group, I go, huh, Conan doesn't look like he's 40 anymore.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  And that's what reminds me that I'm fucking almost 70.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  You feel older by looking at, at Conan.

• 14:30Conan O'Brien?

  I provide that service for everybody, by the way.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Can I just say that?

• 14:33Conan O'Brien?

  I don't just emit light. But I will help you determine how old you are by just looking at me.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Wait, I'm just aging in your presence.

• 14:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 14:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  I saw Brian Kylie downstairs.

• 14:45Conan O'Brien?

  Brian Kylie has been with me, uh, uh...

• 14:48Speaker 02

  From the beginning.

• 14:49Conan O'Brien?

  Those guys are downstairs, they're working on the Oscars. And Brian Kylie's been with me since, I think, 1993.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:56Conan O'Brien?

  Brian Kylie, uh, from Newton, Mass. Um, and part of the Irish mafia. And, um, he went to my Sunday School. We had Sunday School instruction that happened, I think, on a Monday night. It was called the Seneca, and we'd go out to, like, Brighton. And we were taught by nuns, once a week. You know, parents would send their kids to make sure they got proper Catholic instruction.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:20Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, sons and daughters, and so I would get driven out there with my brothers. And Brian Kylie was one of the kids that we used to talk to.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  That's so crazy.

• 15:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and it was always about the Bruins.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Cause you know, I played hockey with him.

• 15:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 15:31Conan O'Brien?

  You did?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, in, uh, Charlestown, of all places.

• 15:34Conan O'Brien?

  How does he play hockey? He has no leg muscle.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  So...

• 15:36Conan O'Brien?

  He works, he's a guy that works out all the time, and he has this incredible, uh, you know, buff torso. And then two, uh, pork Slim Jims. Hanging off of his, uh, having off his pelvis.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Well, this is how good, well, we don't have to waste a lot of time talking about Kylie. But Kylie looks the same.

• 15:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  He looks literally, because he was bald when we were, like, 20.

• 15:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Um, and he, and he was, uh, always in shape.

• 16:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  And so now...

• 16:02Conan O'Brien?

  He looks the same.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  He looks exactly the same. He's Brian Kylie with glasses.

• 16:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  You know, cause he, he's getting old, and his eyes are getting old.

• 16:08Conan O'Brien?

  He's 110 years old.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  He's 110 years old.

• 16:10Conan O'Brien?

  He fought in the Korean conflict, which, uh...

• 16:12Speaker 02

  So we played, and he was a, he was a comic from my generation.

• 16:15Conan O'Brien?

  He's a great joke writer. Just a great joke writer.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Why are we talking about him?

• 16:20Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, you know what? I have the same thing. When we're talking about another comic, and it's not one of us, I have an egg timer that goes off after three seconds.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Like, why are we talking about this person? He's a great writer.

• 16:32Conan O'Brien?

  I may have mentioned this, but, uh, we had Gene Simmons on the Late Night Show years and years and years ago. And we had some sketch that he was gonna, uh, be in. And I can't remember the context, but for some reason, he said okay to a lot of the different jokes, but then there was one joke that involved him just saying, and I take a, like, a jazzercise class with Richard Simmons, the workout guy. And he put an X through it. And our head writer, uh, at the time said, "Well, you don't like that joke?" Was the problem with it? And he said... Uh, he's welcome to mention me anytime, but I, I, I, I don't need to mention him. And our writer said, well, wait a minute, do you have a beef with him or something?

• 17:14Conan O'Brien?

  He went, not at all. Uh, but he said, no free rides. That was the thing that haunts me. He said, he said this, he said, no free rides. And what that means is, why would I mention someone else unless I'm getting something for it? Literally another person like, hey, Gene Simmons, how are your children doing? No free rides.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Those guys.

• 17:34Conan O'Brien?

  No, are they well? No free rides.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Oh my God.

• 17:37Conan O'Brien?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Well, if you can't monetize it, right?

• 17:40Conan O'Brien?

  If you can't turn it into a Kiss Quesenart, what's the point? Uh, anyway, um, I want to get to the bottom of this.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  I'm very impressed, by the way. A couple, I'm gonna say something nice about you now.

• 17:50Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, God. This, these go nowhere, by the way.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  All right, fuck it, I'm not gonna say it.

• 17:56Conan O'Brien?

  Nice, nice, nice, nice. And then you can come in with, uh, you know, eat a dick.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I just wanna say, he did, um, uh, the Comics Come Home Concert I do in Boston every year for the Cam Neely Foundation, uh, which is a charity I've been involved with.

• 18:10Conan O'Brien?

  It's a big charity you've been doing for like 20 something?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  29 years, next year's in 30. Anyways, he did it this year. He was, we knew it was gonna be funny onstage. Fucking band loved doing, um, Roadrunner with you, which was really funny. But he was so fucking nice to everybody, including like my baby sister backstage and, and all these other people there. I, we went up to the VIP donor dinner, which is people who really donate a shitload of fucking money to the hospital and the cause and everything, and, and was funny up there, took all the pictures with everybody. He was so fucking nice to everybody. And then he was a complete asshole later on.

• 18:43Conan O'Brien?

  I know when to turn it off.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it only lasts for like nine minutes.

• 18:48Conan O'Brien?

  I'd look around and when I'd see it was only me and Dennis, or Maniscalco too, I'd just, I'd be like, okay, I'm, I'm gonna tag out now. Screw you guys.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  I mean, he was still a dick.

• 18:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Part of it, he was like, no, you were really, it was fucking nice of you to do that. And every, and you killed. And when you were backstage talking to my baby sister, she loves you. And she was like, my God, Conan was so nice. I was like, that's fucking front. But he was nice to you for like five minutes.

• 19:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, you little.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  But thank you for that.

• 19:15Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, no, no, well, this is the thing. And then we'll get to the question I had for you eventually at the end.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Is it a skin cancer question?

• 19:21Conan O'Brien?

  No, I just, I want you to look at something and tell me. Cause there's got a ridge around the edge of it.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that's, you gotta get that taken out.

• 19:30Conan O'Brien?

  So you said to me, hey, can you come do the Cam Neely thing? And I said, yeah, I've never been able to do it before cause I'm always taping. And I said, no, this year I can do it. So I said, yes, I go to Boston and I'm not thinking. And then I get to, I'm like, okay, where am I going now? TD Garden. So this is an arena, okay? And I think, oh, it's an arena. And I, I, I get up to the stage and I peek through the curtain, completely packed. I swear to God, I think everybody in Boston was there. And you have a moment of, Jesus, Jesus Christ, look at this. This is, I mean, an arena, this is what people see when they're playing the last game.

• 20:12Conan O'Brien?

  You know, in the basketball season, in the championship, this is what you're looking at. And it was packed the next day, the next morning. I'm walking around Boston, like Newbury Street. I'm over near the Hancock Tower. I'm just running some errands. I'm gonna go hang with some of my family. And people are just yelling out windows, great job last night. Hey, had a lot of fun. Like everyone in town had been to this thing. It's really impressive what you've built. Because yeah, there's, there's a lot of different charities, but I'm hard pressed to think of one where everybody in that city goes.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Well, listen, it's also.

• 20:49Conan O'Brien?

  It's really cool.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  Cam Neely, you know, who played for the Boston Bruins and is a hockey Hall of Famer. You know, he's the president of the Bruins. He runs the team. So it's like. You know, they're, they're, they respond to the cause, Boston's such a great fucking comedy scene. Um, and the, it's still thriving there. So the guys coming back and who, who came out of that scene, but people like you as well, who were from Boston. Anyway, that, that comes into duty, they appreciate that. But Cam, you know, he has turned that charity into such a big success.

• 21:19Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And he's, you know, he's a very present guy in that city. People love him, they love the Bruins. It's a hockey town, it's a sports town. So, um, I think they see us within that light as well. You know, we're at the Garden where the Celtics and the Bruins play. Like, I saw Conan at the Garden last night.

• 21:35Conan O'Brien?

  Which is so cool. For me, growing up, the idea that anybody saw me at the Garden is crazy. Because it sounds like I, I mean, to me, it just makes me think, yeah, and I drained a three pointer. You know, it's like, no, I didn't. No. I fucked around.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  But you know what's so funny is like, because of our families backstage in my dressing room and, and, and a couple of the areas are like my sisters and my, my older brother and, and a bunch of my cousins, right? And then I go and introduce Conan to my baby sister, like in the cafeteria where they're serving some food or whatever. And then the show gets done and I was like, I gotta go in and thank, again, thank Conan, cause he was so fucking good. And I go in his dressing room and there's a cousin, I don't know if she's a cousin of mine, but she's a cousin of yours from Worcester.

• 22:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Who's in there, was she espousing a conspiracy theory?

• 22:25Conan O'Brien?

  If it's a cousin of mine, then probably, yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I walk in and he goes, hey, this is, uh, my cousin, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, I just remember she went, this is my, was it?

• 22:33Conan O'Brien?

  Her name's Catherine, but we call her Boo.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Okay, and her husband is Artie?

• 22:37Conan O'Brien?

  Let's just say he's Artie. Yeah, she's married to Artie Lang.

• 22:41Conan O'Brien?

  Which is not going well.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Anyway, it was so funny, cause she was telling us some weird story about Worcester. And she was like, this is my husband Neil, or whatever his name is.

• 22:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  And he's just like a guy saying nothing in the corner, it's cause she's.

• 22:52Conan O'Brien?

  There's no room to talk around any O'Brien or Reardon.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  I know, it's so funny.

• 23:03Conan O'Brien?

  You know, winning an award, that's a big achievement, right?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 23:06Conan O'Brien?

  Every now and then in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way. Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen, you know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 23:20Conan O'Brien?

  Hyundai has done just that, earning the title of America's best SUV brand for 2026 from US News and World Report. You are a very happy Hyundai driver.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  I drive a Hyundai Palisade and I love my car. I love it. I love driving it around.

• 23:33Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5 N, which I love. Beautiful car. Well, listen, whether you need an SUV for everyday life, your next big adventure, or extra room for family and friends, Hyundai has an option for you. The Tucson Hybrid is loaded with technology and built for everyday life. The Santa Fe Hybrid's fully capable and ready for adventure. The Palisade, that's yours, right?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 23:53Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space. With available, I had this memorized, H-Track all-wheel drive, up to an EPA-estimated 619 miles of range on vehicles like the Palisade Hybrid and Hyundai's industry-leading warranty. It's easy to see why Hyundai continues to deliver the quality, innovation, technology, and value drivers expect from an award-winning brand. View US News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 24:28Conan O'Brien?

  Owning a car or home comes with responsibilities. Sure, it's fun, but sometimes it makes you wonder why you ever longed for adulthood in the first place. I do that all the time. I'm like, oh, these bills, these bills. What am I gonna do?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Conan O'Brien?

  You know, when you own a house, you gotta fix it yourself. Sona, you see this to be true, right?

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, your garage door breaks and you're like, well, I have to fix it.

• 24:48Conan O'Brien?

  Probably at first you said, hey, I'll get the super to fix it. It's your house, dude.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  It's mine, dude!

• 24:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Liberty Mutual customizes your car and home insurance to save you money. In fact, they work overtime to tailor your insurance policy around what you actually need. The only thing they can't do is get that Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty jingle out of your head.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.

• 25:06Conan O'Brien?

  It's in my head all the time.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 25:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Start your quote at libertymutual.com.

• 25:15Conan O'Brien?

  Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is so good. It's almost impossible not to finish it before the meal arrives. It's just too good to wait. That happens to me sometimes.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 25:24Conan O'Brien?

  You can try rules like no sipping until the appetizer arrives, or you tell your friend, "Don't let me touch my glass." But every time you're staring at an empty glass. So if you've ever finished your Coke Zero before the first fry hits the table, you're among friends. It happens. Occupational hazard with Coke Zero.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:42Conan O'Brien?

  Real Coca-Cola taste, zero sugar, too good to wait. Enjoy an ice cold Coca-Cola Zero Sugar today.

• 25:54Conan O'Brien?

  You've gotten me to what I want to talk about, which is, I didn't even know this, but a number of years ago, you said, "Hey, I'm your cousin. We're related." Because I think you didn't know it either. I had no idea. And then, um, I, uh, so we, we tried to look into it. You're from Worcester, Mass. Yep. All my people are from Worcester, Mass. My father's side of the family is from just outside Worcester. My mother's side of the family is from Worcester. So the Rearns are from Worcester. The O'Briens are from like, um, towns outside, Millbury, Sturbridge. Basically Worcester. Basically Worcester. Yeah. And my grandfather was, uh, directed traffic downtown in Worcester, and that was the job he had. Or as we say, Worcester. Worcester, Worcester. Worcester.

• 26:38Conan O'Brien?

  And I used to go and hang out, uh, with my cousin there when I was growing up and hang out in Worcester. And there was one thing to do and one thing only, which is, for some reason, there was a, um, museum of armor. Oh, yeah. From like the 14th. Armor. Yeah, armor. Museum of armor. And so people would say, Did you go to the armor museum? Yeah, and literally what it was, it's not even that well curated. It was just a big, it was a big old office building that hadn't been used, that had been shut down in like 1920. And they filled it with armor that they didn't clean. It was just, I think some of it, most of it wasn't on a mannequin. Yeah, it was horrible. It was horrible. And it looked like a hoarder's attic of armor. And so I remember I'd be staying with my cousin

• 27:22Conan O'Brien?

  and my aunt would be like, "Go see the armor. Why don't you go see some armor?" That was a big highlight in Worcester. And literally like, "We did that yesterday. Do it again!"

• 27:32Conan O'Brien?

  And because it's Worcester and that's what you do.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  There's not a lot.

• 27:35Conan O'Brien?

  And you'd walk around and go, yep, there, there it is.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Now they have a minor league, uh, uh, baseball team for the Red Sox, Pollock Park, which is downtown.

• 27:43Conan O'Brien?

  Used to be the Pot Hackett Red Sox and they moved, is that right?

• 27:46Speaker 02

  They moved to Worcester.

• 27:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  And it's Pollock Park, nice little ballpark in downtown Worcester and they have a minor league hockey team and so things are looking up.

• 27:54Conan O'Brien?

  This is how, and the thing is, when you're from Worcester.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Only took us a hundred and fifty years.

• 27:58Conan O'Brien?

  Here's the, this is a really funny thing, yeah. The mill closed in like nineteen oh two.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Listen, let me tell you, when I was growing up and, and there, some people are still bemoaning this. It was the heroin capital of New England for a while, when I was like a teenager.

• 28:11Conan O'Brien?

  Why do you think I was there?

• 28:14Speaker 02

  But we were literally like, hey, we're famous for something.

• 28:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Right? And then, and then, I think it's now Lowell, anyways, it's like ten years ago.

• 28:23Conan O'Brien?

  Lowell took the crown?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Lowell took the crown.

• 28:24Conan O'Brien?

  We can get it back, Worcester.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  And I was like, we, so now we have nothing? So Lowell took the heroin capital of New England. We don't even have that.

• 28:32Conan O'Brien?

  I think we still have the armory.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:35Conan O'Brien?

  But, um, yeah, and the thing is, um, Worcester, this is how Worcester centric people get. And don't get me wrong, I love Worcester.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  So do I.

• 28:43Conan O'Brien?

  And my whole family's there, it's big, it's a big deal and the people are lovely. Um, and it was a big part of my growing up because that's where I'd go see my grandparents and cousins. So it's very near and dear to my heart, but I will say that when you're in Worcester, everything's Worcester centric and nothing exists outside Worcester when you're there. So I had the experience of, um, when I got the late night show in nineteen ninety-three, there was all this speculation. First of all, my, my own relatives were like, what the hell? You're gonna take over for Letterman? I'd be like, um, yeah, I guess so. I mean, what the hell are you talking about? You can't take over for Letterman? They were, I think they didn't even.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  I remember my family, my, you know, because my, everybody still lives in Worcester and they were all like, hey, do you know this guy? And I'm like, no, I don't know this guy.

• 29:27Conan O'Brien?

  No one knew that guy and so.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  He's taking over for Letterman?

• 29:30Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  And I was like, I don't know.

• 29:31Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  I don't know, we'll see.

• 29:32Conan O'Brien?

  Good luck to him.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:33Conan O'Brien?

  So, um.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Look at us, years later, here you are, covering up pools in fucking, in Hollywood.

• 29:40Conan O'Brien?

  That's how I've known.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Close that fucking pool. Everybody inside.

• 29:45Conan O'Brien?

  Fill it with cement.

• 29:48Conan O'Brien?

  So, so I, I am there, I'm in Worcester, visiting my uncle, Jim Reardon, we called him Gavin, and um.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Wait a minute, what?

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Makes perfect sense.

• 30:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, well, his name was Gavin, that's what we called him, Uncle Gavin, and Uncle Gavin said to me, "I know who your first guest should be." And, you know, at the time, people were saying, you know, when you have your talk show, you can have pretty much anyone as your first guest. Anyone will be like, "Oh, my God, first guest on a talk show, and if it goes, then I'm always gonna be the first guest." So you pretty much have whoever you want. And he went, "I know who it's gonna be, and this is what you gotta do." And I said, "Who?" And he said, "Bob Cousy." And I said, "What?" And he said, "Bob Cousy, Bob Cousy."

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 30:27Conan O'Brien?

  A big star out of Holy Cross College in Worcester, who was a big star for the Celtics in the 1940s and 50s, back when people shot, he would shoot his, uh, whiter than me, and he would shoot his free throws between his legs, like he'd. Granny style. Granny style. He would shoot them between his legs, and great player, but this is 1993, and, and I'm being.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  By the way, he's still alive.

• 30:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  He's 100.

• 30:55Conan O'Brien?

  And God bless you, I'd have him now, I'd have him now. But as my first guest in 1993, can you imagine if I said, "Bob Cousy."

• 31:04Speaker 02

  You know, when I was a kid.

• 31:05Conan O'Brien?

  But that's how, and I said, "I don't know if it's gonna work for the first," and they're like, "What are you talking about?"

• 31:09Speaker 02

  It's Bob Cousy.

• 31:10Conan O'Brien?

  It's Bob Cousy, everyone's gonna go crazy. Yeah, everyone in Worcester is gonna go crazy.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  He lived in the ni- what they called the nice section of Worcester, which I can't even remember at that time when it was, when we were growing up, but on Sundays, you know when your parents would drive around and look at houses that you're never gonna live in?

• 31:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  After mass on Sundays? Cause we lived in Maine South, we lived in an apartment in a two and a half decker, not even a three decker. So, um, my, my father would drive us by Bob Cousy's house. And the nice neighbor, he's like, "Bob Cousy's house," and we're like, "Yeah, we know, we'd go by it every Sunday."

• 31:42Conan O'Brien?

  They go to the Amory now.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  He had, he had a driving school for a while in Worcester.

• 31:47Conan O'Brien?

  What?

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, a driving school, Bob Cousy's driving.

• 31:49Conan O'Brien?

  I wanna drive like Bob Cousy.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  I mean, like, what is that? Why the fuck does he have a driving school?

• 31:54Conan O'Brien?

  So, um. This I want to ask you about because this is something you can relate to because of what you just said. And I wasn't going to talk about this, but when you're Irish Catholic and growing up in, you know, and you're in Boston or you're in Central Massachusetts, there's this whole thing of what kind of Irish are you?

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:17Conan O'Brien?

  My mother was, you know, had been the first in her family like to, I'm not the first in her family, but her generation was the first in her family, obviously, to go to college.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:28Conan O'Brien?

  And she, she had really worked hard and she had become a lawyer. And she used to sometimes talk to us about how we are not, you know, we are not, we are lace curtain Irish. And my brothers and I would, my sisters would be sitting around being like, what are you talking about?

• 32:48Speaker 02

  What?

• 32:49Conan O'Brien?

  And she'd say, you know, we are not triple decker Irish, you know, she, she would have.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  You'll come out of Worcester and become a lace curtain Irish.

• 32:56Conan O'Brien?

  No, exactly. And I'd say, Mom, what are you talking about?

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Just because you moved to Brooklyn?

• 33:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And also, also I'd look in the corner, it'd be like a ham hanging on a rope. And my brother Neil was hanging off of it like a bear in the woods. I mean, all of our behavior.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  What?

• 33:11Conan O'Brien?

  We would have potato fights. There was, I mean, there was nothing about us that was at all respectable in the way that we behaved, but she was just willing it to be so. Do you know what I mean?

• 33:22Speaker 02

  It's so crazy because when I heard lace curtain Irish, when you grow up in Massachusetts, especially in our age group, like the fucking Kennedys, right? This is before, you know, RFK Junior. This is like, you know, when the Kennedys were the Kennedys, right?

• 33:37Conan O'Brien?

  Right, right.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  So I still remember, actually, this is like one of my first memories as a kid growing up, like, I don't know why. It's the summer of 63. My parents couldn't afford to go back to Ireland when they came over in 49 and 50. They couldn't afford to go back. Then in 1963 was the first time they could afford to go, but they can only take one kid with them because that's, they didn't have enough money. So my older brother Johnny got to go and the rest of us got dispersed to other apartments and cousins.

• 34:03Conan O'Brien?

  Now, by the way, let's keep in mind, this is 1803. We ate coal for breakfast.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  So I remember that summer really well, because that's the summer that JFK went to Ireland.

• 34:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  I remember being at Logan and my mother and my father get on this plane with my brother, who I really hate now, because he's going to Ireland. And I got stuck with my Aunt Betty, who had no kids, and who gave me a Bible. It's the summertime. She gave me a Bible.

• 34:27Conan O'Brien?

  It was a summertime Bible.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  I had a good.

• 34:29Conan O'Brien?

  Those are fun. Charlie XCX, summertime Bible.

• 34:35Conan O'Brien?

  It's Bible summer.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Bible summer.

• 34:41Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know why that didn't catch on. She keeps flogging it and it's not catching on.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Oh my God.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  She took the, I had to go to mass every day. I had to go to mass every day. And then she'd walk me over to where my sister Emery was, at my cousin's, the Lucys. They were a couple of blocks away, where all the kids were having a blast in their yard. And she was like, I don't want you to get too dirty, we have to go back. And I'm like, that was a month of the, but anyways. Also, that when my parents came back, which I still remember, that Kennedy was in Ireland, which was a big thing, but then he spoke at Holy Cross that summer, at the end of the summer. So he drove through the neighborhood with the cover on the car.

• 35:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Unfortunate choice, in Worcester.

• 35:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  There's nothing to worry about, Worcester.

• 35:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  He went to, yeah, and that was like, three months later when he got

• 35:28Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Killed. And I remember that because that, I remember the nuns telling us to go home. Because we lived in the, we went to school in the neighborhood where we lived. So, you know, it was, I think I was, I was in art class, I think, that day. We were in art class and the nuns were like, everybody go home. We're like, what? Because they had, they knew the

• 35:45Conan O'Brien?

  If a nun told me to go home, I wouldn't question it for a second. Wait a minute. Are you sure? We can't have more Catholic instruction? Because I think we got 40 minutes left. Sit down, Mr. O'Brien.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  I just got a new Bible.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  I just got my summertime Bible.

• 36:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  That, that, that summer lives in my, that was so horrible, living without Betty. Oh my God. She dressed me up with a tie every day, in the summertime.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 36:14Conan O'Brien?

  It was horrible. Mass every day.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Mass every day.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  I didn't know they did that.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  With this stupid fucking Bible. Did you ever question why you were chosen to go with Betty? And the other ones got to go there? Because she didn't have any kids and they felt bad later when I asked them. But they were like, we wanted her to have a kid. But why did you get, why did you have to go to Betty? There must have been a reason. Because I was her godchild.

• 36:35Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, there you go.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and her fucking husband.

• 36:38Conan O'Brien?

  And that's a sacred bond.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Her husband was dead. You drew the short straw. Oh, my God, it was so fucking horrible. Anyways, but thank God, I lived past it.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  So, well, she's here today.

• 36:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Let's bring her out.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Eh, she's a hundred and.

• 36:52Conan O'Brien?

  I'm still alone.

• 36:56Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's so funny because there's this.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  There's no.

• 36:59Conan O'Brien?

  There's this life that I knew growing up and it's, everyone's Irish.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Everybody's Irish.

• 37:06Conan O'Brien?

  Everybody's Irish and Massachusetts and so, and, and, you know, we don't get to choose what our makeup is. Uh, that's just what we are. And it's so interesting to me how comedy, I don't know. It just felt like a cellular thing. It didn't even feel like a choice. It's just something.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  In your family, I'm, I know from what I've heard you say before, I know in my family, this is true. My parents were really funny. All my aunts were really, everybody was sarcastic.

• 37:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  And so, I'm sure your family was the same, right?

• 37:39Conan O'Brien?

  And really funny stories and people just laughing their asses off around the table. Uh, eating some of the unhealthiest food that you can imagine.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  Oh, the worst, the worst. Oh, my God.

• 37:51Conan O'Brien?

  I keep waiting for the Surgeon General to say, you know, ham is fried ham with butter. Is actually lengthens your life. Cause then I'd be in great shape.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  I remember there was an Italian family that lived next door, the Corellis. Their mother used to cook, like while you were out playing football or baseball or street hockey in the street in the summertime, she would come out with homemade pizza. Or, uh, yeah, I mean, just unbelievable. So my brother, my brother and I, my brother ended up marrying an Italian girl. My brother was like, you know, mom, Mrs. Corelli makes the best. And she's like, I can make pasta, I can make spaghetti. And we were like, oh, please don't, right? And so one night she made this, I'll never forget this. She, she, I loved her. I loved my mother. She just passed away this year. She was 98. And she was lucid right up to the end, but she, she was, she was Irish cook. You know what that?

• 38:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, I do.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Boil it. It's like that, like, you remember Don Gavin, the comedian from Boston?

• 38:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, of course.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  He had a great line one time. He was like, um, I was, I was eating my mother's food and my brother turned to me and said, this tastes like shit. And I went, you can taste it? That sums up Irish food, right?

• 38:58Conan O'Brien?

  So I remember my, what I remember very clearly is my mom would say, wanted to make, she used to make spaghetti with meat sauce. What was, you know, what she thought was spaghetti meat sauce. Basically what it was, was many packages of hamburger meat.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:14Conan O'Brien?

  That are, that are fried up in a giant, and then you put some pasta in there. And there was, I don't even know if there was sauce, but for years, and I loved it, but I thought that that was spaghetti with meat sauce. And so when I went to, when I, you know, finally left home and then I'm in New York and I go to an Italian restaurant. Um, I was, I think I was berating a waiter. Like, sir, there should be six hamburgers. There should be at least three pounds of ground beef that's been, that's been fried in this. I mean, basically I thought it was a burger.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  And there's too much flavor. What's going on here?

• 39:54Conan O'Brien?

  Why do I suddenly taste things?

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Why, why does it taste good?

• 39:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  It was cra- and also then my brother married in Italian and there was a lot of Italians in the neighborhood. There was Armenians in our neighborhood. There was, it was crazy. We went to the same school for 12 years, right? So you had all these different Puerto Ricans, these different kinds of food. And every night you're eating stuff that you can't taste.

• 40:14Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Or, and then on Fridays when they have fish, it's fish sticks.

• 40:18Conan O'Brien?

  Fish sticks. Yeah, yeah.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Oh my god. And my dad putting ketchup on the pasta.

• 40:22Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah. Well, that's, I mean.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  I mean, what, where, where do we live? And like, you're like, I, listen, go out the back door on the porch and look across at the porch, across the alley. You, there's Puerto Rican people eating really good food. Can we go over there? The Corellis are right over here. Oh my god. Oh my god. My father, my father ate, literally, he ate meat at ev- everything he ate had to have meat.

• 40:47Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Bacon and eggs, steak and eggs, and he smoked five packs a day. I, I shouldn't even talk, I smoked for fifty-two years.

• 40:54Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I, I, I remember very clearly, you know, I'm getting the talk show and doing the talk show, it's like two years in, it's starting to level out, it looks like I'm gonna make it. I went to some, with my girlfriend at the time, some fancy, kind of resorty place in California, cause I had a week, I think I had a week off, which never happened. And we went out, and I think it was, you know, sort of north of San Francisco, right on, you know, cliffs and, and it was a very, supposed to be like a very wonderful, uh, health-conscious place. And I'll never forget, I went in the morning to get my breakfast,

• 41:31Conan O'Brien?

  and they had laid out this table today that I'd be delighted with. Fruits, granola, different, you know, juices, all that kind of stuff. And I started to get mad, and I was holding my plate, and I was shit, like shaking, I was so mad. My girlfriend's like, "What's your problem?" I was like, "Ah, there's no eggs, there's no bacon!" And she was like, "Hey, chill."

• 41:52Speaker 02

  I'm taking, get it, get it!

• 41:54Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no, no, no. And then I went outside, I, I put the plate down, I walked outside and I started kicking a tree.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  What?

• 42:01Conan O'Brien?

  I was so mad.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  And you were like, at what age was, are you at that point?

• 42:04Conan O'Brien?

  I was like thirty-two.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, thirty-two.

• 42:06Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my god!

• 42:07Speaker 02

  Hey, listen, I'm with you.

• 42:08Conan O'Brien?

  Because, because, and keep in mind, at that time, I went and got a cholesterol test, and they said my cholesterol was like, you know, three hundred and fifty, and they bas- and I remember having this image in my head that if I stop fast at a traffic light in my car, a cholesterol me would come crashing through my chest, cause I was made of fucking cholesterol.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  But, it's not your fault. That's your parents and your grandpa, it's, it's, it's Ireland's fault.

• 42:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. But this morning, you know, my wife makes granola, I put some berries in there.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  That's what I had this morning.

• 42:39Conan O'Brien?

  But I still, when she's not looking, put six slices of ham. Ham on a rope.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love bacon, man. I love bacon. And by the way, I love Ireland. But I've got a lot of cousins there and I'm shooting a television show over there. Yeah, I want to talk about that, yeah. So it's funny because my generation, like two of my cousins took over the family farms, which are very close to each other in Killarney. My mother and my father met in Killarney. And so it's so interesting because healthy food, like many other things, have come to Ireland. Ireland's doing great financially and it's film and television industry is booming there. Yeah. And other, as I've grown up, Spanish food and all these other kinds of food have come into,

• 43:25Speaker 02

  even in Killarney, you go into Killarney, you can get French food and Spanish, which is fantastic. I went, this is not that long ago, 15, 20 years ago maybe, went back to Ireland with my mother and we went to a restaurant in town, a bunch of cousins my age and their kids and my kids. And it was this like really nice Spanish restaurant, which I'd never been to and they're like, it's great. We get there and my Uncle Dennis, who I'm named for, my mom's brother and my mom, it's like 20 people at the stable. We go in there and we order and they, I think they're ordering, right? And then next thing I know, we're all talking and everything. One of my cousins comes in and he's got fish and chip bags from the fish and chip place across the street. Like they're just dripping with grease, brown bags.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  And I'm like, this kid's gonna eat, and hands a bag to my mom and a bag to my Uncle Dennis, who are way down there. So I go to my cousin, my hall, I go, what's going on? He goes, oh, they, they won't eat the Spanish food, so you know, they're allowed to bring in fish and chips. I go, ma, you, and she goes, I'm not having this stuff, this Spanish stuff. Yeah, everyone knows Spanish food is awful. She literally, she wouldn't even eat a real Italian food she didn't like. She was like meat, potatoes. I had, when I lived in Also, we're like vampires when you show us a vegetable.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  My, I had, when I lived in Charlestown, my girlfriend, my wife now, we had my sister and Maria and my mom over, because my mom was in Boston getting some health stuff done. And so she steamed some salmon and some broccoli and some kind of potato dish. And she served it and my sister and Maria, my mother, we're all talking and everything. So they bite in and my sister and Maria goes, hey, this broccoli, it's hot. And so Anne Marie goes.

• 45:19Conan O'Brien?

  And it's green.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  My girlfriend Anne goes, no, no, I know Anne, I steamed it. And she goes, no, no, but it's hot. And she takes her plate and my mother's plate and goes into our kitchen in the apartment and reboils the broccoli.

• 45:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I understand.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  I understand. That was the same apartment where my mother literally, my mother said to me one day, she goes, she was there, when we were growing up, it was in the seventies, my parents got the like avocado green refrigerator and stove.

• 45:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  You remember that?

• 45:51Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  So, my mother's in the kitchen of that apartment and she, she picks up an avocado and she goes, now this is an avocado, right? This is like, this is 1985.

• 46:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  This is an avocado, right? And I go, yeah. She goes, huh, yeah. And I go, what, you've never seen an avocado? No, no, I've seen avocados, I'm just saying, that's an avocado. And I go, yeah.

• 46:11Conan O'Brien?

  Spoken like someone who really is around avocados a lot.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  I'm like, ma, I said, when we were growing up, didn't you have an avocado colored? She, yeah, she go, we had the color design and the kitchen was avocado, but I wouldn't eat those things. She goes, they're so greasy and soft. I'm like, oh my god. Greasy and soft? Who, who would describe an avocado as greasy?

• 46:35Conan O'Brien?

  And also, people who eat grease. Eat grease.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Ma, it's green. That's, you came from a green day, Emerald Isle. It ties into our whole. I, I remember saying this to my mother, like.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  I can't.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  My mother said this one time, this kid that we grew up with, one of my best friends, raging alcoholic, died from alcoholism very young. And, and she goes, this is just a theme, you'll recognize this one. I go, yeah, so listen, he, he's coming over, he quit drinking, this is at her house in Worcester. He's coming over, he quit drinking, so don't give him anything. She goes, okay. He walks in the door, says hi, he sit down, and the next thing you know, she cracks a beer and puts it in front of him. I go, ma, what are you doing? And he, of course, he's like, hey, like this. She goes, what? I go, he can't drink, you can't drink. And he goes, I know, yeah, I can't. She goes, no, that's just beer.

• 47:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Beer doesn't count.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Guinness doesn't count, beer doesn't count.

• 47:29Conan O'Brien?

  Right. No, Guinness is, Guinness is like a glass of milk.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Oh, that's, growing up.

• 47:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  It's like, it's like a loaf of bread.

• 47:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  I know. He can't be an alcoholic, all he drinks is beer.

• 47:44Conan O'Brien?

  He had 35 beers, he's okay. He's driving a school bus in the morning. He'll be alright.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  My brother, I would be in a car with my, or a van with my brother. When we were like in our twenties and he'd be, he'd have a cooler full of beer and I'd be like, "You're driving and drinking beers?" He goes, "Yeah, it's not like I'm drinking booze."

• 48:05Speaker 01

  What is happening?

• 48:06Conan O'Brien?

  Massachusetts. You know what's so funny? This all makes it doesn't even sound like comedy to me. Cause it's just, you're like, we're like two fish and you're describing water. And these two lizards over here are going, "Water? Water?" And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" Of course, no one would have a hard vegetable. You need to boil that shit until it's a paste and it's gray.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  And I have to tell you, like

• 48:35Conan O'Brien?

  A gray paste.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  So funny. I have, because of my algorithms on my Instagram feed on my phone, every day comes, up comes

• 48:45Speaker 02

  like from last night, there was one this morning, I saw. You know, people fighting at a hockey game in Massachusetts, right? A kids hockey game. The one this morning was, you see these two guys go, "Oh yeah? Say it again, say it again." It's a girl's hockey game. You could see the girl stopping. And then you see a woman come in, a woman, of course, it's Massachusetts. And she hits the first guy, "Hey, you shut up and leave him alone." There's always a woman, every girlfriend I had that was from Massachusetts could fight.

• 49:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  The Nebraska sisters, oh my god. You did not want to mess with them. No. It's crazy.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  God, these are kids hockey games?

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Kids, oh yeah, last night.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Oh my god, I thought you were gonna say like fans from like, you know, Bruins and another team.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Massachusetts, a fight can break out at any time.

• 49:40Conan O'Brien?

  You know, winning an award, that's a big achievement, right?

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:42Conan O'Brien?

  Every now and then in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way. Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen, you know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 49:57Conan O'Brien?

  Hyundai has done just that, earning the title of America's best SUV brand for 2026 from US News and World Report. You are a very happy Hyundai driver.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  I drive a Hyundai Palisade and I love my car. I love it. I love driving it around.

• 50:10Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5N, which I love. Beautiful car. Well, listen, whether you need an SUV for everyday life, your next big adventure, or extra room for family and friends, Hyundai has an option for you. The Tucson Hybrid is loaded with technology and built for everyday life. The Santa Fe Hybrid's fully capable and ready for adventure. The Palisade, that's yours, right?

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 50:30Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space. With available, I have this memorized, H-Track all-wheel drive, up to an EPA-estimated 619 miles of range on vehicles like the Palisade Hybrid and Hyundai's industry-leading warranty. It's easy to see why Hyundai continues to deliver the quality, innovation, technology, and value drivers expect from an award-winning brand. View US News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 51:04Conan O'Brien?

  When you hear Alka-Seltzer, you probably think heartburn, right?

• 51:07Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 51:08Conan O'Brien?

  Well, did you know Alka-Seltzer has a line of cold and flu medications known as Alka-Seltzer Cold? Did you know that, David?

• 51:15Speaker 05

  No, but I feel like we need it.

• 51:16Conan O'Brien?

  Why didn't you know that, David?

• 51:17Speaker 05

  I know, you expect me to know everything.

• 51:19Conan O'Brien?

  I knew this.

• 51:20Speaker 05

  Did you?

• 51:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I've tried it, it's really good. And I like that fizzy, fizzy, fizzy when you drop the Alka-Seltzer Cold into the water.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:27Conan O'Brien?

  Alka-Seltzer Cold Fast Dissolves Tablets are designed to deliver cold and flu relief fast. Just drop the two tablets in water and hear those bubbles bursting into action, ready to work faster than pills. Bubbles faster than pills. Pills take time to dissolve, not bubbles. Next time a cold or flu strikes, quick! Alka-Seltzer Cold, nothing works faster for cold and flu symptom relief. Among oral products used as directed.

• 51:56Conan O'Brien?

  So, you have to admit, the holidays, it's really about hanging with the people you love.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:02Conan O'Brien?

  And getting to be yourself, not going to some stuffy holiday party where you need to conform to what the man wants you to think about the holidays.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's about being yourself. Turn your holiday time into Miller time by enjoying a Miller Lite in a place where you're free to enjoy yourself on a walk with a cousin. With a cousin? Why are they getting all specific about?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Because it's family.

• 52:23Conan O'Brien?

  But what about a niece or a nephew?

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:27Conan O'Brien?

  Like a walk with an ex-wife? I don't know. I mean, they're just throwing, that's a weird, they just made a very specific choice.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:34Conan O'Brien?

  Now's the time for those unexpected holiday side guests and enjoy a great tasting light beer. 'Tis Miller time, as Dickens wrote. Miller Lite is brewed for taste, the taste you can depend on. The original light beer since 1975 and still iconic more than 50 years later. I like to be with my bros, my chums, my posse, crack open a Miller Lite, take a swig, a sip, look around and see my friends. We've known each other forever and we're just hanging out.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you guys are just doing chest bumps and high-fiving.

• 53:04Conan O'Brien?

  Miller Lite is great taste done right. Go to millerlite.com/conan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. 'Tis Miller time. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

• 53:26Conan O'Brien?

  But you know what's interesting is the whole culture, there's something in the whole culture and it's in the, it's in the comedy scene and everything is just this. People think of like, New York is tough and you think, yeah, Boston, you could almost hear, like, people have like gravel when they talk, like in their, it's in their persona, it's in their language, it's, everything is very abrasive and I remembered, we used to have, in the early days of Late Night, I would have all these Boston comics come on and some of them, you know, you'd have a Comic-Con who had only been in the clubs in Boston. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'd be there and I'd say, "All right, everybody, and now we got a great, you know, here he comes." And I'd throw to a, "He's a brand-new comic in Boston, he's been a big, big deal in the Boston comedy scene, here he is."

• 54:09Conan O'Brien?

  And a guy would come out and he'd have his hat pulled down over his eyes and he'd be like, "Yeah, yeah." And it was pure vitriol and anger. And I remembered my audience would be like, "Jesus Christ."

• 54:22Conan O'Brien?

  Make that monster go away.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  I know, it's so crazy, it's so crazy.

• 54:25Conan O'Brien?

  Cause they had lived in a, they had grown up in a sea of lava and this was their first time out.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  That's why the most amazing, I mean, there's a lot of great comedians over the years from my generation through Bill Burr's generation and even now, but that, I went to college, Emerson College with Steven Wright.

• 54:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  So in college, Steven was the shyest human being on the planet, right? But really funny, quietly, really unbelievably funny. And he, so when he started doing stand-up, that was one of the reasons I got into it is because somebody told me, hey, Steve Wright's doing stand-up.

• 54:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  After we graduated, at a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, where there's a talent, I was like, a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge where there's a talent, Steven Wright? And I went and he was, he was so different from.

• 55:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Lenny Clark was hosting that show, that's how I went.

• 55:13Conan O'Brien?

  I was gonna bring up Lenny, cause I saw him at the Cam Neely thing.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:17Conan O'Brien?

  Lenny Clark, just this absolute Mount Rushmore icon of Boston comics. And I loved hanging out with him because it was like, I'm so glad he's, he's here, he was really funny.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  He's like the Fred Flintstone of Boston comics. He literally looks like Fred Flintstone, come to life, and he talks, he's really loud. He's a great actor too, but he's, this is the way he talks.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  He loves you, but uh, he's, he was hosting that show and it was a talent show and Steve Wright was just so, his jokes were like haiku. It was so beautifully written, but he was the only person like that, you know, everybody, Bobcat Goldthwait came out of my generation, everybody was allowed, Bill Burr, um, you know, everybody was sarcastic and loud and quick, you know? The crowds were tough, you know?

• 56:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  Steven, to this day, he's like a, it's like, he's a diamond, you know?

• 56:12Conan O'Brien?

  No, he's, I mean. I always think if Stephen's stand-up was always these jokes that are polished stones.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  Unbelievable.

• 56:24Conan O'Brien?

  Really precise.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Like, some of the most famous ones, like Small World, but I wouldn't want to paint it.

• 56:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  That's incredible. That joke is just like, what are you talking about?

• 56:38Conan O'Brien?

  So, you're coming up from that, in that scene, and I know that you were interested, when you're at Emerson, you're interested in comedy.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:45Conan O'Brien?

  Right? And you started, like, a comedy group that's, I think, still going today.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:50Conan O'Brien?

  So...

• 56:51Speaker 02

  The Comedy Workshop.

• 56:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  Which was...

• 56:53Conan O'Brien?

  So you knew, this is something I'd like to do at a very early age.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. So when I was growing up, my dad was a mechanic by trade, but he was a great musician. And he played in Irish bands, and he played accordion, like, after a wedding, or, you know, any kind of big film-y event, people would come back to our apartment, and eventually the house we lived in. And my dad would play accordion, and there was always music in the house, but my dad was, and my mom, so fucking funny. So, like, so funny, and so sarcastically, like, the moment you walked in the door from school, "What the hell are you so happy?" Like, they would start in on you.

• 57:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Right? So we were all funny in response to that, naturally, as you know. And then, when I was a kid, a teenager, I saw fucking Monty Python.

• 57:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  And, and Richard Pryor, like, almost, like, the rebellious new Richard Pryor, like, 1972, '73. I was like, and then George Carlin. And I was like, "What the fuck is this?"

• 57:50Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Monty Python just fucking made our heads explode.

• 57:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  I mean, that was crazy.

• 57:54Conan O'Brien?

  That was the new, I always, I've told Eric Idle this a million times, that was the, for me, anyway, that was the atomic bomb blast, that was the Oppenheimer moment of...

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 58:02Conan O'Brien?

  "Oh, sketches don't have to end."

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 58:05Conan O'Brien?

  Like, "Well, and so it was, you know? I guess we really are the Fathead family," and then the curtain comes down. They, they just blew everything up in this lovely way.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  They were like the Beatles of comedy. I never, to this day, nothing has ever done that atomic thing. Although I did Pryor and Carlin, especially Carlin, because he was talking like he... He was in the neighborhood. He was talking about Catholic school and nuns and seven dirty words and all that stuff. Uh, so then I was like, and then Saturday Night Live happened.

• 58:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:34Speaker 02

  And that first cast, and I was like, Belushi especially, I was like, what the fuck is this?

• 58:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  You know, it's still true. Like I, at that same time in music, I was a more of a Stones fan. I mean, I don't really remember seeing the Beatles on TV and stuff, but I liked the Beatles, but David Bowie. The first time I saw Bowie, I was like, my brother and I were like, what is this?

• 58:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Uh, which was that just music.

• 58:57Conan O'Brien?

  I was like, he's androgynous, I'm androgynous.

• 59:02Conan O'Brien?

  I remember that really clearly. You know?

• 59:05Speaker 01

  You felt seen.

• 59:06Conan O'Brien?

  I felt seen for the first time.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  David Bowie was singing to you. And he was also saying, hey, Conan, you want to try this outfit on? Yes, I do. And yet he still seems tougher than me.

• 59:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Oh, he beat the shit out of me, along with the Sikorski Twins, whatever their name is.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  The Sikorski Twins.

• 59:27Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I, it's so. So it's interesting to me that you see that happening, you start this group, and then you start getting up on stage.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  Well, to be fair though, I, the group was started by me and a, and a bunch of other friends of mine at the time.

• 59:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Uh, we, because we couldn't, the, the juniors and seniors would get the acting roles. Rightfully so, before they graduated, you had to wait in line. There was a seniority system. Everybody had to play a major lead role in a play or a musical before you left the school to get your degree. Cause it was acting and writing, right? So we got there, we're like, we're never gonna get on stage. Then we found out you could for, you can get money from the student government to form a theater group. We were all comedy nerds. We loved SNL, which is the beginning of SNL at that time, and Python. Uh, Pryor, Carlin, um, we all loved those shows, like the Mary Tyler, all those funny women on the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

• 1:00:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  So a bunch of us formed the, the. The group and it was it was packed with talent. Lauren Dombrowski was my girlfriend at the time, ended up being one of the producers of Mad TV. Mario Cantone was in the original group, who's just like, who was as funny at that time. When we were 18 years old as he is now. There were so many talented people in that in that era. And then there was a couple of guys who later in the comedy worked up who ended up writing on on The Simpsons. John Frank.

• 1:00:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yep, I know John Frank, he's hilarious.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  And at my generation, after I left the comedy works up, then it was David Cross and I mean, Laura Kietlinger. I mean, it was an insane amount of talent at that school.

• 1:01:02Conan O'Brien?

  And it still is, I have to say, I'm often back there in Boston, a lot of my, you know, siblings live around the area. And so I find myself in Boston a lot. And I'm always talking to people who are really sharp, really funny, and then it turns out they're Emerson.

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:20Conan O'Brien?

  Emerson, there's something in the water at Emerson, so many great people have come from there.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  Well, it's just the it's the type of kids, it's the theater kids from high school, the funny kids from high school, the the best dancers, the filmmaker, those are the kind of kids who go to a school like Emerson. So that's like, it's more, you're finding people more like yourself.

• 1:01:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  You know, like in high school, I was really funny. You know, I I I didn't, I wasn't gonna make it as a hockey player, but I was really funny in the back of the class. Right? And and then I was trying to make my friends laugh. But I didn't think that that was gonna turn into something, but here we are. You're covering up pools, I'm your guest. You own a building. You own a fucking building.

• 1:01:59Conan O'Brien?

  I own a building.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  I had nuns who told me, I had one Spanish nun and she was right in her way. I I flunked Spanish twice in high school. She's like, I'm just gonna give you a passing grade to get you out of the building, Leary. And she was like, what are you gonna do with yourself? What's gonna happen to you? You're not gonna go anywhere. Hey, Sister Judith Capenman, that was her name. Yeah. No free rides. Yeah, no free ride.

• 1:02:25Conan O'Brien?

  Don't mention her. Right somewhere right now, Gene Simmons is going like, why did he mention? Why should she get a free ride? She's a Catholic nun, who's probably dead.

• 1:02:36Conan O'Brien?

  Why should she get a free ride? Listen, she has to be dead. She has to be dead.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  She was like ninety then.

• 1:02:42Conan O'Brien?

  You say it like someone who hired three hitmen. She has to be dead! I've hired the best!

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  But Conan.

• 1:02:48Conan O'Brien?

  Seven times!

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  You know that that's, that really is, the same nuns and the same priests for twelve years. There are nuns where I'm like, "Is she dead?" She's gotta be dead, right? She's gotta be dead.

• 1:02:59Conan O'Brien?

  It's, that's not a good sentence. She has to be dead! She has to be!

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  How can she still be alive?

• 1:03:06Conan O'Brien?

  What survives a car bomb like that?

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  We put her in a barrel with cement blocks and we dropped her in the Mystic River. How is she alive? We drove her to Childstown, threw her off the bridge.

• 1:03:20Conan O'Brien?

  You know what it reminds me of? In the first, in The Godfather, the first one, the first Godfather, when Salazzo finds out that the Don is still alive, they shot him?

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Conan O'Brien?

  And he goes, "He's still alive!"

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Still alive.

• 1:03:32Conan O'Brien?

  "It's bad news for me and worse for you if you can't make this deal, Tom." But I always, I always, that always is like a, it's a thing in my brain. "Still alive!"

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Conan O'Brien?

  And that's what you're, some, they're gonna come and tell you, "No, no, she's around, she's a hundred and fifty, still alive!"

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Well, I tell you, there was one great nun there, and that was the theater nun at that, at St. Peter's.

• 1:03:50Conan O'Brien?

  I love a theater nun.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. She, she put me in plays.

• 1:03:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  And, and I loved it because the hottest girls were in the plays. And eventually, like, my brother and all the jocks were like, "Yeah, we wanna be in the plays too now and hold the girls and everything." But, uh, she, she-

• 1:04:04Conan O'Brien?

  Hold the girls?

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, are there any good holding plays? How much holding is there in Otello?

• 1:04:12Conan O'Brien?

  That's how they ranked the plays.

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  No, because she would tell you, like, "Grab her by the, the bosom and by the rump and lift her up for the dance reggae numbers, right?" "I want that part!" Yeah. I told my brother and those guys, they were like, "What do you mean, you get to grab?" I'm like, "Yeah." Anyways, Bill Murray told me the same story.

• 1:04:30Conan O'Brien?

  I love a whole acting philosophy around as much grabbing as possible.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  So Bill Murray said, I heard him tell the same story one time, and he was at, at a Catholic school and a nun made him be in the, in a musical.

• 1:04:40Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  And he went in and it was the hottest girls and he was like, "What is this?" Anyways, that nun, Sister Rosemary- Sullivan at St. Peter's, and I wasn't a great student. She said, listen, I can, I, I took a night class at Emerson, I have connections there. You just audition. You do a written essay and then you do like a live audition.

• 1:04:56Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  And, and you can get a scholarship. And that's how I got the scholarship at Emerson. She got me the audition. So that's how I got into Emerson. It changed my life and I stayed friends with her till she died. She followed my career. She was a great nun, but there, there's a lot of nuns that I literally still think like, she can't, is she, is she alive? Is she out there? Cause they were so fucking mean. They were like, they were like, just like a cult of angry fucking women who just hated fucking kids.

• 1:05:23Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, that's all the time we have.

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  They could hit you.

• 1:05:26Conan O'Brien?

  Microphone isn't working. I can't even, I.

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  He's afraid of the Catholic Church. He's so scared.

• 1:05:31Conan O'Brien?

  I know, he's microphone. I'm terrified. Nuns at the cynical, when they wear the habit.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:05:37Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, the thing is, you have to remember, there's the habit, which is black. They're like, it's like, uh, you know, it's, it's a Marvel Universe villain.

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  You're scared. No, no, no, they were literally villains. Like, this girl, you weren't allowed to have pierced ears and this girl showed up with pierced ears right at the beginning of, after the summer. And we were, you know, you're changing classes, you're all in the hallway and we heard this scream. And this nun had torn this girl's earrings out of her ears. So she's bleeding. Oh my god. And, and threw the things down and gave her detention. We're like, this is crazy. And they used to grab the girls and hit them on the back of the legs and grab them and measure their skirts. But they could hit you and like, when you went home and said, ma, I got hit by Sister Judith Catman.

• 1:06:18Conan O'Brien?

  What'd you do?

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  What'd you do?

• 1:06:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, what'd you do?

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  What did you do? Sure you had it coming, which most of the time I did have it coming. But I'm just saying, they didn't fuck, they fucking hit you. Sometimes they hit you just because they could.

• 1:06:29Conan O'Brien?

  To be fair, your skirt was the proper length.

• 1:06:34Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, I want, I gotta make sure I mention.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:06:36Conan O'Brien?

  This show Going Dutch, which you've been working on.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  In my defense, I was wearing the skirt because David Bowie was so fucking good.

• 1:06:43Conan O'Brien?

  He was huge. And I had a crush on this girl, Conan.

• 1:06:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:06:48Conan O'Brien?

  Going Dutch, you know, I just, because one of the writers who's helping me out,

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  Yes, it's one of my writers.

• 1:06:53Conan O'Brien?

  Skylar is a fantastic writer and he's been working for you. And he, he worked on the show and I said, how is it? And he said, oh, it's, you know, it's in Ireland. And I said, you're shooting it in Ireland, which is not where the show takes place.

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:07:06Conan O'Brien?

  But it is, it's fascinating to me that, yeah, that's where so much production is done now.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, we're shooting there because the show is set, it's based on a real army base that was in the Netherlands that got shut down.

• 1:07:17Conan O'Brien?

  It's a funny idea. Yeah.

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  Because of black market, you know, drugs are legal, sex is legal, prostitution is legal. And, and.

• 1:07:25Conan O'Brien?

  You've been sent to the least necessary base.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Now, that base in real life is closed down.

• 1:07:30Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  So we're telling the story, our military advisor was at that base. But Ireland matches the Netherlands in terms of landscape, right? And we have villages where we can shoot. So we were, we shot it in Ireland so we didn't have to deal with the military or anybody in Amsterdam in terms of what we were going to do. But my son developed that project and he's the executive producer. So it's the first time I'm like, my son is my boss.

• 1:07:56Conan O'Brien?

  What, what, what is that?

• 1:07:57Speaker 02

  Which is bizarre.

• 1:07:57Conan O'Brien?

  What is that like, your son telling you, let's try it again?

• 1:08:00Speaker 02

  It's interesting because we do a lot of improv, right? It's great writing and, and the, the showrunner is on set, Joel Truch Cooper. He's the guy that did Brockmire with Hank Azaria.

• 1:08:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  He's a brilliant writer. And, and some of the writers are on set and their, their pages are great. So we do the pages, but then we always improvise from that. And sometimes he comes in in the morning and goes, forget the pages. I changed my mind. Or we come in and go, hey, what if we did? So there's a lot of improvisation. So my son has a great sense of humor and I, and I trust him. He developed the, the material with Joel. He'll just come in like anybody else and go, dad, that sucked. You guys were great. Dennis, you were terrible. Let's do something else. You try something else. You guys do what you were doing. Or he'll come in and go, hey, Dennis, that was funny. You guys, that was great. So it's like, I'm just another guy on the set. I happen to, you know, and, and he's, you see my son, he's huge.

• 1:08:52Conan O'Brien?

  He was, he was backstage.

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. He produced, he produces the concerts.

• 1:08:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, he was backstage at the Camille thing.

• 1:08:57Speaker 02

  It's funny because I have to, I've been looking up to him since he was like 14. But he's six, seven, my son. So it's like when I, when I, when he goes like, hey, that wasn't very funny, Dennis. I'm like, okay, Jack. But he's got a great sense of humor. My son is really funny.

• 1:09:14Conan O'Brien?

  He puts, when I met him, he put his plate on top of your head.

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, he did. It's so funny because-

• 1:09:19Conan O'Brien?

  Having a beautiful Caesar Sally.

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  Cause my son's name is Jack and he's 6'7" and Cam Neely's son is also named Jack and he's like 6'6". So the two of us are like, you know, looking up at them. It's so, I think we have a psychological advantage, but neither one of us wants to find out. If we would actually win in a fight.

• 1:09:38Conan O'Brien?

  Ah, don't get into that.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  Not getting into that.

• 1:09:41Conan O'Brien?

  Listen, I wish we could do this all day because this is not, you know, I always say about the podcast, this is not work. I don't know what this is, but it is not work. And then there are days like today where it's just, I mean, you and I can finish each other's sentences. So I dedicate this episode to the Learys in Worcester, the Reardens in Worcester, O'Briens scattered all around Massachusetts.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  O'Learys.

• 1:10:05Conan O'Brien?

  Like a disease, O'Learys.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  We found out, when we were at Comics Come Home, cause one of my sisters was there, like I think we chased it down, somebody chased it down to a Reardon or a Daly. There was a Daly on your-

• 1:10:18Conan O'Brien?

  See, I don't know. I've never quite figured out what our connection is. I mean, we're all related somehow.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Your mother was a Reardon, right?

• 1:10:24Conan O'Brien?

  It's a, we all come from that same green rock.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  We all look the same.

• 1:10:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  You guys look alike. I know. Look, look, my legs start here.

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  But I think it was that there's Daly's, Reardon's on your mother's side, right?

• 1:10:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think there's Daly's in the Reardon's side and those Daly's came out of Cork, which is where the Learys were.

• 1:10:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  And went into Kerry. And one of them ended up in Killarney. So that's where I think it, it all connects up. So that Daly was involved.

• 1:10:57Conan O'Brien?

  But some people think, oh, so you and Dennis used to see each other at Christmas and stuff going up. It's like, no.

• 1:11:01Speaker 02

  We didn't find out.

• 1:11:02Conan O'Brien?

  We're cousins the way Son and I are cousins.

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Conan O'Brien?

  I'm complete. I'm so Armo. You have no idea.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Not a fiber.

• 1:11:12Speaker 02

  Well, listen, let me just tell you something about purebreds like us.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Tell me.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  Okay, we can't, we can't go out in the sun.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  And, and don't put too much spice in the, in the spaghetti.

• 1:11:24Conan O'Brien?

  Don't put any.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  Don't put any.

• 1:11:25Conan O'Brien?

  No.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  You know what? Let us boil it.

• 1:11:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:11:28Conan O'Brien?

  We'll take care of it.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  I'll skip on me.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  And we don't have drinking problems.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  No, we don't. We do not.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  You just drink lots of beer.

• 1:11:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  Well, listen, beer is not alcohol again.

• 1:11:38Conan O'Brien?

  Not alcohol. There's no alcohol in beer.

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  There's no alcohol in beer.

• 1:11:41Conan O'Brien?

  Said the idiot.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Or Guinness.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  What's wrong with these people?

• 1:11:45Conan O'Brien?

  All right, well, you gotta come back, because this was really fun.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, and

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  I had a fucking blast.

• 1:11:49Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, watch the language. I'm trying to reach children.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  I didn't say motherfucker one fucking time.

• 1:11:56Conan O'Brien?

  You know what? God bless you.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  And I didn't say cocksucker.

• 1:12:00Conan O'Brien?

  Somewhere, some dead nuns are very proud of you. Murdered nuns. Yeah. Ones that started their car at the wrong time.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  They're climbing out of the coffins of their

• 1:12:07Conan O'Brien?

  There's no way she's alive! Not after what I done!

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  She can't be alive!

• 1:12:12Conan O'Brien?

  All right, Dennis, go with God. We'll see you later.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:12:17Speaker 03

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonum of Sesian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm.com/conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

• 1:13:27Conan O'Brien?

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• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:13:37Conan O'Brien?

  That's where Robert Half's new 2027 Salary Guide can help.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:13:41Conan O'Brien?

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  Uh, no, but maybe-

• 1:13:44Conan O'Brien?

  For several years, I just gave you groceries, remember?

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  I know, I remember that. That was not good.

• 1:13:49Conan O'Brien?

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• 1:14:11Conan O'Brien?

  When you hear Alka-Seltzer, you probably think heartburn, right?

• 1:14:13Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:14:14Conan O'Brien?

  Well, did you know Alka-Seltzer has a line of cold and flu medications known as Alka-Seltzer Cold? Did you know that, David?

• 1:14:21Speaker 05

  No, but I feel like we need it.

• 1:14:22Conan O'Brien?

  Why didn't you know that, David?

• 1:14:23Speaker 05

  I know, you expect me to know everything.

• 1:14:25Conan O'Brien?

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