Carol Leifer

Comedian and writer Carol Leifer feels fresh about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Carol sits down with Conan to chat about her roots as a stand-up in the 70s, how her relative inexperience landed her a job writing on Seinfeld, opening for Frank Sinatra, and her new book How to Write a Funny Speech. Later, Matt Gourley gives much-needed insight into the health and habits of his family’s beloved cat Margaux the Fat Guy. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:20Speaker 01

  Hey Teddy! Oh, hey, man!

• 0:22Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 02

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• 1:03Speaker 03

  Hi, my name is Carol Leifer.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  And I feel fresh about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Fresh? It's new, it's fresh. It's new, it's fresh. Yes.

• 1:37Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. And joined by two of my friends, my good friends, contractually, Sona Movsesian- You don't have to add "contractually." And Matt Gourley.

• 1:48Speaker 05

  That's probably best, though.

• 1:49Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's in the contracts. True. And I'm going through this little bit of an unusual moment right now, which is, my wife is out of town, and my kids are away, they're in school. I am living alone in the house- Mm-hmm. -with my two dogs and my daughter's cat, and, or our two dogs and my daughter's cat. And it's just becoming clear to me that I don't know very basic things, like how to feed myself. And I don't cook.

• 2:24Conan O'Brien?

  And, you know.

• 2:27Speaker 06

  And you can't use like a delivery app, can you, probably, right?

• 2:29Conan O'Brien?

  Well, you know what? In the past, I used to like call my son and say, can you get me a hamburger? And he would do it. I am using a delivery app. But I won't mention which one it is unless they give us some money.

• 2:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:41Conan O'Brien?

  But anyway, um.

• 2:43Speaker 05

  I know which one, because I get the email confirmation.

• 2:46Conan O'Brien?

  You get the email confirmation?

• 2:47Speaker 05

  I do.

• 2:47Speaker 06

  You know what he's eating?

• 2:48Speaker 05

  So I, I, I try not to check. I want to give you some privacy, but then I do anyway. And I, uh. What do you mean?

• 2:55Conan O'Brien?

  That's so weird that you know what I'm eating.

• 2:57Speaker 05

  I know.

• 2:58Conan O'Brien?

  But have you noticed that lately? So I'm, I'm at Home Alone. Robbers, I'm at Home Alone.

• 3:05Speaker 05

  Was Liza protecting him?

• 3:07Conan O'Brien?

  She was. Liza's a badass ninja. But I'm realizing, like, Liza is so, I mean, amazing in a lot of ways, but, but when you, I don't even notice it, but I come in the door and she just, she's cooking, she's, there's food, there's, or if we are ordering, she's ordered it. It's, you know what I mean? It's just.

• 3:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:29Conan O'Brien?

  And I've become, um, I've reverted back to when I was a comedy writer in the 1980s. And I was just on my own and I would be coming, I, I just ate fast food. This is before delivery. Sometimes I wouldn't eat for a long time because, I mean, I'm, I'm stupid. I'm to it. I'm a 19-year-old boy in a lot of ways. And, uh.

• 3:55Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 3:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I, I am, and so my wife is away for the time being and I'm stunned that I'll, and I'm not joking, I, last night, I was just hanging around the house. I had fed the, I can feed the dogs because they have dogs.

• 4:14Speaker 05

  Okay, that's good.

• 4:15Conan O'Brien?

  Okay?

• 4:15Speaker 05

  That's good.

• 4:15Conan O'Brien?

  So I fed the dogs.

• 4:16Speaker 06

  But not the cat?

• 4:18Conan O'Brien?

  No, the cat can fend for itself. The cat has its own app. Um, no, I, you know, I took care of the cat, the cat, uh, everything's fine with them. I can take care of them. And then I opened the refrigerator and because of the fires, all of, we're starting fresh with all our food. Like, you know, we, we weren't in our house for a long time and a lot of the food had to be thrown out. So there's very little in the refrigerator. And I opened the refrigerator and there's like two of like chocolate milk energy drinks.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  Ah.

• 4:46Conan O'Brien?

  And I, I just had one of those and then tried to pretend that was dinner.

• 4:51Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 4:52Conan O'Brien?

  And that was at like four o'clock in the afternoon.

• 4:54Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 4:54Conan O'Brien?

  And I was like, well, that should do it. And then a couple hours later, I'm like, huh, I don't think that does it.

• 5:02Conan O'Brien?

  And then I took some almond butter and I put it on a piece of bread. And I thought, I think jelly goes with this, doesn't it? This is stuff five year olds know. And then I had that, but it wasn't even a sandwich. I just rolled one piece of bread into a taco and ate that standing up. I mean, it's just, I'm over 60 years old. I've had some accomplishments in my life. And then I went back and then I'm going through the app. Like I do know, I'm, I'm looking at the app and there's just so many, so many choices. I don't know what to do. And then I start to think, well, there's one more of those energy drinks. The one I had in four. I get it. And I had that again, so I had two energy drinks.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  Can you cook anything?

• 5:48Conan O'Brien?

  No.

• 5:49Speaker 05

  Really? There's nothing?

• 5:50Conan O'Brien?

  No, you know what I can do? I can do breakfast.

• 5:52Speaker 05

  Okay, so don't you, when you wake up, you don't, you don't do breakfast?

• 5:55Conan O'Brien?

  No, I can make breakfast.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:58Conan O'Brien?

  A lot, I can make breakfast. Yes, you've said that three times. I can make, your honor, I wish to state that I can feed myself at breakfast. Lunch is a little easier.

• 6:13Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, boy, did I do something. Okay. So, yesterday, I stayed home yesterday. So, I was at home the whole day myself, and I didn't have any breakfast. I don't know why. And again, I'm rattling around the house. I'm playing with the dogs. I'm walking them. And then, I drove around in my pickup truck. And I went, and I parked on the street. And I'm walking down the street, and I see an Arowan. And I go in, and I wait in the line. And then, I look at the smoothies, and I panic and get the only smoothie I know, which is the Hailey Bieber smoothie. Made an appearance on this podcast before. And so, I said, I didn't want to say I'll have the Hailey Bieber smoothie. So, I went, "I'll have that raspberry one." And the guy was like, "The Hailey Bieber smoothie." And I went, "The raspberry one."

• 6:57Conan O'Brien?

  And he went, "You want the Hailey Bieber skin exfoliating." This is like when you have to buy tampons for your wife at the grocery store. Is that what you want? The one that makes your skin glow so that Justin Bieber loves you even more? And I went, "I'll just have the raspberry one." And then, he said, "What name?" And I was about to use a different name. And I went, "Nope, don't do that. That's stupid." I just said Conan. So, then, I wait near the thing. And then, they went, "Conan, Conan." I'm like, "I just hosted the Oscars." "It's Conan, and I want the Hailey Bieber smoothie." They didn't get her name wrong. No. And it said, "Conan," C-O-H-A-N, on it.

• 7:41Conan O'Brien?

  And then, I went, and I sat alone at this little table. And it's the most embarrassing-looking smoothie you've ever seen, because it's got little swirls of red. And then, there's like a creamy swirl. And I sat there, and I'm like, "Schlerp, schlerp, schlerp, schlerp." Why did you slip it there? Because I panicked, and I sat. And there's a big picture window, and bang, bang, bang, against the window. And I look out, and there's a guy, like a fan goes, gives me the big thumbs up. And I have the straw in my lips, and I'm going, "Schlerp, schlerp." And I gave a thumbs up back. "Schlerp, schlerp." And then, another fan, bang, bang, bang, bang. "Schlerp, schlerp." And I gave the okay sign. They're all running home. I saw Conan eating the Hailey Bieber skin exfoliating.

• 8:26Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 8:27Conan O'Brien?

  Nature-giving.

• 8:29Conan O'Brien?

  Ovulation.

• 8:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, lights out to come home soon.

• 8:32Conan O'Brien?

  I know. I mean, I swear to God.

• 8:33Speaker 05

  You're not gonna last.

• 8:34Conan O'Brien?

  It's not gonna last.

• 8:35Speaker 05

  No.

• 8:36Conan O'Brien?

  Please, can someone, someone find out where I live and come into the house and cook for me? Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 06

  We're just gonna bring you Hailey Bieber smoothies.

• 8:44Conan O'Brien?

  I know. But, but I gotta go get like a blood test and they're gonna say, "Your body is just ma-" They're gonna look up and go, from the microscope, and go, "Have you been just living off of Hailey Bieber smoothies?"

• 8:55Speaker 06

  Because I'm her doctor and you have the exact same-

• 8:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 8:57Speaker 06

  DNA makeup.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  And your skin looks amazing.

• 9:00Conan O'Brien?

  Sir, you have breasts now. You're leaving, I leave with a training bra.

• 9:08Conan O'Brien?

  My lips are all plump. Suddenly, people are saying, "You should model."

• 9:14Conan O'Brien?

  All right. My guest today is a hilarious comedian and writer. I hope she can cook for me. And now I'm just gonna start booking people who I hope will cook for me. Uh, who has worked on such shows as Seinfeld, Hacks, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Good God, she's worked on so many great shows. Now she has a new book, "How to Write a Funny Speech for a Wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Graduation, and Every Other Event You Didn't Want to Go To in the First Place."

• 9:42Conan O'Brien?

  Thrill to you here today, Carol Leifer, welcome.

• 9:48Conan O'Brien?

  We have crossed paths many times, but never had a chance to sit down. And this is a treat for me because I've wanted to talk to you. Uh, and this is our opportunity right now.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  It is.

• 9:57Conan O'Brien?

  Because we've worked side by side.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:01Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, we just did the Oscars together.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:03Conan O'Brien?

  You're a writer on the Oscars, I was hosting the Oscars. And yet, there's all this running around and we keep passing each other in the hallway. So it's nice to sit down because you have, in my opinion, one of the best careers of any comedy writer I can imagine.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  Wow, high praise.

• 10:21Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, think about it. Think about this. I'm explaining it to you as if you've lost your memory in an accident. I'm a doctor that's come in and I'm telling you, your name is Carol Leifer. You've written on Seinfeld, Hacks, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Family, Saturday Night Live, The Larry Sanders Show, and 10 Academy Award shows.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:40Conan O'Brien?

  That's insanity.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, and you're leaving out the Colgate Comedy Hour.

• 10:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. You killed it in 1952.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 10:50Conan O'Brien?

  You were a fetus when you wrote for that show. There's so much to talk about because there's the world of comedy writing. But what I want to start with is you come from the world of stand-up 1970s. And I've talked to people like Suzy Essman about what it was like in those early days to be a woman who's trying to do stand-up comedy in the 1970s.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:14Conan O'Brien?

  It was, I would guess, not easy. Not an easy thing to crack.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  You know what? It was actually quite the opposite because there were not many women. And I always thought that was a tremendous advantage. Because, you know, I always talk about the 70s stand-up. They were looking for comedians.

• 11:36Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  But it's really true. So when I started, there were like four or five women comics. You know, Rita Rudner was of my generation. And they wanted women comics. And I always felt I got so much support from the guy comics.

• 11:53Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, good.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, a lot of people thought it was a little rough and tumble and all that. But I got so much support. So I found it to be advantageous. I mean, what was obnoxious was way back then, they wouldn't put on two women following each other. It was like it had to be separated. Like we'll have the singer, then the ventriloquist, then a woman, then the monkey act, then maybe another woman.

• 12:17Conan O'Brien?

  You're a novelty. It's like, it's like someone who can separate both shoulders, you know?

• 12:24Speaker 03

  Right, the contortionist, then a woman.

• 12:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Another oddity that represents 50% of the population and is responsible for the continuation of our species, one of those things. It's so weird.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  I could follow a bearded woman.

• 12:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 12:45Conan O'Brien?

  I've been mistaken for a bearded woman at times. It's so interesting to me because you you get started in this time and the thing that always fascinates me is what's the impetus? What makes Carol Leifer as a young woman decide? I'm I'm going to go swim upstream against the current and get into this profession. I mean, it's it's strange enough in those days when a man decides to do it.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:12Conan O'Brien?

  But what where did you come from? What made you want to do this?

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Well, I think you know, as always wanting to be a performer. You know, like most people's greatest fear is speaking in front of large groups of people. Most performers fear fear is not speaking in front of people.

• 13:32Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  You know what I mean?

• 13:33Conan O'Brien?

  You had it in you. You were you were you wanted to be in front of those people.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  I did, I did. And what I liked about stand up was anybody can do it. You know, I was going to school at Binghamton. Paul Reiser was in my theater group. And he told me, like, one day, you know, during the summers, I go to these comedy clubs and on audition night and I perform. And comedy clubs were so new then, you know. So when he was talking about clubs, I was like, this guy goes to clubs. What is he like Victor Mon?

• 14:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  Performing at these places. He was like, anybody can go on. So I always loved that about it and I still love that about stand up. It's like, you want to go on? It's not like an actor where you have to audition and, you know.

• 14:17Conan O'Brien?

  Right, or a musician where you need to have your tuba with you.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:21Conan O'Brien?

  You you can just walk in, you can be somewhere, you can go up and you can do a set.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Exactly. And the first time I went on on my first audition, I, you know, it's also something about being young and having a lot of balls that you don't have later on in life.

• 14:39Conan O'Brien?

  You have more to lose later in life.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:41Conan O'Brien?

  I've noticed.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:42Conan O'Brien?

  That I completely agree with what you're saying. There's a period in my life where I had a $380 a month apartment. I had a beat up 1973 Plymouth Valiant. And I'd do anything. I'd do anything. I sold my body for sex.

• 15:02Conan O'Brien?

  And enjoyed it. And often would, yeah. Win-win. Yeah, win-win. Okay. I wouldn't even take the money afterwards. But, um, yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I went on audition night. My first audition night, I like killed. It was amazing. And I thought like, oh, my God, this is not only so great, it's so easy. Like, I'll be on Johnny Carson next week. It's amazing. It wasn't until the second time that I went on that I completely bombed. Like, so bad that I invited friends from college to come see me because I was like, oh, you know, I'm doing great. And you can act, and I had a tape recorder on the table and you can actually hear my friend in the middle of my set going, "Oh."

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Muttering how horrible it was going over. So then I saw, like, to be a stand-up comedian, it takes some work. You have good nights, you have bad nights. There are a lot of factors that go into it, who you follow, what time of the night you go on, how inebriated the crowd is. So you have to learn to negotiate all that.

• 16:07Conan O'Brien?

  You talked about Carson. I know your real break came with, uh, Letterman.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:14Conan O'Brien?

  Letterman Show, um, which was, you know, such an influence on me. I think I'm 17 or 18 when he does the morning show and then switch, he does, switches over to the late-night show. So I'm maybe 19 years old when he starts the late-night show. And, um, comedy is my religion as a 19-year-old.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:32Conan O'Brien?

  And so I become a total acolyte and, and I'm looking at David Letterman saying, oh, this person's showing me the way. He would, you knew Dave?

• 16:42Speaker 03

  I didn't.

• 16:43Conan O'Brien?

  You didn't know Dave?

• 16:44Speaker 03

  No, no. In 1980, kids, I was in a contest called The Big, The New York Laugh Off. And it was a contest, you know, of comedians. You know, and that's so funny to me today. It's like, back then, that's how you got exposure, you were in contests, you know?

• 17:02Conan O'Brien?

  Right, right.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  And it aired on Showtime and Letterman saw that and recommended me to The Tonight Show for that.

• 17:09Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  And then The Tonight Show saw my big laugh-off set and they passed.

• 17:14Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  So then when Dave got his show, they just reached out and said, would you like to be on?

• 17:19Conan O'Brien?

  And he put you on a bunch of times.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was on 25 times.

• 17:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they gave me an open door. It was like, whenever you have a new set, come on, which was amazing.

• 17:29Conan O'Brien?

  It is such an interesting thing. There's such a, almost like a lemmings or sheep kind of mentality where people don't think you're the real McCoy, but once you've been on a show and there's tape of you and there's a famous host saying, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Carol Leifer, suddenly they're like, oh, right.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:49Conan O'Brien?

  You're one of them.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:51Conan O'Brien?

  Well, you, you were one of them before. You just, it's a magical thing and.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  But not really, until you go on TV. I mean, to this day, my first appearance on Letterman is like one of my, the best days of my life.

• 18:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Because like suddenly, you're not just, you know, kinda in it, you're really in it.

• 18:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:11Conan O'Brien?

  Also, it was a different era.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:14Conan O'Brien?

  Than today. I mean, I talk about this a lot and when I talk about it to my kids, I sound like an old wizard telling people about the beginning of how Earth formed, but um.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  It was so different that my dad bought a VCR to tape me. You know, at the time it was like a thousand dollars.

• 18:32Conan O'Brien?

  Wow, right, right. Well, they were made of gold.

• 18:37Conan O'Brien?

  VCRs were all gold. They were made by Rolex. Then they got into the watch business. But, but one of the things that was interesting too is I've talked to people from that era, you know, ahead of you, but they were like, you know, Steve Martin or comedians of that generation, they would say they would go on Johnny Carson's show and the next day they would walk down the street and car, people were shouting out of cars because

• 19:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:00Conan O'Brien?

  half the country watched.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:02Conan O'Brien?

  Do you know, it was the equivalent of being on the Super Bowl, except it happened every night.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:07Conan O'Brien?

  Because there was literally one late night show and I remember when there was, you know, there's, there's Carson and then Letterman.

• 19:16Conan O'Brien?

  After Carson and occasionally there'd be another show that they would put up, but it wouldn't last that long.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Whereas Merv Griffin during the day.

• 19:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, during the daytime, but who was watching TV during the daytime? Uh, I wasn't. Uh, so to me it was, uh, if something happened. I mean, I remembered when, um, David Byrne, for the Talking Heads, Dave Letterman interviewed David Byrne and everybody I talked to the next day, because we were all in college.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:42Conan O'Brien?

  We had all seen it.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:44Conan O'Brien?

  It was a time when we were all gathered around the same campfire.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:48Conan O'Brien?

  There was a magic to that, which gave you this legitimacy and power.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  The Freddie Prince story, he did, I think, like one appearance and then he got like Chico and the Man the next day, got his own series.

• 19:59Conan O'Brien?

  Right, right. And he was very young, he was like 20 or 19 or 20.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  But it was definitely like a star maker.

• 20:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:07Conan O'Brien?

  Um, I know that you have a successful stand-up career, but then you have this pedigree as a writer, which is just off the charts. When, when do you start to realize, okay, I love stand-up, I love doing stand-up, but I want to be in that room, I want to be in the writer's room?

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Well, I got my, um, break to write on SNL. This is.

• 20:29Conan O'Brien?

  What year, what year would that be?

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Eighty-five to eighty-six.

• 20:32Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  What is affectionately or disaffectionately called the weird year.

• 20:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  You know, with, um, the strange cast, Robert Downey Jr., Randy Quaid, but, um, Al Franken.

• 20:44Conan O'Brien?

  Anthony, Anthony Michael Hall.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Al Franken and Jim Downey came to the comic strip to audition comics. And, um, they saw me and they said, would you like to, you know, we like you and we'd like to see if you want to write on the show. I was like, absolutely. They said, oh, you just have to meet Lauren. So I was like all set for this meeting and had all my answers prepared, you know, for like a serious sit-down business meeting. It was literally, he was auditioning people, Lauren, at this rehearsal space. He came out for two seconds and he said to me, uh, I don't do a good Lauren. Uh, you know, Jim and I'll say you're very good and, uh, you know, sometimes you have to stay up late at the show. I was like, yeah, he went, okay, thanks. That was my big interview.

• 21:27Conan O'Brien?

  Wow, but you passed.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  I guess so, yeah. Um, like if I had said, I really don't like staying up.

• 21:34Conan O'Brien?

  I like to be in bed by eight o'clock.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's gonna interfere with my routine.

• 21:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  And so, I wrote that year and I really enjoyed it, but I really wanted to go back to stand-up. So I did. But then, strangely, out of the blue, in 93, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld called me together. So I knew at that time, there was something odd about that. Because I would talk to each of them separately on a landline, but calling me together seemed weird. They were in one spot.

• 22:09Conan O'Brien?

  It's like a prank.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they were like, you know, "Do you wanna write for Seinfeld?" And I was like, "Uh, yeah." You know, it was great because my inexperience is the thing that got me the job. Because they, you know, didn't want people who'd written on sitcoms before. Because as Larry referred to it, you know, they were poisoned by the system.

• 22:39Conan O'Brien?

  When it comes to insurance, Farmers doesn't like surprises. That's why there's Farmers coverage on a page. What is it, you ask? Did you ask? I don't think you did, but let's pretend you did.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay, let's...

• 22:50Conan O'Brien?

  It's your coverage on a page, pretty straightforward.

• 22:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:54Conan O'Brien?

  That's good, because sometimes it gets confusing, you know? What am I covered for, what am I not? Here, it's all on a page. Does your insurance do that? Get a quote to get started at Farmers.com. Don't be confused, don't wonder. Farmers makes it pretty clear. Underwritten by Farmers Truck or Fire Insurance Exchanges or affiliate. Products not available in every state.

• 23:16Conan O'Brien?

  Your name represents everything you've built, okay? Everything, like, I feel that way about my name.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:21Conan O'Brien?

  It stands for all of the work, good and not so good in my life. But guess what? Your children's names represent their whole futures.

• 23:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:30Conan O'Brien?

  Your children haven't even started building their futures, but their identities are already valuable. Your child's clean credit history can make them a target for identity thieves. Never thought of it that way, but it's true. Identity thieves can open loans and credit cards using your child's social security number, racking up debt and ruining their credit. And you may not notice until they try and get their first credit card. So it could be a long time.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:52Conan O'Brien?

  Well, guess what? With LifeLock, you can add family members to your plan, giving you the power to block identity threats targeting your children. Now, Sony, your kids are pretty young still. They are. Five. But within a couple of years, you know, they're gonna be buying heavy machinery online. What? They're gonna be, become tractor fanatics. They're gonna be buying tractors online. So if you have expenses or money stolen due to identity theft, you're backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million coverage in some plans. So join now. Save up to 30% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 24:31Conan O'Brien?

  The holidays are supposed to be about making memories, not managing the mess that comes with them. Between winter weather, road trips, shopping, and family gatherings, your vehicle can take a beating. Mine sure does. Same. Especially when I'm back in the Northeast, driving around. I mean, I grew up with that. Yeah. Cars were red, the salt on the road, people throwing rocks at me. What? That's not a weather thing. That's more of a me being, making people angry. Yeah. WeatherTech helps protect your vehicle from snow, slush, salt, and seasonal messes. They also make the best gifts for automobile protection, from floor liners and cargo liner to side window deflectors, even gift cards. Great for today and to prevent future messes. Everything is built to last, easy to clean, and designed for harsh winter conditions, okay?

• 25:16Conan O'Brien?

  I got, I grew up with this. Yeah. And the salt would eat away the car. We actually did have a Chevy. My dad had a Chevy Impala, and the floor rusted out and you could see the road going by. Oh! Boy, we were praying for WeatherTech, and we didn't even know it. That's before it existed. That's cool. So get a gift today at weathertech.com.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  What was your first writing job?

• 25:43Conan O'Brien?

  It was not necessarily the news.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 25:45Conan O'Brien?

  And a woman named Pat Lee.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 25:47Conan O'Brien?

  Gave me.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  I know her, yes.

• 25:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, she, she hired Greg and I. We got, got us into the Guild.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:53Conan O'Brien?

  It was our first show, uh, and... We work like maniacs and I have such clear memories and I'm always passing Sunset Gower Studios. And I always have the same flashback to Greg and I, we took a overnight flight. Uh, it was cheap. It was, I think, called People Express, where you could like fly.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Do you remember?

• 26:13Conan O'Brien?

  No, just that name.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  The airline of China.

• 26:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. People Express was a, uh, literally, uh, you could, for like forty dollars, you could fly across the, I mean, something insane. And, um, obviously it was a whole other world before nine eleven. Uh, you, I mean, you just would buy your ticket at the counter. You'd get on the plane, no frills. We flew overnight. I remember, uh, my writing partner Greg Daniels put a blanket over his head to try and go to sleep. Cause the seats didn't go back. So he was sitting upright. He looked like a, a bad kid's ghost, sitting next to me. Um, and, uh, we landed, we got this really cheap rental car and we drove to Sunset Gower Studios and walked in. And said, "We're here to work for television. I have acne."

• 27:01Conan O'Brien?

  Um, and, uh, that's where it started, but, um, it was a show that at least had, it was pre-tapes and it wasn't, we weren't writing four characters and it wasn't all these shows that I really despise. It was, it was sketch comedy that I thought, okay, this is, this is respectable. We can do this. Uh, with an eye towards hoping to get a job with Letterman, which didn't work out, but, um, but it was, so you get this call.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:27Conan O'Brien?

  And to work for Seinfeld and you write an episode that coincidentally, I've been, we were displaced by the fire. Our house is okay, but it has to be de-smoked, de-toxed. And so my wife and I have been living, uh, in this little, uh, apartment, kind of rental apartment with a kitchenette at the hotel. And.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  You're at the Oakwood, aren't you?

• 27:53Conan O'Brien?

  A great place to meet a single pregnant woman. Who's going through a bad divorce. But, uh, every night, we don't have our regular television. We just, you know, we don't have, um, Apple TV or Max or anything. So, we're just thumbing through and we always land on Seinfeld.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  Oh, nice.

• 28:12Conan O'Brien?

  And we watch Seinfeld and I watched your rye episode.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Ah, yes. Marble rye.

• 28:17Conan O'Brien?

  Three nights ago, I watched the marble rye episode. Remembered that you had written that episode, which is one of my favorites.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you.

• 28:25Conan O'Brien?

  If you don't recall, I think it's George's fiance. George is going, George Costanza is going over to eat with the fiance and he brings his parents, who of course, humiliate him, you know. The great Jerry Stiller and the actress, I can't remember the actress's name.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  Estelle Harris.

• 28:42Conan O'Brien?

  Estelle Harris. And they come over and they're just, they bring a marble rye and then they notice that these WASP-y parents of their future in-law don't eat the marble rye. So Jerry Stiller takes it back. And then that couple realizes, the WASP-y couple realizes that the marble rye has been taken back and they're, uh, they're enraged. And then the whole episode is about how do we get the rye back into the apartment, which is a great, great idea for an episode. Where did you get that idea?

• 29:13Speaker 03

  It was crazy because, you know, um, a lot of times people come up to you when you write on a hit show like that and they're like, something really funny happened to me. And you're like, oh boy, here we go. You know, and it's like, uh, Betty's egg salad was in the fridge at work and somebody took, you know, and it's like, oh boy, here we go. But a friend of mine from high school was like, I had the funniest thing happen. Um, this couple came over and brought a bread. We didn't put it out and, um, they wanted to take it back. And I knew when I went in to Larry's office, Larry and Jerry, you would pitch to them one on one. If Larry liked an idea, he would get so ecstatic. You know what I mean? When I pitched that, he was like, I love it. I love it.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  We're doing that. Yeah, we're doing that. And he would be like that about certain ideas, you know, like Elaine thinks the Korean manicurist is talking about her behind her back in Korean. Like, yes, yes, you know.

• 30:10Conan O'Brien?

  He could just, he knew, it's like he had a divining rod. Like, yes, there's water there. I know there's water there. Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Exactly. You know, conversely, if you pitched, and this is a lot of times, ideas that he, they didn't like, he would kind of do this thing with his arm and go, yeah, I don't know.

• 30:28Conan O'Brien?

  That's called angina.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  He was having a heart attack.

• 30:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  You know, or he would, you know, the biggest put down was, I could, I could see that on another show. And it'd be like, oh. But, and then, when you have an idea like, you like like that, in thinking about it, I was also thinking about Kramer and loving Costco, because I loved Costco, still do.

• 30:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you can get so much of something.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. And that he bought so much beefaroni.

• 31:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  That he started feeding it to his handsome cab horse.

• 31:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  Which eventually gave him a lot of flatulence.

• 31:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yes. Ruining the night out for this, this waspy couple. By the way, there's a lot of genius behind the show Seinfeld, but I always thought the casting was impeccable, not just of the main characters, but of the smaller characters. And I went out of my way because every time George's fiance's parents are on the show, they're spectacular. So I looked them up. It's Grace Zabriszkich and Warren Frost.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:40Conan O'Brien?

  And I just wanted to give a shout out to the universe. They're two of the, they're, that, the, the character acting they do on that episode. And other episodes as well, the one where the cabin burns down is they're impeccable.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:56Conan O'Brien?

  They're fantastic.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Really, really great.

• 31:59Conan O'Brien?

  You know, just unbelievable.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, the guest casting was amazing. And what was great about then, them as bosses for the writers was you could be involved in every step of the process. You know, you were involved in casting and you know, now that I work on shows, people send in tapes, which is horrible. You know, it's so great when people would walk in the room and they go, hey, where's the hot seat? You know, and they'd sit down and you'd get a vibe off of them. And you could also see how nervous they were in front of people instead of self-taping at home. But you'd be part of the casting, you'd be part of everything. So editing and all that. And a lot of times writers don't have that opportunity.

• 32:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  On shows. So that was really great. And to cast these smaller roles and people that just took off, you know?

• 32:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  And even like the regulars, like, like the tennis episode I did with Marlee Matlin, the lip reader.

• 32:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  You know, it's like, what are the four stories gonna be? You know? And, you know, for Kramer, for that, you have a tennis episode. Well, he's gotta be a ball boy.

• 33:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  And then you know, that's gonna be funny. You know, we called him the ball man. And then, you know, he was rehearsing, you know, Michael would rehearse these physical things over and over. People just thought he just did it automatically. He would really rehearse it. And, you know, he just rehearsed as a ball man the entire week.

• 33:25Conan O'Brien?

  You work on a show like that, I think it's an immersive experience. I thought, I've said the same thing about Saturday Night Live, where you're not just a writer. There's the old idea of the writers are off in a separate building.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:38Conan O'Brien?

  And it's, there's no light, the shades are drawn. They're just in there coming up with this, and they're, they're treated sort of with contempt. And then the scripts come out. And then the director, the producers, the actors make it. And no one ever goes near the writers' building. And I always thought a great gift that Lauren gave all of us was Even if you had only been working there for a week, and it sounds like the same thing that Larry and Jerry would do, which is, no, you're in, you're in charge of everything. If it's your sketch, or if it's your episode, you're in on the whole thing, which opens you to the world of casting, props, when should we see things, how should we see things? Maybe go talk to the director.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:20Conan O'Brien?

  Make sure you don't cross any lines, do it tactfully, but you're in charge of the whole thing because it's your baby. And that invests you with great sense of responsibility. You try so much harder.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Exactly. Because also, you know, your ass is on the line if something goes off. So you do have that sense of responsibility with an episode, which is great. You know, the saddest thing to me is that I'm a big collector. So I took the, we couldn't use Beefaroni for some reason.

• 34:51Conan O'Brien?

  It's Beefarino.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  They made us change the name. So I had the can that the prop guy came up with for Beefarino. And I had it in my apartment on Flores in West Hollywood. And then when I moved, I forgot to take it, you know, move it away. And the guys thought it was just an empty can and they tossed it. I know.

• 35:14Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  It's the fact that I'm here today.

• 35:20Conan O'Brien?

  It's not the snow globe from Citizen Kane, but it's close. The Beefarino can! You know, someone's gonna find it. And it's gonna go, it's long after you and I are gone.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Yes, right.

• 35:32Conan O'Brien?

  Someone's gonna find it, it's gonna be auctioned off for like $600,000.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  Oh, come on, more than that.

• 35:37Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, all right. I mean, it's the future. Well, you're right. Before we move on to other shows you've worked on, I have to ask you, I know that you, you were the comedian who opened for Frank Sinatra. I have to ask you about that.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:49Conan O'Brien?

  And this is 1989.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:51Conan O'Brien?

  So I, I must know.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Crazy, crazy story. All right, so in 1989, I'm getting some gigs, things are good. I run into this agent who's supposed to be, you know, big time at the time. He's like, You know, Carol, I think you could be doing even better. Why don't you come to my office? Write down the gigs you have, have had, and how much you got, and we'll go over it. All right. So I wrote them down. I came to his office. And right away, looking at the list, he was like, you got this at Sir Laughalot's? Oh, that's a joke. You know, you got, you made this much at the Chuckle Hut? No, that's pathetic. So he said-

• 36:35Conan O'Brien?

  Great names, though.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  So he said, why don't you, you know, sign with me? I was like, OK, great. So we start working together. And if things are, you know, time is passing by. I'm literally working at Ground Round Restaurants, doing comedy nights there.

• 36:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Where you can't even be heard because people are, the, the sound of peanut shells crunching on the floor.

• 37:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  You could not even get over it. And so I would call him and go, what, what's going on? Where are these big gigs? He was like, I'm working on Frank. Yeah. And I'm, at this point, I'm like, opening for, like, Frank Stallone? Who are you talking about?

• 37:17Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, you can only dream of opening for Frank Stallone.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  So then I work on a cruise ship, and I get a phone call. Now, you know if you got a phone call on a cruise ship in 1989? Somebody died.

• 37:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Or your place is on fire. And it was the agent. And he said, you're gonna open for Frank Sinatra at Bally's in Las Vegas for shows. And he, he apparently knew Jilly Rizzo.

• 37:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, who was Frank's guy.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so I got the gig. And I called my friend Larry Miller, because he had opened for Frank.

• 37:53Conan O'Brien?

  I worked with Larry years ago.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  He's amazing. To get some tips, because I was a little nervous. And he said, oh, they're gonna love you. You know, it's, it's a great gig. His audience is great. And it was an amazing, it's, it's still today, the, the top of my career showbiz experience.

• 38:12Conan O'Brien?

  But walk me through- You go out.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:15Conan O'Brien?

  Is there any, what's the inter, is there interaction with Frank?

• 38:17Speaker 03

  Yes, there was.

• 38:18Conan O'Brien?

  Is it after, is there, you do the, you do your set?

• 38:21Speaker 03

  I do my set, but I learned something very important as comedian with that gig. Because I was a little nervous about going out there. I went out and I said, oh, I'm so happy that Mr. Sinatra asked me to join him here at Bally's. And then the audience was like, oh, okay, she's Frank's girl. All right. Yeah, yeah. So that helped my set a lot.

• 38:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  So I do my time, 15 minutes, you know, they had the clocks in Vegas on the stage floor. We had, you, you gotta keep it to 15. And then Sinatra'd come out and he'd bring me back for a bow.

• 38:52Conan O'Brien?

  Oh.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  But he said some cryptic things sometimes, like, one time he said, that was Carol Leifer. I wish my mother had been that funny, it wouldn't have had to work so hard. The summer breeze came rushing in from across the city. Yeah. And then another time he brought me out, he says, that was Carol Leifer, she's big. She'll knock you over for the phone. What?

• 39:19Conan O'Brien?

  Well, to be honest, I talk like that now. And the podcast just seems to still be doing well. So, and people just think I'm, oh, that's coming with another one of his funny gigs. I'm going downhill fast.

• 39:34Conan O'Brien?

  It's, uh, I mean, that's, that's real show business.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:39Conan O'Brien?

  That's old time classic show business. Opening for Frank, getting called out for a bow.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Yes, but what a gentleman. I mean, I have friends from that time who opened for people in Vegas, who would not even bring them back out, you know? I, I would tell you the names of the acts, but I really shouldn't, but some of them are very supreme.

• 40:00Conan O'Brien?

  Ah, nice. The clothing brand Supreme. Wow. The pizza, the burrito Supreme. Burrito Supreme, yeah, okay. Yes. The, the, um, I was gonna pay you a compliment, and I've said this to the producers of Hacks, and I've said this to the stars of Hacks, that I have found it to be one of the more accurate representations of the comedy process.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 40:26Conan O'Brien?

  We all know that there have been many times where people have tried to Capture what it's like to be sitting around thinking of funny ideas and it's never right.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  No.

• 40:36Conan O'Brien?

  It's never right.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 40:38Conan O'Brien?

  Hacks is the closest I've seen when they're riffing off of each other.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:42Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, when, when Hannah and Jean Smart are riffing off of each other or going at each other. That it feels to me like, oh, people that, that write comedy.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:52Conan O'Brien?

  Are accurately portraying what it's like to try and come up with stuff.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. I mean, do you remember that movie Punchline?

• 40:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, I was gonna, where.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:01Conan O'Brien?

  Standups all have their own locker.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. Yeah, no, it's, um, when, uh, I saw the show for the first time. Also, Jean is the first actor I've seen who is convincing as a standup.

• 41:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  I mean, completely, because there are so many actors who've tried it and you can just sense something is off. But she goes out there when she does her standup on the show and you totally buy that, um, she's Deborah Vance.

• 41:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  The comedian.

• 41:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:34Conan O'Brien?

  The episode where she fills in for the late night host at the last minute.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:39Conan O'Brien?

  And really scores and at the end of the night, everyone's leaving and she's running her hands over the desk.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 41:45Conan O'Brien?

  I don't tear up at anything, anything.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 41:48Conan O'Brien?

  I start to tear up and my, I'm on a flight and my wife is looking at me and she thinks I'm watching a dog get put down or something. And I show her what I'm watching and I just said, I know. That completely caught me by surprise.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:02Conan O'Brien?

  It really got, it really got me.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 42:05Conan O'Brien?

  The feeling of, I love being behind this desk and this, I think I finally found, I'm like a snail that finally found his little shell.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:13Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, this is, this is my home. That killed me.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:19Conan O'Brien?

  Absolutely killed me and, um, but I, I salute you. I mean, the, the writing. I mean, I got, I got to the privilege of doing an episode of Curb, one of the last episodes and it was really fun.

• 42:32Speaker 03

  I was there.

• 42:33Conan O'Brien?

  I know, I was saying, I would in between takes.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 42:36Conan O'Brien?

  I'd go and we would chat in between takes and it was so funny because my experience was Larry's the same. It's not like, and cut. And Larry drops it. If you go get a bite to eat with Larry, or Larry's been over to my house.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 42:50Conan O'Brien?

  At a Christmas party. And he's like, uh, you ever noticed, uh, and he's doing the same stuff. And he's being the same guy. And you think, I'm just waiting for the womp, womp, womp.

• 43:03Conan O'Brien?

  He is the same person.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  The same, yes.

• 43:05Conan O'Brien?

  So he actually just built a show around who he is.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Exactly. And he's always, he's always Larry David. Like, I asked him when I got married if he would do a speech. And of course, he was like, eh, ca, you know, it ruined my golf game that day. Yeah, no, I can't do it.

• 43:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  You know, it's so Larry David.

• 43:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I've noticed, one thing I've noticed about him is if he's really laughing, his.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:30Conan O'Brien?

  His teeth move, but his jaw doesn't in a weird way. So he'd be going like.

• 43:37Conan O'Brien?

  And he's not doing a bit.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  No, it's like a little Jerry Mahoney.

• 43:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's like a little, it's like a little ventriloquist.

• 43:46Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm, the first time I saw him do it, I thought, is he making fun of me? No, that's how he laughs.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  It is.

• 43:50Conan O'Brien?

  And he was making fun of me.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um. But he does have a great laugh, doesn't he?

• 43:53Conan O'Brien?

  Great laugh.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. When you make him laugh, there is no better feeling in the world.

• 43:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. It's a very nice thing. I'll experience it one day.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  And you were great on the show.

• 44:04Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, thank you.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:05Conan O'Brien?

  I had a lot of fun. I, I like whenever there's an opportunity for me to be, um, doing the episode of Curb. I looked over the script and I realized, oh, I see what this is. The assignment is, because there's a lot of improvising too.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:18Conan O'Brien?

  Whatever Larry wants, make sure he doesn't get it. Is really the, and that is the essence of Curb, which is a lot of times he wants something. Is it okay if I just? And someone will say like, well, no, actually it's, it's two per customer and that would be a third. Just deny him the thing that he wants. Don't give him what he wants. So with me, it was just, is it okay if I? Can we hang out? And I'm like, you don't have clearance. Don't give it to him.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:46Conan O'Brien?

  Anything he would, then they were just riffing and he's asking me about my dog and. Shut down everything he wants. Just be a dick.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:53Conan O'Brien?

  And who knew? I could be a dick. All right. That's called acting.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  You were being method all these years.

• 45:04Speaker 05

  Right, you were preparing for this role.

• 45:06Conan O'Brien?

  I was preparing for this role of Conan O'Brien. Which I think I did really well. I want to bring up-

• 45:13Speaker 03

  But that's also, I'm sorry-

• 45:14Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  His genius, that he would take things, like, he and Larry from Seinfeld, they always loved real-life ideas. And Larry loved it on Curb. So, when I pitched to him this true story that I had this great fold-up umbrella that I loved, like, it just opened perfectly and closed, and I just, and then I lost it. And I thought I lost it, it was from the Omni Dallas hotel.

• 45:43Conan O'Brien?

  Uh-huh.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  And I thought I left it at a Japanese restaurant. So, of course, I went back and the owner was like, you know, it's like, "Have you seen, you know, a black fold-up umbrella?" It's like, "Yeah, I have 3,000 of them back here." "Yeah, but mine says Omni Dallas." And it was like, "No, we don't have that." But the genius of Larry David is, he creates that he's in a fight-

• 46:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  -with the owner of the Japanese restaurant, so that not only can he not get the umbrella back, but then it becomes also about, "Well, it's really the Omni Dallas's umbrella, so why should I give it back to you?" So, he takes it like, six steps forward-

• 46:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yes.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  -which is brilliant.

• 46:26Conan O'Brien?

  It's so oppositional. Everyone's opposed to him and he's opposed to everyone-

• 46:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:30Conan O'Brien?

  -in the universe. And it's, I think, one of the things that's magic about the show. And also, you can see how much of it is the George Costanza character in Seinfeld-

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:40Conan O'Brien?

  -is constantly creating his own misery-

• 46:43Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:43Conan O'Brien?

  -in this particular way, separate from the other characters. He's creating his own misery constantly, which is very Larry.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And he really latches on to small things. Like, the first time I went to pitch for Curb, I went in and my first idea was, when you're a funny person, a comedian, and a regular person, you tell something funny, say something funny, and someone goes "ba-dum-pum" to it, how much you hate that.

• 47:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  You know, it's so insulting. And Larry immediately was like, "Yes, yes, I like that," you know? So, so we use that.

• 47:19Conan O'Brien?

  To me, it's like, if you came up with a comedy idea and someone would go like, "Yeah, that's cute." That, that was, like, being shot in the groin.

• 47:31Conan O'Brien?

  And not in a good way.

• 47:34Conan O'Brien?

  I want to make sure that I, I talk about this because you've written a book which could be of help to people, which is how to write a funny speech. You say for a wedding, bar mitzvah, graduation, and every other event you didn't want to go to in the first place.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:46Conan O'Brien?

  And your foreword is by none other than Carol Burnett. How did you pull that off?

• 47:51Speaker 03

  Carol Burnett. Well, you know, I've written for Carol. I wrote for her 50th anniversary show, her 90th birthday special. And so I've got to know her casually. And she's amazing.

• 48:04Conan O'Brien?

  She's a magical person.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, isn't she? So I reached out to her and I said, you know, I have this book. And if you'd be kind enough to write the foreword. And of course, approaching somebody like that, I'm always with, but if you can't do it, I totally understand. No problem, no harm, no foul. And she was like, yeah, send me the book. So this is on a Friday, okay? Sunday, she calls me, she goes, I read the book, I loved it. I'm happy to write the foreword. I mean, who does that?

• 48:35Conan O'Brien?

  Would not be me.

• 48:38Conan O'Brien?

  What is this about again? Conan, we've talked seven times. No, it's really lovely that you, that you got her to do it. And the advice in here is very smart, good advice for people. I think about how to be funny if you're going to give a speech. The most important is length.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:59Conan O'Brien?

  And I can't tell you how many times I have witnessed someone, they get their laugh.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:05Conan O'Brien?

  And you're like, good, good. And then they keep going.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:09Conan O'Brien?

  And you're like, no, no, no, no.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  We're talking to you, Adrian Brody.

• 49:15Conan O'Brien?

  Just witnessed that on the, I was backstage at the Oscars and I so wanted to, I thought, it's late in the day. Don't be a dick. So wanted to go out there and say, you thought, you thought Brutus was long.

• 49:29Conan O'Brien?

  It would have been such a, it was just such a softball hanging there and I thought, ah.

• 49:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, how close were you to do?

• 49:35Conan O'Brien?

  Very close.

• 49:36Speaker 06

  I could see where you.

• 49:37Conan O'Brien?

  I was, for a second, I almost said, "That speech needed an intermission."

• 49:42Conan O'Brien?

  But then I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna see him in a minute and don't, ah, he'll get the, his, his payback's coming."

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:50Conan O'Brien?

  From the world. People telling him for the rest of his life, "Why? Why?"

• 49:56Speaker 03

  But what you said, you know how many people get up and tell a speech, do a speech, and they don't say who they are, they just start talking about the person? And you're sitting there, three minutes in, going, "Is this his aunt? Is this a teacher? Who is this to this person?" I mean, it's just important, get up there and go, "Hi, I'm Aunt Betty, and I've known so-and-so since they were born." You know?

• 50:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  Just something is simple enough.

• 50:20Conan O'Brien?

  Gives you a connection.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:21Conan O'Brien?

  I always get up if I'm giving a speech and say, "I was this person's lover." It's often not true. But it just gets you right away.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  That is a great opening line.

• 50:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, "We were lovers." It was a very sexual and sensual relationship.

• 50:39Conan O'Brien?

  And, but I mean, I've noticed something that a lot of people, it's a whole generational thing, they read off their phone.

• 50:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:47Conan O'Brien?

  Which I find a little off-putting. I don't like it either. I don't like it either, and I've seen people do it at, I mean, serious, big, like, there's a casket there.

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:56Conan O'Brien?

  And someone's like, "Well, my father," and they're like, "Wait a minute, I'm getting a text."

• 51:01Conan O'Brien?

  It's weird.

• 51:02Speaker 03

  It is weird.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  You know, part of the advice we give in the book, you can't, you don't have to memorize it, you know? Just, if you have a card, have some bullet points.

• 51:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 51:12Speaker 03

  But also, you know, practice it in front of someone who's gonna be at the event, that knows the person, that's a good idea, too. But reading is, um, yeah, that's a big turn-off.

• 51:23Conan O'Brien?

  Also, leave room space, like, have ideas of what you want to say, but leave space for what's happened in the last 10 minutes.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 51:34Conan O'Brien?

  So that, I was, I'm looking around for, "Okay, I think I know what I'm gonna do, but if a coffee urn exploded two minutes ago..."

• 51:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:44Conan O'Brien?

  That's, don't just lock into, nope, this is what I wrote last night.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:49Conan O'Brien?

  Make room for the coffee urn.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, be in the moment.

• 51:51Conan O'Brien?

  Be in the moment, and, um, and, and people react to that so beautifully. They, humans know when something real is happening. I don't know how they, I like humans. These humans I've encountered in my time here on earth. But they do, they know when something organic is happening.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:09Conan O'Brien?

  And they can also sense, uh, when it's not.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. Um, we have a lot of jokes in there, jokes to steal.

• 52:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  For the events, but the beginning, middle, and end, it's really not all that difficult.

• 52:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:22Conan O'Brien?

  People can make it harder than it actually is.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:25Conan O'Brien?

  And.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  And look at it, it's handy, right? Small, it's not a giant tome.

• 52:30Conan O'Brien?

  It's not a tome.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  No.

• 52:31Conan O'Brien?

  Um, this is not a, this is not a Torah. What's the stick you read with?

• 52:37Speaker 03

  Hey, thank you for the Jewish reference.

• 52:39Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I said the stick. I don't think I get a lot of, what? Adam, the what? The yod. The yod?

• 52:47Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. Yep, fellow Jew in the group.

• 52:52Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, How to Write a Funny Speech for a Wedding, Bar Mitzvahs for Graduation, and Every Other Event You Didn't Want to Go To in the First Place, uh, with a foreword by Carol Burnett, and it actually is a very helpful book. And this was nice to get a chance to sit down with you and talk to you because you're, you're such a fixture in the comedy business that, in, in all the best ways, that I'm constantly seeing you and we're crossing each other in busy hallways, and there are showgirls and people dressed as horses and, you know, yeah. People dressed as German soldiers and you're on in five minutes. Hey Carol, how's it going? Hi Conan. And we pass each other, so this is really lovely that we got to do this.

• 53:29Speaker 03

  And you know what I wanted to say, because I would be remiss if I didn't. I mean, to host the Oscars is really a tough gig. It's really, really tough. But I will tell your audience. That beforehand, when I went to wish you luck. You're so, you said, you know what? I just want to have fun out there.

• 53:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  And you did. And, and that's amazing.

• 53:52Conan O'Brien?

  That was the mission was, uh, obviously do a lot of work beforehand and prepare.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:56Conan O'Brien?

  But I was determined to, I mean, it actually is the thing that's helped me a lot on the podcast and the late night shows over the years is I learned a long time ago, if I'm having fun,

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:05Conan O'Brien?

  it's gonna work.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:07Conan O'Brien?

  So I can't contrive that. I just have to figure out situations and things to say that I'm gonna have fun doing.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:14Conan O'Brien?

  And put enough of those together where I will have fun. And if I'm having fun, people will start to have fun.

• 54:20Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah. So you really weren't all that nervous going out?

• 54:24Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, I would say I had, oh, you're...

• 54:27Speaker 05

  It's yours.

• 54:28Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, really?

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 54:30Conan O'Brien?

  Um, I'm getting a text right now.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Getting a text.

• 54:31Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's a spam call. I don't know why I, but, and it's all turned off, by the way. I don't know why it made a noise.

• 54:37Speaker 05

  It was vibrating.

• 54:38Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, I put it on vibrate so I have essential experience.

• 54:42Speaker 05

  Not even on you, though.

• 54:46Conan O'Brien?

  It doesn't have to be, at this age. Just hearing, hearing something vibrate gets me all hot and bothered.

• 54:54Conan O'Brien?

  But, uh, no, I will, I'd be lying if I said I did a lot of preparation, but

• 54:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 55:00Conan O'Brien?

  when the time comes to wa, and they patch, they, they tap you to go out. Uh, let's just say you're focused.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 55:06Conan O'Brien?

  I, I, I, I'm not a nervous wreck, but I am, I am very aware

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:11Conan O'Brien?

  that, um, that, uh, you, you go into that tunnel vision, which I'm sure, I mean, you've had a million times. When it's time to go, I don't think nervous is the right word for it.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:22Conan O'Brien?

  Cause I'm nervous when I go to the dentist.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:26Conan O'Brien?

  It's a different feeling. It's a real intense, everything narrows.

• 55:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:32Conan O'Brien?

  Everything narrows to like a pinpoint of light.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:35Conan O'Brien?

  Um, anyway, congratulations on the book.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 55:38Conan O'Brien?

  And thank you so much for coming.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 55:40Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, come on, we'll come on back.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  It's my pleasure.

• 55:42Conan O'Brien?

  We have a lot to talk about. We sort of have a lot to talk about.

• 55:47Speaker 06

  How come I'm the only one not talking like this? Cause you haven't heard a small stroke.

• 56:02Conan O'Brien?

  Your name represents everything you've built, okay? Everything, like, I feel that way about my name. Yeah. It stands for all of the work, good and not so good in my life. But guess what? Your children's names represent their whole futures. Yeah. Your children haven't even started building their futures, but their identities are already valuable. Your child's clean credit history can make them a target for identity thieves. Never thought of it that way, but it's true. Identity thieves can open loans and credit cards using your child's social security number, racking up debt and ruining their credit. And you may not notice until they try and get their first credit card. So it could be a long time. Yeah. Well, guess what? With LifeLock, you can add family members to your plan, giving you the power to block identity threats targeting your children. Now, Sonya, your kids are pretty young still. They are.

• 56:47Conan O'Brien?

  Five, but within a couple of years, you know, they're gonna be buying heavy machinery online. What? They're gonna be, become tractor fanatics. They're gonna be buying tractors online. So if you have expenses or money stolen due to identity theft, you're backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million coverage in some plans. So join now, save up to 30% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 57:17Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, LL Bean is celebrating the moments people look forward to all year. The first cool drop-off, the first sweater weather day, and the first chilly evening around the fire pit. For over 100 years, LL Bean has been part of these traditions. Crunching leaves in Maine-made Bean Boots, cheering from the sidelines in Scotch plaid flannel, and walking the dog in a rugged field coat. So grab the layers and people you love and get outside, because that's what makes fall feel like home. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider.

• 57:56Conan O'Brien?

  So now, what are some of the things in life that really get you down?

• 57:58Speaker 05

  Uh, driving?

• 57:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:00Speaker 05

  That's the first thing that popped in my head.

• 58:02Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I've seen you drive, and it's true. I'm always picking mailboxes out of your grill.

• 58:07Conan O'Brien?

  You're a creative driver. Uh, look, let's face it. Just living on Earth can be a lot, right?

• 58:13Speaker 05

  It can.

• 58:13Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, oy vey, it's a lot.

• 58:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:15Conan O'Brien?

  There's gravity, there's mosquitoes, there's this... You know that they say the sun is going to, at some point, go supernova and incinerate the Earth, probably in five billion years?

• 58:24Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 58:24Conan O'Brien?

  But watch your diet, we might be sticking around for that.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 58:27Conan O'Brien?

  So cosmically speaking, you've earned a break.

• 58:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:30Conan O'Brien?

  And you know where this is going? I think you do.

• 58:31Speaker 05

  No.

• 58:32Conan O'Brien?

  Pluto TV.

• 58:33Speaker 05

  Oh, right, of course.

• 58:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, to escape all of these hassles in life, you gotta get Pluto TV. Turn off all your earthly problems and turn on the movies and shows you already love. You've seen them, but you wanna see them again. They're old friends.

• 58:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:45Conan O'Brien?

  Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Dirty Dancing, Alias, X-Files. Pluto TV is completely free.

• 58:51Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 58:51Conan O'Brien?

  These streamers, all these things cost so much money these days. And I won't mention that when I do an ad for them, but...

• 58:58Conan O'Brien?

  No subscription, no fees, zero dollars. And as any mathematician will tell you, zero is one of the most profound numbers ever conceived. I was thinking about that this morning.

• 59:06Speaker 05

  Wow, that's profound.

• 59:08Conan O'Brien?

  I really wasn't. The best thing on TV are free. Escape to Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.

• 59:19Conan O'Brien?

  We pride ourselves on professionalism here at the podcast. And if you think I'm being, you know, foolish, some of us are less professional than others. The acme of professionalism, the height of professionalism here, I would have to say, is Matt Gourley. He's a pro. He's a real pro. I didn't think that was coming, though. No, no, you are, you are, you are. You, you... No.

• 59:42Speaker 05

  What?

• 59:42Conan O'Brien?

  Jeez, I'm not even gonna go there. But anyway, Matt puts the whole thing together. You come in, you're always on time, you know what's going on. You hold this whole thing together. And I say that, I'm not kidding, you really do. You, you are the maestro. So when you showed up late today, I got worried. Because whenever you watch a...

• 1:00:02Speaker 05

  You didn't.

• 1:00:03Conan O'Brien?

  Whenever you... What's just for the pretend?

• 1:00:05Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, sorry.

• 1:00:08Conan O'Brien?

  I... I think you mean you got excited. There are similar emotions.

• 1:00:12Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:00:13Conan O'Brien?

  They're both, they're a form of excitement.

• 1:00:14Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:00:15Conan O'Brien?

  There are subsets. But I, wait, Matt's late? That never happens. And in any crime documentary, when the punctual person is late, it means they've been murdered.

• 1:00:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Conan O'Brien?

  So mine went to a dark place, which is, look, if Sona's late, it's like, oh, well, another crazy night for Sona.

• 1:00:31Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:32Conan O'Brien?

  Well, whatever, you know, she'll be here, she'll stumble in at some point. But we, I was concerned, I was concerned, and you, sir, say you have a tail to tail.

• 1:00:41Speaker 06

  Oh, yes. But speaking of tail, we had a cat emergency.

• 1:00:45Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, what happened?

• 1:00:45Speaker 06

  Well, this is not the first time this has happened, but our cat, Margot the fat guy, has some digestive issues as she gets into her later years. And so.

• 1:00:56Conan O'Brien?

  How old is this cat?

• 1:00:57Speaker 06

  She's 13.

• 1:00:59Conan O'Brien?

  13.

• 1:01:00Speaker 06

  She's gorgeous, though. She's a gor- here's a grumpy photo of her with a hemorrhoid donut on her head.

• 1:01:06Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:01:06Speaker 06

  Because she couldn't chew her, one of her wings.

• 1:01:08Conan O'Brien?

  It's a very good-looking cat.

• 1:01:09Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Conan O'Brien?

  And.

• 1:01:10Speaker 05

  It might be time.

• 1:01:11Conan O'Brien?

  Age is just a number.

• 1:01:12Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, but.

• 1:01:13Speaker 06

  What?

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  Might be time.

• 1:01:15Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 1:01:16Speaker 05

  13?

• 1:01:17Speaker 06

  How dare you?

• 1:01:17Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, some cats can get way up there.

• 1:01:19Speaker 06

  They can go to 20.

• 1:01:20Speaker 05

  Okay, well, let's hear, how's she doing?

• 1:01:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Speaker 06

  Man. Well, this is the third time, unfortunately, we've had to give her an enema, not personally.

• 1:01:32Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 1:01:33Speaker 06

  So she has to go to the vet because she's, first of all, she's psychotic and she's obsessed with food, so if we don't feed her in the morning, she meows incessantly until we wake up and do it. So then we got an automated feeder that would dispense dry food, but that constipated her. And that's when we had to give her these enemas. Now we finally found this wet food automatic feeder where you could load it the night before and it has ice packs, and so she'll sit there and stare at it all night long until it goes up, but she doesn't bother us. But she still got constipated.

• 1:02:02Conan O'Brien?

  Can you get con- wait, can you, oh, go ahead, it doesn't matter.

• 1:02:07Speaker 06

  Well, she, she gets constipated and so we're on like 24-hour poop watch, hoping she'll poop, and it goes, you know, sometimes it'll go a few days and we start to get really worried, so we take her to the vet and they want to give her an enema. But what that means is she comes home and she's just like. Like if a toothpaste tube was missing the top.

• 1:02:24Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:02:25Speaker 06

  Okay, I told you this was disgusting and you still wanted to do it.

• 1:02:27Speaker 05

  There's leakage?

• 1:02:29Speaker 06

  Unbelievable leakage. And she also does this thing that we call tootie scooching, where she sits on her butt and pops her hind legs up in the air and pulls herself with her front legs and just scoots along the floor, whether it be hardwood or rug or whatever. Do you remember those old toys that you used to draw with a wax crayon on a like mat? And then you'd put a car and the car would follow the wax crayon?

• 1:02:52Conan O'Brien?

  No, I don't.

• 1:02:52Speaker 05

  No, me neither. I don't remember that toy.

• 1:02:54Speaker 06

  Nobody?

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  Oh my god.

• 1:02:56Conan O'Brien?

  You grew up in the 1910s, I believe. I'm just remembering, I'm remembering. And then you were trapped in ice for a while and then we melted you and you came out.

• 1:03:04Speaker 06

  The same, the same way that people knew what I was talking about with the ink-a-bink-a-bottle, the ink, the cork fell out and you've stink, they'll know what this is.

• 1:03:10Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:03:11Speaker 06

  Okay, so some days we'll come home and there's just this like.

• 1:03:14Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:03:14Conan O'Brien?

  Trail around the house?

• 1:03:16Speaker 06

  Didn't you have an oaky shit story?

• 1:03:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, like once. This isn't a regular current.

• 1:03:21Speaker 06

  Are you judging me? Excuse me, I'm keeping a cat alive.

• 1:03:24Speaker 05

  I understand.

• 1:03:24Speaker 06

  One that you tried to kill, by the way.

• 1:03:26Speaker 05

  But maybe, maybe it's time.

• 1:03:28Speaker 06

  Oh my god. You need to stop that right now. This cat is my life. This is the only, the only being in my household that acknowledges, that gives me any attention, okay? The other two are off on their own all the time. This cat loves me, sits on my lap, we're bonded, and you want to take this from me?

• 1:03:47Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, I have a question. Cause you guys are busy.

• 1:03:49Speaker 05

  Shit on your lap?

• 1:03:50Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:03:50Conan O'Brien?

  You're making jokes. I'm trying to come up with a solution.

• 1:03:52Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm sorry. There's leakage.

• 1:03:54Speaker 06

  Not when she's on my lap.

• 1:03:55Conan O'Brien?

  There are pet diapers. Are there such a thing for cats?

• 1:03:58Speaker 06

  Margot would just never tolerate it. She won't, she would rip it off. She, she's insane.

• 1:04:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:04Speaker 06

  Our vet tried to put her on Prozac.

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  Oh, boy.

• 1:04:07Conan O'Brien?

  And what, what happened there?

• 1:04:08Speaker 06

  We didn't do it.

• 1:04:09Conan O'Brien?

  Why not?

• 1:04:09Speaker 06

  Um, I don't know.

• 1:04:11Conan O'Brien?

  Dope that cat up. That cat should be on, that cat should be on Larazepam.

• 1:04:16Speaker 06

  I know. We figured out the feeder.

• 1:04:18Conan O'Brien?

  That cat should be like, that, that cat, that cat should be on the White Lotus. Shunked up on Larazepam. Like Parker Posey, you know?

• 1:04:27Speaker 06

  She did one time.

• 1:04:28Conan O'Brien?

  That cat should be stumbling around in a really expensive Bangkok.

• 1:04:34Conan O'Brien?

  Hotel going, "Ah, meow, meow."

• 1:04:39Speaker 06

  One time she ate chocolate and...

• 1:04:41Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, great. Well, this will go well. Once, I don't know what happened, we gave her a large eclair.

• 1:04:46Speaker 06

  We did not. She got it. She gets into everything. She will eat vegetables. She'll eat anything. And she went to the bathroom in a closet that was so disgusting.

• 1:04:56Speaker 05

  Oh, Jesus.

• 1:04:57Speaker 06

  And by then, I hadn't remodeled it so where the floorboards met the wall, there was like a half-inch crack. And I remember just, it was so disgusting that I just put, I disinfected it, but I put baseboards on there and cocked it all up.

• 1:05:09Conan O'Brien?

  You sealed it into the house?

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  It's there forever.

• 1:05:12Speaker 06

  Just like the bodies at the pool in Poltergeist, someone's going to open these up one day.

• 1:05:19Conan O'Brien?

  You left that for a future homeowner.

• 1:05:21Speaker 06

  I have no choice.

• 1:05:22Conan O'Brien?

  Sweetie, it's our new hu- hey, sweetie, happy 2055. We're both young and we're, I'm expecting, and we're moving into our own house since the Gourley murders.

• 1:05:37Conan O'Brien?

  I can't believe a woman beat her husband to death with his own tuba. Hey, let's start prying up the baseboard so we can begin the remodeling.

• 1:05:51Conan O'Brien?

  It's come to life by that point.

• 1:05:53Speaker 05

  What the shit?

• 1:05:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 1:05:55Speaker 06

  It's a demon.

• 1:05:57Speaker 05

  Is this just part of your life now? This leakage is just what it is?

• 1:06:01Speaker 06

  Maybe every, maybe once a year, this seems to be happening.

• 1:06:04Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's not so bad.

• 1:06:04Speaker 06

  No, but it's harrowing when it does happen. She's just this oddity. One time, we were living in a second-story apartment, and she was, she would, she was so big that she would sit on the ledge that it started bulging out the screen on the window. And then she fell out the window but rode the screen down. Like, remember in Temple of Doom when they ride the raft out of the airplane? She rode the screen down, and I looked down there and she was just fine. She was just fine.

• 1:06:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 1:06:34Speaker 06

  She's insane.

• 1:06:36Conan O'Brien?

  Wow. Maybe it's time.

• 1:06:38Speaker 06

  No, no!

• 1:06:41Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:06:42Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's easy to do.

• 1:06:44Speaker 06

  Rap, rap.

• 1:06:45Conan O'Brien?

  All right, well, listen, and the cat's name is?

• 1:06:48Speaker 06

  Margot.

• 1:06:48Conan O'Brien?

  Margot the Fat Guy?

• 1:06:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, that's gender confusion. Margot the Fat Guy is a lady cat.

• 1:06:54Speaker 05

  And is she, is she fat?

• 1:06:56Speaker 06

  Yes, she comes and goes. Right now, she's, because she's a little constipated. Although, after today, she's lost weight.

• 1:07:03Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 1:07:04Conan O'Brien?

  Well, please, if you're out there, pray, pray, pray.

• 1:07:08Speaker 06

  We'll take him.

• 1:07:09Conan O'Brien?

  There's a lot going on in the world, but this is, should be the priority, is Margot the Fat Guy.

• 1:07:13Speaker 06

  She's fine now, she's fine, I should mention. And she's loved when she's, when she's in her sweet spot, you know, in my lap, she's, there's nothing better.

• 1:07:20Conan O'Brien?

  I wouldn't put that thing on my lap for a million dollars. Start scooching around, using my knee as toilet paper.

• 1:07:26Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 1:07:27Conan O'Brien?

  Then I come to work and people think I shit my knee. Hey, you shit your knee, Conan.

• 1:07:31Speaker 06

  Why did I agree to talk about this? Why did I agree to talk about this?

• 1:07:35Conan O'Brien?

  All right, well.

• 1:07:36Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 1:07:36Conan O'Brien?

  We wish you all the best.

• 1:07:40Speaker 06

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

• 1:08:01Speaker 06

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• 1:08:48Speaker 07

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