Yakov Smirnoff

In Soviet Russia, podcast listens to YOU! Yakov Smirnoff—comedian, actor, and professor of laughter—joins Andrew Santino to reflect on Soviet roots, finding the American dream through comedy, and why laughter really is the best medicine. Yakov’s journey is unreal — from acting alongside legends like Robin Williams, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Richard Pryor, and Tom Hanks… to buying the house where Lenny Bruce died. What a country! This episode is a blast of nostalgia, insight, and Cold War absurdity, with a heart as big as Yakov's smile. 🎟️ Check out more from Yakov: https://yakov.com 📺 Subscribe to Whiskey Ginger: YouTube.com/@AndrewSantino 🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods. #YakovSmirnoff #WhiskeyGinger #AndrewSantino #ComedyPodcast #ColdWarComedy #WhatACountry #LaughterIsMedicine #StandUpLegends #SovietComedian =========================================================== Sponsor Whiskey Ginger: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/whiskeyginger SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS SQUARESPACEGET 10% OFF YOUR ORDERhttps://squarespace.com/whiskey ETHOSCOVERAGE FOR AS LOW AS $10 A MONTHhttps://ethoslife.com/whiskey 1800FLOWERS. COMTAKE CARE OF MOM THIS MOTHER'S DAY CLAIM YOUR DOUBLE YOUR ROSES OFFER! https://1800flowers.com/whiskey HELIXSPECIAL OFFER: GET 27% OFF STATEWIDE!https://helixsleep.com/whiskey SAILY GET A 15% DISCOUNT ON SAILY DATA PLANS! https://saily.com/whiskey ======================================= Follow Andrew Santino: https://www.instagram.com/cheetosantino/ https://twitter.com/CheetoSantino Follow Whiskey Ginger: https://www.instagram.com/whiskeygingerpodcast https://twitter.com/whiskeygingerpodcast Produced and edited by Joe Faria https://www.instagram.com/itsjoefaria Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We all want to stay healthy for as long as humanly possible. It seems like a lofty goal, but it can be effortless to get started with Aura. Aura helps you tune into your holistic health with a small ring that measures more than 50 metrics, all from your finger. It looks like any other ring, goes great with any look, and is so comfortable, I never want to take it off. Aura tracks your sleep and activity automatically. It monitors your stress, heart health, and gives you in-depth insights into your cycle. Then Aura brings your personal health data into the app to show you how it's all connected, what to pay attention to, and what you can do next. The more you understand your body, the better you can live in it. Wear your best life with Aura.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Let's be honest, you don't go to the holiday gift exchange just to participate. You go to win. This year, cause a stir. Gift a KitchenAid stand mixer to whip up new traditions. 'Tis your season to mix it up.

• 1:00Andrew Santino?

  What up, Whiskey Ginger fans? Welcome back to the show. It's your first time joining the show? Welcome to the show. We got a good one for you today, like my man Steve Harvey done say. And ladies and germs, thank you for coming along for the Whiskey Ginger Ride. Those of you that are new to the channel, maybe you're in from No Bad Lies, whatever the case may be. Grazie, grazie. I am doing a couple of dates, May 22 and 23. I'm in Edmonton and Winnipeg. Edmonton, Winnipeg, boom, boom. Little Canadia dates, a couple, just to work it out, get my feelers back. I've been off the tour for a little while. On tour, shooting my new show, No Bad Lies, but it's been amazing, man. I do those two, go to andrewsantino.com, and then me and Bobby Lee, me and my sweet

• 1:40Andrew Santino?

  noodle prince, the dumpling king, we are going to be July 18th and 19th, London and Dublin. London and Dublin, that's all we're going to do for 2025. So go to badfriendspod.com for those tickets. Enough rambling for me. Let's go to the episode.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  In here, we pour whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Who's that creature in the ginger beard? It's dirty and ginger. Like vampires, the ginger gene is a curse. Ginger's a beauty. You owe me $5 for the whiskey, $75.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Ginger, oh hell no. This whiskey is excellent. Ginger. I like gingers.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Need fast hydration for the summer heat? Hydrate your wins with the new Liquid IV Sugar-Free Ring Pop Cherry. It's the classic cherry ring pop flavor you grew up loving. Reimagined as a zero-sugar hydration mix that's clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're spending the day in the heat, recovering after a workout, or just looking for an easy afternoon pick-me-up, Liquid IV makes hydration simple and delicious. Shop LiquidIV.com. Save with their Buy 3 Get 1 Free offer and use promo code POD26. That's P-O-D-2-6.

• 2:55Andrew Santino?

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Whiskey Gator. My guest today is one of my favorite people on earth. I say that for all my guests, but I mean it once again today. It's Yakov Smirnoff!

• 3:04Speaker 04

  Thank you. Thank you so much.

• 3:06Andrew Santino?

  Let me tell you something. For people that don't know or are not familiar with the history of you and The Comedy Store, we should put some links in the description so people understand the weight of Yakov Smirnoff in the community. You are, for us, you've got legendary status.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 3:22Andrew Santino?

  First of all, you're a Comedy Store guy. That was my home club. It is. It's where I started in LA.

• 3:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:27Andrew Santino?

  When you came to the States, you moved here when?

• 3:29Speaker 04

  I moved in 1977 to New York and then...

• 3:35Andrew Santino?

  And people don't know, you're from Tanzania, right? That's where it is?

• 3:38Speaker 04

  It's close. It's in the same neighborhood.

• 3:43Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, you're from France. This accent is French, right?

• 3:46Speaker 04

  You're getting, actually, now you're in Europe, which is good.

• 3:49Andrew Santino?

  Great.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  Keep going east.

• 3:51Andrew Santino?

  Madagascar.

• 3:54Speaker 04

  Keep going, keep going east.

• 3:55Andrew Santino?

  Keep going, keep going.

• 3:58Andrew Santino?

  Mongolia. That's pretty far east.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  That's fine. Somewhere in between those. Yeah, that's close enough.

• 4:04Andrew Santino?

  You came to New York in 70?

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Seventy.

• 4:06Andrew Santino?

  Seventy-seven?

• 4:07Speaker 04

  Seventy-seven.

• 4:07Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  And didn't speak English.

• 4:12Speaker 04

  And I was a comedian in the Soviet Union.

• 4:16Andrew Santino?

  How impossible was that to be a comic in the Soviet Union?

• 4:18Speaker 04

  Well, I didn't know it was impossible. I just did it. And you have Department of Jokes, that part of Ministry of Culture, that censor your materials. So it was just a procedure. You just write up your jokes and then they approve it. And some they don't approve. And then you stay with the script for a year. And that's how it was. So I didn't know any better. I didn't know any American comedians. I didn't... There were few Russian comedians. And I watched Charlie Chaplin on the little tiny TV set. That was this big box with the little screen

• 5:02Speaker 04

  that we had to put the magnifying glass to see the images on there.

• 5:07Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. That was my beginning of my life. And that's how it was. And everybody lived like that. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm maturing. And I wanted to do comedy. So...

• 5:25Andrew Santino?

  So Chaplin was the influence for you as a kid? Because what... Because as a... Look, in the late 70s.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:30Andrew Santino?

  Comedy didn't even really pick up heavy steam here in the States even until the true late 70s, early 80s. So on an international scale.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, but Vaudeville...

• 5:42Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, Vaudeville was... Yeah, Vaudeville was big.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  Was there for a long time. And the comedy in the Soviet Union was kind of Vaudeville. It's all jokes.

• 5:50Andrew Santino?

  Okay.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Warmed up for each comedian would just take them and turn them around or something. And that's what I was... So we would have, in each apartment, we would have a little speaker that was part of... It would just... It would not turn off. It was just always on. And it would be in the corner of each apartment. You listen to news. You listen to propaganda. They brainwash you. But on Sunday's morning... Yeah, it was normal.

• 6:23Andrew Santino?

  It's so funny for it to be normal. Yeah, they're propaganda, they're brainwashing you, but anyway, there was some good stuff in there.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  We didn't know.

• 6:28Andrew Santino?

  Of course not, no.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  It was just the way it is.

• 6:30Andrew Santino?

  What would it say, like, like, like Soviet Union is?

• 6:33Speaker 04

  We're the best.

• 6:34Andrew Santino?

  We're the greatest.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  We're the best, yeah.

• 6:35Andrew Santino?

  Did it talk bad about America?

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Oh, of course.

• 6:37Andrew Santino?

  What would it say?

• 6:38Speaker 04

  It'd just say that Americans are evil and they will sell their mother for money.

• 6:43Andrew Santino?

  True, and my father. If it's available, I mean, are you buying both, or? I feel like I can get more out of both.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, in bulk. Uh, but they were just then, they would show us movies. Um, like, I don't know if you remember, there was a movie, uh, Jane Fonda was, uh, they shoot horses, don't they? It was, uh, about dance competition and so in the end, it's like everybody got screwed by this rich people. They didn't get any money. That was our way of looking at America.

• 7:14Andrew Santino?

  That's who we are.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  Well.

• 7:16Andrew Santino?

  That's no mistake, that's actually who we are.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Not all of it.

• 7:19Andrew Santino?

  A lot, though. I would say 350 million out of 356. I'd say, I'd say, I'd say you got, I'd say for the most part, no. But I, but I do get that this, this machine was like fed to you as a kid, that's all you hear. We have that too, in America. It's maybe not as deliberate, but it's, when I, when we were kids, we had to stand up in, in class and, uh, to the pledge of allegiance.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Pledge of allegiance, yeah.

• 7:41Andrew Santino?

  Which, you know, as a kid, you don't even understand the weight of the phrase, a pledge of allegiance, right?

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:48Andrew Santino?

  Giving yourself up for the allegancy of something greater than you, which is your government. It's not even for like, it's not saying a pledge to a higher power or God or a being that may be, no, no, this is about pledging to a system, uh, of control. It's basically, so it's the same thing.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  Same thing.

• 8:07Andrew Santino?

  It's just, it's just.

• 8:07Speaker 04

  Not on steroids, like the Soviet.

• 8:10Andrew Santino?

  Russia was on, yeah, Soviets was on steroids.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, a little bit different.

• 8:13Andrew Santino?

  And I will say, a hammer and a sickle, pretty intimidating symbols.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  That's what you grow up with.

• 8:19Andrew Santino?

  Two violent symbols, you know what I mean?

• 8:20Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 8:21Andrew Santino?

  A hammer and a sickle. If we don't beat you with the hammer, we'll cut your head off with the sickle.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  But, but here is the, here is the, uh, beauty about, uh, America that you might not see because you grew up. Up here.

• 8:32Andrew Santino?

  Sure.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  And you're born here. I couldn't have this conversation.

• 8:37Andrew Santino?

  Right. They'd come get you.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  I could, yeah, I could get it. I could do it once, but then sooner or later you're put away. That is very different from what I learned in that what I remember being in the comedy club like and my English was really bad, but somebody, somebody said that Jimmy Carter just got a hemorrhoid operation and he'll be a perfect asshole again. I, I literally, I docked behind the, the, the table.

• 9:13Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Because I thought somebody's gonna shoot him.

• 9:15Andrew Santino?

  In fear.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:16Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  It was totally ingrained in me.

• 9:19Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  And so with that, I came to America and I said, I want to do comedy and everybody was kind of laughing. Uh, because you know, it's Russian comedian sounds like Amish electrician, you know, it just, they don't put it together. And I go, okay, that's, you know, and so I went up against that. And luckily started a couple of like shows in, in, uh,

• 9:48Speaker 04

  uh, in New York, but then shortly after, um, moved to California, didn't, I didn't plan to move. I was planning to just visit and I had a plan.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  Uh, I was, uh, somebody introduced me to a producer of Three's Company and I thought, oh, now I'll meet him and he'll make me a star. So I bought a ticket, uh, to LA from New York for 10 days. So that's the amount of time I kind of gave myself.

• 10:22Andrew Santino?

  To become famous.

• 10:23Speaker 04

  Famous.

• 10:23Andrew Santino?

  10 days.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  Not just that. I had a bigger, I said, I'm gonna make enough money to buy uh, an apartment for my parents in New York on Fifth Avenue. So I, I was. Yeah.

• 10:36Andrew Santino?

  High goals, lofty goals.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, 10 days, 10 days. So I go-

• 10:41Andrew Santino?

  It's taken me twenty years and I still, I'm still working on it.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  I know, but I was naive and I thought, you know.

• 10:47Andrew Santino?

  But you needed that kind of-

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Drive.

• 10:50Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, you kinda needed that, that, I wouldn't say it's arrogance, it's more-

• 10:55Speaker 04

  Stupidity.

• 10:56Andrew Santino?

  Confident, confident delusion, yeah, confident delusion to be like, I have to-

• 10:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:00Andrew Santino?

  Otherwise, what else is there?

• 11:01Speaker 04

  That's true. So, that was my plan and I, I got to Hollywood. I had to find a place to perform and I didn't know where, but somebody said the Comedy Store. So I went and I got, you know, pot like the, the Monday night or no, it was Sunday night. Potluck or what do you call it like-

• 11:24Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, potluck.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  Open, open mic.

• 11:25Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  Right. So, and I, but the guy who was, well, the producer of Teres Company didn't, couldn't make it. So I was bombed. I was, that was day four and I was nowhere.

• 11:38Andrew Santino?

  You only got six days left.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  Right. And I, it was devastating. How do I tell my parents?

• 11:43Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  That they shouldn't stop, they should stop packing to, to move to there.

• 11:51Andrew Santino?

  Unload those suitcases.

• 11:52Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 11:53Andrew Santino?

  Settle in.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  Mom, Dad, sorry, it ain't gonna happen right away. So then I, so, so I did my five minutes that I translated from Russian to English.

• 12:03Andrew Santino?

  Can you give me some of it, by the way?

• 12:05Speaker 04

  Uh, in Russian or in English?

• 12:06Andrew Santino?

  Give me, give me just one joke in Russian and let me hear it in English.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Okay. There was a show of low-end clothing. And then the first one came from a French woman. She said she needed five pairs. An American woman said, "I need seven pairs." A Russian woman said, "I need twelve pairs." And she asks, "Why do you need twelve pairs?" And she says, "Because it's January, February, March." That was the punchline.

• 12:40Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, right. Okay, right. I got it. I already, you don't even need to say it in English. I already understood.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  You do?

• 12:44Andrew Santino?

  I speak Russian, yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 04

  Tell me.

• 12:45Andrew Santino?

  You were saying that a man comes home, he sees his wife with another man.

• 12:53Andrew Santino?

  Isn't that the beginning?

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Not even close.

• 12:54Andrew Santino?

  Okay, what is it?

• 12:57Speaker 04

  But good try, though.

• 12:59Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 12:59Speaker 04

  I could have used that joke. I forgot about it.

• 13:02Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, the joke was that there was a international exhibit of women's lingerie. And there was a French woman, an American woman, and a Russian woman. And the French woman said, I need, I need seven pair of lingerie. And said, what for? And she said, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And the American woman said, I want five pair. And why? Because Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but Saturday and Sunday, my husband is home. I don't need it. Right? And the Russian woman said, I want 12 pair of underwear.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  And she said, why? She says, January, February, March.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  So that was the beginning of my comedy in America.

• 13:54Andrew Santino?

  And that was the five minutes at the store?

• 13:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:56Andrew Santino?

  In front of Mitzi, yeah?

• 13:57Speaker 04

  Well, Mitzi, I didn't know who Mitzi was. So I came to audition for Ted Bergman, who was the executive producer of Three's Company. And so I'm leaving because he wasn't there, and I'm bummed. And I'm walking down Sunset, and Mitzi had an assistant, Chrissy. And she runs after me, and she goes, Yakov, congratulations. And I go, what? The guy didn't show up. He said, no, no, no, Mitzi saw you. And I go, who's Mitzi? And she goes, she's the owner of the Comedy Store. Go sit down and talk to her. So I go back, sit next to Mitzi, and Mitzi goes, you are pretty funny.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, you should, you should stay in Los Angeles. There is always place for good and different. And I go, thank you, but I need to go back. My parents are in New York. And she goes, what? What does your dad do? And I go, he is a building construction engineer. She goes, Can he be a carpenter? And I go, probably. Says, bring him here, I'll give him a job. And where do you live? And I go, well, I'm with friends. And she goes, I have a house in, uh, near the Comedy Store. You can rent a room for a hundred and twenty dollars a month.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  So all of a sudden, I had a room and I had my parents coming.

• 15:28Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  And so that's how my, and then she got, I wasn't, I wasn't certain yet. And, and then she goes, come back tomorrow and see a regular show. So I came back and I sat down in the back of the original room. And the first person on stage was Robin Williams, followed by Billy Crystal, followed by Richard Pryor, followed by David Letterman. I'm sitting there and I'm pinching myself. I'm going.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Need fast hydration for the summer heat? Hydrate your winds with the new Liquid IV Sugar-Free Ring Pop Cherry. It's the classic cherry ring pop flavor you grew up loving. Reimagined as a zero sugar hydration mix that's clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're spending the day in the heat, recovering after a workout, or just looking for an easy afternoon pick-me-up, Liquid IV makes hydration simple and delicious. Shop LiquidIV.com. Save with their buy three, get one free offer, and use promo code POD26. That's P-O-D-two-six.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  Day five, I'm ahead of schedule.

• 16:36Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, you are.

• 16:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, if she likes them, then I can someday buy an apartment for my parents.

• 16:43Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  That's, that's how it changed my life.

• 16:47Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:48Andrew Santino?

  Giving your dad a job is pretty cool. That's amazing. Now, did he work construction or carpentry for the store? Or was it just other job jobs?

• 16:55Speaker 04

  He was very good. Yeah, he was an engineer in, uh, building construction. But when I was a kid, or my whole life, he was always fixing things. And so it was perfect. And then I was at the Comedy Store yesterday. Still, there is a cabinet that my dad and I built together for employees to put in their clothes.

• 17:20Andrew Santino?

  Where is that?

• 17:20Speaker 04

  It's in the kitchen, in the bar, in the bar. So, it's right in the corner. You'll see it once you, it's all black, as you know.

• 17:31Andrew Santino?

  Oh, yeah, it's all black.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  So, it's black. But if you're facing the main room, it will be, and standing by the bar, it will be on your left.

• 17:41Andrew Santino?

  Oh, I know where, I see, yeah.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:43Andrew Santino?

  Wow, yeah, yes, yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  Yes, those are, that's what my dad and I built. And then dad kind of got older and he wasn't really doing as much, so I, but I started, I took over. So, I did a lot of building of the Bell Room, I did San Diego.

• 18:02Andrew Santino?

  La Jolla.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  La Jolla, I built a lot there. So, yeah, so the legend has it that I built everything.

• 18:09Andrew Santino?

  You built the Comedy Store. There is a sign that says Built by Yakov. It does say upstairs, and we kiss it as we go downstairs, yeah.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  Thank you, somehow it made it, the world believes that, so, but there was other claims to fame, but.

• 18:27Andrew Santino?

  How many, how many years until you got a TV spot? Like, until you did stand up on TV when you were in L.A.?

• 18:32Speaker 04

  Well, I got, Robin was doing Moscow on a Hudson. And he brought Paul Mazursky, and I was not even a regular, and yet. And Mitzi put me up because they were casting Russian-speaking. So, I fell into that.

• 18:54Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 04

  And I got that part, and after that, I got, that was, you know, before I did The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson took me for a long time to get on that. But I did movie with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, Heartburn. Movie with Tom Hanks, Money Pit, movie with Richard Pryor. Yeah.

• 19:16Andrew Santino?

  That's one of my favorite movies, you know that?

• 19:17Speaker 04

  It's a great movie.

• 19:18Andrew Santino?

  My mom and I love that movie.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm in the beginning, I'm the one kicking them out.

• 19:22Andrew Santino?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  And then I did Brewster's Millions with Richard Pryor. So, I, but in my.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  Brain, I kind of assumed that every immigrant gets to do a movie with Robin Williams.

• 19:37Andrew Santino?

  They do, yes. That was how it went, a short period of time.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  At least in my brain, I was going, look, and I was just a fresh kind of meat, I guess, in Hollywood.

• 19:48Andrew Santino?

  Fresh meat.

• 19:48Speaker 04

  Fresh meat, so.

• 19:50Andrew Santino?

  Now you're aged beef.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:53Andrew Santino?

  Now you age it. No, no, that's a good thing.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  Is it?

• 19:55Andrew Santino?

  Aged meat's probably the best. When they say it cured for a long time, you're cured. Because here's the deal, the outside may be a little rough.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't buy it.

• 20:02Andrew Santino?

  But the inside, real juicy, baby.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  I'm not buying it.

• 20:06Andrew Santino?

  Not like a fine wine, older, better.

• 20:08Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, I'll take that.

• 20:09Andrew Santino?

  Anything in cuisine, the older, the better.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:12Andrew Santino?

  Unless it's right off the farm and fresh. Fish, fish is the only thing probably that's better right now. You're not a fish, are you? You're a man, man.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  I am.

• 20:21Andrew Santino?

  Wait, how many times did you do Carson?

• 20:23Speaker 04

  Seven.

• 20:24Andrew Santino?

  God, that's unbelievable.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  Seven times, and one time I did a skit with him. He played Reagan, he loved doing impersonate Reagan. And I wrote him, at that time, a letter, right, saying, why don't we do a sketch where you're the, playing Reagan, I'll be an interpreter, and we'll have a look-alike of Gorbachev.

• 20:52Andrew Santino?

  Oh, that's great.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  And they loved it, and then, so this kid was very funny.

• 20:57Andrew Santino?

  Do you remember who played Gorbachev?

• 20:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 20:59Andrew Santino?

  No, it was just an actor?

• 21:00Speaker 04

  No, it was just a guy.

• 21:01Andrew Santino?

  So, out of all the guys that you saw when you came up in the store, who was the closest relationship you had? Like, what comics were the guys that kind of embraced you? Because I got to think that back then, just like now, it's just changed a little bit, but the competitive nature of comedy and comics, we're all friends, it's a circle, but you kind of, it gets competitive. And here's this outside foreign guy who does very well, that gets well-received. Like, who supported you and who was kind of a, not an enemy, but who was a little bit against you?

• 21:30Speaker 04

  I honestly, I think everybody, I can't think of anybody who was against, but, well, Andrew Dice Clay was my roommate for three years.

• 21:42Andrew Santino?

  What a wild person to live with, yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 04

  He was teaching me English. Can you?

• 21:48Andrew Santino?

  Hickory, dickory, deck, ya, goof! Oh, that's so good.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  So here's it, so, he, actually, him and I became great friends, and it was...

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Interesting how it all started because we met each other in New York at the Danger Fields.

• 22:08Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  And him and I got paid first time professionally in America, uh, forty dollars each. Uh, on that night when we both performed there.

• 22:19Andrew Santino?

  What is that? In, in what? The eighties? When was that?

• 22:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, that, no, that would be earlier. That was seventy-eight.

• 22:26Andrew Santino?

  Forty dollars in nineteen seventy-eight?

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:28Andrew Santino?

  You know, they were still paying that for the, for the rooms here. Do you know that?

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:32Andrew Santino?

  Forty years later, they're still paying the same money.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Well.

• 22:35Andrew Santino?

  Cause forty dollars back then, that's a good amount of, that's a substantial amount of money.

• 22:38Speaker 04

  For us, it was huge.

• 22:39Andrew Santino?

  That's a ton of money.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:40Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  So we were both proud of that, but I was scared of Andrew because he is big, big guy.

• 22:49Andrew Santino?

  Big personality.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  Big personality in a leather jacket and, you know, with the cigarette. I mean, to me, those are the people my mom told me, avoid them.

• 23:01Andrew Santino?

  Stay away.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  Stay, go to another side of the street when you see them.

• 23:05Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 23:05Speaker 04

  And here he is like, Yak, you and I are gonna be friends. And I'm going, holy cow. And I was planning at that time to go to LA. So I'm thinking, I'll never see him again. And.

• 23:17Andrew Santino?

  How wrong you were.

• 23:18Speaker 04

  How wrong I was. Knock on the door at the Crest Hill House where Mitzi, I, I had a little room there. Knock on the door, Yak, I'm back. I'm, I'm gonna be living here with you in this house.

• 23:31Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  And at first I was in shock, but then he taught me, uh, how to date girls. You know, I mean, that's a unique experience just there.

• 23:44Andrew Santino?

  He's a life coach.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 23:49Andrew Santino?

  Andrew Dice Clay was your life coach. We have influencers now. Andrew Dice Clay was the life coach. And the, and the Crest Hill House, how, there's a bunch of people that lived up there.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:59Andrew Santino?

  There's a lot of comics.

• 24:00Speaker 04

  Argus, Argus Hamidlin, um, Tom Wilson.

• 24:04Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, Tom Wilson, that's right.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. And Tom and Andrew were like the opposite, you know?

• 24:09Andrew Santino?

  They didn't like each other.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  Well, they got along, but it was, you know, Tom would be this big American blonde guy, you know, it's like a beef from...

• 24:20Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, people don't know, you know who that is, right, Tom Wilson, the actor?

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:23Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, he's Biff from Back to the Future.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  Back to the Future, yeah.

• 24:26Andrew Santino?

  Incredible.

• 24:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, so, and then it was a party house.

• 24:31Andrew Santino?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 04

  So, so there was, I would go, I was carpenter, so I would go to bed, normal hours, like 11, 12, whatever, to get up and go at 8 o'clock in the morning to fix tables and chairs and whatever is, whatever I needed to do, and they would just start partying about, you know, 1:00, and they would go, I mean, hard, I mean, I, I would put earplugs and, but they would be downstairs, and it would be Sam Kenison and Pryor sometimes, Robin would be there, Argus lived there, so, so I, I tell that story that I, I would

• 25:13Speaker 04

  wake up in the morning and I would go downstairs and there's a mirror on the table, and I, I was disgusted because I thought they were eating donuts because there was like white powder on, and I'm like, "Argus, why can't you just use plates? It's America, you have a dishwasher."

• 25:33Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  And he would laugh, and nobody would tell me for a long time what was going on.

• 25:38Andrew Santino?

  What was going on, what were they doing?

• 25:39Speaker 04

  I'm not sure. You still don't know.

• 25:41Andrew Santino?

  Still don't know. To this day, I eat off of mirrors.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:45Andrew Santino?

  I still eat off of mirrors.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  In here, we pour whiskey.

• 25:50Andrew Santino?

  This episode of Whiskey Ginger is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. I've talked about Squarespace so much on this show. If you don't know what it is... What's going on with you? You okay? Squarespace is incredible. They have cutting-edge design. These tools that they have are industry-leading. And it's AI-enhanced website builder to get a fully custom website in just a few steps. It's so simple. Back in the old days, I remember building my old website. My first stand-up website was embarrassing, so stupid. Now they have SEO tools, help you get discovered faster.

• 26:33Andrew Santino?

  So you show up more often on search engines, bringing in your ideal customer fanbase, whatever that may be. You're a personal trainer? You're an artiste? You're an orator? Whatever it is, Squarespace can help you design the perfect site to sell content and shows you analytics so that, you know, you can you can find out where all this traffic is coming from. Helps you better arrange where you're gonna go or who you're targeting. Email campaigns too, that can blast out, that can reach your audience at the perfect time, given your business long-term growth. So if you're looking to create a beautiful website, I don't even know what you're wasting time anywhere else but Squarespace. Go over to Squarespace.com, check it out. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code WHISKY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 27:17Andrew Santino?

  That's Squarespace.com/whiskey. Use that code WHISKY. Save yourself 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Life is short. We all know that. It's important to protect yourself while you're here and while you're gone. That's why there's Ethos. Life insurance is an important factor of life. Sorry, hate to tell you, but it is. You want to take care of your family when you're not around anymore? I just wrote up my living will. Scary, sad. Truth is, it's a good thing. You protect those that you love for their future. Because everything is up in the air. Who knows what's gonna happen? Traditional life insurance is extremely complicated. Ethos makes it very, very easy. I checked it out. And getting a quote, signing up is so simple. You can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some of these policies start at $2 a day, billed monthly.

• 28:02Andrew Santino?

  $2 a day. Pretty cheap to take care of those around you. You got little kiddos, you got a wife or a husband, or a partner, or a friend that you live with. And you're like, you know what? I'm gonna take care of Steve when I'm out of here. Ethos makes it simple. There's no medical exam required. Answer a few health questions. 100% done online. You can get a quote in little as 10 minutes. That's very, very fast. Get same day coverage without even leaving your house. And according to staff from January 2025 in The Guardian, it could take weeks to get approved with traditional life insurance carriers, not with Ethos. It's simple, pimple, as it were. Ethos can help you find the right coverage and it's got 4.8 out of 5 stars on TrustPilot, 2,400 reviews. They're legit. You're gonna need this insurance at some point in your life because life is limited.

• 28:44Andrew Santino?

  Enjoy it while you can and leave a little bit of something for those around you if you can. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote today at ethos.com/whiskey. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash whiskey.

• 29:01Andrew Santino?

  That was kind of the norm for that house was do the spots, come home, start partying.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 29:06Andrew Santino?

  Women, girls, drugs, music, all night long. And then you had to be a responsible adult. You had to be.

• 29:13Speaker 04

  An adult.

• 29:13Andrew Santino?

  An adult. Yeah, you had to be. How long did you live in the?

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Three years.

• 29:17Andrew Santino?

  Three years.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  Three years, yeah.

• 29:18Andrew Santino?

  At that point, you were, you gotta go.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I kind of outgrew it. So, so this was a big house.

• 29:26Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Five bedrooms and a garage and, and there was no cars in the garage. We had no cars.

• 29:34Andrew Santino?

  Yeah. Did someone live in the garage at one point?

• 29:36Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. Just empty. And I was like going, I need to buy a car. And somebody suggested that I can go to Germany and buy a Mercedes, buy two Mercedes's, sell one and one will be for free.

• 29:52Andrew Santino?

  Essentially, you make enough money on the one that you'd back your other one.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  So I did that.

• 29:56Andrew Santino?

  You went to, you went to Germany.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  Germany. I got two Mercedes, sold one. And so I had a garage for two cars, right? So then once I sold one, I was like going, okay, I want, because I learned quickly that Americans really like to see what you drive.

• 30:18Andrew Santino?

  You're right.

• 30:19Speaker 04

  And so I kind of, I didn't have any money. I live in a hundred and twenty dollar room. But I can present that I am successful. So I'm driving Mercedes 450SL convertible.

• 30:34Andrew Santino?

  That's a great car.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, a lime color. That's like weird color for America, but in Europe it was normal. And so then I come up with another idea. I'm gonna go buy a Rolls Royce in England because they hired me for to do a bunk. Bob Monkhouse show was a successful English, kind of like the Tonight Show in. Yeah, and so, so I, I, and they paid me like $10,000 in a brown bag. That was like, this is your pay.

• 31:05Andrew Santino?

  10 grand?

• 31:06Speaker 04

  10,000, and that was about 81, maybe 1981.

• 31:11Andrew Santino?

  Do the math on that for fun. 10,000 in 81 has got to be what? Like do money then and now.

• 31:16Speaker 04

  Really?

• 31:17Andrew Santino?

  And they paid you in cash?

• 31:18Speaker 04

  Cash, yeah.

• 31:19Andrew Santino?

  But then how were you able to afford these cars? These cars are still very expensive back then. Did you finance them or something?

• 31:24Speaker 04

  I, I had somebody loan me the money.

• 31:26Andrew Santino?

  Smart.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it was, I had to pay a big interest, but I was able to. Yeah.

• 31:33Andrew Santino?

  God, that's incredible.

• 31:34Speaker 04

  So 10 grand, but Rolls Royce, used Rolls Royce. It wasn't new, but I was able to get one and shipped it to America. So here I am with my wonderful friends, Andrew and Tom and, you know, and Argus and stuff. And I'm, I have two cars in the garage.

• 31:53Andrew Santino?

  Two fancy cars in a $120 rent apartment. That sounds like LA today. What is it?

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Need fast hydration for the summer heat? Hydrate your winds with the new Liquid IV Sugar Free Ring Pop Cherry. It's the classic cherry ring pop flavor you grew up loving. Reimagined as a zero sugar hydration mix that's clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're spending the day in the heat, recovering after a workout, or just looking for an easy afternoon pick me up, Liquid IV makes hydration simple and delicious. Shop LiquidIV.com. Save with their buy three, get one free offer and use promo code POD26. That's P O D two six.

• 32:36Andrew Santino?

  $35,000 is what you got paid in today's money in a brown paper bag. It's a pretty good gig, man.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  That's pretty good.

• 32:42Andrew Santino?

  Particularly for someone at the time, like you weren't famous then.

• 32:44Speaker 04

  No.

• 32:45Andrew Santino?

  No, you were just a working comedian.

• 32:46Speaker 04

  Working comedian, they, they spotted me somehow. I don't know how.

• 32:50Andrew Santino?

  God, that's amazing.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:51Andrew Santino?

  35 G's in a brown paper bag.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:53Andrew Santino?

  That's who you are, you're the brown paper bag boy. Right, baby. In the streets. The brown paper bag, boy, get that yak bag. That's amazing. So then after you went, you bought the Rolls Royce, shipped it here.

• 33:04Speaker 04

  Shipped it here.

• 33:05Andrew Santino?

  Did you sell it, or did you end up?

• 33:06Speaker 04

  No, no, I kept it. I was, so at that point, I decided, you know, I need to buy a house. This is like ridiculous to live in, you know? And so, but I, again, I didn't have a lot of money, and, but I had a good example of what I liked, because the Crest Hill, I don't know if you've ever been there. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful view of the whole Hollywood and stuff. So I'm standing there, um, I haven't told this story. I am standing, uh, by polishing my Rolls Royce, right? All the guys are sleeping and I'm polishing my Rolls Royce.

• 33:47Speaker 04

  And this realtor drives by and she goes, um, do you have a hammer? And I go, yeah, I have a sickle, no. But, uh, I, uh, she said, I need to nail the, like, a sign into some other house was being sold. And I go, listen, uh, I, I have an idea. I would like to buy a house.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  But I don't have a lot of money. I don't have any money, really. I have nice cars, but I don't have money.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  But I know what I want. I want a five thousand square feet house, which I was describing the Crest Hill house. With the overlooking Hollywood, um, with an acre of land. And.

• 34:32Andrew Santino?

  Five thousand square feet acre of land.

• 34:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:34Andrew Santino?

  Today, by the way, in Los Angeles.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:37Andrew Santino?

  What you just described is like twelve million dollars.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  Right, right. But I didn't, again, it's ignorance is a bliss, right?

• 34:45Andrew Santino?

  Beautiful, man. I love it.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  So, so I, but I was more like being funny with her. I was with the realtor.

• 34:52Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  I'm like going, you know, what is she gonna say? You're crazy. And that's it, right? She goes. And I said, I want it for under a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Because I figured somehow I can get that money. I didn't have it. But I, so she goes, you know what, I might have something for you. I'm going, yeah, right. She goes, give me your number, I'll call you. So she calls me and she says, go look at this house. It's what you described. And the house that I described, that eventually I bought, was literally like I could throw a rock and hit that house, but there was,

• 35:35Speaker 04

  it was, we were on Queen Street and this was on King's Road.

• 35:40Andrew Santino?

  Kings, yeah, one block, yeah, one block east, yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  So then I, I call her and she goes, go during the day because there might be no lights. Because the guy who lives there, they cut off, no, they cut off the electricity.

• 35:55Andrew Santino?

  Oh shit, well, he's close to dead then. They want him out.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Well, no, it wasn't, so, so I go in during the daytime. And it was, and I told her, I want to fix her up. Because my parents need something to do and my dad is a carpenter, he can do it. So I, I look at that house and it was there. It was, it was just destroyed because the eucalyptus tree fell down and destroyed like the staircase in the garage. And there was no lights and then I went up the stairs and there's like a basement. There's a, like a swimming pool in the basement, but it's just flooded, you know, with poop.

• 36:42Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, crap, yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 04

  And so I'm like going, that's exactly what I wanted. This is what I want.

• 36:51Andrew Santino?

  This pool filled with poop is precisely what I'm looking for.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like Chernobyl, you know.

• 36:56Andrew Santino?

  Right, it's close to home, it reminds you of home, right. A little bit of radiation.

• 37:00Speaker 04

  So I go, are you sure? And he said, yes. I said, what's the story? How is it possible? And they're willing to sell it for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

• 37:09Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 37:09Speaker 04

  Right? So I'm like, okay, I'm on to something here. Why? What's the catch? And they go, well, the guy who lives there now, his name, and I probably can say, I mean, it was Seymour Cassell, who is an actor.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  And a character actor, he did a lot of different movies.

• 37:31Andrew Santino?

  He pat long since passed away.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 37:33Andrew Santino?

  Really?

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, you want to chat?

• 37:35Andrew Santino?

  I need to see Seymour, look up Seymour Cassell.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  I don't think, he might be still around.

• 37:40Andrew Santino?

  Seymour Cassell?

• 37:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, so I, um.

• 37:45Andrew Santino?

  He died twenty nineteen, rest in peace, Mr. Cassell. So now we can talk about it.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  Okay, okay. Um, anyway, so, um, and I said, but what's the deal? And said, well, he was doing drugs and uh, the, he, his attorney, um, doesn't, he didn't pay his attorney. So the attorney really selling that house for a hundred and fifty thousand, that's what he owes him. And I'm going, okay, cool, you know, so I'm like, now where do I get the money?

• 38:15Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, how do I get this money?

• 38:16Speaker 04

  So I went to a bank and I go, I know I don't have anything to, but I have a nice car. At that time, I only had Mercedes. I go, I have a nice car and I'm ambitious and I know I'm gonna pay, you know, and some very sweet African American lady was so kind of, she was touched that I was living the American dream and I'm willing to work hard and that's, and they gave me the loan.

• 38:48Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  They gave me the loan.

• 38:49Andrew Santino?

  Impossible today, literally impossible.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  It's crazy. And then so I go, I have to now go to tell the attorney that I am, that I'm, I got the money and I'm so, and I'm, but I didn't, I didn't want him to see what I'm driving. At this case, I was like, so I parked like two blocks.

• 39:11Andrew Santino?

  Down the road?

• 39:11Speaker 04

  Two blocks away, because I'm going, he's gonna hike up the fries, you know. So I walked there and he goes, well, you deserve to, to, to deal with this. So now, history of that house, that was Lenny Bruce's old house.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  That's where he died in that house.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  In here, we pour whiskey.

• 39:35Andrew Santino?

  Moms deserve the best, you know that, especially on Mother's Day. And when it comes to flowers, there's only one place that I trust to get my mom flowers. My ma, as it were. In Chicago, we say ma, just M.A. You gotta go to 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. Every single year I order from them, I always have. And 1-800-FLOWERS.COM is the best. She's always blown away. The roses are stunning, the service is impeccable, always on point. When it comes to celebrating the most important women in our lives, nothing less than perfect will do. I got my mom two different bouquets because I got it like that. Thanks to 1-800-FLOWERS for helping me out. And this year, I'm teaming up with 1-800-FLOWERS.COM to make Mother's Day even sweeter. Right now, when you order a dozen roses, they're gonna double it to two dozen for free. What's better than a dozen roses? Two dozen roses. Twice the beauty, twice the love, no extra cost.

• 40:20Andrew Santino?

  Don't wait. Show mom how much she means to you. All right, she put up with all that nonsense of yours. Zipping you up in your Halloween costume before you went outside in the freezing cold in the rain, only to have you run inside, help you unzip the jacket and take off that stupid costume that you wanted to wear so bad, the Michael Myers thing, which was scary for the whole neighborhood, just so you could have a night of candy. Show the mom that you love her. The roses from 1-800-FLOWERS are picked at their peak. They're cared for every step of the way and shipped fresh to ensure high-quality, long-lasting beauty. Bouquets are selling out fast, as they always do. Lock in your order today to claim your double your roses offer. Go to 1-800-FLOWERS.COM/WHISKY. That's 1-800-FLOWERS.COM/WHISKY. Do right by your mom this Mother's Day. I like to get good sleep, you know that, and I don't get it often.

• 41:06Andrew Santino?

  But thanks to Helix Sleep and my Helix mattress, I do. I was able to read that data from my Oura ring and how much better I'm sleeping. And I'm telling you, it's shocking. Shocking how much better I sleep on the Helix Sleep mattress since they sent me one. Man, what did I do with my old one? I burned it. There was an effigy just burning in my front lawn, the old nonsense mattress I had. Helix Sleep is so comfortable, it's impressive. I mean, they have genuinely some of the best mattresses I've ever laid on in my entire life. Make you want to take, every time I walk by it, I go, I think I want to lay down for just a little bit. The everyday sleep has improved my daily life so much more. I'm sleeping almost another full hour every single night just because of them. Pretty impressive. Such a massive upgrade. And, look, you're sleeping, and that's when you recharge, and you do it so much of your

• 41:51Andrew Santino?

  life, might as well get comfortable. Huh? Why skimp on a mattress? Skimp on some other stuff. You don't need that high-grade coffee maker. Nah, just get the, whatever, get the crappy little drip one that everybody has. You don't need something fancy. Alright? If you need good sleep, Helix is here to put you to sleep the right way. I'm telling you, they've got it like that. It's impressive. Right now, they got 20% off site-wide. 20% off on their entire site. You gotta go check it out. It's totally worth it. It's unbelievable. And you don't like it? Fine. That's fine, you're wrong. They'll take it back because they know what's up. Go to helixsleep.com/whiskey.

• 42:33Andrew Santino?

  helixsleep.com/whiskey for 20% off site-wide. That's helixsleep.com/whiskey for 20% off site-wide. Come on, get better sleep with Helix Sleep. helixsleep.com/whiskey. Here to tell you about Salee. Salee's a new eSIM service app brought to you by the creators of NordVPN. Traveling with your cell phone used to be a huge hassle. Not with Salee. I remember this back in the day when I first went to Europe, when I was a young lad. Man, getting a SIM and all that nonsense that was involved, it was such a nightmare. And now, Salee's an eSIM that provides you with an internet connection wherever you travel and saves you money on roaming fees that get so expensive. You ever left the country once, you know, you're like, this is a total rip-off. But with Salee, you can download it only once, so you don't need an eSIM for every country you visit.

• 43:16Andrew Santino?

  It's got affordable prices that significantly reduce and even eliminate roaming fees. Helps protect your privacy, which is massively important. Allows you to stay connected. There's no more wandering and looking around for a public Wi-Fi spot. So annoying. You have to walk in a thousand coffee shops. Can I get the Wi-Fi? Can I get the Wi-Fi? They should sell tourist shirts that just say, "Can I get the Wi-Fi?" Within eSIM, you're always connected. Follow instructions on the app to install the eSIM. SAILEE eSIM will be activated instantly. After landing, you will be able to easily connect to the local network. If prior to your trip, you follow the steps, how to activate your SAILEE eSIM. It's so simple, just download that app. SAILEE eSIM plans are comparable, and they're compatible to what's going on in the world right now. They're compatible for iOS and Android devices. Then you pick up a data plan.

• 43:59Andrew Santino?

  SAILEE has plans in over 190 countries. I don't even know there were that many countries, I'm being serious. And eight regions are available, at some of the best rates online. So, what are you waiting for? You know, do yourself a favor. To get a bad discount, get that discount. Use that code WHISKY to get an exclusive 15% discount on SAILEE eSIM at checkout. That's SAILEE, S-A-I-L-Y.com. Code is WHISKY for 15% off. Or you can go to saily.com/WHISKY. Either way, do yourself a favor. S-A-I-L-Y.com. Code is WHISKY. Go to saily.com/WHISKY.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  Here's an interesting piece of this puzzle. So, once they started doing title reports, they found that a foot doesn't match. So, there's some encroachment on another property. So, I had to go and get, what do you call it?

• 45:03Andrew Santino?

  It's called an easement.

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Easement, yeah. From the guy. And I go, "How do I..." And I never met Seymour before, right? And so, I go to his attorney, or I called his attorney. I said, "Where can I find Seymour?" He said, "I know exactly where to find him. He's in prison." Yeah. So, I go, "Oh, okay. So, I need to go to prison to get him to sign off on that one foot easement."

• 45:34Speaker 04

  And so I go there and I brought $500 with me thinking I'll offer him for that, you know, and, and he comes out, you know, through the glass window and he goes, I thought you were my kid, you know, I go, I just need you to sign this paper and I said, I'm willing to pay for it. And I, I said, how much would you want? And he goes, 50.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  Need fast hydration for the summer heat? Hydrate your winds with the new Liquid IV sugar-free Ring Pop Cherry. It's the classic cherry ring pop flavor you grew up loving. Reimagined as a zero sugar hydration mix that's clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're spending the day in the heat, recovering after a workout, or just looking for an easy afternoon pick-me-up, Liquid IV makes hydration simple and delicious. Shop LiquidIV.com. Save with their buy three, get one free offer, and use promo code POD26. That's P-O-D-2-6.

• 46:35Andrew Santino?

  $50,000?

• 46:37Speaker 04

  That's what I thought. And he go, I said, 50,000? He said, no, no, no, $50.

• 46:44Andrew Santino?

  Okay, okay dude, take it.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  Because we're not allowed to have any more money.

• 46:49Andrew Santino?

  Oh, that's probably the maximum.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  Than $50.

• 46:51Andrew Santino?

  Right, that makes sense.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  So here I am, a crazy man with a hundred dollar bills, and I'm asking in prison.

• 47:00Andrew Santino?

  Someone can break it.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:02Andrew Santino?

  Can you break a hundred?

• 47:03Speaker 04

  Which makes everybody kind of look at that money. So one of the guards had the money to break it. So I, I got it and he signed it. And that was the last time I ever saw him.

• 47:15Andrew Santino?

  How long did you live in that house?

• 47:18Speaker 04

  Oh, until my daughter was born. So it was 1990 when somebody got shot next, like at, near the driveway, near our driveway.

• 47:32Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  Somebody was coming from the Comedy Store and some, asked them for money and they said, I don't have any. And they just killed the guy. And my wife at that time was pregnant with our daughter. And we just said, we gotta get out of here.

• 47:48Andrew Santino?

  We gotta move, yeah. That's when it was a little shady still. I was looking to see, because I want to know what it, what that house would go for today. Because you paid 150 grand for it.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I I put a lot of money. I had a swimming pool eventually. I had I remodeled the whole thing. I I wanted a Playboy mansion, kind of a.

• 48:08Andrew Santino?

  Sure.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  So I had.

• 48:09Andrew Santino?

  Playboy, baby.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  Well, I had peacocks walking on that one acre land. I had, I mean, I was trying to be Hugh Hefner. Because I was, you know, hoping that it will bring me as much.

• 48:24Andrew Santino?

  How far up was it up? Was it far up?

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Not very far. No, probably just after the Hyatt House.

• 48:29Andrew Santino?

  Right, right behind it?

• 48:30Speaker 04

  Hyatt Hotel.

• 48:31Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Right after, uh, Antaz, Antaz Hotel.

• 48:35Andrew Santino?

  And that's, no, that's 1432, because 11 is not on that block.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  No.

• 48:39Andrew Santino?

  Ah, we'll figure it out.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  I'm sorry.

• 48:41Andrew Santino?

  That's all right.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  I'm gonna drive by. I'm going to the Comedy Store.

• 48:44Andrew Santino?

  Then you text me later so we know.

• 48:45Speaker 04

  I will.

• 48:45Andrew Santino?

  Because I want to know how much it, because this is a five bed, six bath, 5,000 square feet at 1432. Almost exactly what you described. And it was, uh, this was sold, uh, during the pandemic for $4 million.

• 48:59Speaker 04

  Oh, geez.

• 48:59Andrew Santino?

  In the middle of the pandemic.

• 49:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:01Andrew Santino?

  Can you believe that?

• 49:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:03Andrew Santino?

  God, $5 million. It's nuts. And you bought it for $100,000?

• 49:07Speaker 04

  120.

• 49:08Andrew Santino?

  Shame on you.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I've been lucky.

• 49:11Andrew Santino?

  That's awesome.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  I've been lucky because I I didn't really know you can't do it. Sometimes you're, if you're conditioned, like I was conditioned, you can't say anything against the government. You can't say, so I was conditioned that I would accept that. Here, I was conditioned the other way around. American dream, you can dream whatever you want, baby. You can do it.

• 49:34Andrew Santino?

  That's right.

• 49:35Speaker 04

  Whatever it was. I used to walk around Beverly Hills, had no cars at that, like, and I would go, I want something like that. I want, and in my mind, that's what I created.

• 49:45Andrew Santino?

  And you could. Now you're living the ultimate American dream. And I called you yesterday, or you called me. I was outside and you said, uh, you're living the more secret life, the more, the more, uh.

• 49:54Speaker 04

  I live in Branson, Branson, Missouri.

• 49:57Andrew Santino?

  Branson, Missouri.

• 49:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I said, uh, nobody knows where I am. That's like witness protection.

• 50:02Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, you said I'm basically in the witness protection program.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  And you were like going, what did you do?

• 50:07Andrew Santino?

  I thought, I thought, Yakov, what, what trouble did you get into that I don't know about?

• 50:10Speaker 04

  I'll tell you what it was. It was that I. Was no longer relevant to Americans because Soviet Union collapsed. And that was my crime. I was helping Reagan to tear down that wall.

• 50:27Andrew Santino?

  That's right.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  And there was a writing on the wall that I didn't read. And it says, Yakov, get, get a day job. That's what it was.

• 50:36Andrew Santino?

  Get a job.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:37Andrew Santino?

  Tear down that wall.

• 50:38Speaker 04

  I couldn't find a job. I mean, my contracts in Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Tahoe were canceled. Six months after the Soviet Union collapsed.

• 50:48Andrew Santino?

  It was that, it was like, truly like that.

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Leatherman had a top 10 list on the night of the collapse. Saying, I made number one on the list, Yakov Smirnoff will be out of work. And I thought it was funny. Six months later, I was not laughing. And this is where we moved to Pacific Palisades. So, and then maybe that's 1132, that's maybe Napoli Drive. And we, right next to Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Goldie Hawn. I mean, I was living.

• 51:21Andrew Santino?

  That's a good life. You were living the American dream.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  I was living the American dream. And we spent, we paid $2 million for that house. Yeah, and now, before it burned down.

• 51:32Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, it's gotta be gone now.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  Probably, I didn't go there, but it was like 8 million, something like that. So, anyway, but I had no money to pay my mortgage. Because no, no income. And I couldn't get even club dates.

• 51:47Andrew Santino?

  Wow.

• 51:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:48Andrew Santino?

  All because of that.

• 51:49Speaker 04

  All because of that.

• 51:50Andrew Santino?

  Thanks a lot Reagan.

• 51:51Speaker 04

  That's the crime.

• 51:52Andrew Santino?

  Thanks a lot Reagan. No, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  But I think it just happened because I was, like, Soviet Union was a pain in the butt to America. And I was preparation age. And so I was the one kind of softening the swelling.

• 52:13Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then, once the, the swelling and the burning is gone, what do you, put in the medicine cabinet. And so, so Branson, bless their hearts, they didn't know the Soviet Union collapsed.

• 52:27Speaker 04

  So I got thirty-two years out of that.

• 52:30Andrew Santino?

  So you moved there and you were working out of there for that.

• 52:33Speaker 04

  Thirty-two years.

• 52:34Andrew Santino?

  And touring the Midwest though, too, right? Like all over?

• 52:36Speaker 04

  Not as much because I was, I have a, I have a two thousand seat theater that, my theater, and I would do four hundred shows a year. And people would come, and so that community embraced me because my comedy is clean and that's family friendly. And so to them, I met their need and I was, I was very successful and still am. But now I feel like I need to go out there because I believe that there is a boom of comedy happening again.

• 53:17Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  And I'm, my role model is Nate Bargatze.

• 53:23Andrew Santino?

  You like, yeah, you like Nate.

• 53:24Speaker 04

  I love Nate, but, but I also do what, what he does in a way. I tell stories about my life, my family, and, and obviously, you know, what, what his career is just amazing. So that kind of got me out of hibernation of being in Branson.

• 53:45Andrew Santino?

  So now you're back.

• 53:45Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm, I'm not hundred percent back, you know, but I'm kind of putting my toe in the water.

• 53:52Andrew Santino?

  You want to feel it again?

• 53:53Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:53Andrew Santino?

  You missed that feeling.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  I do.

• 53:55Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 04

  I do.

• 53:55Andrew Santino?

  Because it, because it did something for years. It does something for people. It's hard to explain, but it does something to you. It makes you, the lows feel, feel really heavy and the highs are really empowering and they make the whole thing work, you know, worth it. So it's kind of cool to see you kind of coming back. I mean, we've known you in the zeitgeist of our world, you know, as someone that was a fixture of the beginning of the Comedy Store. Truly, for us, it's kind of wild that you're one of these pillars. And it's a pleasure to sit down and talk to you because it is, it's such a cool world that, that, you know, for lack of a better term, it's, it's long gone now. You know, like the store has changed so much and the culture of comedy is different now.

• 54:36Andrew Santino?

  That's all fine, but what I think you guys had built, the community and the way that you grew comedy into this thing in LA that became where I am now. It was important for us.

• 54:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:47Andrew Santino?

  You know, I moved here in 2005. And the Comedy Store was the first club that I started doing mics at. The first place I found people that I could hang with and relate to and goof off with.

• 54:59Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 55:00Andrew Santino?

  And it was a community that was kind of created by you guys in the late 70s and then through the 80s. It was kind of like what you guys grew is what we got to walk into, so we appreciate it.

• 55:08Speaker 04

  You're welcome.

• 55:09Andrew Santino?

  And now, honestly, it's good to see you back, Beck, and I'd love to see, you know, you kind of touring and putting out a special would be great.

• 55:16Speaker 04

  I would love that, and I'm going to La Jolla Comedy Store this weekend.

• 55:22Andrew Santino?

  Right, this will air after you're already gone sadly, but he was just at the La Jolla Comedy Store.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  Well, but I'll be eventually, I'm doing two more clubs. One is in St. Louis Funny Bone in May, and then Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Looney Bins in May.

• 55:41Andrew Santino?

  Looney Bins.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  So, yeah.

• 55:42Andrew Santino?

  So go see him if you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or what was the other one?

• 55:48Speaker 04

  St. Louis.

• 55:49Andrew Santino?

  You're in St. Louis. Funny Bone. Please go see our buddy, that would mean a lot. Are you web-siting it now? Are you part of the new generation? You got tickets on your website?

• 55:57Speaker 04

  I was a little nervous, well, not a little, a lot. For years, I didn't use Instagram because they follow you.

• 56:08Andrew Santino?

  They do.

• 56:08Speaker 04

  In the Soviet Union.

• 56:09Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, you feel like you're back to the old days, huh?

• 56:11Speaker 04

  I didn't like that, especially when thousands of people follow you, right? And now, I'm in LA and they're saying, "You need to be viral." And I'm like going, "I've stayed away from disease all of my life."

• 56:26Andrew Santino?

  You've done such a good job.

• 56:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:28Andrew Santino?

  Until now.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  And now I need to be viral.

• 56:30Andrew Santino?

  You must be a disease.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  So.

• 56:32Andrew Santino?

  You must be sick. And now you are, now welcome. How do you feel? You like it? We gotta get him on TikTok, going viral on TikTok. That'd be the next move. Um, I appreciate you coming on the show. Also, we want to plug, uh, we want to plug your, your show now. You're doing a new podcast yourself, right?

• 56:49Speaker 04

  Yes, called Yakov's Comedy Couch.

• 56:51Andrew Santino?

  Yakov's Comedy Couch.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  And it's, uh, something that I really enjoy talking to comedians, uh, because I got my, um, I got my master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Psychology.

• 57:05Andrew Santino?

  UPenn.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  UPenn.

• 57:07Andrew Santino?

  It's a really good school.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  Yes. And then I got my doctorate degree at Pepperdine, uh, graduated 2017. So my whole purpose was, my whole dissertation was on laughter and it's called Law of Laughter, L O L.

• 57:25Andrew Santino?

  Perfect.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. And it, it was not 190 pages, but no jokes in there, no jokes. It's all total research.

• 57:33Andrew Santino?

  It's all research based?

• 57:34Speaker 04

  All research based, yes. And so when I sit down with comedians, I really, uh, explore, uh, what makes them funny? Why, when did they start being funny?

• 57:47Andrew Santino?

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 04

  When did they learn to, all of those things, just a, a great fun conversation. And I just like, and that's why I called it Comedy Couch, because sometimes it feels like they're on the couch, you know?

• 58:01Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 58:01Speaker 04

  Or I'm on the couch, depending which way it goes.

• 58:04Andrew Santino?

  Right.

• 58:05Speaker 04

  But, uh, I've done only 35 episodes so far, but I'm, I'm really excited to keep doing it.

• 58:12Andrew Santino?

  Is the couch in reference to Carson?

• 58:14Speaker 00

  Need fast hydration for the summer heat? Hydrate your winds with the new Liquid IV Sugar-Free Ring Pop Cherry. It's the classic cherry ring pop flavor you grew up loving. Reimagined as a zero sugar hydration mix that's clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're spending the day in the heat, recovering after a workout, or just looking for an easy afternoon pick-me-up, Liquid IV makes hydration simple and delicious. Shop LiquidIV.com. Save with their Buy 3, Get 1 Free offer and use promo code POD26. That's P O D two six.

• 58:50Speaker 04

  No, more like, uh, psychology.

• 58:52Andrew Santino?

  Okay, cuz that could be a double. I didn't know, you know, that's, that's initially my brain thought.

• 58:56Speaker 04

  Sitting on the couch, yeah.

• 58:57Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, because getting the couch or getting the seat, you know, that was kind of a big call.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  That's true. I didn't think about this.

• 59:01Andrew Santino?

  Well, I just gave you another piece to the puzzle.

• 59:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, thank you.

• 59:03Andrew Santino?

  See that? I'm doing psychology as well right now. I'm dissecting you as I go. I have no education whatsoever, so I have to do it just based on feel. It's just feel for me.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  Hey.

• 59:13Andrew Santino?

  Some people will say, you know, some people say they'll go, "Oh, you seem like you're not that dumb" to me. Like, you're not, you're not that dumb.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 59:19Andrew Santino?

  And it's not that I'm not that dumb. I just pick up on certain things throughout the day and I piece them together. And then that's the great masquerade. You just pretend like you know what you're talking about.

• 59:28Speaker 04

  And sometimes it's better not to be too smart either, because...

• 59:33Andrew Santino?

  Thank you.

• 59:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:34Andrew Santino?

  That's my life, that's my life goal. Not get too smart.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  But you're more relatable that way.

• 59:39Andrew Santino?

  Yeah, I'm an idiot.

• 59:39Speaker 04

  Actually...

• 59:41Andrew Santino?

  I know what you're saying.

• 59:42Speaker 04

  When I, first couple of times when I walked out at the Comedy Store, I walked out in my robe, graduation robe from Pepperdine, right? And it was okay, but then I realized, no, a lot of people can't relate to that.

• 59:56Andrew Santino?

  Most of the patrons that go to the Comedy Store didn't go to college. Most of us, most of the patrons, high school max.

• 1:00:01Speaker 04

  So, yeah.

• 1:00:02Andrew Santino?

  That's who we like, man. High school top. You don't need anymore. Higher education's a little too snooty for us. No, that is great. The relatability is, uh, is, is hard, but you, you have a way about you that makes you, uh, easy to talk to and so lovable, so I'm sure the comedy couch is gonna continue for a long time.

• 1:00:19Speaker 04

  I hope so, I hope.

• 1:00:20Andrew Santino?

  Please watch Yakov's Comedy Couch. It's on his YouTube channel, available now. He's also on Instagram. Make this guy go viral. Get him viral.

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  I'm in Tic Tac Toe.

• 1:00:28Andrew Santino?

  He's in a Tic Tac Guy as well. Tic Tac Toe. Tic Tac Toe, go see ya, Tic Tac Toe. Uh, Yakov, thank you. We end the show the same way. You look into that camera right there. You say one word...

• 1:00:37Speaker 04

  Which one?

• 1:00:38Andrew Santino?

  Yep, this one. You're single. You say one word or one phrase to end the episode. So, it used to be a word years ago, and now I said it's a phrase. If you wanna impart a phrase of wisdom upon people to take with them. Or, or sometimes it's one word. If one word strikes you, whenever you're ready into that camera, you, you end the episode.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  So, the model that I live by is three words: intention, attention, and no-tension.

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  In here, we pour whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey. Who's that creature in the ginger beard?

• 1:01:14Speaker 05

  Ginger. Like peppers, the ginger gene is a curse. Gingers are beautiful. You owe me five dollars for the whiskey and seventy-five dollars for the horse. Gingers? Oh, hell no. This whiskey is excellent.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  Ginger. I like gingers.