Greg Daniels

Writer, showrunner, and producer Greg Daniels feels outraged about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Greg sits down with Conan to discuss their unique strategies for saving money living together in their first LA apartment, traveling to Vancouver to hunt down the stars of the Canadian series Beachcombers, and expanding on the world of The Office with the upcoming spin-off series The Paper. 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.

• 0:02Conan O'Brien?

  Who do you shop for first on the holidays, Sona? Was it, do you shop for the kids or do you shop for Tac?

• 0:06Speaker 01

  My kids.

• 0:07Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Or Oki.

• 0:08Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta get them your stuff.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Or my dog.

• 0:09Conan O'Brien?

  And then your husband is last. Well, guess what? It's that time of year. You feel that, you smell that cinnamon cider in the air? Do you smell that?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:19Conan O'Brien?

  And you see pumpkins around, people buying turkeys. A little early to buy a turkey. Doesn't matter. Holidays? I would say it's just around the corner, but that's a cliche. It's very nearby in the cupboard. Well, guess what? Amazon delivers joy with low prices on the gifts you want even this early in the season. So get ahead of the season. Shop early gifts, top picks, holiday decor, and advent calendars at low prices. Get ahead, start on holiday gifting with Amazon's low prices. Shop now at amazon.com/holiday.

• 0:55Conan O'Brien?

  The holidays are supposed to be about making memories, not managing the mess that comes with them. Between winter weather, road trips, shopping, and family gatherings, your vehicle can take a beating. Mine sure does.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Same.

• 1:06Conan O'Brien?

  Especially when I'm back in the Northeast, driving around. I mean, I grew up with that.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10Conan O'Brien?

  Cars were red, the salt on the road, people throwing rocks at me.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Whaaat?

• 1:15Conan O'Brien?

  That's not a weather thing. That's more of a me being, making people angry problem. WeatherTech helps protect your vehicle from snow, slush, salt, and seasonal messes. They also make the best gifts for automobile protection, from floor liners and cargo liner to side window deflectors, even gift cards. Great for today and to prevent future messes. Everything is built to last, easy to clean, and designed for harsh winter conditions, okay? I grew up with this.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42Conan O'Brien?

  And the salt would eat away the car. We actually did have a Chevy. My dad had a Chevy Impala, and the floor rusted out and you could see the road going by.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Oh!

• 1:50Conan O'Brien?

  Boy, we were praying for WeatherTech and we didn't even know it. That was before it existed.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 1:56Conan O'Brien?

  So get a gift today at weathertech.com.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Hi, my name is Greg Daniels.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  And I feel outraged about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

• 2:13Conan O'Brien?

  You should be.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Conan O'Brien needs a friend. Conan O'Brien doesn't have any friends. Poor Conan has no friends. Help him find a friend.

• 2:20Conan O'Brien?

  And how long have we been friends?

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I live two miles from you.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  I brought you food when you had shingles in your eye.

• 2:30Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 2:54Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I'm sitting with my good pals, my amigos, my chums, for life. That's the number four. Son of a seshian. Matt Gourley, good to see you both.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Four life, we're committing for life?

• 3:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. You did, you've more or less... We've been doing this together over five years.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Over seven years.

• 3:14Conan O'Brien?

  I know, but doing it well for five.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  It's the number four?

• 3:17Conan O'Brien?

  That was one of my favorite jokes we ever did. We did a 10th anniversary special for The Late Night with Conan O'Brien Show. And we did it at the Beacon Theater and it was this big show. It was so much fun and so much great stuff. But one of my favorite things is I'm standing out there and I'm saying it's such a wonderful night and Mr. T came out.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  I remember this.

• 3:37Conan O'Brien?

  And he put, he handed me a giant, he's Mr. T wearing fatigues and with his mohawk and jewelry. And I was just so delighted because he became a friend of the show. And he was such a great guest and we did remotes together and I went to Chicago with him. He presented me with a gift and he put a big gold number seven over my neck. And he was like, happy, you know, happy anniversary Conan. And I said, Mr. T, this is seven. I've been on the air for 10. And he said, you've only been funny for seven.

• 4:04Conan O'Brien?

  And then he spun on his, he gave me a sharp salute, spun on his heel and marched out. Killed. I thought that was a great joke. That is good. And, um, God bless you, Mr. T.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  That's nice.

• 4:16Conan O'Brien?

  We are having an exciting day because I walked in to the offices here at Larchmont, these sprawling, uh, corporate, um, massive structure.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  It's like one building.

• 4:25Conan O'Brien?

  Shut up. I suddenly am set upon by two imps.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:30Conan O'Brien?

  Your kids are here today and it's so much fun. Why don't you paint the picture? Because I immediately revert to a, to a three-year-old when I'm around three and four-year-olds.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  You really do become a child.

• 4:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Become a child.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Maybe it is who you are and then this is like who, who's not the real one.

• 4:46Conan O'Brien?

  There's layers of crud, like those dishes that are wrapped in bacon. I'm a child and then there's just layers and layers of, um, high fatty, uh, meat surrounding the, the inner child.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  I was, it's weird. The analogy I thought of was how Superman is Superman and then Clark Kent is who he pretends to be.

• 5:06Conan O'Brien?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  That's what I was thinking more along the lines of.

• 5:09Conan O'Brien?

  I like that better than bacon. Yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  No, I think bacon's more apt.

• 5:11Conan O'Brien?

  So what happened? You were there and they were quiet.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  They lost their minds when they saw you.

• 5:15Conan O'Brien?

  Cause I'm like a parade float.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  You, you come in and you're immediately just like going at, like just going at it. You're going crazy and then they feed off that energy and then it just turns into a.

• 5:26Conan O'Brien?

  We're both chasing each other around.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 5:30Conan O'Brien?

  I'm running upstairs. They're chasing me and then I'm, they come running back downstairs and I'm chasing them.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:35Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, it was really fun to have them around and the only thing I couldn't do is I tried to get them to freeze. Like, okay, everybody freeze.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:43Conan O'Brien?

  And Mikey won't do it.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Mikey has a problem with authority. I don't know where he gets it from. I really don't know where he gets it from.

• 5:50Conan O'Brien?

  It was so funny because I'd say, no, guys, and then when I do this, we all freeze. And I would freeze too.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:54Conan O'Brien?

  And he just won't freeze.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  No, he won't. He won't listen to you. And then he'll like do what he, he's funny. And I'm like, it's not funny. You're not listening. Like it's just not, it's, you have to stop.

• 6:05Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Um, I do it in a much better tone.

• 6:08Conan O'Brien?

  Do you see yourself in him?

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 6:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:12Conan O'Brien?

  Cause you never listened to me for years and years. You know that.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 6:16Conan O'Brien?

  When I first hired you as my assistant, I'd say, freeze. And you'd be like, what? No, that's stupid. Yeah, well, that was just smart of her though. You were.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  Good life skills, really.

• 6:25Conan O'Brien?

  You were thirty. That was appropriate.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:27Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, freeze! No! Freeze? No, what are you doing, creep?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  I just took out my pepper spray.

• 6:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  No, I'm, yeah, they're really, they love you. They really, really love you. And I think that they, like, every time someone would come in, they'd be like, is that Uncle Conan? Is that Uncle Conan? And, you know, like, they're just really excited to see you. I don't know.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Does that burn you a little bit that they love you so much?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Yes. Why? I don't know. I think when they're older.

• 6:48Conan O'Brien?

  I think it bothers you more than anybody.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  It does. It does, yeah.

• 6:51Conan O'Brien?

  Um, you have kept me away from your daughter, I've noticed.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:54Conan O'Brien?

  You don't want her forming any attachments to me.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  That's not true. I brought her in here before.

• 6:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you bring her in, but you're always like, okay, that's enough, that's enough. And she starts to, I see light coming into her eyes for the first time. Like, unbridled joy and fun. And you're always like, let's get out of here. And you wrap her in a blanket and you run away.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 7:12Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just gonna look at what you've been doodling here.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  Oh, dear.

• 7:15Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, look at this.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 7:17Conan O'Brien?

  You've got a Darth Vader that you've drawn, and then, is that a Boba Fett? What is that? A Glipklop? And then this is just a regular stormtrooper. These are the renderings of someone who has thought about these guys a lot.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  I, I don't ever draw them, I swear to God. And I just happened to today. And of course, it's the one day that you pick up the piece of paper.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  You don't ever draw them?

• 7:37Conan O'Brien?

  You don't ever draw them. These are perfectly rendered.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  Because I used to draw them in, in grade school all the time, you know?

• 7:41Conan O'Brien?

  So you're saying you regress when you're in my presence?

• 7:43Speaker 03

  I do.

• 7:44Conan O'Brien?

  Look at that. Those are really good.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Those are really good.

• 7:47Conan O'Brien?

  You're a very good artist, but it's just interesting to me that this is, um, this is what, I feel like I'm trying to get you to take an algebra test, and I walk by you, and I'm like, "Mr. Golly!"

• 7:58Speaker 03

  That's exactly what happened in high school.

• 7:59Conan O'Brien?

  Did you get, uh?

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I was horrible at algebra. Absolutely horrible.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Did you have detention a lot?

• 8:05Speaker 03

  I wouldn't say a lot, but I, I was no stranger.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too. Every day.

• 8:09Conan O'Brien?

  You seem like a law-abiding guy.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  No, I was a real, like, uh, I got away with a lot. I broke a lot of rules, but I very rarely got caught, and I'm not proud of it.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  But I would do things like, I, I once to get out of a test, did a full gash, wax makeup, cut on my hand, and went in to class just pouring blood out of it, going, "I gotta go to, I gotta go to the nurse."

• 8:28Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, and so, and it was very realistic?

• 8:31Speaker 03

  Very realistic, yeah. I had it in my glove compartment of my car in high school.

• 8:35Conan O'Brien?

  My brother, we had this woman that, you know, my mom went back to work, my dad was at work. And so she got this woman named Eva Murphy, who was from Prince Edward Island. And she would, you know, help clean the house and she'd put on a meal for us at, at five o'clock. And she was just sort of there to make sure that there was someone at home. And she did a lot, actually. She was wonderful. But my brother Luke once took a, sorry Luke, I'm selling you out here. But he spent a lot of time, he used that fake vampire blood. And he, this was ingenious, he used a, he just wanted to play a prank on Eva, but he melted red wax on his hand and his upper arm. So it looked like it had, and then he painstakingly put all this blood on it.

• 9:17Conan O'Brien?

  And it looked like his hand had accidentally fallen into like, uh, I don't know, a wood chipper.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Disposal.

• 9:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it was shredded. His hand looked shredded and he went, he came running into the kitchen. He was like, ah, Eva Murphy freaked out. And I think Luke then was like, ah, Luke was scared because he got, he just thought he was gonna get, oh, you rascal. And instead he came running in with a stump. It was shooting blood. Do you know what I mean? It was out of Monty Python, the Holy Grail.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  Man, after my own heart.

• 9:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And I, I remembered I was horrified, Eva was horrified, Luke was horrified.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 9:51Conan O'Brien?

  I don't think so. He's kind of a sociopath, but um, it was quite, that just triggered me. You just brought up a very painful memory for me.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Is that a butt?

• 10:00Speaker 03

  It's a W for rap, but it also could be.

• 10:02Conan O'Brien?

  You look, look at that. Jesus, can I see that place? So you're out of control today. You just draw, drew boobies.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  Well, after she said butt, I put some nipples on there.

• 10:11Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, so now I see why you would go into detention. All right. Well, I'm gonna.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Were you ever in detention? I feel like you were like the kid who asked for extra credit.

• 10:20Conan O'Brien?

  I was the kid that carried other, escorted other kids to detention.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  No, you weren't. I know, but still, were you, were you the kid who was like, excuse me?

• 10:29Conan O'Brien?

  I have him, Principal Thomas.

• 10:33Conan O'Brien?

  This malefactor!

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Nerd, nerd as he draws more Star Wars heads.

• 10:42Conan O'Brien?

  Nope, I've taken your booby and I've turned it, I took your frown and turned it upside down. Um, so I'm very happy with what I've done. Nah, it's real good. I know. And hey, you know the great thing about a podcast? It's perfect for drawing stuff.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:58Conan O'Brien?

  But look at that guy. Look at that, see?

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Wow, that's really special.

• 11:02Conan O'Brien?

  He's got booby eyes. And guess what? His friends call him Titty.

• 11:07Conan O'Brien?

  That's Titty Johnson. I just took back everything I just did.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Okay, so we'll also post these on Team Coco Podcasts on Instagram, both the Star Wars heads and Titty Johnson.

• 11:16Conan O'Brien?

  Do you want to do that? Do you want to do that again and sound like you're not on lithium?

• 11:20Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm gonna post these.

• 11:24Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, Sylvia Plath.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  We'll also post these on-

• 11:26Conan O'Brien?

  No, I want the other one.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  You do it, asshole.

• 11:31Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, you wanna check out these fun drawings? See the whole evolution of two boobies to a friendly guy named Titty Johnson? Check it out on-

• 11:40Speaker 03

  At Team Coco Podcasts on Instagram and YouTube.

• 11:45Conan O'Brien?

  That's the kind of show you've signed up for. Hey, I am very excited. My guest today is one of my oldest friends, and he also just happens to be, uh, a legendary writer, showrunner, and producer. I mean, he's been responsible for like half of the really good TV shows in the last 25 years. That's very true. And, um, he and I go way back and we got started together. We struck out two lads heading out to LA in 1985. He saved my life in so many ways, and I love him for it. The fourth season of his show Upload premieres on Prime Video Monday, August 25th, and he has like 15 other things going too. It's craziness. I am so thrilled he's here today,

• 12:28Conan O'Brien?

  and I know fans have been wanting this for a long time.

• 12:35Conan O'Brien?

  The day has come. Greg Daniels, welcome.

• 12:41Conan O'Brien?

  Anyone who doesn't know, and I think most people know because Adam Sachs has told me that this might be the most fan-requested interview that we've had over years. People are saying, "When are you gonna get Greg Daniels here?"

• 12:52Speaker 02

  And yet I'm guest like 750.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  I think I should have a podcast Greg Daniels Thought He Had It for me. But I guess not.

• 13:03Conan O'Brien?

  Look, I waited to monetize our friendship at the peak moment, and I think I've done that.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Middle of the summer. Who couldn't come because they were on vacation?

• 13:16Conan O'Brien?

  You and I met in college, and we both worked on the Harvard Lampoon. We knew each other.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  We were in the same class freshman year.

• 13:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, we did a, we did a-

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Which we could talk about.

• 13:25Conan O'Brien?

  We did a class, which was like a playwriting class.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  No, the other one. There was one, we did one with the same professor about stories, do you remember? In freshman years, the seminar?

• 13:34Conan O'Brien?

  I don't, it's all a blur.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Yes, well maybe we weren't in that. I might be thinking of someone else.

• 13:39Conan O'Brien?

  I think you're thinking of someone else. You know what we're gonna do? We've never done this, but we're gonna start again. Watch this, and go. All right, for the uninitiated, for people who don't know, Greg and I went to school together. We kind of knew each other, and then I was on the Lampoon, you were competing to get on the Lampoon, you dropped off a car-

• 14:02Speaker 02

  So why is that important? That you were there first?

• 14:06Conan O'Brien?

  I was there.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  This is like the fourth time you've said this intro.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  I was on the Lampoon, you were competing to get on the Lampoon.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  I could've gone thumbs down, I could've gone thumbs up.

• 14:19Conan O'Brien?

  I was the John Lennon and you were the Ringo.

• 14:24Conan O'Brien?

  He was like, "I can keep a steady beat."

• 14:27Conan O'Brien?

  You dropped this cartoon off that is in that moment, I remember that moment very well because you had to leave them on the floor of this building. And I remember going into this room in the Lampoon building where people would just leave their stuff on the floor and looking down and seeing this cartoon. And a good cartoon is like a little silver bullet. It goes right to your brain. You had such a great cartoon, which was, why don't you describe it?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  I would never have brought this up.

• 14:53Conan O'Brien?

  I liked, I thought it was really funny. I thought it was, that's, it was sort of my, it's our origin story.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  I suppose, I suppose if we forget about the other thing, but very literary cartoon, very small audience, very nerd-defining cartoon, but.

• 15:07Conan O'Brien?

  Don't talk down to my people.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  It was a, oh god, I can't.

• 15:11Conan O'Brien?

  It's a sea captain.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  It's a sea captain, old sea captain, and he's at some party and he has a hello, my name is sticker on his shirt and it says Ishmael.

• 15:19Conan O'Brien?

  Ishmael, one of the great lines. Call me Ishmael. And I thought, I saw that and I thought, okay, that's a great, that would be a New Yorker cartoon right now. It was well drawn. We got to know each other and then both of us were interested in getting into comedy. I'll just speak for myself. The idea of going out into this crazy world by myself was terrifying. And I remembered thinking, gee, I wonder if Greg would do this with me because he's really funny and then I'd have a good friend and we could do it together. That was my feeling.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:54Conan O'Brien?

  I think you were under the impression that I was very wealthy, which I was not.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Well, we, the summer before we graduated, we worked on a project.

• 16:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  And it was a very fun experience. And I think that comedy is such a social thing.

• 16:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  It's so much fun to joke around with friends and, you know, I prefer it that way for sure. And. So yeah, so I thought, well, that's cool. Let's try that.

• 16:22Conan O'Brien?

  And I remember Greg, a brilliant fellow, and you were possibly going to go to law school. And I think your, your, your mother was questioning, and I remember when you showed up with me. It's like you show up with your fiance. You showed up with me, and I remembered your dad was like, oh, this sounds fun. And I, I think, I think your mom was, who I love, by the way, I love your mom, and she's fantastic. But she rightfully was a little like, who's this Conan? And he's talking all this nonsense into my sons. That's the impression I got.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I, those were, that was my, my two choices. Lawyer or comedy writer. And I found that people, when I had been a kid, and growing up, they would say, you should be a lawyer. And they always said that when they were mad at me, because I was being like really annoying and argumentative. And then sometimes they'd say, you should be a comedian, you should be funny. And they were always saying that when they were happy with me.

• 17:21Conan O'Brien?

  That's cool.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  And I was like, you know what, I think I should probably not go down this path of everybody hating me.

• 17:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Well.

• 17:33Conan O'Brien?

  This part of my life is so seared into my brain, and I'm indebted to you because I don't know what. I don't, I, I, I think coming out to LA was terrifying to me. Was, it was just, I, I.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  What have you said to the audience about your origin? What can I talk about?

• 17:52Conan O'Brien?

  Anything.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  That they don't know.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  He ate a lot of burgers and fries and he was weird and lanky.

• 17:58Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, it's just genetics.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  For burgers and fries.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  You were a freak.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  We used to go to Johnny Rockets, did we talk about this?

• 18:07Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, well, I, well.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  And I had this very annoying running joke with him, where I would tell the waitstaff it was his birthday every single time. We came, so they would come sing to him.

• 18:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's annoying, very annoying. But I, I think all I have to tell people is that we came out here and we were very frugal. We were very hardworking. We did not have girlfriends.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  We shared one car.

• 18:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  One apartment and one office.

• 18:37Conan O'Brien?

  Wow.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  And according to my father, one towel. I don't know if that's true.

• 18:42Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's true. It's true. And I'll tell you this. We had, we had an apartment which I pass every day because I live not far away on Barrington. And I remember us, we had no furniture.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  We got, alright, so we got, we got mattresses from a, a parking lot in Watts.

• 19:02Conan O'Brien?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Do you remember that?

• 19:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, we drove there and they, they would, you pick out your mattress and they throw it on a truck.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  They tie it to your top of your car and off you go. There was, it wasn't a store.

• 19:11Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  And then.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Who's they? I'm sorry, who's they?

• 19:14Conan O'Brien?

  It's not important.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  I don't know. There was no warranty to this. It was just.

• 19:18Conan O'Brien?

  There was no tag on the mattresses.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  And it was wrapped in plastic, but it could easily have come from a dead person's apartment. I don't, I don't know.

• 19:25Conan O'Brien?

  There was weird stains on them, bloody stains.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  And, and we also, we had a subscription to the LA Times because it's very important to know what's going on in your community. And that used to pile up so fast that we built furniture out of it.

• 19:37Conan O'Brien?

  We made, we stacked our LA Times. We did not have a couch. We did not have furniture. So we knew we had to have a television. So we got a television and I know what it was because my brother Neil, who tends to, let's say, hang on to things. Somehow my brother Neil, he calls me the other day and he says, Joe, I just emailed you something and I checked my email. He had emailed a photograph. He said, it's an old 1985 TV remote that says Quasar on it. And I said, what is this? And he went, that's the remote control you and Greg had in your apartment in 1985.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  It's the size of a dictionary.

• 20:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 20:11Conan O'Brien?

  Um, and it's all beat up and Neil got it because I guess when we got our own places eventually, I took the TV. Uh, and then it had another life and it went to New York with me. And then eventually Neil gets all appliances. He ended up with it. But the story that you, everyone needs to know is we shared a terrible car that we bought at like a junkyard near the airport.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Rent a rec. There, there used to be a place where you could rent cars, maybe still called Rent a Rec. And when the wrecks got so wrecky that nobody would rent them, then they sold them.

• 20:42Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my god. And this looked, it was a 1977 Isuzu Opel, which is a car that I think they made twice and then said, eh.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  No more?

• 20:52Conan O'Brien?

  No more.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Um, and. And you can see the ground from, in the backseat, there was a corrosion hole.

• 20:58Conan O'Brien?

  There's a hole.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  And you, if you wanted to get rid of your, your litter, you could just drop it on.

• 21:04Conan O'Brien?

  We were this unit, we were locked in. Uh, we worked really hard at our job at not necessarily the news, but one of the things that was unusual is for young guys who are 22 and out in LA. We didn't drink, we didn't do anything, we didn't do drugs. We didn't, we, we were kind of interested in having girlfriends, but we didn't know how to do that. So I remember you went to like a Mrs. Fields and started chatting up the girl who worked at Mrs. Fields. And you were like, ah, I'm doing pretty well with that. And then.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  I had a second date with her.

• 21:38Conan O'Brien?

  You had a second date. And so here's the best part of that. Greg comes to me because he, he had some success with the girl at, uh, working at Mrs. Fields. And he came back and he went, ah, taking her out. And then he said, I need to speak to you. Can I have the car tomorrow? So he had to ask me if he could borrow the car. And I said, well, that's okay. And then I just stayed home with the TV, the Quasar, and watched the A-Team again. I don't know. But, I don't know, it's just, we had this.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  This is very accurate.

• 22:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  It's not complimentary, but it's very accurate.

• 22:12Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I mean, I, and then we had these, uh, we, we were so worried that we were gonna get into some kind of, what, what if the job dries up and we don't have money? And you were more of a taskmaster in a good way about, hey, we gotta make sure we don't blow our money when we're out here on our paychecks. So you found a place called Flaky Jake's.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, my, my Flaky Jake's scam.

• 22:35Conan O'Brien?

  He had a scam at Flaky Jake's?

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Yes. So Flaky Jake's was, was great. It was this burger restaurant and they were very proud of the fact that they baked their own buns. And that you would put the burger on the buns and then you'd go and they had hundreds of fixings.

• 22:49Conan O'Brien?

  Like a salad bar, a fixings bar.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, um, you know, and the whole thing was, you know, I don't know what, like eight bucks or something, but they would sell the, um, the buns for 35 cents. And you got the bun, you got a tray and then you could go to the fixings and you could put tomatoes and onions and a lot of dressing on it.

• 23:06Conan O'Brien?

  Russian dressing.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Pickles.

• 23:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  And you can make yourself like this vegetarian fixing sandwich for 35 cents.

• 23:12Conan O'Brien?

  So you don't. So they would say, I of course didn't subscribe to that. I was 6'4", 155 pounds, which if you do the math, doesn't work. And I was always hungry. I was always perpetually hungry and I couldn't gain weight. So I would, I would say, "I'll have the double, double, triple burger." And then they'd turn to Greg and he'd be like, "Just the bun, thank you." And then he'd walk over to this thing and he'd pile it mile high with free stuff.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  I don't have to take a bad job because I had the burger, you know? I want to have a little flexibility there.

• 23:50Conan O'Brien?

  And so.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  That's genius.

• 23:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so we're driving around. I'm just trying to paint a picture because Greg has gone on to be one of the most successful TV creators of all time. And it's just, no, it's true. And it's really fun for me to try to time travel and go back to, you had a kick once when we were, when you said, you'd read an article that broccoli has all the amino acids you need. So you, you and I went and you filled bags with broccoli at the store. And we came home and we boiled it because that's supposed to be, or steamed it. And then we ate it with some fat-free butter substitute.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:33Conan O'Brien?

  And I, and you were chomping it down going, "Mmm, all the amino acids." And for very little money. And I started thinking, "Why did I pick this guy? Why didn't I pick a guy who was like, 'Come on, let's do a few lines and then go to that strip club? You gotta, you, Carpe Diem."

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:49Conan O'Brien?

  There was no Carpe Diem with us.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was Greg holding you back, right?

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm the problem.

• 24:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Thank you. Can you imagine?

• 24:58Conan O'Brien?

  I had a T-shirt that said, "Bikini Inspector."

• 25:01Speaker 02

  There was not a nerd vibe in him at all.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  No, not at all. This guy was supposed to go clubbing and you held him back with your burger.

• 25:08Conan O'Brien?

  Look, they say that Leopold and Loeb, neither one of them would have killed if they were alone. But together, they were lethal. And that's true of most murdering couples. Greg and I each made the other nerd vibrate. Nerd genes vibrate and we both would get nerdier.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  I know, who knows? Maybe without you, he would have been like, you know, going to the strip clubs and I don't know.

• 25:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Having a burger.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:33Conan O'Brien?

  Having some real protein.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  I really want to run with that premise, but it just doesn't feel right.

• 25:47Conan 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?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:59Conan O'Brien?

  You know, when you own a house, you gotta fix it yourself. Sona,

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:02Conan O'Brien?

  You, you see this to be true, right?

• 26:03Speaker 01

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

• 26:07Conan O'Brien?

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

• 26:10Speaker 01

  It's mine, dude!

• 26:11Conan 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.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Liberty, liberty, liberty.

• 26:25Conan O'Brien?

  Liberty, liberty. It's in my head all the time.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 26:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Start your quote at libertymutual.com.

• 26:34Conan O'Brien?

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

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:40Conan 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.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:50Conan 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?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Because it's family.

• 27:02Conan O'Brien?

  But what about a niece or a nephew?

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06Conan 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.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:13Conan 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.

• 27:40Speaker 01

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

• 27:43Conan 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.

• 28:03Conan O'Brien?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp therapists can help you figure out what rules or traditions aren't serving you and how to rewrite them. And with insurance, many members pay $15 or less. Some pay $0. BetterHelp, they do a great job. You're in good hands. BetterHelp therapists are fully licensed in the United States with at least three years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. When it comes to matching with a therapist, BetterHelp does the initial work for you. Just take a short questionnaire to help identify your needs. And if you're not happy with your match, this is the best part. A lot of people think, "Oh, my God, this is the person I've signed up with. I need to make this work." That's not the case. If it's not a good match, you switch to a different therapist at any time from BetterHelp's

• 28:47Conan O'Brien?

  tailored recommendations. BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/conan. That's better H-E-L-P.com/conan.

• 29:14Conan O'Brien?

  I have such clear memories, and they come back to me whenever I drive past our old haunts. Remember, we eventually get separate apartments. I found a $380 a month apartment from Cynthia Stevenson. She had this special apartment that was really cheap, and she said, "I'm moving in with my boyfriend. You can have my apartment." You got an apartment not too far away. We're now in the flats in Hollywood. And I'll never forget, you finally decided you were going to get a new car, and you were going to come by and show it to me. And of course, you're very practical. You're careful.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  I did a lot of research about how you deal with car dealers, and you've got to hold the line. You've got to go in there and tell them, "This is all I got." And so I did everything right. I went in there, and I walked out. They had sold me a car with no air conditioning.

• 30:02Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, no.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Because I didn't know what to do. I was like, "This is it. This is all I can go." And they were like, "Well, we can make that if you get by this one that has no air conditioning." And I kind of was like, maybe I don't need it.

• 30:13Conan O'Brien?

  And so this was interesting. He comes by my apartment and this is before cell phones, before anything like that. So I think you called me ahead of time and said, be out in front of your apartment. At 3 o'clock, I'll come by with my new car. I go out and then you had bought a very sensible Toyota Corolla.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. So I got the one with no air conditioning. And then I also compounded my problem by getting a car that would last forever.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  No air conditioning for years and years.

• 30:41Conan O'Brien?

  And I got in and you were a little defensive. I got in and there was a giant hole in the mid-- this is a brand new car and there's a giant space that you could put a watermelon in, in the console. And I said, what goes here? And he went, well, that's normally the air conditioner, but I didn't get that.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Sorry, do I sound like that?

• 31:02Conan O'Brien?

  I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I forgot. I thought I-- I'm sorry. I thought I thought that I partnered with Niles from Frasier. I apologize. No, but Greg said, oh, I didn't, I didn't get that. And Greg was like, yeah, I didn't get that.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  What the fuck?

• 31:16Conan O'Brien?

  How you doing? How you doing? Hey, don't diss the pussy wagon.

• 31:21Conan O'Brien?

  I was like, Craig, please.

• 31:26Conan O'Brien?

  He said, I'm out on vag patrol. I was like, Jesus, Craig. But he said, he said, I didn't get an air conditioner. And I said--

• 31:34Speaker 02

  There's only two settings.

• 31:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And I said, yeah, I said, I said, I don't know. Don't you need air conditioner? It's fine right now. And it was, of course, it was February.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Yes, it felt really good in the car without the air conditioner.

• 31:48Conan O'Brien?

  After that, anytime we went to a meeting, he was covered in sweat. He looked like he was having a nervous breakdown.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  I remember going to, I drove to, I think to see you in Chicago.

• 31:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I did a, I did Happy Happy Good Show with Robert Smigel, Bob Odenkirk, yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  And I was going to see you, it was like August, and I drove from LA to Chicago. And I had to sleep during the day and drive at night because it was so hot.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  I made the mistake of leaving a cassette in the car and I came back like when I went to get a hamburger, I came back and it was all curly cued from heat. It was a nightmare car, but I had a long time.

• 32:24Conan O'Brien?

  You had a hamburger though, you treated yourself.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:27Conan O'Brien?

  I'm dying and so I need a hamburger. I do remember we used to do very strange things to entertain ourselves. We have to sit down and we have to together write all this down sometimes.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know what you've told folks here, like one of my favorites was.

• 32:42Conan O'Brien?

  You're insane and I was held back from my life as a fucking suck master.

• 32:51Conan O'Brien?

  By the way, to Greg and Judy Daniels, I mean to Aaron and Judy Daniels, I hope you're enjoying the podcast. See, I was a good influence.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  We redid the beginning four times and we won't redo this.

• 33:06Conan O'Brien?

  I'm not redoing this. I'm proud of this.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  I was just remembering that bit where we got into our first kind of argument with the costume designer and.

• 33:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  And they went.

• 33:18Conan O'Brien?

  This is Saturday Night Live.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Saturday Night Live and they went to Lauren and they said, you fire these two or I'm leaving. And Lauren was like, this is my costume designer, you know, she's, you know, terrific and got all these awards and everything. So he called us into the, his office and we were a little nervous.

• 33:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, we thought we were getting fired.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he sat down and we just had this conversation. He said, you gotta, we gotta stay in here about 20 minutes. Um, so she thinks I'm yelling at you.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  It was terrific.

• 33:48Conan O'Brien?

  It was great. He was like, I have to be here for 20 minutes and you're in here too. And just so you know, I'm yelling at you right now, but he wasn't.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  You're right.

• 33:54Conan O'Brien?

  Um, and we didn't get into a fight. To be fair, all we did was we wrote a sketch and it had these elaborate costumes and we checked on, we went to the place where they were manufacturing them just to check on them because we thought that's what a good writer producer does is check on things. And that apparently was us overstepping our bounds, which, okay, I didn't know, we didn't know that. We were brand new. So.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:16Conan O'Brien?

  I don't remember us, we never got into fights with people or yelled at people.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. We just ignorantly stepped on toes.

• 34:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  That just seems normal though. I bet now that's normal.

• 34:29Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know. It was one of those things where we were new and I don't think it would have been an issue if.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  We had bad, I mean, I think we were pretty nice people, but we had a lot of. Like, bad instincts for Hollywood. Like, I remember when we, before we got to SNL, we had an opportunity to possibly do a movie rewrite. And this was very rare for us. We had never, ever been offered anything like this. So they sent us this script, and we read it. And we had this one meeting. We came in, and for some reason, we were really concerned that the studio had wasted money, because we didn't like the script at all. And we were, we spent the whole time going, can you get the money back? Is that possible?

• 35:07Conan O'Brien?

  We were more interested in the studio getting its money back. And there were, and we, we weren't playing the game. And also, I remember the first meeting we ever had with an agent was, no, it was Howard Klein.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:20Conan O'Brien?

  We had a meeting with Howard Klein, and Howard was like, okay, well, you guys, there's a good word on you, you're doing a good job. And the next step would be for you guys to do this, and this, and this. And I cut him off, and I said, what if we, how does it work if we want to write new lyrics to existing songs? And he said, what, what do you mean? And I said, well, you know, Elvis Presley had that big hit with Suspicious Minds. What if we just changed it to Suspicious Brains? Can we get paid for that? And he said, get the fuck out of here. I don't know why.

• 35:49Conan O'Brien?

  Trying to tickle our own brains and be happy.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Well, you had this thing, you had this thing where you wanted to put in our contract that if Bob Hope died.

• 35:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  We would be released from our contract. Was the rules of comedy would have been all different?

• 36:02Conan O'Brien?

  You know, there's all this boilerplate. We got our first contract, and it was just, you know, we're staff writers on, not necessarily the news, and there's just this stuff that, of course, Greg got out his magnified glasses and was looking and saying, it says here, eh, well, according to Peensley T. Peensworthy, it says here that Article 4, Section 9, and it says things like, that's been in contract since the beginning of time, literally biblical stuff about fire, plagues, locusts, act of God. And I said, well, there should, there needs to be, I said to Howard Klein, we need, we want a clause in there that if Bob Hope should die, comedy as we know it would be forever changed, and this contract is null and void. And again, he said, get the fuck out of here.

• 36:44Conan O'Brien?

  I was like, I was kicked out of his office like 15 times.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  And Bob Hope just kept living, too.

• 36:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, he died, he died six hours ago, at the age of 150.

• 36:56Conan O'Brien?

  But I will say, I have so many happy memories that I wouldn't have had. I'm an anxious, I'm an anxious person and I put a lot of pressure on myself. And Greg was really just a great.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Happy-go-lucky, pot-smoking. Just think Owen Wilson.

• 37:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, Greg should be played by Owen Wilson. From the stick era.

• 37:27Conan O'Brien?

  No, you, um, we just had a lot of fun doing weird things that, there's a whole story. It's probably a screenplay where you and I decided to just, I think we had seen in the news that Lady Diana, or Princess Diana, and her husband, Charles, had just been to Vancouver for like a fair.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  There was Expo.

• 37:49Conan O'Brien?

  The Expo.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  It was like Expo 87 or something. And we saw an ad where they made it look amazing in the ad. And I think you, as a historian-type person, knew about the Chicago Expo of like 1904 or something that was very like impressive. And, and we just managed to convince ourselves that if we missed Expo 87 in Vancouver, we would regret it for the rest of our lives.

• 38:17Conan O'Brien?

  I still stand by that. And by the way, the Expo was over. The Expo was over, but we thought.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  We'll see the remnants!

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Oh no!

• 38:27Conan O'Brien?

  I remember, we flew to, we flew to Seattle.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  It was like all business too. It's just like Xerox had a thing because they had a new copier.

• 38:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  You know?

• 38:35Conan O'Brien?

  There was a new kind of asbestos they were coming out with.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  You saw it in the paper and you're like, we gotta go there!

• 38:40Conan O'Brien?

  We gotta go! So Greg and I fly, I mean, other people on their weekends are, I'm in LA, I'm gonna get on a boat with all my friends. And we did know people, Billy Kimball, Ian McStone Graham, who lived in a cool house. They all were writers. They would go out on, they would rent boats and all split it. And on the weekend, they'd go out and wear yachting caps and have fun. And there were women on the boat and you're like, we're like, suckers!

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Xerox has a new copier. So we're gonna be the first to see it. We're gonna have our pictures taken with the new Xerox copier.

• 39:14Conan O'Brien?

  So we flew, we fly to Seattle, we fly to Seattle and then we drive in a, of course, the cheapest rental car you can get, like the Hyundai bulb. And it's a light bulb, it's a turn into a car. And we drove that from Seattle to Vancouver. And then we're watching, we're in our motel room quickly sussing out that, well, this expo isn't really happening and it's raining a lot and all the exhibits are closed and there's a half a Ferris wheel. What are we doing here? And then we're, we're spending a lot of time, we got hooked on.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Beachcombers. There's a, there is a, a Canadian content show that ran for like 50 years. It's like the Bold and the Beautiful of Canada called Beachcombers.

• 40:00Conan O'Brien?

  The Beachcombers, I think.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  The Beachcombers. And Bruno Gerusi was the star and creator, I believe.

• 40:05Conan O'Brien?

  Glad you got that right.

• 40:08Conan O'Brien?

  That's some mail I don't have to answer.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  And we decided we had to go watch it be filmed. And we just became completely obsessed with this film and with this show.

• 40:17Conan O'Brien?

  And with one particular character. We decided there was one particular character on it who didn't have many lines and we decided we have to meet him. And we made a promise to ourselves, we're going to shake his hand before we leave Vancouver. And then we went and we got reporters notebooks and we're interviewing people all over town pretending we're reporters and then someone, someone.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  We went to the CBC, we found out they were shooting at Gibson's Island, which I, I now am like in that community a little bit because I shot Upload up in Vancouver. And so I, people now.

• 40:52Conan O'Brien?

  You've returned to the scene of the crime.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  I've returned, yes. People send me like Beachcombers shirts, like all the crew that I worked with there. Yeah, so we, and then we had to get to Gibson's, like in time to go back to Seattle to get our flight. And we, we were running out the clock trying to figure out how to get to the set and. Uh, we missed the ferry that goes to Gibson's. And it was the last ferry. We were, there'd be no way to get there. So then we went down to the docks and we started talking to fishermen and we, um,

• 41:24Conan O'Brien?

  We, we're two guys, yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Our situation. Yes, and we paid some guy to go faster than the ferry in his little fishing boat.

• 41:34Conan O'Brien?

  And we're so excited. We jump in this boat and we're beating the ferry and we're like, "Yeah, we're gonna get to the island before the ferry." And then we get on the island and we, we, and then someone tells us, the character we wanna shake hands with, he says, "Oh yeah, no, I think he lives over on Mapleton Avenue." You and I fan out and you take one-

• 41:56Speaker 02

  We're pounding on doors.

• 41:57Conan O'Brien?

  And we're pounding on doors randomly going, "You know, where, open up." And so Greg took the north side of the street. I took the south side of the street and we just both, and then I'm, I'm banging on like my seventh door. Door opens, there's the guy. And I'm like, "Hold on a second, Greg, Greg, Greg." Greg comes running. We both shake his hand. He doesn't know what's happening.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  He's, he's just accepting that he's got fans from LA that, you know, have made the pilgrimage. He's happy.

• 42:22Conan O'Brien?

  And we were, did this, so-

• 42:23Speaker 02

  And that, but then, but we have to get on, the, the ferry is, has docked and is putting on cars. And that's our last chance to make our flight to get back to that ferry. The one that we, we beat. And we start running down the street trying to get to the ferry. And this woman in a Jeep picks us up. You remember that?

• 42:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  We hitched like this woman. We explained it to her. She completely loved the-

• 42:45Conan O'Brien?

  Randomness of it.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Got into the spirit of it. She like gunned it towards the ferry. Went into the wrong way down a street because like the ferry line for the next ferry was already there. And, uh-

• 42:57Conan O'Brien?

  So we had to kill her.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  No witnesses. That was the plan.

• 43:03Conan O'Brien?

  Still unsolved. But you know, so flash forward years, Greg's gone on to create half the TV shows people have watched. And, um, I've gone on to my foolishness. And one day I get this, someone tells me, Ari Emanuel, the famous Ari Emanuel's on line one, agent to the stars. He's like, "I just talked to Greg. He told me the story of you guys."

• 43:26Speaker 02

  He thought it would be a movie.

• 43:27Conan O'Brien?

  And he said, "It's a movie." And I said very calmly, "No, Ari, it's not."

• 43:32Speaker 02

  It's an anecdote.

• 43:33Conan O'Brien?

  It's two nerds doing something very nerdy. Yeah. If anecdote film starts making films, then maybe, but.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  But Ari's got really good instincts and so I don't know. Maybe that should have been the next project.

• 43:45Conan O'Brien?

  That'll be the next thing we do. So I knew early on that you were very interested in what turned out to be stuff that most people like, which is character development, story arcs. And I was always like, what? You know, it should be a sketch that's three minutes long and it should have a masturbating bear in it. And you'd go, uh huh, yeah, but what happens to the bear over time? And so we decide you start, I remember initially you were writing, I did an extra season on SNL. You start working on a screenplay. Then you start working on these different things. I know that you'd worked, you did work on The Simpsons, you did work on, for Seinfeld. And then you team up, you and Mike Judge do King of the Hill, I think was the,

• 44:30Conan O'Brien?

  was, and which was.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:35Conan O'Brien?

  Fantastic. And.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Thank you. That was a lot of fun. And it's coming back.

• 44:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  August 4th.

• 44:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Season 14.

• 44:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. It's coming back. And you are in this period right now, a real purple patch, which is.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  I don't know what that means.

• 44:51Conan O'Brien?

  A purple patch usually means like a very creative.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 44:54Conan O'Brien?

  Sweet spot because King of the Hill is coming back. You're also launching a season.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  Upload is coming, the final season.

• 45:04Conan O'Brien?

  Final season of Upload.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  August 25th.

• 45:06Conan O'Brien?

  August 25th. You showed me the other day, your pilot episode, the first episode for the next generation of The Office.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  It's the, it's the new documentary by the same crew.

• 45:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  That's how we're describing it.

• 45:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. It's not a, it's, it's not a reboot. It's not, it's nothing like that. You showed it to me, which I loved, by the way. I really loved it.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  I like to slip you things. I remember showing you and Beckett Parks and Rec.

• 45:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  And I got good feedback from Conan.

• 45:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Beckett said no. This can't work. Yeah, he said cartoon in Texas, that's not gonna work. And he was really vehement about it. And he was like five. Yeah, I saw the, uh, this, this latest, the episode for this latest show, the pilot. And it starts, if I'm allowed to say, there's, we can cut this out if it's not cool, but there's a moment that's very powerful where the documentary crew is trying to find.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  It's, well, it starts with them trying to find out what's up with Thunder Mifflin. And they find out some stuff and it leads them in a new direction to a different city. And in the different city, they stumble upon this historic newspaper, which has kind of turned into a ghost newspaper, which I don't know if you're familiar with that, but that's when some other company buys the local newspaper and fires all the reporters and keeps it going, selling ads, but they just print wire stories.

• 46:31Conan O'Brien?

  Wire stories, yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  And so they, they see this and they kind of go, oh, that's an interesting subject for documentary. And then this guy comes and he doesn't really have a lot of journalism experience. He's been, uh, selling toilet paper at another division of the company.

• 46:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  But he loved being on his college newspaper and he wants to revitalize this, uh, newspaper.

• 46:52Conan O'Brien?

  He wants to bring it back to a real paper. There's a, just a great scene in it that's, there's a lot about this new show that is putting a light on how much things have changed. So there's old documentary footage of the old newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:09Conan O'Brien?

  And then they contrast it and you just see 150 people working really hard on these giant machines, putting out the paper. And then you see this young woman who's an important character, but she's working at the paper and she's explaining to the documentary crew what they do. And she's just dragging and clicking AP stories and dropping them. And, and then a lot of it is just clickbait. There's a thing that automatically tells you, is this too big an article for this page? Yes, it is. And then she has to pick a different article. And I thought, um, very smart to make it about this, right now especially.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Well, it's, it's, um, you know, people have sort of counted out newspapers and. And there is something in the tone of The Office that this sort of a poignancy of people doing their best in a situation that is not very hip, or people have kind of counted them out. And this, this new show is got a little more maybe Bad News Bears energy because they are trying to do accomplish something and, you know, and they are more inspired than the team that worked at Dunder Mifflin.

• 48:15Conan O'Brien?

  And you're working with a guy who started out with me, Michael Coleman.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:19Conan O'Brien?

  Michael Coleman is one of my, shout out to Michael Coleman, one of my all time favorite late night writers. Brilliant guy, really funny, and he has enough on me to put me in jail. Because he was, uh.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Everybody does.

• 48:33Conan O'Brien?

  I was gonna say more than Sona. I think I tackled him 50 times, physically tackled him, uh.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Yes, I've seen the battery, uh, Salt and Battery, things that he hasn't filed.

• 48:46Conan O'Brien?

  He's absolutely brilliant, and I love that you guys.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  He's the guy behind Nathan For You.

• 48:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  And when you think about, you know, a show like The Office that takes like a reality format and gets high comedy out of it, I mean, to me, Nathan For You is like the pinnacle. So.

• 49:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  I'm very excited to be doing this with him.

• 49:11Conan O'Brien?

  Did you know that one in four Americans targeted by scams end up falling for them? You fell for it.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam?

• 49:18Conan O'Brien?

  Now, you didn't lose too much money, but you did lose.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  I did lose, and it was very inconvenient. And now they put protections on my account like I'm, uh, dumb.

• 49:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I don't know where they got that impression.

• 49:30Conan O'Brien?

  Criminals are now using AI to make scams look more realistic than ever. In 2025, AI fraud spiked 1,210% and cost Americans $893 million. That's incredible. Well, with AI, it can get so smart now.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:47Conan O'Brien?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Maybe I should start scamming.

• 49:49Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's not the point.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  That's not the point of this.

• 49:51Conan O'Brien?

  That's not the point.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  It's so much money.

• 49:53Conan O'Brien?

  One accidental click, Sona, can expose your information, putting you at risk of identity theft. Luckily. This is the point, not that you should start scamming,

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 50:00Conan O'Brien?

  but that everyone should get LifeLock.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 50:03Conan O'Brien?

  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. This is fantastic. How do you not have this?

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:15Conan O'Brien?

  If you have expenses or money stolen due to identity theft, you're backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million coverage in some plans.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Mm.

• 50:23Conan O'Brien?

  Join now and save up to 30% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 50:33Conan O'Brien?

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

• 50:36Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 50:36Conan O'Brien?

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

• 50:43Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 50:43Conan O'Brien?

  Did you know that, David?

• 50:44Speaker 04

  No, but I feel like we need it.

• 50:45Conan O'Brien?

  Why didn't you know that, David?

• 50:46Speaker 04

  I know. You expect me to know everything.

• 50:48Conan O'Brien?

  I knew this because I've... 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.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:56Conan 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.

• 51:25Conan O'Brien?

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

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:28Conan O'Brien?

  Just accept the premise and we'll move ahead.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:30Conan O'Brien?

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

• 51:36Speaker 01

  A vase.

• 51:37Conan O'Brien?

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

• 51:39Speaker 01

  A jacket.

• 51:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, nice jacket. I love a nice jacket.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that jacket. Nice jacket.

• 51:44Conan O'Brien?

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

• 51:45Speaker 01

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

• 51:47Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I know the holidays... 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.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:00Conan O'Brien?

  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.

• 52:27Conan O'Brien?

  I'll think of myself occasionally as being very busy and then I look at what Greg's doing and you're doing 15 times the amount of work that I'm doing.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Well, it's very rare that they all come out the same month. I mean, that's like nuts. The paper is September 4th, so between August 4th and September 4th, I have three things coming out. But they've been years in development and working on them and stuff. It's just random that they're...

• 52:48Conan O'Brien?

  Right. Well, I noticed that...

• 52:50Speaker 02

  But I get, at least I get an invitation here. I have to do three shows. I don't know what some of the other guests do.

• 52:57Conan O'Brien?

  All three?

• 52:57Speaker 02

  I can't imagine they have three shows coming out in one month.

• 53:00Conan O'Brien?

  The only guests I interview have an Emmy, a Golden Globe, you know, the whole thing, an EGOT. Tony, Oscar. Yeah. I've been rooting for you to get on this and I've been waiting...

• 53:13Speaker 02

  Yes, I know. I talked to Paula.

• 53:15Conan O'Brien?

  When will Greg's career...

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. He said, he called out Paula.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  That's what Conan's been saying. He said, "I want to get you on, but Paula..."

• 53:24Conan O'Brien?

  Paula Davis. My, who we met at SNL.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  At SNL, yes.

• 53:29Conan O'Brien?

  We met Paula at SNL the first day we showed up there in February of 1988 and I started talking to Paula and she was sitting behind a desk and she was really funny and quick. And I said, "Oh, she reminds me of my sister Kate. I like this Paula." Cut to her, me hiring her the summer of 1993 to be the head booker at Late Night and she's still with me. A barnacle that cannot be removed.

• 54:03Conan O'Brien?

  It's funny, I think about, I don't know about you, but I drive around Los Angeles and when I'm in New York. New York, less so because it doesn't have the same associations, but in LA, '85, '86, '87, I'm constantly passing things and I have a very strong sense memory of you and I being there. You went off to get your ridiculous car. I decided I need to get a different car than this piece of junk we bought at the airport.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Is that the Taurus?

• 54:34Conan O'Brien?

  No, I got a 19... I decided I need a...

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Oh no, yeah, you got a cool car.

• 54:38Conan O'Brien?

  Well, it isn't...

• 54:39Speaker 02

  Was it like a Dodge Dart or something?

• 54:41Conan O'Brien?

  It's a Dodge Dart. It's the car they drive on Dragnet.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  Yes, that was a good one.

• 54:46Conan O'Brien?

  I wanted, I wanted a car that looked like I was a narc from 1972. So I got, and the thing about my, um, it was a Plymouth Valiant, uh, which is the same thing as a Dodge Dart, pretty much. And it was mustard yellow with a black interior, bench seats.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:03Conan O'Brien?

  And when you turned it off, the engine dieselled, which means it kept going.

• 55:10Conan O'Brien?

  And I remembered going on a date and getting out of the car to go open the door for the, for my date. And opening the door and I had turned the car off and it was going.

• 55:21Conan O'Brien?

  And then it was like.

• 55:25Conan O'Brien?

  And just watching it and thinking, well, this isn't gonna happen for me tonight.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Well, I had a window air conditioner in the passenger side.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  For my dates.

• 55:36Conan O'Brien?

  The car's a little, it's a little side heavy.

• 55:42Conan O'Brien?

  I'm trying to think of, I'm trying to think of, um, and you know what's really fun? Which is a really nice memory for me. Uh, my, uh, hosting the Emmys and I thought of this open that connected all the different shows. That were Emmy nominated. And my favorite transition, I, I always wanted to think of a cool way to get from one show to the next. At the time, Lost had just had its first season, was the big, you know, a huge hit. Big show, everyone's talking about it. So I wash up on the Lost, my plane cra- I'm going to the Emmys to, to host, my plane crashes. I, uh, wash up on the beach and I make myself, I, I make myself a hairdryer and, uh, get my pompadour going. And then I walk through the jungle, I meet Hurley from Lost.

• 56:26Conan O'Brien?

  He, we find the, what's it called?

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Hatch.

• 56:29Conan O'Brien?

  The hatch. We find the hatch. And he said, we don't know what's down there. And I said, well, I'm going to find out. And I lower into the hatch and I, I went to Hawaii and shot this. So you can, I think you can look this thing up online. I go down and suddenly my feet kick through something and you cut to my feet going through acoustical tile and a sea, office ceiling. And I fall down onto Dwight's desk and it's the entire cast of that original cast of the office. Suddenly I'm in the confessional area where I'm giving my testimony, whatever.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Well, you'd been, you'd actually been like our, our one celebrity guest star up till that point because.

• 57:06Conan O'Brien?

  You guys came to 30 Rock.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  We went to 30 Rock and Michael was in New York for a meeting and he was like showing all of his favorite things, like his local pizza place, Sabaro's. And, and he thought he saw Tina Fey going into.

• 57:21Conan O'Brien?

  But it wasn't Tina Fey.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Wasn't Tina Fey, just somebody who looked vaguely like her, but then you walked by and the camera saw you, but he missed you.

• 57:27Conan O'Brien?

  He missed me. So I'm going by and I think, I remember just doing like two takes and I came downstairs from my show. But that was magical for me because our different worlds, which are very diverse, came back together again. And you were directing me in your big hit show, your second big hit show. And I was, it was cool. It was really, it was like a nice happening. Like, wait a minute, we're the same guys that.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Well, maybe it's being the same age. I don't know. There's a couple of things that go like that, like the, you hosting the Emmys. When we won an Emmy and there was something, what were you saying?

• 58:06Conan O'Brien?

  We were both arrested at the same time.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, but there, there's like things that, things happen like that.

• 58:13Conan O'Brien?

  No, but there was a lot of, there was a lot of neat little, that was a moment, getting to work with you on that. And then I remembered Steve Carell.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Well, that's what I'm remembering, the up fronts. This was hilarious. You, you were hosting the NBC up fronts the year that we came out.

• 58:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  And I guess there was an enormous amount of overlap there, but this was so funny to me because, and this is probably inappropriate, but they, the show that they were really pushing hard was Father of the Pride. Do you remember this? It was the cartoon.

• 58:45Conan O'Brien?

  Cartoon based on Siegfried and Roy.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  And, and Roy had just been, it was about their tigers. It was like, the idea was to take the Siegfried and Roy's tigers and do a family show about them and it's animated. And.

• 58:58Conan O'Brien?

  DreamWorks, I think.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and.

• 59:01Conan O'Brien?

  And then.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Roy, Roy got mauled.

• 59:03Conan O'Brien?

  Literally a month before it came out, one of the tigers nibbled on Roy's face.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Nibbled.

• 59:11Conan O'Brien?

  He just had a nosh. And. And.

• 59:17Conan O'Brien?

  And they were like, nope, this is actually good for the show.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:20Conan O'Brien?

  I remember they were just like, nope.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  They cut to him, right? Like you were on stage with all the advertisers and they decided they'd beam in Roy in bandages saying, it's okay, it's okay.

• 59:28Conan O'Brien?

  Everything's okay.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  I don't have any ill will to my tigers.

• 59:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and he was, to show that, the tiger was with him too. Heavily sedated.

• 59:39Conan O'Brien?

  Jaw wired shut. Anyway, yeah, there were all these moments where then we were, our careers would come back together, but all this time, I'll tell you, one thing is, I've, I've learned a bunch of things about Greg. One is that he doesn't want to just meet me at a restaurant and have a meal. He wants to meet me while we're doing something where our heart rate is up. So you're always saying.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  I like walking with people. I like walking with people. I don't, I don't love having to look into people's faces when I'm talking to them. I prefer some faces are different. I don't know. So now I might make an exception.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Friendly face.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  But it's better, it seems better to walk, like.

• 1:00:20Conan O'Brien?

  I know, but.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Parallel, right?

• 1:00:22Conan O'Brien?

  It seems, sometimes it's a little insane where I'll say, it'd be really nice to sit down and I'm hungry. I haven't eaten. You haven't eaten. We could sit down and you're like, no.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  I bring a, I bring a bun with condiments in it for you.

• 1:00:36Conan O'Brien?

  He has a big backpack filled with 33 cent buns and coleslaw and pickles.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Some things never change.

• 1:00:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and it's just, you're, that's still what you want to do. That's what you wanted to do in 1985. My dad always said, people don't change. They become more so. And I think that's the case. I think.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  I think that's why, that's what I like about character comedy, just to, to talk about that genre. I think that's what people like about it is that you feel that way about your own friends and then to see somebody on TV, you get to know what their character is like and to see them act in character over and over again is very. You know, makes you feel like, oh, I know them. That's just like Conan. Conan's Conan going like this with his vein popping.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Have you guys seen that?

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, we've seen it.

• 1:01:21Conan O'Brien?

  I've been medicated since.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've seen it.

• 1:01:24Conan O'Brien?

  Well, yeah, we were back. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've I've enjoyed. We have a culture that, you know, says, oh, you shouldn't get getting older is not cool. It's not good. And I just know that I'm happier now because.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  Well, you're older than me, though.

• 1:01:40Conan O'Brien?

  So, yes.

• 1:01:42Conan O'Brien?

  This is, yes, but I was on the lampoon first.

• 1:01:47Conan O'Brien?

  Greg, there's a two month, no, two.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  April to June.

• 1:01:52Conan O'Brien?

  April to June.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  A lot more than two months.

• 1:01:55Conan O'Brien?

  It's an eight week difference between our birthdays. And Greg's favorite time of year every year is when I'm 50 and he's 49. And what he does is he calls me on my birthday and he says, how are you? Are you okay? And this goes on for eight weeks. And then my favorite thing is when that time elapses and it's his birthday, I call him up and say, ha ha.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  This is really cool. This this art kind of bantered, doesn't it?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  This is like, this is like, you got to imagine Bill Burr's doing that with his friends. And it's like, right?

• 1:02:32Conan O'Brien?

  He's doing much cooler things.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:02:34Conan O'Brien?

  He's doing much cooler things.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  This is maybe like what Jack Benny would do.

• 1:02:39Conan O'Brien?

  Nope.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  With George Burns.

• 1:02:41Conan O'Brien?

  Nope.

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  This feels like a very, maybe two Mormon comedians.

• 1:02:47Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I remember I.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Very polite.

• 1:02:50Conan O'Brien?

  It was Greg, speaking of birthdays, I'll just, we were in Westwood together. We were walking around doing nothing. And it was Greg's birthday and I said, I've got a birthday present for you. Let's pretend we're firing our talent beams at each other as hard as we can.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:03:04Conan O'Brien?

  And he was like, what? And I said, just each will be firing. And I blasted you and nothing happened. Then you blasted me and I stepped, I threw my coat off like I had been vaporized and stepped behind a light pole as if you were so much more talented than I that it vaporized me. And I remember you were pleased.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  This was Conan's idea of a birthday present to me.

• 1:03:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  To one day a year suggest that I might have some talent that I could do a joke better than.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Was this recently, or was this like?

• 1:03:34Conan O'Brien?

  It could have been recently.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I don't know.

• 1:03:36Conan O'Brien?

  This is like 1986, but it could easily have been a couple of weeks ago. Easily. Nothing's, nothing's-

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  That's why I'm asking, I don't know.

• 1:03:45Conan O'Brien?

  Nothing's changed that much.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I mean, as, as a comedy fan, I think the reason people want Greg on here is because the fact that the two of you worked together for so long, before the two of you went on to astronomical success on your own is, it's very rare, and it's really cool. I mean, I, I, it's cool for me to be in the room with you two, just talking about this stuff.

• 1:04:05Conan O'Brien?

  It's funny to me that, um, cause I think back to, Greg just brought up, I am a, uh, some would say, uh, demonic, I have a demonic, I have various demons, and I would sit, and I would be anxious, and so I would grind my hands together, and if I, if something wasn't coming, an idea wasn't coming, uh, I would, I would grind. Greg would lean back in his chair, and he would, he thought that by whipping his head side to side, it would get, get blood into a part of his brain and create an idea. So, I'd be sitting there, if you just, if there was a fly on the wall, or a secret camera, it would've seen me pushing my hair through my crazy long, uh, pushing my hands through my hair. It's very like Withnail and I, the two, the two of us.

• 1:04:51Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. We were too weird. There's a fun reference. Yeah. We were, I was grinding, I was grinding my hands, my eye vein, my forehead vein coming out, giant hair flying everywhere, and then Greg is- I'm trying to concentrate. Greg is, has his eyes closed, and is going, "Ah, ah, ah." Anyone who came in there would say, "You gotta medicate them both." Immediately, right? Yes. Medicate these guys. Um, well, I don't, I mean, usually I end these by saying, "Hey, excited about the new project," but you can't do that with Greg Daniels, because it's, last season of Upload, um, continuation of King of the Hill, you have a, a, a new show that picks

• 1:05:34Conan O'Brien?

  up where The Office, it's, it's the documentary crew that filmed The Office has now gone forward, and they're, uh, exploring this newspaper, which is tangentially related to Dunder Mifflin. Um, did I forget anything?

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  I could talk about a few other things.

• 1:05:52Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my god, it's insane.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  I'm connected to this show Common Side Effects, that people like.

• 1:05:57Conan O'Brien?

  I love that show. You know what? I haven't talked to you about Common Side Effects because you were out of town when Beckett and I binge watched it. I didn't even know you were, I watched the first episode and loved it and then saw your name.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:06:11Conan O'Brien?

  So I didn't know that you were involved.

• 1:06:14Speaker 02

  Uh, Mike Judge and I started an animation company about, I don't know, five, six years ago. And, um, so we are producers and of course, he's very involved in this because he's a, he's a voice. Uh, and it's, uh, done with this amazing animation, uh, god named Joe Bennett and Steve Healy, who was a writer on The Office, who you might know. And, um, yeah, it's a really good show.

• 1:06:35Conan O'Brien?

  I, uh, I watched it with my daughter Nev, who loves anime. So we watched the first one and then again, we were like, well, the next one, then the next one, then the next one. Absolutely fantastic. And I started watching it not knowing about your guys' involvement, but have you seen it?

• 1:06:56Speaker 05

  I absolutely love it. Seen the whole thing. Um, and yeah, similar thing. I watched it because I love Scavengers Reign, uh, which I think Joe Bennett did before. And, and the CEO, I was like, God, that sounds like Mike Judge.

• 1:07:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, and then I was like, oh my God, it is. And Greg Daniel? What is this? It's an amazing show, uh, about kind of, uh, uh, conspiracies. It's very funny. The animation's beautiful.

• 1:07:19Conan O'Brien?

  It's also really sweet. It's the best animation I've seen in a while.

• 1:07:22Speaker 05

  It's incredible.

• 1:07:22Conan O'Brien?

  Because, uh, uh, without giving anything away, watch Common Side Effects. And I've seen it on a bunch of lists as if you're, it's, it's everywhere on these lists, these critics lists of, if you're not watching this, then you're an idiot. And, uh, shout out, uh, because I know you're not just a fan of Upload, David.

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

  Oh, I'm obsessed with Upload. Oh, thank you so much. It's so good. The whole concept of it and like, just everything about it. It's one of those shows that, once the season would end, immediately Google, when will the next one be out?

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  I know. It's, it's tough. I, I, did you see season three?

• 1:07:57Speaker 04

  I did.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  Cause season three is a, you know, Dropped during the writers and actors' strike.

• 1:08:02Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  And I think there's a lot of fans out there that may not have seen season three.

• 1:08:07Conan O'Brien?

  Oh.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  See, the first two seasons had a lot of, you know, push behind them. And then we weren't able to publicize season three. So season four is the one coming out, uh, August 25th. And that is the final season, wraps up all the stories. And, uh, you know, if you haven't seen season three, you can go check it out now. This episode drops August 25th, too. Oh, I don't like that. Comes out today. Upload comes out today.

• 1:08:33Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, what a coinkydink. I wonder if a publicist was involved. Greg's publicist is Greg, wearing a wig.

• 1:08:41Speaker 04

  This was cut out on the tree, please, I tell you. Now let's all go to Flaky Jake's for a bun.

• 1:08:47Conan O'Brien?

  You're the Mrs. Doubtfire of publicists.

• 1:08:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that is, um, and I cannot end this without saying a big shout out to your parents. Because your parents, and I've said this before to them, but your parents.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  Well, they love you.

• 1:09:08Conan O'Brien?

  Well, they, they, and they were, they said to me, finally, the son we've always wanted.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:09:13Conan O'Brien?

  No, they, uh, they let us.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  They still want you to go to law school, though.

• 1:09:17Conan O'Brien?

  I know, they think I fucked up. They, uh, your parents, uh, let us use, uh, their apartment that first crucial summer when we had no place to live. And I, I think if they hadn't done that, I don't know what our chances would have been. But that's where we started really working together. It got me out of Boston. It got us both working together, seriously. We wrote our packet, we sent it off.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  Um, your parents too, though. I remember working out at your parents' house and the, we went to see Spies Like Us.

• 1:09:50Conan O'Brien?

  They were not, yeah, that's right. Boy, did we have fun.

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a big deal.

• 1:09:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  Remember that movie? Yeah, we would see those kind of things.

• 1:09:58Conan O'Brien?

  We would go see movies if we thought a girl in a bikini was in it.

• 1:10:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Greg would see an ad somewhere and he'd be like, there's a girl in a bikini in the movie. We were true creeps long before the internet was invented.

• 1:10:11Speaker 02

  Spies Like Us, there was a girl on the poster in a full-length fur coat and we were excited.

• 1:10:17Conan O'Brien?

  She could see your face. There's a nun in it, but she's a girl.

• 1:10:24Conan O'Brien?

  You could see her hands, they poke out of the sleeves.

• 1:10:28Conan O'Brien?

  We went and saw Witness because we went for the action.

• 1:10:35Conan O'Brien?

  That barn was erotic.

• 1:10:41Conan O'Brien?

  Greg, we gotta do this again. This was... We've scratched the surface. No, I'm serious. There could be maybe 15 episodes where we talk about us in 85, 86 alone. And people would love that, but... Well, that remains to be seen. Let's see how this goes. Well, there's a lot of talk about us alone in 85, 86. You may get some comments. This was the most boring. I don't think so. Adam, you can weigh in. Adam can weigh in.

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  No, this is what people want to hear.

• 1:11:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, this is what they want to hear. Sadly, sadly, it's what they want to hear. Because you know what? It makes them feel better about themselves. Finally, you're humanized. Anyone listening to this suddenly feels like, hey, I'm a stud.

• 1:11:23Conan O'Brien?

  These turds didn't do anything. I have a couch. My car has air conditioning. I have an air conditioner in my car, and I have a couch.

• 1:11:35Conan O'Brien?

  I'm still going out with a Mrs. Fields girl.

• 1:11:39Conan O'Brien?

  Well, Greg, you're go with God. You're killing it. You're killing it, and I couldn't be happier for you. Thank you. You too. Yeah. I love the show. And you love me. I know you love me, and you're gonna end by saying you love me. I'll say it. I'll say it. You didn't say it yet. No. I love you, Greg. Love you, Greg. Love you, Greg. Yeah. Love you, Greg. All right, love you back.

• 1:12:03Conan O'Brien?

  Peace out, Tupac.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

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

• 1:12:27Speaker 03

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• 1:13:16Speaker 06

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• 1:14:15Speaker 07

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