Jerry Seinfeld | Club Random Classics with Bill Maher

On Club Random Classics, Bill Maher and Jerry Seinfeld get into the gift Bill gave Jerry, Jerry’s obsessive attention to detail, the car he picked Bill up in for Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and how both of their relationships to success, stand-up, and performing have evolved over time. They also talk about the mistakes Bill made reading comedy crowds, Lorne Michaels’ philosophy on retirement, the ruthless side of Johnny Carson, whether bad crowds really exist, why people instinctively pick apart compliments, and the enduring wisdom of Marcus Aurelius. This episode originally aired May 5, 2024. Support our Advertisers: Head to https://www.superpower.com and use code RANDOM at checkout for $20 off your membership. Unlock your new health intelligence. 100+ biomarkers. Every year. Detect early signs of 1,000+ conditions. #superpowerpod Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100-degree weather, or too much sun. Gator Light, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light: Hydrates Faster Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 0:29Bill Maher?

  Well, folks, if you're gonna spend money on something and might as well be something you actually like, that's what I always say. That's where the Club Random merch store comes in. That's right, get yourself a cozy hoodie. Look at this, this is really well-designed. That's right, get yourself a cozy hoodie to snuggle away your sorrows or some new Club Random shirts. Look at all this shit I have. To attract a partner with similar interests and live happily ever after. I've seen crazy rom-coms, so head over to clubrandom.com and bring home some random. Well, in this episode of Club Random Classics, I sit down with my friend Jerry Seinfeld,

• 1:12Bill Maher?

  one of the few comedians who treat stand-up like a science. We break down the tiny details that make or break a joke, the evolution of performing over decades, and why most people misunderstand what great comedy actually is. It's not just funny, it's a masterclass. So grab your favorite beverage, or a pen and paper, or both, and enjoy.

• 1:38Bill Maher?

  I must tell you, I got up this morning, it was like Christmas morning. No, really, I felt that Christmas morning vibe because Jerry Seinfeld's gonna be here.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  I am excited too. I got excited too. I've been excited for a couple of days.

• 1:55Bill Maher?

  It looks odd that we're talking about being excited in this position with each other. Sit down.

• 2:02Bill Maher?

  There's a stripper pole right there.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  I see.

• 2:05Bill Maher?

  But you'll never guess who just called me. Leno.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  I just talked to him too.

• 2:12Bill Maher?

  He, uh, but I said, yeah, I haven't seen him in a while. I really would love to get together. Maybe the three of us when you're.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  That'd be amazing. So that's what's good about these shows, though, which I'm sure you've already discovered. And I discovered with the comedians in cars. People, I can't, I, I, I can't. I'm not calling people up and hanging out. But if you do a show.

• 2:34Bill Maher?

  I said it every week.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Include, both people who I know like you, who are like, exactly, why are we here?

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:42Bill Maher?

  Cause we're forced to, we're not. It's just this crazy force of thing that makes us, we don't need the money. You don't need the promotion, although we'll certainly do what we can.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Thank you. But the other thing is, I don't know how you feel. I think you might be a little different this way, but I don't like to be around people not working. The, the working is kind of this base, it's like a baseline current. It's like a, a beat. It's like, I can hang out with almost any comic if we're here to do a gig. If we're just, if I'm here just to enjoy your company, that's not good.

• 3:13Bill Maher?

  To me, no, the art.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  It's not gonna be good enough, your company.

• 3:20Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  If I can get a set in and a chat and screw it up.

• 3:24Bill Maher?

  And get some new material.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:25Bill Maher?

  I mean, I could take that the wrong way, but I'm not going to. Yes, I completely see the point about, and said it to about work, but also to while you are working, do exactly what you would be if you were not working. In other words, if we were.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Let's go over that again.

• 3:41Bill Maher?

  If we, if we were just here and we weren't working, we, I want this conversation to be zero different.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Oh, that won't happen. That can't happen. Because, uh, I mean.

• 3:56Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm a savvy professional. Do you think I don't know that if I say something stupid, it won't?

• 4:03Bill Maher?

  Okay, I can do it.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  No, even you are savvy. You are also the savviest professional. What do you weigh right now, Bill? What do you weigh?

• 4:13Bill Maher?

  Why is that a relevant question?

• 4:16Speaker 02

  What's the name of the show?

• 4:18Bill Maher?

  Club Random.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Okay, what do you weigh?

• 4:21Bill Maher?

  I think probably 152 today.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  150?

• 4:24Bill Maher?

  What?

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Today?

• 4:26Bill Maher?

  Today, it varies.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. I weigh, uh, I weigh 166 today.

• 4:32Bill Maher?

  And what were you in 1979?

• 4:35Speaker 02

  79, I was probably 150, probably the same. But I think you have, uh, you're slightly smaller.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 4:45Bill Maher?

  Over time, or you mean compared to you? Yes.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  It's a frame.

• 4:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you're a little, you're a little bigger.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  A little bit, yeah.

• 4:53Bill Maher?

  Also ego.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, I don't know. That's a close race. Let's, let's.

• 4:58Bill Maher?

  Well, listen, before I forget, I, what can I get Jerry for his birthday? I mean, the man, you have everything. You're a great star.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Never get tired of that. Do you ever get tired of that? No one else ever said those words. But Don, you're a great star.

• 5:19Bill Maher?

  I know, I only say it to you.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  I love it. I love it.

• 5:22Bill Maher?

  But.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  I want you so bad.

• 5:24Bill Maher?

  But, uh, she took the necklace off and the head hits the sink.

• 5:32Bill Maher?

  Some of those things, they made no sense. You know, drop your pants and fire a rocket.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Well, he didn't want to say fire a rocket out of my ass. That's what he wanted to say.

• 5:41Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  But he was very, very clean, which is interesting because he, that he had those little, uh, what, what do we, what do we call them? Uh, he would just kind of bend the rules, let's say, for television and for.

• 5:54Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  You know, but yeah, drop my pants and fire a rocket out of my ass. That's what you're supposed to, you're supposed to finish it in your head.

• 6:02Bill Maher?

  I didn't even know that was a thing.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Oh, sure.

• 6:07Bill Maher?

  Well, I loved it as a kid, no matter what he did, you know, and he certainly would be the eminently cancelable today.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Uh, let's not.

• 6:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, I promise you, I saw him.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  You're, you can't move him from yes, from then to now without him.

• 6:24Bill Maher?

  Modulating, he wouldn't have.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  You don't know that. He's, he's, he's gonna want to work. I think the man likes to work.

• 6:33Bill Maher?

  But, okay, but I saw him doing it like later than it should have been. I saw him opening.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that was a miscalc- a miscalculation.

• 6:41Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:43Bill Maher?

  Anyway.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Anyway.

• 6:44Bill Maher?

  I wanted.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  This is so, you should, Bill, I'm so touched.

• 6:48Bill Maher?

  It's not, you don't even know what it is yet.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  And I'm not, don't worry, I'm not really touched.

• 6:52Bill Maher?

  What it is, well, I hope you were touched by what I gave you at your sixties.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  I was, I put it very prominently in my little den.

• 6:59Bill Maher?

  That was.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  The, the metal rabbit, I love it. And I look at it and I think of you and, and it's, it's a bit.

• 7:05Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  It's too much, because you really.

• 7:08Bill Maher?

  Well, and it's true, and let me tell the people.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, do we have to?

• 7:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, really?

• 7:12Speaker 02

  You're gonna tell them?

• 7:13Bill Maher?

  You don't wanna?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  All right, go ahead, it's okay.

• 7:16Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's, it's not, I mean, it.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  It's not a big deal. It was very sweet, very nice.

• 7:21Bill Maher?

  But it, it limbs, I think, for an audience, who you really are to us, the comedians. I had a rabbit made, and by the way, it's, they don't make rabbits. I had to have it made because you can get a bunny on Amazon.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:33Bill Maher?

  Bunnies are all over, but, but not like the rabbit in motion. And the idea was Jerry was always the rabbit in, among the comedians. He was the lead, leader of the pack, who we were all chasing. And it was inscribed, "The rabbit we never caught."

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 7:48Bill Maher?

  What, you don't remember that?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Of course I do.

• 7:50Bill Maher?

  You said it like, oh.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't think I read it. Does that, does it say that on there?

• 7:55Bill Maher?

  It does.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I never read it.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  I, I'll, I'll go home right after this and read it.

• 8:02Bill Maher?

  You just remember me saying it at this point?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 8:06Bill Maher?

  That's, uh, interesting. Wow, well, anyway, that's exactly who you are.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 8:11Bill Maher?

  Always were, you've also been a great friend. You know, you, you were there when I did the first week of Politically Incorrect. You didn't have to. You, you flew to Washington on your wife's birthday in 2014, when I needed a guest on, when we did our special show in DC, you remember that?

• 8:31Speaker 02

  That's right, when you did the stand-up stuff on the.

• 8:33Bill Maher?

  And I certainly have vivid memories of, like, one time, I got offstage at the comic strip and I had tried like all this new material. It was my first year.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:43Bill Maher?

  And remember you, I look back and I think, you must have been thinking, you fucking idiot. But you were nice enough to be like, you know, you should just try one or two new things.

• 8:53Bill Maher?

  And it was, you know, advice I needed to get. And probably did not follow for another three years. But I went through all like my file from 1979. Because I thought, what can I get the person who has everything? Got the amazing career, the perfect wife, the great family, the adoration of a grateful nation. The only thing I could get you is to amuse you and give you a memory or bring back a memory. So here's my show in power box. Look at this from 1979. What is it?

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Comedy hour, Biltmore and Company.

• 9:32Bill Maher?

  Bill, I don't know why I'm in company. It's my first year in comedy. But look at the time.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  12:30 to 1:30.

• 9:39Bill Maher?

  12:30 to 1:30.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Well, you can't give me this.

• 9:42Bill Maher?

  I'm not giving it to you. There is something I do want to give you.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 9:47Bill Maher?

  That I've treasured for 50 years, 60 years.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  60?

• 9:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah. It's from the, it's 1964. But 12:30, the fact that we were doing shows.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  All the time.

• 10:02Bill Maher?

  And this is, well, 12:30 would be a bad time to do the show AM or PM. But this was noon. This was a noon-er. Okay, so, all right. So here's the thing I want to have framed if you like it for you. See if you can see what this is. I bet you, you are here.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 10:25Bill Maher?

  I'm a pack rat, you're not.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 10:30Bill Maher?

  Do you know what that is?

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Of course I know what it is and I love this more than anything, yes.

• 10:34Bill Maher?

  Were you there?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  I live for it. I went many, many times and I have quite a bit of memorabilia myself. Anything blue and orange that says World's Fair on it, I have it. Not anything.

• 10:47Bill Maher?

  Well, that is the map. That told you where all the pavilions and everything was at the 1964 World's Fair.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Which...

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Let's be honest, Bill.

• 10:59Bill Maher?

  What?

• 10:59Speaker 02

  And say, there's a sadness to what the world seemed like to us at this time. What we thought it was, what everybody wanted it to be, right?

• 11:13Bill Maher?

  I was looking at this the other day, and I see like, you know, the GM pavilion and that's for. And I thought, you know, nobody bitched about every fucking thing back then. Now, every pavilion would have somebody in front of it like, you know, you're making oil and you can't.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:30Bill Maher?

  You know, like, nobody would just enjoy the fucking.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Well, it's Jimmy Brogan's great heckler line that he used to do. Uh, when people would start to heckle, he would always say, I'm sorry, we don't have microphones for everyone. Remember that line?

• 11:45Bill Maher?

  No, I don't.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, that's what happened.

• 11:49Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  That's what happened. And yes, it ruined everything. But how do you have this? By the way.

• 11:55Bill Maher?

  Because I'm a pack rat. I'm the opposite of you.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Oh, this is a map of the world's fair. It looks like an architectural rendering.

• 12:01Bill Maher?

  No, I think they gave it to you like, so that you could know where, you know, hey, I'm here at the Finland pavilion. No, really. And we want to get to Muriel cigars before lunch.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  We want to get to Muriel's.

• 12:15Bill Maher?

  I remember walking around here and at one point being very like tired and my feet were hurt.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yes. Remember how boring the countries were?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  I don't want to see any countries. Let's go to the world.

• 12:26Bill Maher?

  Well, the Caribbean, you'll see that was on there. That was kind of a good one.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Do you remember the stories of the kids that got lost in there and their parents left them there? And they were living off the coins in the fountain to eat coin dogs?

• 12:38Bill Maher?

  I don't remember that, but I do remember kids getting lost there.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Well, if you're gonna give this to me?

• 12:44Bill Maher?

  I want to have it framed and then give it to you.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Yes, I would love it. And I'll put it up on my wall. Yeah. Because this means a lot to me.

• 12:49Bill Maher?

  And you can look at it endlessly.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:51Bill Maher?

  Because it's so intricate and they have all the.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 12:54Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Thank you, Billy. That's lovely.

• 12:57Bill Maher?

  See? You can't get that at Sears.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 13:00Bill Maher?

  So funny that you mentioned Jimmy Brogan. This is what I took out of TV Guide in 1979, the year I met you at the clubs. I kept every one of the fall preview issues of TV Guide that had all the new shows. You know what I'm talking about?

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 13:21Bill Maher?

  And that was like, that was a big event for me when I was a kid.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  The fall shows, yeah.

• 13:27Bill Maher?

  Like, this one I do not remember, but this is a man called Sloan, Robert Conrad.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 13:36Bill Maher?

  I loved him. I wanted to be him.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:38Bill Maher?

  What a stud. Stars as Thomas Remington Sloan III, a stylish, cosmopolitan, and unnervingly effective globe-circling secret agent, not unlike James Bond, who reports directly to the President of the United States. But look who's at the bottom.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Out of the blue with Jimmy Brogan.

• 13:57Bill Maher?

  And I cut that out because it was like, wow, I know a guy in TV Guide.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:06Bill Maher?

  Like, that really...

• 14:12Bill Maher?

  See, like I said, like, there was nobody else here.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  I read for Trapper John so many times.

• 14:17Bill Maher?

  What?

• 14:18Speaker 02

  I don't know why. They kept reading me. They never put me on the show. I was desperate to get on in the 80s. So, here it is.

• 14:27Bill Maher?

  Trapper John?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Trapper John.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  I didn't know you read for guest starring on...

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Couple of times, yeah.

• 14:33Bill Maher?

  I know you did the Benson. You were a regular.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, I did three episodes.

• 14:37Bill Maher?

  I thought it was like seven.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  No, it was three and they fired me.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Mercifully.

• 14:43Bill Maher?

  That's very close to the guy who didn't sign the Beatles.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:47Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 14:49Bill Maher?

  Ooh.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 14:49Bill Maher?

  That's all right. By the way, drink? You don't drink? Or you just have coffee?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  I drink, but it's a little early and I'm driving.

• 14:56Bill Maher?

  It is. Oh, you're driving. You drove yourself?

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:59Bill Maher?

  What a stud.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:01Bill Maher?

  But we know how you feel about cars.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I drove an old Mercedes-Benz diesel here.

• 15:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, I just, that level of car, I mean, I guess Jay has it too.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Level of car enthusiasm.

• 15:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  I don't want to talk about that.

• 15:17Bill Maher?

  I don't either.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  I don't like to, I know it's not of any interest, but.

• 15:21Bill Maher?

  But to your credit, you made it interesting to me on the show, like when you did those Accura commercials.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  A little bit. You got a little interested.

• 15:29Bill Maher?

  I know. Well, not enough to like pursue it, but like it was, I was interested in the connection you had between the person and the car.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:36Bill Maher?

  Why you felt that was, that I thought was elegant.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, people like that.

• 15:40Bill Maher?

  Um, I never understood the one you picked me up in. It was a German police.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  It was for one joke, which is, it was a VW police car because this is, you're someone who seems to have a lot of power and has none.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  And I thought that, that, that's what that car is, a VW police car. You're police, but you can't catch anybody. So.

• 16:04Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah, I guess. Um, I noticed that like in that show though, like in your own kind of Seinfeldian way, you did become like such a truth teller, you know?

• 16:21Bill Maher?

  Obviously not political the way I do it, but like you just used your political capital from the first show.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:30Bill Maher?

  I felt like, you know, the popularity that you would accrued to like go, well, I'm just gonna say what the fuck I want. And it's not always gonna be that pleasing to everybody. And that's so, to me, the most refreshing thing in show business.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it wasn't, there's nothing really. Like, I suppose it was a little more revealing than what people had known prior, but not that much.

• 16:53Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  I don't know. Whatever you think.

• 16:54Bill Maher?

  That's what I think.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 16:56Bill Maher?

  I mean, but just because you were, you weren't playing from a script like in.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:00Bill Maher?

  The show. I mean, you're, you're, that's a character, first of all, obviously, close, but you know, I mean, the situations were so absurd.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:07Bill Maher?

  And they were ridiculous that it was a show about nothing. Nothing, it was a show about everything.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 17:11Bill Maher?

  And all those.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:12Bill Maher?

  That's not, and then now you're just talking to somebody and they're saying, you know, like, what do you think, you owe your kids nothing?

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:20Bill Maher?

  You know, you just, you know, you know, you said things about like family and stuff like that. That was like, oh, wow.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, that's what this show is, but what you've accomplished with this show, because I thought.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Nobody has always been more, um, um, I don't want to use the word transparent, but you, you, we probably know more about your opinions than any other celebrity in

• 17:44Bill Maher?

  Right, yeah.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  out there. And yet, on this show, there was a whole other world of stuff that I can't believe. I still can't believe, when you were on with, I think it was Mamet, and you, and you got into a thing about the, the battery shortage in Germany, that they were trying to go electric when they kind of overshot it. And I'm going, how does this guy stop at that article in the paper? And I'm like, yeah, I need to know more about the German power grid.

• 18:15Bill Maher?

  Stop, you're being, you don't think you know about many, many things?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  No, I don't, not like you.

• 18:22Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  No, I watched the show to see, what does Bill know that I didn't know he knew? And I'm always blown away.

• 18:29Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  That one was amazing. And then you talk with that other guy about the Bible, and you know all about the Bible.

• 18:38Bill Maher?

  I'm old.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  I know, but your, your brain is, your brain is worthy of all the attention it gets.

• 18:46Bill Maher?

  Well, finish your thought, Jerry.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  No, I, I, I think you're amazing. And I, I'm enjoying you as much now.

• 18:54Bill Maher?

  You're such a sphinx. I didn't even know you ever saw this show.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I watch every one.

• 18:59Bill Maher?

  I, how do I know these things? I texted you about doing this. You never texted me back.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Texted you back?

• 19:05Bill Maher?

  No.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Love to. I'm a fan of the show.

• 19:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes, that originally. Then, then I texted you about a month ago and said, um, what about when you're doing the promoting, the, the Pop-Tart movie? And I didn't hear back. Your people got back and said, yeah, he's gonna do it. I was like thrilled, but it's like.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Cause I already told you, I'm, I wanna do it.

• 19:23Bill Maher?

  I know, that's, but most people are not quite, let's see, again, I'm a Rat Pack. You are the guy who is, there's no extra.

• 19:33Bill Maher?

  No extra.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  I do like that. I love no extra.

• 19:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, I think, to quote one more thing that I quoted before, about the Paul Simon song, that I always think that is you. And it's such an amazing song, "One Trick Pony", and you're anything but a one-trick pony, because you've been successful. And when you did reinvent the talk show, you had your series, and you've done movies. But there's that middle part, he makes it look so easy, look so clean, he moves like God's immaculate machine. He makes me think about all these extra moves I make, and all this herky-jerky motion, and the baggage tricks it takes to get me through my working day. I feel like I'm the herky-jerky guy.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Well, you're not.

• 20:17Bill Maher?

  And you're the guy who's like, just gliding through with no extra, and no baggage, and no stupid mistakes.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend, and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 20:54Bill Maher?

  And...

• 20:56Speaker 02

  That song, by the way, hit me like that, too. I thought, that's everything I want to be, what he's describing. I thought, that's it, that's what I want to be.

• 21:05Bill Maher?

  You don't think you are that?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  I don't, I try, I don't know.

• 21:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, you're always like, more mature than the rest of us. Like, back in the day.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Well, what did you do that was immature, professionally speaking? We all knocked around.

• 21:18Bill Maher?

  Professionally and personally, lot, many things.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  Not professionally.

• 21:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah, absolutely professional. I used to piss off the crowd, so they hated me so much. No matter what kind of joke I told, no matter how funny it was, they would never laugh. That's the most unprofessional thing you can do. I remember once at the Comedy Cellar, the emcee getting on after me and saying to the audience, "Okay, that bad man is gone now."

• 21:43Bill Maher?

  That is, Will Runfest, I think it was. That bad man is gone now.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:48Bill Maher?

  I was very.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Okay, I consider that just.

• 21:52Bill Maher?

  Growth.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  No, creative experimentation that, yeah.

• 21:56Bill Maher?

  No, no. It was totally a function of a bad attitude.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Your bad attitude has matured.

• 22:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I hope.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Totally. You're the, you're one of the most successful people in the history of television and stand-up comedy.

• 22:13Bill Maher?

  I have been on a long time.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah, my aesthetic role model was Mike Tyson. When I saw Mike Tyson in his prime, when he cut the hole in the hotel towel and had no socks and no stool and black shorts with nothing on them.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  I thought, that's what I want to be.

• 22:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, my God.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  And recently, just a few years ago, I don't know what it was, I said, why, why do I have these different colored ties and suits? I go, I'm just wearing a black suit and a black tie from now on. It just felt so calm. We visited Japan last December. I was so happy there. I, I, I connected so strongly with that ethic of their culture of just focus and simplicity and singularity of purpose, you know? I do like that. And I have done these other things, and I have to say, it's all with a, a component of reluctance. I do it to think, I think I could do that, you know, like the movie, like, I think I could do that, or let's do a different type of talk, so I think I might be able to do that.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  But it's not really what I wanted. If I could have just been a pure stand-up and never done anything.

• 23:25Bill Maher?

  But you're already known as the purest of the pure stand-ups. That's your, that is like your, and it's real, and by the way, this leads me to something I feel nervous about telling you, I feel like you're the confessor to this, but like, after this year, I'm gonna stop doing it.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Really?

• 23:47Bill Maher?

  Well, I could go back. I don't want to make like a big announcement or something.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 23:52Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I'm doing a special at the end of the year.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:56Bill Maher?

  It'll be my 13th for HBO. That's a lot.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  That's a lot.

• 24:00Bill Maher?

  And I just feel like you gotta, I don't know, you know, first of all, I put a lot of time and effort into it because as you know, stand-up is like playing the cello. You can't just walk up there. You have to stay in practice, and I do. And I've always loved it, and I'm always working on it. But I have a show.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 24:19Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  I don't know how you kept it up during the show, or frankly, why, but you did.

• 24:26Bill Maher?

  Because they fed each other, first of all. It was so great. And also because I love it. I mean, it's, you know, I can be the loosest. I can, you know, the show is great, but there's constrictures there. This is looser, but you know, what's looser than just you people paid to see me?

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:43Bill Maher?

  Even if you don't like it, you kind of have to laugh, just to get your money's worth. The way you stay in a movie, even if it sucks. I don't want to walk out. My father would pay $2 to see a movie and hate it and wouldn't leave. God damn mother.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Great.

• 24:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah, he waited until it came to the theater, you know, there was one theater in Bergen County where the movies would come late, and so they'd be like $2.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. All right, let's get back to.

• 25:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah, so, you know, but if I don't have to practice the cello eight hours a day, I can do, you know, I might want to do some of these kind of things live. That's kind of an interesting option that people do know.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 25:22Bill Maher?

  You know, and then it's kind of an event.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 25:26Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, I, it's not crazy. It's not crazy.

• 25:30Bill Maher?

  It's not crazy.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  It's not crazy.

• 25:32Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  The landscape.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Of the business, which is one of the things I love about the business is everybody's like, what is going on? You know, what do we do? What are we supposed to do? What's so and so doing? Why is he doing that? Should I do that? I love that endless grind and everybody is always, everybody's always on the phone, you know?

• 25:54Bill Maher?

  You mean like what's happening?

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. What, yeah. Did you see what so and so did? What'd you think of that?

• 25:59Bill Maher?

  Right, right. Streaming and you know?

• 26:02Speaker 02

  And I think perhaps for you, for whatever feels right for you at this point is what's right.

• 26:08Bill Maher?

  But that's after 40 years. That's why I don't want to like make an announcement. This is my final, because I might change my mind. I might, it might be like cutting off a limb and I have, I have to go back to it.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  How do you view the show? How do you view Real Time? And you know, how old are you now? 60 something?

• 26:27Bill Maher?

  Jerry, I'm right, always hot on your heels.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 26:30Bill Maher?

  When you, when you.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Well, whatever it is.

• 26:32Bill Maher?

  I'm always a year and a half behind you.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Whatever it is. Do you, do you ever look forward or do you stay focused?

• 26:36Bill Maher?

  Only forward.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Only forward. But I mean, do you think, you know, maybe another five and?

• 26:42Bill Maher?

  No, I can't.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Did you ever hear the Lorne Michaels line? I asked him, how much longer you think you'll do SNL? He says, you know, I think it'll get to the point that I'll feel like I'm slowing down and I don't have the same edge. I don't have the same enthusiasm for it. And he says, when I get to that point, I'll do five more years.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And I love that answer. I love that answer. I, I, um, I would, I, I, I would love for us to compare notes. Who is more addicted to show business, you or me? Cause I love it to death today as much as even more. Everything else in life for me has fallen away, has gone gray. I mean, I loved having kids and that whole side of my life has been great. But you always have to say that, you know, but.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  But if you're just talking about work, let's just talk about work.

• 27:38Bill Maher?

  We can chyron it, Jerry.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  You know, I love show business as much today as ever, if not more, because I tried every other goddamn thing.

• 27:49Bill Maher?

  But you say you don't love show business, you love stand-up.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  That's show business.

• 27:53Bill Maher?

  I know, but it's that one aspect. Again, you're such a minimalist, you're so direct with everything that everything peels away, no extra things. And that's you, that's why I think you will do it till you drop.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  I will, I will.

• 28:06Bill Maher?

  And maybe I will too, I don't know. It's a tough decision, but I also feel like it's easy, as you get older, to not do new things, and that's what keeps you young. I think that's part of the reason I want to do this.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 28:23Bill Maher?

  Because, look, when we're doing a podcast, if you said to me 10 years ago even, you know, the big thing in show business is going to be basically AM radio.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:32Bill Maher?

  I would have said, you're crazy.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:34Bill Maher?

  And yet, I mean, you talk about too many people at the beginning of the marathon clogging the road.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:41Bill Maher?

  I mean, there's like 4 million podcasts in America.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  But no one's doing this one.

• 28:47Bill Maher?

  I know, but it'd be like if Johnny Carson, when we watched him, had, you know, 4 million, like, late-night shows that people had, that they, you know, maybe only 500 watched this one and 1,000 watched this one, but his rating, humiliated me, all of, all those tiny ants sucking a little bit away, would have left him not with 17 million, which he had at his height, but, you know, something much more modest. That's the problem with so many podcasts.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:22Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  First of all, you're doing the thing that you hate the most, which is moving people around in chronology. If Johnny Carson was, forget that. We're here now, you're you, we're here now. It doesn't matter what he would have done, or what matters is, this makes...

• 29:42Bill Maher?

  Go ahead, finish your point.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Oh my god, what year is that?

• 29:46Bill Maher?

  1979.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 29:49Bill Maher?

  Carson must stay. And what a baller he was, right? I mean, just to like have the headlines like about what you're... But you're right, he would not, I mean, as great as he was, he would not survive today. He was just, that show breathed way too much for the current audience. Right, I know. Yes, I...

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Who cares? The world wouldn't make him today. They don't make those guys anymore. They don't make George C. Scott anymore.

• 30:20Bill Maher?

  You know what loomed large in our world, even the late as 1964, because it was 20 years after, but World War II was like, my childhood, I look back, it was like everything. My parents were in it, TV shows were about it.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:37Bill Maher?

  Hogan's Heroes and Mikhail's Navy and Combat.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  And didn't you kind of feel also as a kid, I just missed it?

• 30:43Bill Maher?

  I mean, it was, when I played army, I played World War II. And there was no nuance to it. We were good.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:51Bill Maher?

  They were bad.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:52Bill Maher?

  And, you know, I mean...

• 30:54Speaker 02

  It was like a big hug musical. That's what World War II was. Here's a musical for everyone, you know?

• 31:04Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and everyone was involved in it. Like, nobody was ever like, I'm just doing something different these days. World War II.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  But anyway, I'm still not quite to the essence of why it feels right to you to not do it anymore?

• 31:24Bill Maher?

  Um, I don't know.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Because it's the cello and are you...

• 31:29Bill Maher?

  That's part of it.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Travel and...

• 31:31Bill Maher?

  Travel.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Writing. How much time, how do you...

• 31:34Bill Maher?

  No, I love it.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  How do you do a TV show and do any stand-up stuff?

• 31:38Bill Maher?

  I mean, I'm not married, no kids. All my time is mine.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:42Bill Maher?

  So that's, that's one way.

• 31:46Bill Maher?

  I like that. I mean, you know me, I think we're very similar to this. I love the tinkering. I love the, I put that word in front of this thing and I move this over here. It's like putting together a Rubik's Cube.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 32:00Bill Maher?

  And I move this here and now it all fits. You know, for six months it was good, but now it's great because

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 32:09Bill Maher?

  And I feel bad for those audiences that last six months.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:12Bill Maher?

  Because like, but it's same way in a relationship. I always felt like, oh, if I only knew what I learned on her.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:19Bill Maher?

  With you, I would have been a lot better with you.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 32:23Bill Maher?

  But I can't, you know, we can't reverse time.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  But you didn't answer my question about real time.

• 32:30Bill Maher?

  What was that?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Which is, do you think of, how many years, first of all, you're at it, how many, 25 years?

• 32:38Bill Maher?

  Real time.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Starting with Politically Incorrect?

• 32:41Bill Maher?

  Well, it's 31.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Okay, 31, that counts.

• 32:43Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know, I know, I know.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  So what do you think?

• 32:46Bill Maher?

  Well, I certainly wouldn't want to quit now because

• 32:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 32:49Bill Maher?

  I feel like I'm at the top of my game.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 32:53Bill Maher?

  And lots of people tell me that and that's why I put out this book, Jerry. I signed it to you also, but you know, I have a

• 32:59Speaker 02

  How'd you do that?

• 33:01Bill Maher?

  The strike.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  With the same glasses even.

• 33:03Bill Maher?

  The strike.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 33:06Bill Maher?

  The strike.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 33:08Bill Maher?

  I had five months to, and it's just, it's all the editorials we do at the end.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 33:13Bill Maher?

  That I put together in a way that made sense.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Of course you did.

• 33:17Bill Maher?

  No, I put a lot of work into this.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  I'm sure you did.

• 33:20Bill Maher?

  Shut up. But I, I think what stand-up is for you is what writing that editorial at the end of the show is for me.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 33:31Bill Maher?

  That's what

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Well, that piece I never, ever miss.

• 33:34Bill Maher?

  Oh, thank you.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  For the writing, for the flow of it. The consistency is shocking. Your level of consistency is shocking. And it's the best comedy monologue every week that anyone does. And you even make a point on top of being funny, which is, you know.

• 33:55Bill Maher?

  Usually a point no one else is making.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:58Bill Maher?

  That's, I mean, it's very easy and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. I mean, this is Christmas morning for me now, but I mean, other shows I feel like are partisan, one way or the other. I rarely hear a thought that I haven't heard anywhere else. You know, they will amplify it and get-

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:18Bill Maher?

  But their audience doesn't want to. The audience today just mostly wants to hear what they already believe. And they want, yes, Trump's an asshole and Trump is an asshole. And I certainly have done my share of jokes about that. But I'm always trying to say something that's not breaking this news story, but breaking a new way of looking at a news story.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:39Bill Maher?

  And, you know, consider this and, um...

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Oh, it's just fantastic.

• 34:44Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  It's fantastic.

• 34:45Bill Maher?

  Well, I appreciate it and-

• 34:47Speaker 02

  You know, you know what? I don't know, like, when you would go on Larry King, that was always so great.

• 34:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I loved that.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  It was great. That show, don't you think-

• 34:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  There's a hole for that show?

• 34:58Bill Maher?

  I think it's Joe Rogan. I think Joe Rog- what?

• 35:04Bill Maher?

  You just put your hands up like-

• 35:05Speaker 02

  No, well, no, what I'm getting at is what was, I thought special about that show was it was nine o'clock. Every night at nine o'clock, Larry King was going to be sitting with someone-

• 35:16Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Who could probably be of interest.

• 35:19Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  And that was a great TV. That was great TV. The set, I thought, was, I loved the multicolored dots, the blackness. You know, not like he was the greatest interviewer in the world, but he was good.

• 35:34Bill Maher?

  Well, but that's why I compared him to Joe Rogan, because they're both minimalists. Both of them do zero research by their own admission.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:43Bill Maher?

  Like, it's a, they just, I think Joe would say the same thing Larry said. I want to be the audience. I want to be the guy who knows nothing about you.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  I know, but he's on for three and a half hours. Larry King is, you know, it's on at nine. You're wandering around the house. You're looking for something to do. Who's on Larry King?

• 35:59Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  That was, that was a great thing. I can't believe they haven't tried to replace that. I don't know who would do it, but-

• 36:06Bill Maher?

  Well, they did. Piers Morgan did it for a minute.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, he wasn't right.

• 36:10Bill Maher?

  I don't, I don't think it's the fact that there's nobody right for it. I think it's the fact that the audience is different. I mean, we don't have, that was one of the last shows, well, it wasn't really a hearth show, but like, in our-

• 36:22Speaker 02

  It was, it was a hearth show.

• 36:24Bill Maher?

  Okay, so, so, like in our youth, but not to the level like in our youth, like when there was three channels and all the new shows were in that issue of TV Guide. Like, the family had a communal experience with television.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:40Bill Maher?

  Don Rickles, you know.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:41Bill Maher?

  We all remember, all, like, it was an event when he was on The Tonight Show. Especially in the summer when we could stay up. The famous one where he threw him in the Japanese bath. Remember he was getting the massage?

• 36:53Speaker 02

  It was amazing, that throw, by the way, that he was able to do that.

• 36:58Bill Maher?

  Why are you saying it was?

• 36:59Speaker 02

  It was quite a jujitsu that he.

• 37:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, Johnny threw him.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, when Johnny threw him in that.

• 37:04Bill Maher?

  Johnny was a mean bastard. And like, don't fuck with Johnny. I mean, that's the other thing about Johnny, was, I mean, he was, he could be terrible to people. But what if?

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Everyone at that level is, should be terrible to people.

• 37:17Bill Maher?

  No, you don't mean that.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  I don't really mean that.

• 37:19Bill Maher?

  You're not terrible to people.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  I'm not, I'm not. But when you hear someone is, I can't believe anybody thinks anything of it.

• 37:25Bill Maher?

  I think there's levels to it, and I don't think everybody is. I think he was just, he, especially when he drank. I mean, he just had a really mean side to him.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:35Bill Maher?

  And, I mean, he could close off, I read that biography by Bushkin, remember?

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 37:41Bill Maher?

  Bombastic Bushkin, right? And I felt it was so true. I don't know it's true, but everything I know about Johnny, and it wasn't kissing his ass, and it wasn't covering anything up.

• 37:57Bill Maher?

  You know, he said, he was just as cold as that, his mother was like.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Yes, he was.

• 38:03Bill Maher?

  Very cold to him.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  But in a way, it made it easier to watch him. I can't watch people that want me to fill that need for them. I can't do it.

• 38:13Bill Maher?

  I agree.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  They're exhausting.

• 38:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I totally agree.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Just a bombastic Bushkin. Don't you think that that joke was his intense jealousy of Dr. Vinnie Boomboz? Rodney's great doctor. I think Carson loved that joke so much, he wanted his own. And of course, he would steal when he.

• 38:31Bill Maher?

  Steal?

• 38:31Speaker 02

  When it suited him.

• 38:32Bill Maher?

  I'm telling you, that's what I mean. He was just a badass. He broke into his wife's apartment. You know that?

• 38:38Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 38:39Bill Maher?

  That's in the book. It's like when they were going through the divorce.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:42Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, like, did really badass things.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Um, I don't know if that's badass, it's just bad.

• 39:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Well, I'm just telling you, you didn't fuck around with him. And, yes, I do remember, what'd you say? What did he do?

• 39:28Speaker 02

  That bombastic Bushkin was...

• 39:30Bill Maher?

  Oh, then he was a thief.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  He loved Dr. Vinny Boombox.

• 39:34Bill Maher?

  But he stole The Answer Man from Steve Allen.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  And he stole Maude Frickard from Winters. Yeah, we know.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  It was horrible. And then he would have them on the show.

• 39:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, what they could do, he was the king.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah. No, I'm not saying it was admirable, but I guess, you know, that persona kind of... He was Mr... He was gracious, you know? That was what was Johnny's calling card. But, boy, when that light, that red light went off, I don't think he was that guy.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Did you have, uh, little interactions with him in the hallway ever?

• 40:12Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Wasn't that the most exciting thing in the world? When you would see him coming down the hall with the tie down?

• 40:17Bill Maher?

  Didn't have to tell you the story, but when I saw him, the last, um, time I did it, and Leno was about to take over, and he, um, walking out, and he's in his car, in like a Corvette.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Corvette.

• 40:29Bill Maher?

  And it wouldn't start. And I said, "Boy, I bet you Leno knows everything about cars. I bet you he'd know what to do."

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 40:37Bill Maher?

  And he looked up and he went, "Yeah, we'll see how much he knows about television."

• 40:43Bill Maher?

  I'm telling you, he was a bad man.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Well, uh...

• 40:51Speaker 02

  These guys, you know, they're not... It's not a coincidence that they're there, all these guys. Whether politically, entertainment industry, corporate world. A lot of people are there for a reason.

• 41:02Bill Maher?

  And I feel like a late night host is always a reflection of the society that we live in. Better than a lot of other signposts. I mean, like, that's why Leno was right for his era, and Johnny was right for his era.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  And what do we have now? We have... We have Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert.

• 41:20Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  And Jimmy Fallon.

• 41:21Bill Maher?

  I think are right for their era.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  And that...

• 41:28Bill Maher?

  Why, look at this. Here's a...

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Oh, new breed of stand-up comics, what's that?

• 41:33Bill Maher?

  Oh, these are the two articles that were in the New York Times.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Am I in any of those?

• 41:40Bill Maher?

  You probably are. Here's Adrian Tolsch with a Catch a Rising Star t-shirt.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  I have a Catch a Rising Star t-shirt that I wear all the time.

• 41:48Bill Maher?

  Still fit?

• 41:49Speaker 02

  It's a new one.

• 41:50Bill Maher?

  Because I hear when you wash them, they make lovely hand puppets for the children.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, Bill.

• 41:59Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Calvin Fussman.

• 42:01Bill Maher?

  Calvin Fussman, who's that?

• 42:03Speaker 02

  He's the writer of This Ridiculous.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Why are you keeping this? Just because it's comedy in the day?

• 42:11Bill Maher?

  You know what? Every year of my life, I make a file where I just put stuff in because I like to be a good caveman. Like, if I want to go back and excavate and see who I was. It's one good thing I did. I made so many dumb errors, but that was pretty smart. Like, I saved... Like, look at that Mad Magazine cover.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  I love that. I saw that cover.

• 42:32Bill Maher?

  Aren't you glad I saved this from the Supremes album?

• 42:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 42:37Bill Maher?

  No, you don't think that's...

• 42:38Speaker 02

  I wasn't missing that.

• 42:39Bill Maher?

  You don't think that's cool?

• 42:40Speaker 02

  It's okay.

• 42:44Bill Maher?

  Be honest, Jerry, come on, come on to your show.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  I went through all of my stuff recently.

• 42:51Bill Maher?

  The new breed is.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  And threw out almost all of it.

• 42:53Bill Maher?

  Of course you did, because that's you and I'm me, because.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  And I thought, I don't, my kids don't care what I did. I even thought that.

• 43:00Bill Maher?

  Aren't you glad I kept the world fair thing?

• 43:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, you never know which is gonna be the one, right?

• 43:05Bill Maher?

  I think these are all good.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  No. Some of them are good.

• 43:09Bill Maher?

  What about this from Richard Belzer?

• 43:11Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 43:12Bill Maher?

  First of all, Daily Planet from the desk of, of super comic Richard Belzer.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 43:18Bill Maher?

  Now.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  It's a great shot of him, by the way.

• 43:21Bill Maher?

  It's just too much.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  When I play the beacon, I always ask the, I talk about how I started in New York at a club called Catch a Rising Star. How many of you remember it? And that moment, Bill, there's like about 10% of the audience will applaud. It's a great moment. I just love that. Remember how cool that joint was? And so much fun to just share that for a second.

• 43:43Bill Maher?

  But isn't it a little sad that, well, and look what he wrote.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  A little, no.

• 43:46Bill Maher?

  To potentially.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Tremendously sad.

• 43:50Bill Maher?

  To potentially one of the greats.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 43:53Bill Maher?

  Richard Belzer.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 43:54Bill Maher?

  I think he was talking about himself, but, um, but I think it's sad that only 10% of the people. Well, you know what?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 44:01Bill Maher?

  You're right, you're right.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  Let it all go, go, let it go.

• 44:07Bill Maher?

  I do like, but I must say, bad memories do not make me sad. Good memories make me sad.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 44:15Bill Maher?

  You know, bad memories, it's like, great, it's over.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:19Bill Maher?

  Good memories, it's like, shit, I'll never have that again, you know?

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Right, no, you'll never have anything again.

• 44:28Bill Maher?

  You seem more at peace with that.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  I am, I am.

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  You know what I came to the other day? Because I'm going through this thing with the movie, you know, and you're doing a lot of press and they're watching the movie and they're responding to it, you know? And I, hit me the other morning, an insincere compliment is absolutely of equal value as a totally genuine compliment. There is no difference in value. They're both utterly meaningless and just as nice. An insincere compliment is just as nice. I don't care if they're lying to my face. It doesn't matter what they think anyway.

• 45:05Bill Maher?

  What the fuck are you talking about? This is ridiculous. Like, I gave you a very wonderful compliment, I think, and it came from me, and it's very sincere, and it's true about you. That's gotta mean more than an insincere compliment.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Um, not in that situation where you're meeting strangers and they're saying, "Oh, I loved your movie." Great. That's great. That's just as great. I don't have to know, really? Did you really?

• 45:33Bill Maher?

  Give me that rabbit thing back.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  A compliment from you who knows me.

• 45:38Bill Maher?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  That's different.

• 45:40Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  That's different.

• 45:42Bill Maher?

  I hope so.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  I'm talking about 90% of the things people tell you in show business are not true and not sincere.

• 45:49Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  And that's okay.

• 45:50Bill Maher?

  And even, even when they... I shouldn't even admit this. It makes me sound petty, but I think all show people are the same. Sometimes people will give you a compliment and you still don't like it because it's like, "Yeah, but you noticed the wrong thing."

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:09Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you liked the show, but you thought that was the best part of it.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:14Bill Maher?

  And it's like, you can't, you can't...

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Petty doesn't even describe how small-minded that is. I don't know, is what's below petty? Whatever that adjective would be.

• 46:29Bill Maher?

  You don't feel, you never felt that way?

• 46:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 46:33Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 46:34Speaker 02

  No. Take what you like, whatever you like. What do I care what you like?

• 46:38Bill Maher?

  All right, then why do you keep arguing when I say you're more mature than...

• 46:44Speaker 02

  I like to argue.

• 46:45Bill Maher?

  I know, good.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  I don't even believe what I'm, the positions I'm taking.

• 46:48Bill Maher?

  We're not even arguing.

• 46:51Bill Maher?

  But, yeah, no, that's true. I feel like I've evolved a long way.

• 46:58Bill Maher?

  But I started really far back.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Way far back, yeah.

• 47:03Bill Maher?

  It's true, I didn't, ah, I didn't want to talk about that. Oh, here, look at this. No, I always thought...

• 47:09Speaker 02

  This is so funny, all this crap you brought out here.

• 47:13Bill Maher?

  Tell me you're not enjoying this.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  I'm not.

• 47:16Bill Maher?

  You're such a...

• 47:17Speaker 02

  No, you said to tell me, so I did. It's a gets-mart joke.

• 47:20Bill Maher?

  Look at this. My father was in radio.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Right, I know.

• 47:23Bill Maher?

  Right? Mutual Broadcasting System.

• 47:27Bill Maher?

  This is when the media was respected by this country because these were mutual men of

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Mutual men, so where's your dad, is he in here?

• 47:41Bill Maher?

  Right here, look right here, Bill Maher.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Your dad is Bill Maher?

• 47:49Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Well, that explains a lot. I think we've cracked this case wide open right here.

• 47:56Bill Maher?

  Mutual men of conviction, isn't that awesome?

• 48:00Speaker 02

  He doesn't resemble you much.

• 48:01Bill Maher?

  Look at, you can't see from that, it's a drawing.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  So does that what he looked like?

• 48:05Bill Maher?

  He did look like that, but you know.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  You're very handsome, he looks kind of, uh...

• 48:09Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Um...

• 48:11Bill Maher?

  Are we looking at him?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  Ornastangish.

• 48:12Bill Maher?

  It's a drawing from these creeps who made this thing.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  Men of conviction, so were these guys, um...

• 48:19Bill Maher?

  Staff announcers.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Oh, but they weren't journalists?

• 48:23Bill Maher?

  Well, I think they would consider themselves journalists, Jerry, they had deep voices and they were on the radio and, uh...

• 48:31Speaker 02

  Does your dad have a deep voice? You have a deep voice?

• 48:33Bill Maher?

  Of course, of course he did. When I, when he took me to the radio station, you know, once in a while, I'd be like scared the shit out of me because they all, hello, young man. Nell Sharbert, I mean, look at some of these names, Whitney Bolton. Charles, Charles Batcholder, Bill Costilla was good, as was Jack Allen and Martin Edwards, you know.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  I did a little shtick, uh, we made, we made a couple of little video promotion pieces for, for the movie and one is where I'm called into the office of the president of Pop-Tarts.

• 49:14Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  So I needed a name for who would be the president of Pop-Tarts and we came up with Kelman P. Gasworth.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  I've.

• 49:26Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  He says, I'm Kelvin P. Gascoigne.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  The president of Pop-Tarts. And I'm sitting at the end of this long conference table and I go, oh, I just made a whole movie about Pop-Tarts. He goes, well, did you now?

• 49:40Bill Maher?

  I can't wait to see this movie.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  It's fun.

• 49:42Bill Maher?

  It comes out on.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Friday.

• 49:45Bill Maher?

  So I, it's funny because when I read about this, I thought it's both, um, you making a movie about Pop-Tarts, it's both inscrutable and inevitable.

• 49:59Bill Maher?

  Like.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  That is a great line. That's a great line.

• 50:02Bill Maher?

  You, you really like, you were going, and I just want to know before I see it, or maybe you don't want to say this, then just don't, but like, but, but what is the metaphor? I mean, plainly, it can't just be about Pop-Tarts.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, no. No, it's, uh, it's quite a deep story, Bill.

• 50:23Bill Maher?

  But it has to be a metaphor for something.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Uh, you got me.

• 50:28Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, what?

• 50:31Bill Maher?

  Again, um, we're not like the serial killer and the detective. We're not really like.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  No, it's, um,

• 50:41Speaker 02

  I like, uh, important seeming men in suits, like those names you're talking about, puffs and flakes and sprinkles, uh, in a very serious way. That, to me, was funny. I like, it's, it's about, um, it, it really is about, uh, a childhood fantasy and, uh, wanting to hang on to your childhood and that time and that product. And to make this movie, I get to go back there. I get to go back to when the only thing I cared about was the stingray and my cereal and the my, and the TV shows that I liked. And that was, that was, you know, it was like a little soap bubble

• 51:24Speaker 02

  that I got to get inside for, uh, a few weeks.

• 51:28Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, I have that inclination, but our childhood is now just so long ago.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:36Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  But the fun of it is is still there.

• 51:40Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  So and with a movie, you get to recreate it.

• 51:45Bill Maher?

  But you don't.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  You're gonna get to really go there, no?

• 51:49Bill Maher?

  No, but but you don't have intimations of mortality when you dwell on the distant past like that, that it reminds you that you're closer to the end.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  I'm not that in love with like you. You really love life.

• 52:04Bill Maher?

  Don't you?

• 52:05Speaker 02

  You love it. It's OK.

• 52:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, come on now. Your life?

• 52:11Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  I I.

• 52:13Bill Maher?

  Because like when I know this was your birthday and I was like, I bet you he's the same place with birthdays that I am, which is like, I had a big party here, right in this room at 60. You had one at 65. After that, like, yeah, it's happening, but we don't need to go into it.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 52:28Bill Maher?

  At all. I mean, sometimes people, mine's in January, sometimes people say to me a couple of weeks after this year, oh, didn't you just have a birthday? And I go, um, you know, maybe, I don't know. I don't I might have. I don't I don't I didn't check my calendar. I didn't check my calendar, you know, because it's just like, it's happening. It's I can't deny it, but let's just ignore it.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:49Bill Maher?

  It's at a certain point, because you'd still look generically late middle age, which is great. You know, you don't read old.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  No, neither do you.

• 52:58Bill Maher?

  Like Biden.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:00Bill Maher?

  Like reads old and Trump reads crazy, but not old, you know?

• 53:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, OK.

• 53:05Bill Maher?

  He reads, he just reads differently.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Well, he's got a lot of makeup on, you know?

• 53:09Bill Maher?

  A lot.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  And the hair color and all that.

• 53:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I always say he's like Kiss. He puts on the face paint and the wig and it's always 1976.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  That is fantastic. That is a great joke.

• 53:20Bill Maher?

  It is kind of true.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  That is a great joke. He's like Kiss. So funny.

• 53:27Bill Maher?

  But yeah, so we could probably, I mean Mick Jagger is doing it at 80, doing rock shows.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 53:36Bill Maher?

  No, I'm saying.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  It's amazing. It's amazing.

• 53:38Bill Maher?

  Right, but I'm saying if a guy can do rock and roll at 80, certainly comedy.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  What do you think you'll be doing at 80?

• 53:45Bill Maher?

  Um, I hope very similar to what I'm doing now.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Really?

• 53:49Bill Maher?

  Yes, I would love to, I, I only in my 60s came to realize how right my mother was when I'm, when she once said to me, "Yeah, I really like my 50s and 60s the best."

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:03Bill Maher?

  Of all the decades. Um, I said, "That's crazy. 60s? What are you, fucking nuts?"

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. But the 60s is our 80s, physically. I mean, I don't have, I, I don't do anything different now than I did in my 40s. I could do any number of shows. I could go any.

• 54:21Bill Maher?

  Exactly. Right.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  I don't, I haven't made any adjustments.

• 54:24Bill Maher?

  I, I, same way.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  But I imagine.

• 54:27Bill Maher?

  I mean, there's a diminishment to everything.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 54:29Bill Maher?

  I mean, you know, I, I can still play basketball, but you know.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  That's amazing. That's amazing.

• 54:34Bill Maher?

  And, uh, you know, I mean.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  But yeah, you, I think you, uh, maybe have a little, uh, tighter grip on this lifetime than, than I do.

• 54:44Bill Maher?

  It is what it is. All you can ever be is, um, good for your age. But I'm, you know, as far as how far you can go, I feel like I'm, and you are too, for a somewhat different reason, uniquely suited to another decade because I never was selling, "I can dance, I can jump around."

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:06Bill Maher?

  I was selling wisdom.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:08Bill Maher?

  And, and sophistication.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's why HBO has been such a good home for me. It's a sophisticated audience. It's a sophisticated show. The, I mean, that word, maybe, uh, I'm not, you know, putting that on myself, but yeah, that is what I strive for and the audience is a sophisticated audience and there's precious little left for people who are sophisticated. That's a genre. That's a niche.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  But it's always been a small niche.

• 55:34Bill Maher?

  Yes, always. Yes, that's what I'm saying. You you have a much broader, you know.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Somewhat broader, but.

• 55:42Bill Maher?

  Majorly broader. It's one another reason why I'm probably not gonna do any more stand up is because like, first of all, when you're on TV every week, it's very hard for people to come out and, you know, it's harder to get that you're less unique. Also, they they tend to think I'm a political comic, which is limiting.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 56:00Bill Maher?

  So like, there's guys who are like not half as funny as me, selling twice as many tickets. I'm a little sick of it. Not that I can't do nice shows in theaters, but it's like, it's I am, I've always been fighting a little uphill on those things.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  Uh huh, uh huh, I see.

• 56:14Bill Maher?

  I think your stand up is my editorial. That's what I wanna do till they put me in the grave.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:19Bill Maher?

  Is every week, come up with that one thing and, you know, because it's almost Seinfeldian because it's building one very small, limited, but trying to perfectly craft it and then it's over.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  Mm hmm, right.

• 56:33Bill Maher?

  You know, next week, there's a new one. And on Monday, I, I, you know, I mean, I will, we nail down the premise before the weekend. And then on Monday, you know, I read all the passes and put it together, you know.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:48Bill Maher?

  My own version and then, you know, sew it together and each day, first it gets fatter, then it gets smaller. You know, there's, there's a method to it to show you that by Friday.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Now, that would be a vacation that for me, if you, if I would just sit with you and not contribute, but just watch you do that. That would entertain me more than any trip to anywhere in the world. Cause I think, I don't know how you do it, but the end result is so elegant and

• 57:20Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  That is what I love and appreciate more than anything. It's simplicity and elegance in writing.

• 57:26Bill Maher?

  Thank you, me too.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  And, and, and of course, getting the job done comedically.

• 57:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  We gotta do all those three things.

• 57:33Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  In the piece.

• 57:34Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  When that is executed, I mean, I just feel full of, of music. It's, I just love it. And I, you know, we're so lucky that. You know, I do think sometimes I watch great pitchers, great athletes. And I think, oh, this guy's only gonna get 12 years of this to be able to play this music.

• 57:55Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  And it's a huge career for a pitcher, right? But for us, if they told us you can only do this 12 years, it's ridiculous. Musicians, does it bother you? You're so, you're very, very sophisticated musically and you've had all those Paul Simon lyrics in your head was amazing. But what's your theory? And I know you have one on why these great, great, great songwriters are not able to find that thing in their later years.

• 58:28Bill Maher?

  Too many drugs.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 58:31Bill Maher?

  No, but too many drugs, partly. But also, I just think it's innate. Music is something that flowers in youth. I mean.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  Don't you think music is sexual?

• 58:41Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 58:42Speaker 02

  If you're not horny, you can't write a great song.

• 58:46Bill Maher?

  Well, oh, that's ridiculous.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  That's ridiculous.

• 58:48Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's because not all songs, not all songs are about sex.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  Yes, they are. Everyone.

• 58:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, stop it.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  But what is your theory on older songwriters struggling to find that same magic?

• 59:04Bill Maher?

  I couldn't agree more. First of all, it's rare, and I'm not gonna name names.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:10Bill Maher?

  There are exceptions to that, but they are rare. I thought the Eagles 2007 album was really good.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:20Bill Maher?

  Was like, could fit in, and it was a double album. If you made it into like, just one kick-ass album, it would be, fit in there pretty well.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  But there are people that we love, desperately love.

• 59:33Bill Maher?

  Desperately.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  That write stuff now that is.

• 59:35Bill Maher?

  And have for 25 years, not been good.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:39Bill Maher?

  Because part of it, I think, is you get too ahead of the parade. Like, you always wanna be like, a little ahead of the audience.

• 59:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:48Bill Maher?

  Otherwise, you're over. But not so far ahead, they're like, what?

• 59:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:53Bill Maher?

  And I think sometimes you're so good that like, oh, I've done that, and this would be different. It's like, yeah, but I just wanna. You know, you gotta hit that sweet spot. Where it's, where it's striking me as something a little different, but not so alien that me, just the young man in the 22nd row,

• 1:00:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:10Bill Maher?

  can't appreciate it because I'm not a musician.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:13Bill Maher?

  I could just appreciate what you do.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:16Bill Maher?

  So, it's kind of, I guess, the equivalent of being like a, a comic's comic.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:23Bill Maher?

  Who, you know, makes the other comics laugh.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:26Bill Maher?

  And, you know, I always felt like that was what you, like, like I always felt you were, you were catch. Like, you always had kind of an attitude about catch, like, this is a shiny object. Because it was the Hot Club, right?

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:40Bill Maher?

  You didn't, you weren't the man at the Hot Club. You were at the comics, the Hot, the Hot Club was Belzer. And it was the Hot Club because it like, that's where the stars went.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Bill Maher?

  And the celebrities went, and the mafia was there.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51Bill Maher?

  And it was just a, you know, singers and Belzer. It was, and I think you were just like, okay, enjoy your shiny object. Because I'm going to just do what I do, which isn't quite as flamboyant as some of this other stuff going on. And I will be the bigger star. Because I'm going to be on television, which is a cool medium, perfectly suited to me.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  I never.

• 1:01:12Bill Maher?

  I bet, I read that on you.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  Well, you can read it, but I never thought it or felt that.

• 1:01:17Bill Maher?

  But it turned out to be true.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you're, you have a, an amazing eye for those kinds of things. I just, in those days, Bill, I wasn't.

• 1:01:26Bill Maher?

  But I just felt like you, that the, the fact that it was ill-suited to your exact persona.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  It was.

• 1:01:33Bill Maher?

  Was a, to your credit, because, again, that wasn't what was gonna make you a star. Jumping around on the piano.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Bill Maher?

  And all the, the, the, same as the comedy star out here, a lot of, uh,

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:46Bill Maher?

  stuff that looks great in a small club, but.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  There are those, yeah.

• 1:01:50Bill Maher?

  You had your eye on the prize.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  I did, I did. And when I would see those, sometimes they would come to the comic strip and struggle. And I would realize, oh, they're out of context. And it's not working. And that's not what this game's about. This game is about, put me in any context, and I'll make it work.

• 1:02:09Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  That's the bigger game to play.

• 1:02:12Bill Maher?

  Yes, you and I had an argument many times about, like, is there such a thing as a bad crowd?

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:19Bill Maher?

  And I, of course, took the position, yes. When they don't like me, they're bad.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Bill Maher?

  And you took the position, again, more mature, goofy and gallant, always. Gallant beliefs, and you're right in.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  There's no right, it's just, it's just a sport, you're playing.

• 1:02:38Bill Maher?

  It's a better attitude to have.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  Right, yes.

• 1:02:42Bill Maher?

  You know, you were like.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  But you're also right. Of course there's bad crowds.

• 1:02:45Bill Maher?

  Yes, but you once said, uh, of course they're in a bad mood, why do you think they're at a comedy club?

• 1:02:55Bill Maher?

  You're the doctor, they don't come to the doctor when they.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  When they feel well, yeah.

• 1:03:00Bill Maher?

  So.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 1:03:01Bill Maher?

  It's another piece of advice I remembered and put into practice a mere seventeen years later. No, I got around everything. It just, some people, it just takes a long time.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  What about, I mean, everybody's, uh, who cares?

• 1:03:18Bill Maher?

  See, this is not why you're not afraid of dying. Everything that comes into your head is, oh, who cares? It's not that, but you.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  I mean, don't you feel that changing? I mean, I'm seventy, and I really feel things changing in my perspective. Names I haven't, I, who is this singer? All these things, even politics, even social movements. I'm reading a lot of Marcus Aurelius, have you ever read that?

• 1:03:46Bill Maher?

  In college, absolutely.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  You should pick it up again, it's really great.

• 1:03:50Bill Maher?

  Meditations, what's it called?

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  Meditations.

• 1:03:52Bill Maher?

  Right. He was the Roman emperor in one eighty eight.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  One fifty A.D. And he is a fantastic guy to get you to. Zoom out and go, all these things you're worried about, all these things that you see happening, they've all happened before, they're all gonna happen again. Everything that you're worried about is much smaller than it is, than you make it in your head. That's his basic message. And being told that by the Emperor of Rome in 150 A.D.

• 1:04:20Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:04:21Speaker 02

  Is a very nice daily, I read it almost every day, I'll read a page or two. And I just, I love to imagine him in his bedroom there, the leader of the entire world, an emperor, a Roman emperor, and saying, yes, you're gonna talk to a lot of annoying people today. That's what every day is like. Why are you surprised? People are annoying.

• 1:04:44Bill Maher?

  I like to imagine the peasants of 150 A.D. Hey, did you hear the emperor has a new, uh, attractive treaties out? Oh, great. I can't wait to, can't wait to pick it up. What's, uh, he's like the Sam Harris of his day. He had the morning meditation and, yeah. By the way, if people wanna have an image of who Marcus Aurelius is, think of the movie Gladiator.

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Bill Maher?

  And he was played by Peter O-

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  I thought it was Joaquin Phoenix.

• 1:05:17Bill Maher?

  He played, he played the son.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  Oh, the screw up son.

• 1:05:20Bill Maher?

  Who kills his father.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:05:22Bill Maher?

  Kills Marcus Aurelius in the beginning.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  But not in real life, though.

• 1:05:25Bill Maher?

  I think he did.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 1:05:27Bill Maher?

  No?

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  No, he died of natural causes in his 50s.

• 1:05:30Bill Maher?

  You know a lot about Marcus Aurelius.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  I'm kind of into him these days.

• 1:05:33Bill Maher?

  That's amazing.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35Bill Maher?

  I didn't think I'd ever hear that from you.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Why?

• 1:05:37Bill Maher?

  Well, just because you didn't seem like a history buff and that-

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  I'm not really, but I do, I love philosophy and I love his philosophy. And I just find it helpful. I like, I like shrinking things down.

• 1:05:51Bill Maher?

  Yes, you do. Yes, you do. And you do it better than anybody.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Uh oh, thanks.

• 1:05:55Bill Maher?

  I mean, I always said that about you, like the, the act that like, every single person can love, and the most intelligent person in the room is also not insulted by it.

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:06:06Bill Maher?

  And that's a, it's, I feel like excellence is always- Getting to that golden mean.

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:06:12Bill Maher?

  Of like the two things that are in opposition, but somehow you bring them together.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:06:19Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  It's a, it's, well, that's what I'm, I think you might find that in, in Unfrosted, the, the Pop-Tart movie. It's a silly idea for a movie, but, and the jokes are silly, but as we know, there are no silly jokes. They're, they're either good or they're not. And you'll find there's a level of sophistication in the silliness. That is my ultimate. When I first saw Monty Python, when I was a kid on PBS in the early seventies, I lost my mind. The sophisticated silliness that they were doing absolutely lit me up like this is everything that I want, everything that I love. I think Get Smart had that. I think Peter Sellers had that.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  He's acting dumb, but there is such a sophistication to it. It's, cause as we know, as comedians, acting dumb is really not, you know, Laurel and Hardy are not stupid.

• 1:07:18Bill Maher?

  No, no.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  I wasn't a Stooges guy, but Laurel and Hardy is elegant and sophisticated.

• 1:07:23Bill Maher?

  You were not a Stooges guy?

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  No, no. I didn't like Moe.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  I think he's funny.

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  Curly, he was carrying the whole damn show.

• 1:07:36Bill Maher?

  But we were five.

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  No, not, I wasn't. I watched comedians when I was five years old going, this guy's got.

• 1:07:42Bill Maher?

  Did you watch, watch, did you watch Officer Joe Bolton?

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:07:47Bill Maher?

  Okay. Didn't he introduce the Three Stooges? Wasn't that his?

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. He had the Stooges. I watched it.

• 1:07:53Bill Maher?

  And Superman also?

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  No, they didn't have Superman. They, they had those movie shorts.

• 1:08:00Bill Maher?

  Superman just stood by itself?

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. That was a real series, yeah.

• 1:08:04Bill Maher?

  Oh, I remember.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And still pretty good, by the way. I've been watching that lately. I, to me, George Reeves is the greatest of Superman of all time. His sophistication and those double-breasted suits, that's another reason I wanted to do Unfrosted. I wanted to look like George Reeves. Did you like that Superman show when they would close the door? It would shake.

• 1:08:28Bill Maher?

  What? I lived for it. You know this.

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:08:30Bill Maher?

  When I was a kid.

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Bill Maher?

  I remember in high school, I wish I, I probably have that somewhere in my Rat Pack file, but I, we made a list of every episode that we could remember. Like there was probably a hundred episodes.

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:08:42Bill Maher?

  I remember all the episodes. We've talked about it. Coborium X.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  I got to do a commercial with Jack Larson and Noel Neal and I think.

• 1:08:53Bill Maher?

  Yes, I remember it. Yes.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, did the American Express thing.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Bill Maher?

  I mean, I know.

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  Gigantic.

• 1:08:58Bill Maher?

  And your bit was, you know, one of those, one of your first ones.

• 1:09:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:09:03Bill Maher?

  Is a brilliant disguise. It was like, that is so you.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Bill Maher?

  And then somebody else had a great bit about, um, it's a bird, it's a plane. Who mistakes a bird with a? Whose joke is that?

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  I don't know, but I heard that. That's a good one too. Yeah.

• 1:09:18Bill Maher?

  It's like a perfect example of that bit that like, it was laying there on the ground.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Bill Maher?

  Anybody could have seen it.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  I, I have a Frankenstein bit I'm doing now about the sport jacket. Why is he wearing a sport jacket?

• 1:09:38Bill Maher?

  That's, that's great.

• 1:09:40Speaker 02

  It's an AI bit.

• 1:09:41Bill Maher?

  That's really great.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  It's a part of an AI bit about making fake brains is risky. We can see that from Frankenstein.

• 1:09:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, that's funny. That's a great joke. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  And he goes, well, I thought maybe we'd go someplace nice afterwards. No, it's Romania in 1820. There's no place nice. No one's gonna say to you, I'm sorry, Mr. Stein, it's jackets only this evening.

• 1:10:02Bill Maher?

  That's hysterical. That's funny. I talk about monsters now with, um, you know, the toxic masculinity that they're always talking about. It's true. Men are toxic.

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  What are we talking about? When you say lacking?

• 1:10:16Bill Maher?

  I think men have been ruined by the phone.

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:19Bill Maher?

  And pornography, you know, and, um, it's rapey. It's, uh, it's domineering. It's not, you know, it's just, and this is what young men see.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 1:10:31Bill Maher?

  You know, when, when I was, when we were kids, it was, if you had a Playboy.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:35Bill Maher?

  That was huge.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Bill Maher?

  Now they see horrible things, you know.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't imagine.

• 1:10:40Bill Maher?

  Choking and spanking.

• 1:10:42Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:10:42Bill Maher?

  What? What?

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  That's horrible.

• 1:10:45Bill Maher?

  I know. I mean, what these kids are, when you think about how innocent our childhood was.

• 1:10:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:10:54Bill Maher?

  The level of innocence is just like from a different what?

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. And we can't fix it, Bill. They broke it.

• 1:11:04Bill Maher?

  Why do you think I'm always trying to fix it? I'm just, there's a difference between being, trying to remedy something and just being amazed by it. I talk, like, age fascinates me. And people say, oh, don't worry about it. I'm not worried about it. I'm just fascinated by it.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:11:19Bill Maher?

  I'm fascinated by different generations. I'm fascinated by how different. The differences that I could see in my lifetime.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  Right, yes, I know. And I said to my mother one time, who passed about 10 years ago at the age of 99, and I remember asking her one time, do you remember when cars suddenly became popular? She said, oh, yeah.

• 1:11:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  My mother, when she was born, there were, there were no cars around.

• 1:11:42Bill Maher?

  When my mother was born, women couldn't vote.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:11:44Bill Maher?

  1919.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46Bill Maher?

  Women got the vote in 1920.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  Right. I say to my kids, your kids are gonna say to you, you mean, they let people just get in cars and go as fast as they wanted? Yeah, for the most part. I mean, there were laws, but people did pretty much whatever they want.

• 1:12:02Bill Maher?

  My grandma.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Didn't they crash and die all the time?

• 1:12:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, and children died often.

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:11Bill Maher?

  You know, they'd get kicked by a horse on the farm, and you know, that's why they had a lot of kids. They expected a few of them to.

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  So, better or worse, the way we value life today, or the way we, we were more casual, so much more casual about it in years past?

• 1:12:25Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's so easy to say, oh, you know, back then, please. We are so seduced by, and I am as much as anyone, by creature comforts and convenience.

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:37Bill Maher?

  No, I don't, with all the bullshit going on, we live in the most amazing fucking times.

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 1:12:43Bill Maher?

  I mean, the climate change is probably gonna get us at some point, but it hasn't yet.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:12:47Bill Maher?

  We walked out here today, we weren't like evaporated by the rays of the sun or something. I mean, we, it was a beautiful day.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Bill Maher?

  The grass is green, the sky is. I know it's really not. There's lots of things going on behind the scenes that are horrible, blah, blah, blah. But we're still living in that time where we're basically, you know, yes, health certainly can rear its ugly head and there's lots of poisons everywhere and lots of terrible things and Trump could do this and democracy and blah, blah, blah, nuclear war. But from the moment, you know, I've sent out a dinner with people and they're like, the world's ending. I'm like, look around you, you fuck, you dumbass. We're at this fucking awesome restaurant. They're bringing you this food. It's probably gonna, this dinner's gonna cost $700. You're not even gonna fucking blink and hang the check. Shut the fuck up about how terrible things is. When they're gonna, I'm not gonna lose my nervous system about Trump again.

• 1:13:38Bill Maher?

  If he ends the world, he's gonna end the world. I'm not gonna fucking go nuts again if he wins another term. I just can't.

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  I, I, I hope you, you have that wherewithal.

• 1:13:50Bill Maher?

  Well, what are you gonna do?

• 1:13:52Speaker 02

  I don't know. I'm trying to stay right there.

• 1:13:55Bill Maher?

  Yes. What are you gonna get anxious like a millennial?

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. Exactly.

• 1:14:00Bill Maher?

  I mean, that, that generation, especially the Z generation.

• 1:14:08Bill Maher?

  But your kid, I mean, your kids are great.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:14:12Bill Maher?

  I mean, I've, I think with great parenting, you can still make great kids.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, you don't really make them. You, you, you have a, you have a hand in it.

• 1:14:22Bill Maher?

  You're like the manager.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're the manager. You give them advice, they take it, they don't take it.

• 1:14:27Bill Maher?

  Like the manager of a team.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  Yes, that's right.

• 1:14:29Bill Maher?

  A good manager can affect like six to eight games a year.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:14:33Bill Maher?

  You think that's all a parent can do?

• 1:14:35Speaker 02

  I have no idea.

• 1:14:37Bill Maher?

  But wait, you raised three kids.

• 1:14:39Speaker 02

  It's mostly what you didn't do wrong, really bad stuff. But mostly, the way we were raised, you were kinda left to your own devices and you're in a fairly healthy environment and hopefully you make decent choices. And the same is true today.

• 1:14:54Bill Maher?

  I remember that night you and Chris Rock were in my dressing room before the show and I asked him something, you guys something like, oh, your kids, did they play together? And you both went, Bill, the wives handle that.

• 1:15:09Bill Maher?

  And I got, okay, that's, I see.

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have the most amazing wife. I really love my wife. I got to a point with my wife now that I can't believe how great she is. Because, I can't really say that, but, you know, I mean, in the single world, it was always, it always runs, it always runs out of gas. And I found a woman where it never runs out. I'm always excited to see her.

• 1:15:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  We always have fun. I love talking with her and it's fun. It's fun. But it's, again, it's a little bit of luck. Or maybe it's instinct. I don't know.

• 1:15:47Bill Maher?

  But are you an empty nester now?

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  Not yet. My, my son is finishing high school.

• 1:15:53Bill Maher?

  But you will be.

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  I will be in a few months, yeah.

• 1:15:55Bill Maher?

  And is that a big changeover?

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  That's what people say, but I don't know. Justin and I, we feel, we're good.

• 1:16:03Bill Maher?

  But so, it must be, it's gotta be a big difference without the sound of children.

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:16:08Bill Maher?

  Frolicking.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  But Bill, all these things.

• 1:16:14Bill Maher?

  I feel like you're going back to, like, thinking that I am somehow ruining the passage of time and I'm just remarking and I'm fascinated by it.

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  I, I, yeah, I, I'm fascinated and I enjoy that that's over and now we're doing this. And anything else in life.

• 1:16:35Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, you just characterized what I think about maybe quitting stand-up.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:16:39Bill Maher?

  I've enjoyed it, but maybe.

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  That's cool. That's very cool of you to let your mind be that free. That's cool.

• 1:16:48Bill Maher?

  I, I mean, I think it's always great to stretch.

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  It is?

• 1:16:51Bill Maher?

  To put yourself out of your comfort zone.

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  Just change, just change the menu. Change, we're doing this now.

• 1:16:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:16:59Bill Maher?

  Because, you know, at our age, you know, it's an ageist country. They're always going to try to move you out. I mean, it's the nature of what?

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  Not, not in our thing. Nobody cares how old you are.

• 1:17:14Bill Maher?

  Well, that's another reason why I would add it to the hopper about me maybe getting out of it. I do think there is a generational element to stand up. Because humor is not something that translates through the ages that well. And like the humor of today is a lot more about feelings, nothing more than feelings. And like, people want to see someone of their own generation. I get it.

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  Of course, but they also want to see people that can really do it.

• 1:17:40Bill Maher?

  I understand that.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  Some can and some can't, and it's irrespective of age or anything.

• 1:17:46Bill Maher?

  Yes, that's true too. But you're coming, but you're an icon, you know?

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Thank you. I'm gonna be nicer when you give a compliment. I need to be nicer.

• 1:17:56Bill Maher?

  I didn't mean it like that.

• 1:17:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:17:58Bill Maher?

  I just meant, I meant, you don't have to, all you have to do is put your name in the paper.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:03Bill Maher?

  And it'll sell out.

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:05Bill Maher?

  Maybe if I was there, I would still do it. You know, that would, that would be an element that would influence me.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  I see.

• 1:18:14Bill Maher?

  Probably not, I think I'd still make this decision.

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:18:16Bill Maher?

  But, but yeah, it makes it a lot easier, you know? I mean, the audience that comes is certainly a great, I mean, look, I love, it's a love affair. Because

• 1:18:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:18:26Bill Maher?

  Anytime they're paying a hard money ticket to see you.

• 1:18:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:29Bill Maher?

  You know, they love, they want you to do what you do very specifically.

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:34Bill Maher?

  And I just want to do it for them.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:36Bill Maher?

  So well, you know?

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  I'm getting sad, Bill, that this show is almost over. I was, and I, I really was looking forward to this as much as you were.

• 1:18:46Bill Maher?

  Oh, good.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  Because it's you, and I also just love the vibe of this show.

• 1:18:51Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  And

• 1:18:53Bill Maher?

  I have one more thing to show you.

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 1:18:56Bill Maher?

  From my thing, this was my father's.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  How I Met Hollywood's Biggest Stars by Bill Maher.

• 1:19:05Bill Maher?

  This is amazing. What in the world?

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  What is this?

• 1:19:15Bill Maher?

  Some gag gift somebody gave my father in 1961, whatever.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  That's great. And it's all Chinese, folks.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  Show and tell with Bill Maher.

• 1:19:28Bill Maher?

  We were so innocent.

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:30Bill Maher?

  Well, as a great man once said, it's so nice when it happens.

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  Oh, God, Bill, you did it again. Freddie de Cordova, after my first Tonight Show, put his arm around me as we walked off the set. And he said, "It's so nice when it happens, Guy."

• 1:19:47Bill Maher?

  If you don't know, you're in show business at that moment.

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:50Bill Maher?

  When somebody says something like that. All right, pal. Thank you.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:19:55Bill Maher?

  This was what I thought it would be.

• 1:20:00Bill Maher?

  I'm gonna have this framed and sent to you.

• 1:20:02Speaker 02

  Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'm in a World's Fair obsessive.