Joel McHale Returns

Actor, comedian, and television host Joel McHale feels blank about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Joel sits down with Conan once more to discuss solo spousal vacations, adventurous palates, his early days performing theater sports at Pike Place, and absurd internet impulse buys. Later, Conan ponders which president he could portray while he and the team Review the Reviewers. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (323) 362-2295.

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

• 0:02Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:15Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:19Speaker 01

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

• 0:22Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:26Speaker 01

  It's mine, dude!

• 0:27Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Liberty, liberty, liberty.

• 0:41Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 0:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Start your quote at libertymutual.com.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Granger knows, if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Costs climb. Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need, when you need it, so you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

• 1:19Conan O'Brien?

  My name is Joel McHale.

• 1:24Conan O'Brien?

  And I feel blank about being Conan O'Brien's friend. You know, when I look into your eyes, I get blank.

• 1:52Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. People are giggling here in the studio. I don't know why.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Multiple reasons.

• 1:59Conan O'Brien?

  But I'll just, yeah, I'll just go with it. And I am, I'm here with my buds.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:03Conan O'Brien?

  My buds, my contractual buds, Sona Movsesian,

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:07Conan O'Brien?

  Matt Gourley. And I don't even know, wanna know why you're giggling, you know? That's your business.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Sometimes we just giggle, it's okay. We talk beforehand. I wanna ask you a question.

• 2:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  I saw your band perform a couple of weeks ago.

• 2:19Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, which one did you come to?

• 2:20Speaker 01

  I went to the lodge room in Highland Park to watch the Vogotas. You guys crushed it. It was so much fun.

• 2:26Conan O'Brien?

  It's a lot of fun to do.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  And you look like you're having a really good time.

• 2:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I love it. It's really fun. It's a pretty simple story. I was feeling like I was getting stagnant on guitar. And then in this studio, I don't know how long ago, maybe two, three years ago, we had Norah Jones on the show.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:45Conan O'Brien?

  And afterward, she always knew that I played guitar and it's kind of a hobby of mine. She said, how's that going? And I said, you know what, I just feel like I need to work with someone 'cause I'm just playing the same things over and over again. I'm not learning anything new. I'm not challenging myself. And she said, I know a great guy. Give this guy a call. And she gave me this name, Jason Roberts. And so I called him up and-

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Shout out!

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Shout out to Jason! Where's my Robert hands at?

• 3:13Conan O'Brien?

  So I call this guy up. He comes over to my house. He's fantastic. And he's an amazing player. And so we just started hanging out like once a week or once every two weeks, whenever I had time. And he would show me things and we would play together and I just had a blast. And then one day, not that long ago, like six months ago, I said, hey, if we were to start a band, would you know the guys? He said, oh, I know the guys. And cut to, immediately, I'm in a garage in NoHo and playing with an amazing keyboard player named Ben. And Jason's on guitar, Josh is on drums, and Eric is a killer bass player.

• 3:55Conan O'Brien?

  And I do vocals and rhythm guitar and occasional goofy solos. And it's just fun. It's just really fun. So we started playing these really tiny venues. We played a really kooky venue in Ojai, which was fun. And it was this older crowd, and so I started to tell them-

• 4:18Speaker 03

  In Ojai?

• 4:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, in Ojai. It was this older crowd that politely applauded when we came out. It was a pretty small room. And so I started telling them that, listen, I know that your minister doesn't allow you to dance. And they all started laughing. And then I went on this whole thing about, I don't care what the minister says, screw that, you have a right to dance. It's not a sin. And so they all started getting up, these older people, and they were all dancing.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 4:44Conan O'Brien?

  And it was kind of a happening. So we've been playing these shows. We just did The Moroccan, which is down near the train station in downtown LA. And that was fun.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  What covers, I assume?

• 4:56Conan O'Brien?

  We do all, yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  What are some songs you guys do?

• 4:59Conan O'Brien?

  There's one song I wrote myself called Bad Podcast Partners.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  So it's self-reflexive? How does it go? How does it go?

• 5:07Conan O'Brien?

  You know, finding something that rhymes with Gourley was hard.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Well, it's right there, poorly.

• 5:14Conan O'Brien?

  And then Movsesian, forget it.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 5:17Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no. We do, we play a wide variety of, I mean, I love rockabilly, so there's some old rockabilly tunes, but there's also Elvis Costello, Harry Nilson.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  What Harry Nilson song did you do?

• 5:29Conan O'Brien?

  Well, we've been playing around with Jump Into the Fire.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 5:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I just like it to be sort of an eclectic mix. We do a song by the band. We do, we sort of jump around, but what I like is I like fast, energetic, things where I can channel my hyperactivity. But the musicians are so good that I just get to enjoy being on stage with them. It's really fun. So it's-

• 5:51Speaker 01

  That's so cool.

• 5:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and I've been, well, what was your impression seeing it? You can be honest.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I had so much fun watching you. It's really, you really enjoy it. You've always enjoyed it. You played the guitar when we would rehearse.

• 6:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  And, you know, any chance-

• 6:05Conan O'Brien?

  I would do that more than I would do the comedy.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  More than you would rehearse. Everybody would just kind of wait until you were done and then we would rehearse.

• 6:12Conan O'Brien?

  People were so annoyed.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  It was, no, I mean, it's your, it's your show. You can do whatever you want. But it's, I think that it's really cool. It's a great creative outlet. I know you have a band too. Tac has a band. I think that it's just-

• 6:23Conan O'Brien?

  Everyone should have a band.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  It's like, if you know how to play music, why not get together with other people who play music and then just play music together?

• 6:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Well, the, my thing is, we're called the Vogotas after Abe Vogota.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:36Conan O'Brien?

  Terrific actor from The Godfather and Phish and Barney Miller. But he was a part of my show for many, many years. And I always thought, if I ever have a band, I'm gonna call it the Vogotas. And we got permission from Abe's family.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 6:50Conan O'Brien?

  And so now we got merch.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Aight!

• 6:52Conan O'Brien?

  And I swear to God, 99% of the reason to have a band is to have the merch.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  With Abe Vogota's face on it.

• 6:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's really fun. It's really fun. So-

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Do you get to choose, like, the songs? Do they, I mean, they're younger, these musicians.

• 7:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yes.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Do they know these songs?

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Do they know who you are?

• 7:09Conan O'Brien?

  They don't know who I am.

• 7:13Conan O'Brien?

  No idea.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:14Conan O'Brien?

  They're always shocked that people seem to come to the shows and know me. They're like, oh, you must have played this club before. No, they, they do know a bunch of the songs, but I'm also surprised sometimes I'll bring up a song that I think everybody knows and they don't, 'cause I'm an older fella. But, and then they-

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Well, they're really young.

• 7:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not just that, it has nothing to do with you being older. It's just that, like, like me, you guys reference things all the time that I don't know what you're talking about.

• 7:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, like the Civil War.

• 7:46Conan O'Brien?

  Abraham Lincoln.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Abraham Vogota.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  That would be his full first name.

• 7:53Conan O'Brien?

  I guess so, yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Oh my God. My mind is blown right now.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  And Mary Todd Vogota.

• 7:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Well, I'm glad we brought this up.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Abraham Vogota just really blew me away.

• 8:06Conan O'Brien?

  I know, that was the most stunned I've ever seen you.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  I am, I don't know.

• 8:09Conan O'Brien?

  Abe Vogota, wait a minute! Abraham Vogota! You laugh like you just split the atom.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  You don't expect the full names to come into play.

• 8:18Conan O'Brien?

  You certainly don't. It's a good point.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Like Matthew Gourley.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Taleen.

• 8:22Conan O'Brien?

  Taleen. So, anyway, that's my hobby, but I will say, the, I can't say enough about these youngsters that are playing with me. They're just, they are the franchise. They're really fun.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:35Conan O'Brien?

  And they're so good at what they do. And they're lovely, funny guys. So I have a good time.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Do they say things and you're like, what? I'm not saying that. I'm, I know, I'm really harping on the fact that they're really, they're really young. That's why I'm like, very impressed that they're like, doing all this stuff with you. 'Cause these are songs I've never heard of before, a lot of them.

• 8:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Well, what would be the song you would want us, you'd want us to do, Queen?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, but I mean, yeah. I'd want you to do Queen, but also, I don't know.

• 9:01Conan O'Brien?

  We do Rihanna's Umbrella.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  You do?

• 9:04Conan O'Brien?

  No!

• 9:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I do the Jay-Z rap. Every, it's the way to get people out of the club if there's a, that's what we do. If there's a fire or any kind of health emergency, I start playing, I start singing Rihanna's Umbrella and rapping the Jay-Z part, and the place clears out.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  You should do Pitbull.

• 9:22Conan O'Brien?

  What's that?

• 9:23Speaker 03

  You should do Pitbull.

• 9:24Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my God.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Oh my God!

• 9:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, Men in Black, theme song.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  This is so cool, though. I'm really happy you're doing this. I think it's really cool.

• 9:30Conan O'Brien?

  Well, we'll be coming soon to a, to a venue near you. All right, let's get into this, okay? My guest today is an actor and a comedian. Comedian? Sure.

• 9:43Conan O'Brien?

  He's a friend, so I can get away with that, who starred on the NBC series Community, one of the greatest shows of all time. Now you can see him in season five of the Fox series Animal Control. He is a good pal. I've known him for a long time. He is a quality fellow. We hang a lot.

• 10:01Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm thrilled he's here today. Joel McHale, welcome.

• 10:07Conan O'Brien?

  These are compulsive sips of iced coffee you're taking. Have you seen this?

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:11Conan O'Brien?

  You are drinking them in a very obsessive compulsive way.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  Took the straw out as if it wouldn't get you enough.

• 10:16Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah, really. That's great.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  I love, yeah, it's, it's a problem.

• 10:21Speaker 05

  You also, I don't know if you want, you have a bit of coffee right here if you want.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  That's ejaculate.

• 10:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Conan O'Brien?

  I didn't know the fleet was in town. Just making sure if you wanted. So, sorry.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  My mom's gonna love it.

• 10:36Conan O'Brien?

  This is a terrible episode. I'm gonna say upfront.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  How can you say it right now?

• 10:39Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, I can declare, I can declare, a doctor can declare a patient dead the minute it's brought in. If there's no heartbeat and no sign of life. Joel, let me talk to you about something.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:49Conan O'Brien?

  You and I are friends in real life. I hate to admit it, but it's true.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  It's.

• 10:53Conan O'Brien?

  We've hung out a lot. I enjoy your company.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  I enjoy yours.

• 10:57Conan O'Brien?

  And then, uh, today, we're supposed to start, uh, recording this at noon.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:02Conan O'Brien?

  And you sail in at like 25 past noon. Al Pacino doesn't do that. Barack Obama doesn't do that. We have heavy hitters come on this show. You cruise in late.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  I have a pretty good excuse.

• 11:14Conan O'Brien?

  Let's hear it.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  I forgot your gift.

• 11:17Conan O'Brien?

  Is that true?

• 11:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I went back and got it.

• 11:19Conan O'Brien?

  You brought me a gift.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  I did.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  Let's see this thing.

• 11:21Conan O'Brien?

  I want, I wanna see.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I literally turned around, I was like, ah, fuck.

• 11:25Conan O'Brien?

  We've talked about this gentleman in the past. For years, Joel McHale has been giving me mostly weapons.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:32Conan O'Brien?

  As gifts. It got to a point where they were all over the house and I think my son once was walking around with, um.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  I hope it was a Bowie knife.

• 11:42Conan O'Brien?

  It was a, it was, it was like a scimitar.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:45Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, I got it out of his hands and then I took all of the weapons you've given me and put them up on a really high shelf. We've talked about that. If I'm ever attacked in my home, uh, I will retreat to my closet, reach up on a high shelf. And in my stumblings and panic, all of them will come falling down and I'll be killed. And then it'll turn out the intruder is just someone who was here to fix the AC.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  At 3:00 in the morning.

• 12:09Conan O'Brien?

  At 3:00 in the morning, which is when I like my ice, AC fixed. Let's open this up.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Sarah, uh, wrapped it.

• 12:14Conan O'Brien?

  What's that?

• 12:15Speaker 03

  My wife wrapped it, Sarah.

• 12:16Conan O'Brien?

  She did a beautiful job.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 12:17Conan O'Brien?

  I love Sarah, by the way.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm very lucky. 30 years, guys. 30 years.

• 12:21Conan O'Brien?

  Wow, it is.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  This, this, this is another weapon.

• 12:25Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, what? Sword cane!

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:28Conan O'Brien?

  I've always wanted a sword cane! I'm not kidding!

• 12:30Speaker 03

  This is a good one. This is a good one.

• 12:33Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my god!

• 12:34Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 12:35Conan O'Brien?

  This is a real.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  This is real.

• 12:36Conan O'Brien?

  Where do you get these things? Because you know what? Some of the things that you've given me, I've later been told are illegal.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:42Conan O'Brien?

  Is this illegal?

• 12:43Speaker 03

  That is illegal. I think it's illegal.

• 12:45Conan O'Brien?

  Well, hey, who's gonna know?

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Arizona, Georgia, you can get them. Uh, there's a number of irresponsible.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  Do you have a poison tipped umbrella?

• 12:53Speaker 03

  I don't have a pointed tipped umbrella.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Or like a knife umbrella?

• 12:56Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my god. Look at this, this is, we'll talk about this. This is, first of all, um, what is this made? It's, it's.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  It's well made.

• 13:04Conan O'Brien?

  It's really well made.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Cold Steel does not mess around. That's the name of the company.

• 13:08Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, you're getting a free, free stuff?

• 13:09Speaker 03

  This was not free. I paid for this.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  Is that like carbon fiber or something?

• 13:13Conan O'Brien?

  It's like carbon fiber on the outside. Look at this. I love that this is a, a QVC for Cold Steel, for, for, for just weapons. You and I should do a show.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  I would do that.

• 13:22Conan O'Brien?

  Where it's just weapons and all the prices are on the side and people, you know what I mean?

• 13:27Speaker 03

  QVC would, we could start our own brand and I'm not kidding. Just pull, pull on it.

• 13:31Conan O'Brien?

  Just pull.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:34Conan O'Brien?

  Feel that.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  That, yeah, that's gonna, yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, that's not.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  It's just a, it's just a, yeah, you just stick that straight into somebody. It's gonna go right through.

• 13:42Conan O'Brien?

  This is incredible.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  I should say, uh, penal code 20510. Under California law, it is a crime to possess, manufacture, import, sell, or give, in California, a cane sword. This is also Chekhov's sword cane where one of us has to die by the end of this episode, you know?

• 13:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, no, it's true. Chekhov always said, in, in drama, if a gun is introduced, eventually it has to be fired.

• 14:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Oh, welcome to the nerd party.

• 14:09Conan O'Brien?

  No, I meant, I meant Chekhov from Star Trek.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  Oh, that's, okay, okay.

• 14:13Conan O'Brien?

  And gun meant phaser. So, yeah, we're all good here now. Sorry, nothing. This is incre, and also, let's just see.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  And you can stroll around?

• 14:21Conan O'Brien?

  Well, can I? Because I'm a tall gentleman. Yeah, this is great. This is, look at this.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, you look like Paul Feig.

• 14:28Conan O'Brien?

  What's that?

• 14:30Speaker 03

  You look like Paul Feig wherever he goes.

• 14:31Conan O'Brien?

  I'm like, this is terrific. Look at this.

• 14:33Speaker 04

  We're seeing what will become the undoing of.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  And then, you know, oh my god. And then you wanna just see.

• 14:39Conan O'Brien?

  This is incredible! I love this.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  And you could just be, one of you could be talking and then all of a sudden you get that weird look and the point just comes out of your chest. You pull it back.

• 14:48Conan O'Brien?

  You know what? You are such a great, I love the gifts that you give me. You know, every morning. He gave me a very dangerous, uh, switchblade where the blade comes straight out of the handle with great force.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:01Conan O'Brien?

  And the logo is like an eagle's talons.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  That's a microtech.

• 15:07Conan O'Brien?

  And you told me when you gave it to me, this is very illegal.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  Very illegal.

• 15:10Conan O'Brien?

  It's very cool. It's got this bright orange handle. I keep it in my drawer in my bathroom. And in the morning, when you have to open up like, anything, like, uh, an aspirin or anything that has that little plastic. I reach, you know, that, that's covering the, uh, the, the, uh, lid. I reach in and I go, pch. And then just do the simplest thing that you could do with a pair of scissors or anything.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  It's badass.

• 15:36Conan O'Brien?

  It's so badass.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  And then it retracts. It's got, it's a double spring action, so it, yeah.

• 15:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  You can get those in Georgia as well.

• 15:44Conan O'Brien?

  So Georgia is a place where you can just get whatever you want.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Anything. You also, well.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  But how do you get them from Georgia? You can't fly with them, right?

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Uh, you can have, they're, they've been, you have to kinda chase. They used to be able to get them on Amazon for a while.

• 15:57Conan O'Brien?

  Did you buy this in Georgia and then stroll all the way?

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Backpacks full of.

• 16:04Speaker 04

  Through the south.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Automatic knife.

• 16:06Speaker 04

  Through the southwest, into California.

• 16:09Conan O'Brien?

  You know what you are? You're the Johnny Appleseed of death.

• 16:13Conan O'Brien?

  Roaming across America. I love this. You know, you give such great gifts and you've given me, um.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  I was thinking, I was like.

• 16:22Conan O'Brien?

  Crossbow. Give me a crossbow.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:25Conan O'Brien?

  And I've, uh.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  I was worried that, I was like, oh man, we're gonna just bring him guns now. And, uh, just, just get just a higher caliber guns each time.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  In Wisconsin, I think is the most dangerous state.

• 16:38Conan O'Brien?

  Why is that?

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Because there's no helmet law, fireworks year round, weed is fully legal, and, uh, obviously alcohol. Unlike Georgia where weed is not legal, but you don't have to wear a helmet.

• 16:50Conan O'Brien?

  You've really looked into the rules.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Well, I was like, there's no rules in Wisconsin.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  You start a militia or something?

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Well, it would be a pretty irresponsible militia with no helmets. And you could just be like throwing.

• 17:01Conan O'Brien?

  When you say no helmets, you mean you're riding your motorcycle?

• 17:03Speaker 03

  You do not need a helmet.

• 17:05Conan O'Brien?

  You don't need a helmet, but you can cover your head in lit fireworks.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  Yes, and weed. But in Georgia, it's, weed is still illegal. So, yeah, anyway.

• 17:14Conan O'Brien?

  Let's talk about you.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  All right.

• 17:19Conan O'Brien?

  I know you don't wanna do that, but, um, we have been friends for a long time. Uh, I enjoy hanging out, uh, so much with you. Uh, your wife Sarah, who's spectacular.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  She is.

• 17:30Conan O'Brien?

  Um, and.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Eddie.

• 17:32Conan O'Brien?

  Well, we both, we both did well.

• 17:34Speaker 03

  Isaac.

• 17:34Conan O'Brien?

  Your kids are great. Eddie, Isaac, we always have a fun time.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, we miss the days when Bucket and Ev would come over. We called.

• 17:41Conan O'Brien?

  It's Beckett.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  We used to, our kids called him Bucket.

• 17:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  And it turns out he's a super genius, but, uh, yeah, we used to.

• 17:48Conan O'Brien?

  Very smart, good man, but yeah, it's a, we should have named him Bucket. I was shocked to learn, and I wanna talk to you about this. Sarah, your wife, who's one of the coolest people I've ever met, she takes her own vacations.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:59Conan O'Brien?

  And you don't go on them.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  No.

• 18:01Conan O'Brien?

  So they're vacations from Joel McHale?

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Yes. Because you could, from the moment I walked in here, you all thought, this is a lot already.

• 18:11Speaker 04

  I need a vacation.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is, this is requiring a lot of attention and it's, it's not giving necessarily, it's taking all the time.

• 18:20Conan O'Brien?

  I think, uh, so where does she go?

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Iceland. Like the.

• 18:25Conan O'Brien?

  Your wife goes to Iceland to get away from you.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. She wants.

• 18:30Conan O'Brien?

  That's not, I would understand like, oh, she likes to go down to the Caribbean and just chill for a little bit. Great. She goes to Iceland to escape you.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  She did that one time. She went to Egypt. Uh, yep, um.

• 18:42Conan O'Brien?

  And how long has she gone for?

• 18:43Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  It seems like a long time. Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Sometimes she'll be back. I'm like, weren't you there? And she goes, I'm just, I've been back.

• 18:58Conan O'Brien?

  And then you're looking at their Instagram and you're like, who's that guy?

• 19:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. We got two other families.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  She has this friend who, uh, wait a minute. And so she organizes these trips where they all, she's a yoga teacher. And she's like, I just want to go to Argentina. And she'll set up the whole trip on the, and then this kind of group goes and they have this grand old time. And they go tour, they don't do too much yoga, but they do, they, she kind of sets up these tours and she has a grand old time.

• 19:29Conan O'Brien?

  I had the same situation with Liza where she'll go someplace and then I'm aware that she's having a really good time.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:34Conan O'Brien?

  And then she comes back and she just feels like, uh, you know, she's, she's finally, she's finally found true happiness.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:42Conan O'Brien?

  I come in the door and go, you're back, baby. And I just see the light go out of her eyes.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  It, uh, we, she wouldn't, yeah, she'll FaceTime from a boat and be so happy.

• 19:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  And her friends will be there. Yeah, it'll be, it will, yeah. The first night when she was gone to Egypt, I, uh, one of our dogs got skunked in the face. And walked in and then I forgot to give our other dog epilepsy, uh, medicine. So she had been gone for two hours and the, uh, what the house smelled like, uh, all the wires were burning. And then I was at the-

• 20:17Conan O'Brien?

  And the dog was in the corner.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  And just convulsing and slowly-

• 20:20Conan O'Brien?

  Completely flipping out.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  Hospital all night. And I was like, this is day one. Day one. Yeah.

• 20:25Conan O'Brien?

  Great. Well, she needs that, uh, she needs that vacation.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:28Conan O'Brien?

  Very desperately.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  How often are you gone?

• 20:32Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, I'm gonna do these travel shows. I'm gone for a while. Liza has started coming on a few of them, but she's very smart. She'll, oh, I'm going to Madrid and I'm going to hang out with Javier Bardem for a show. Liza wants to come. You know, oh, I'm, I'm going to, uh, Amsterdam. Uh, Liza's coming along, but when I go, you know, to Conan in the jungles of Guam.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  She's like-

• 20:54Conan O'Brien?

  Nowhere to be found.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Now, um-

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Wait, are you going for like two weeks? Like if we knew to India?

• 21:02Conan O'Brien?

  Depends on the trip, but it can be 10, 11 days.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  And how has the stomach been?

• 21:09Conan O'Brien?

  Fine, actually, I have to tell you, fine.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  Nothing?

• 21:12Conan O'Brien?

  Nothing.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Never got crazy?

• 21:14Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, I'm not a su, I, I'm not Anthony Bourdain, so I'm not roaming around the streets, uh, shoving a lot of street food into my mouth.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:22Conan O'Brien?

  But I've been just really lucky and, and also, you know, I, yeah, it's, it's been, uh, I've been, I've been very fortunate.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  So if you got invited to the like Yucatan Oyster Fest, would you go?

• 21:35Conan O'Brien?

  I would go. I would not eat the oysters.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Well, that's kind of defeats the purpose of the Oyster Fest.

• 21:40Conan O'Brien?

  No, I just don't like oysters, but I would enthusiastically go. I would talk to everyone about how happy I was to be at the Yucatan Oyster Fest.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:48Conan O'Brien?

  And then when someone offered me one, I'd say, why would I want to eat phlegm? From the bottom of the sea.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  And they're like, you're insulting the Yucatan Oyster Fest.

• 21:57Conan O'Brien?

  And I'd say, no, I'm insulting all oysters.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 22:00Conan O'Brien?

  I just, are you an oyster guy? I'm not an oyster guy.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm afraid. Uh, I love them. I love eating them, but it is one of my, that I, I don't like to think I have a lot of neuroses.

• 22:10Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, you, you have a ton of neuroses.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 22:12Conan O'Brien?

  You realize when you sip.

• 22:16Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my God. Oh my God.

• 22:20Conan O'Brien?

  Let's be very honest about what your issues are.

• 22:25Conan O'Brien?

  I've noticed that, uh, Joel is an amazing grill master and, and cook. He makes, uh, I go over to his house and he grills up these incredible meats and it's perfection. And he's a real, uh, artist about picking the right-

• 22:40Speaker 03

  I get very upset.

• 22:41Conan O'Brien?

  You are, but I can tell that when you're doing it, you're in some kind of a, a zone.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  A tunnel.

• 22:48Conan O'Brien?

  A tunnel.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Meat tunnel.

• 22:49Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  What?

• 22:52Conan O'Brien?

  I saw a movie called Meat Tunnel.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Who was in it?

• 22:56Conan O'Brien?

  Well, they changed, they were using different names.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 22:59Conan O'Brien?

  Let's just put it that way.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  All right.

• 23:00Conan O'Brien?

  And leave it at that.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get very, I get very mad about, not mad, I get very like worked up about whether I get the steak right.

• 23:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Which is not healthy probably, but.

• 23:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, but you're, you know, you're great at it.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  I don't know what my cholesterol is, but.

• 23:13Conan O'Brien?

  I think you've had two heart attacks since you've been on this podcast today. Which accounts for some of your meanderings. That's good. Time for another sip. It's been, it's been four seconds.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  I remember on the COVID show, you were like-

• 23:27Conan O'Brien?

  Compulsive gulp.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  On the COVID show, you said, you are not taking me down this cul-de-sac at 90 miles an hour right now.

• 23:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a good, we had a good little chat.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  And that was good. But oysters, I did get poisoned once when I was a kid and I've still been afraid. So I'm like, uh, if I eat this oyster, what do I have going tomorrow?

• 23:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  And, uh, do I, is this going to be a whole thing?

• 23:47Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  And, but so, yeah.

• 23:49Conan O'Brien?

  So then I- I've just always been, uh, phobic about oysters. Can't do it. I like most shellfish. Are you an oyster guy? I like oysters, yeah. Okay, you David? I've never had one. You've never had one? Never. Never? Well, he's from Illinois. They're, yeah. It's true. Southern Illinois, you know?

• 24:02Speaker 03

  Oysters?

• 24:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I live close to this restaurant called Mess Hall, which has great oysters.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  They do have great oysters.

• 24:08Conan O'Brien?

  Those are, I do have- Should we have some?

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Brought in?

• 24:11Conan O'Brien?

  I'm out on oysters. Yeah, you're out on oysters. See?

• 24:13Speaker 03

  I knew it.

• 24:13Conan O'Brien?

  Would you, would you like to have some now? If we could get some in by the end of this episode, would you guys? No, I would not try an oyster. You would not? I don't, I, I started this by saying, I really don't like oysters and I don't want to have an oyster. And you said, if we could get them in right now. Hear me out though. There are oysters that would travel in the LA heat from Ruston to here. I feel like. There's a lot of high end, you know? These oysters came right from Phoenix.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  We can get, I, we can ice the oysters.

• 24:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I would do it. I love, I love them.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  All right.

• 24:44Conan O'Brien?

  What a great- Little lemon?

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Segment, yeah.

• 24:48Conan O'Brien?

  Then we'd all get a little Orandy?

• 24:58Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, I want to try something different.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  What?

• 25:00Conan O'Brien?

  I like to change it up. I like to learn things. So I'm going to try and make apple cider.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 25:04Conan O'Brien?

  Every morning.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:05Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, just to see if I can do it.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, fall's the perfect season to try something new, like joining T-Mobile.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Oh, that's good.

• 25:12Conan O'Brien?

  See what I did?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, there are 250 reasons to join T-Mobile right now. You want to hear what they are?

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:17Conan O'Brien?

  They're America's best network.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:19Conan O'Brien?

  True story. Plus T-Mobile has got off-grid satellite coverage. That comes in really handy. I like to just wander in the woods sometimes.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Oh, that's weird.

• 25:27Conan O'Brien?

  When I'm thinking about like making apple cider. And, uh, that's when it comes in handy. Here's another reason. High-speed data in over 215 countries and destinations. I travel a lot for the-

• 25:36Speaker 01

  You travel a lot?

• 25:37Conan O'Brien?

  Travel show that I do.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:38Conan O'Brien?

  Stream this podcast while ignoring local landmarks. That's always fun to do. Like, oh, look, there's the Mona Lisa. Yeah, check it out. I'm in the Louvre. I should, but I'm listening to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  That doesn't seem like a good idea.

• 25:50Conan O'Brien?

  It's a great idea.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:51Conan O'Brien?

  You know, uh, you can see art anytime. But how often can you listen to this podcast?

• 25:56Speaker 01

  My God.

• 25:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Now, all these reasons make T-Mobile a great choice.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 26:02Conan O'Brien?

  T-Mobile is stacking up reasons to join. Go to T-Mobile.com and find yours. Best based on analysis by Ookla of speed test intelligence data, first half of 2026. Can't believe I read that. T-Satellite with capable devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. High-speed international data with qualifying plan. Visit T-Mobile.com, consult a physician. I just threw that in there.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 26:31Conan O'Brien?

  We all have those pieces in our closet we can count on. So now I imagine for you, it's that leather jacket I got you.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Are you gonna do a bit?

• 26:37Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, it's a really nice leather jacket I got you once.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  I had that and then I replaced it and yes, I use it all the time.

• 26:42Conan O'Brien?

  We all have that versatile jacket, the perfect T-shirt. And those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. And you know what I was thinking about this morning?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  What?

• 26:52Conan O'Brien?

  Quince. They do it best. They really do. I was really thinking about this.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  What a coincidence that we're doing an ad for them.

• 26:57Conan O'Brien?

  No, a co coincidence.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 27:02Conan O'Brien?

  That's why I get the big money.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  I gotta go.

• 27:04Conan O'Brien?

  Cut to very small amount of money. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials and designs that are timeless, thoughtful, crafted and made to be worn again and again. And when the temperature starts to drop, Quince makes it easy to build on those everyday staples with versatile layers. Layer up. That's the key. Now, Blay, you, you're, you're using some Quince.

• 27:23Speaker 05

  That's right. I, I'm spending a lot of time, uh, back east, uh, in Michigan. It's getting a little colder. So I got a featherless quilted jacket in Atlas Navy and I just feel like a different guy. I feel classy.

• 27:34Conan O'Brien?

  You, you look like a different guy.

• 27:35Speaker 05

  And a different-

• 27:35Conan O'Brien?

  Cause you're well dressed.

• 27:36Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 27:37Conan O'Brien?

  No, I'm serious. He looks like a hobo half the time.

• 27:39Speaker 05

  That's true. He's right. That's true.

• 27:40Conan O'Brien?

  No, they, they really do great stuff. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  All right.

• 27:54Conan O'Brien?

  And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Please do that. Say, by the way, I heard about this on Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

• 28:03Speaker 05

  Oh, I didn't really ask.

• 28:05Conan O'Brien?

  I just want you to know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 28:12Speaker 06

  Hey, it's me, Teddy Swims. You hear that? That's life. So go grab it. Grab your old friends, grab new friends, grab a White Claw.

• 28:24Speaker 06

  Grab flavor for everyone in your group. Grab music, laughter and moments you'll never forget. You'll never regret it. Oh, hey, man. Grab new friends, grab old friends, grab life by the glow, White Claw. Please drink responsibly. White Claw, Delta Works, Chicago, Illinois.

• 28:46Conan O'Brien?

  You.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:47Conan O'Brien?

  Love game shows.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  I do.

• 28:49Conan O'Brien?

  Love them. And this is where we, uh, this is a point of separation for us.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Why?

• 28:55Conan O'Brien?

  Because I've never, I think I don't like games. And so I, whenever, uh, you know, if I was on a game show, I'd just be trying to remember the rules. You know, when, when someone does a card trick and they're like, okay, which card is it? Now remember that card, but here's another card. I just get so tense that I don't enjoy myself at all. And then I forget which card was mine. I say the wrong one. The magician gets angry.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Do you play any puzzles on your phone?

• 29:23Conan O'Brien?

  I do a lot of crosswords and things like that. Yeah. But I, I'm not someone who would enjoy being a game show host. I think I'd screw it up. But you really like it.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Is there a number though, where you're like?

• 29:36Conan O'Brien?

  I'll do it. Yes.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:39Conan O'Brien?

  Um, so let's just meet that number. And it's very low. But I'd make some terrible investments.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Cause I host the 1% Club on Fox, next day on Hulu.

• 29:50Conan O'Brien?

  Who are you looking at?

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Where's the camera? Sorry, whichever. For a minute it was me and I got really uncomfortable. Yes. Uh, but I.

• 29:58Conan O'Brien?

  And what are the rules of the 1%? If I was, let's say I was on the show as a contestant, what would I, what would my task be?

• 30:04Speaker 03

  You just answer these puzzles. They, they show you the puzzle. You have 30 seconds to answer them.

• 30:10Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  But you do the, there's like the 90% question, which is we asked 100 people, 90 of them got it right.

• 30:15Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Here's that question.

• 30:17Conan O'Brien?

  I would get the 1% questions and I would get wrong the 90% questions.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  That happens to me all the time.

• 30:24Conan O'Brien?

  So.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  I'm terrible at the game, but I love mocking people for getting the question wrong.

• 30:29Conan O'Brien?

  Here's my question, because game show hosts, when I was growing up anyway, were always kind of avuncular and kind and sweet.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 30:35Conan O'Brien?

  Um, you are, uh.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Dick.

• 30:38Conan O'Brien?

  You're dick. Um, I just were trying to think of a better word and then, but then, no, dick is it.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:44Conan O'Brien?

  So it's okay for you to be a dick on the 1% Club?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:47Conan O'Brien?

  Next day on Hulu.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Which I, thank you. Uh, yeah, they, that was part of it. That was like, I have to be able to, you know, ridicule these people as, as they get these questions wrong. So.

• 30:58Conan O'Brien?

  Even though you wouldn't be able to get them correct.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I tell them that all the time.

• 31:02Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  And I also say, I'm not, I'm bad at reading. I'm fully dyslexic. And, uh, so when I read the questions and they can be pretty complicated. I'm like, just read the question. Don't listen to me. Cause I'm going to screw it up. So you guys read it. So I'm, they're amazing.

• 31:18Conan O'Brien?

  You're a terrible host.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  I'm not, I'm bad at it. And you know what the prize is? It's a bag of oysters, which is.

• 31:26Conan O'Brien?

  That's right. Phoenix oysters.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 31:29Conan O'Brien?

  Fresh from the desert.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  We got these one from Oklahoma. Uh, so yeah, so I, but I love doing it.

• 31:36Conan O'Brien?

  But you love them. You know, Andy Richter loves game shows too. Uh, he's always, he, he loves to host them. Uh, he has in the past. Yeah, yeah. And he, you know, he's a very funny host, but he enjoys, uh, that world. And I think, uh, I'm phobic about it. I'm phobic about games like that.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  Really?

• 31:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I kinda am. Yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  They would pay you a lot of money.

• 31:57Conan O'Brien?

  Listen, money's never been my thing. Now, if you'll excuse me.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  I would say taste has never been your thing. I say you spent a lot of money, but I'm kidding.

• 32:07Conan O'Brien?

  But my jacket taste is through.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  That coat is fabulous.

• 32:10Conan O'Brien?

  Through the roof.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Is that Tom Ford?

• 32:12Conan O'Brien?

  We're not talking about.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  I'm a man of the people who walks around with a sword cane.

• 32:18Conan O'Brien?

  Please, I'm just a regular, average Joe.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Just ramble.

• 32:23Conan O'Brien?

  I'm getting killed by this later today.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:25Conan O'Brien?

  I'm going to hurt myself.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. When you put it in your car, just be careful.

• 32:28Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 32:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:29Conan O'Brien?

  That won't be the problem.

• 32:30Speaker 03

  I'll go into an In-N-Out with it.

• 32:33Conan O'Brien?

  Forget that it's also a sword. Uh.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  What are these guys doing here?

• 32:37Conan O'Brien?

  What's that? These guys?

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, that is.

• 32:40Conan O'Brien?

  Well, Matt jumps in every now and then, and just sticks the shiv in between my fifth and sixth rib.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  And he gets like how you're sitting.

• 32:48Conan O'Brien?

  You got one, dude.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  It's nice. I can't fold.

• 32:51Conan O'Brien?

  The pillow aside went nowhere. Eduardo built this place and I don't mean just with his hands. Uh, he is a genius audio engineer. Blay is here to occasionally shout into the microphone, right?

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 33:05Conan O'Brien?

  But also to keep us on track.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  I'm a good laugher. You are.

• 33:08Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, right. Yeah. There you go. And David, what do you do?

• 33:12Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 33:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Oh, Sona couldn't be here. David fills in.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:16Conan O'Brien?

  Okay. And so I think we're a happy crew.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  I think it's good. And you know Matt from Nirvana, the band, the show? Yeah, Matt and Jay from Nirvana, the band, the show.

• 33:23Conan O'Brien?

  And you brought that up because.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  It came up earlier. He just mentioned he liked Tony when he was in the green room and I said, I was.

• 33:30Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, so you're bringing, this is following up on something that happened in the green room.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  I.

• 33:33Conan O'Brien?

  Before we started recording.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:35Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I'm so glad I have a sword cane right now. Because little asides and you're like, no, no, no, that's a joke off of something we did in the green room before we started recording, when you weren't there, Conan. Because you were going over notes to prepare for the great Joel McHale sit down. Notes that say things like, oysters.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Wait, you have oysters?

• 33:59Conan O'Brien?

  Doesn't like fraternity. You were briefly in a fraternity in college. And then you left because they asked you to leave. What happened?

• 34:07Speaker 03

  I just, it was very dirty.

• 34:09Conan O'Brien?

  What do you mean? Um, not clean?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. We, it wasn't, I'm sure there's some, a lot of my friends have enjoyed fraternities and sororities.

• 34:16Conan O'Brien?

  I was not in a fraternity. We didn't have fraternities in college. Uh, but so this was a fraternity you joined thinking, oh, this will be fun. We'll put on togas, we'll throw kegs out the window and we'll chant in unison.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  With the guys and it'll be great.

• 34:30Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Uh, and, uh, they, it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't for me. Um, they were actually, it was, uh, it was okay. I moved home and then lived at home for the rest of college, which was a whole different type of fraternity.

• 34:43Conan O'Brien?

  That's a whole other thing. You, you didn't just leave the fraternity. You went home.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  I went home. My, the home was close.

• 34:50Conan O'Brien?

  That's a quick question. Were you kicked out of school?

• 34:52Speaker 03

  No, I should have been.

• 34:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Uh, because I.

• 34:55Conan O'Brien?

  So why'd you move home?

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Uh, cause I was like, ah, I'll figure out a place to stay later. Ironically, I'm friends with a number of the people in the fraternity still.

• 35:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 35:04Conan O'Brien?

  They now live at your home.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. Rhodey, my friend Rhodey, of course, anybody in a fraternity is named Rhodey. Uh, yeah, it wasn't, uh, it wasn't a pleasant time, but then I was like, uh, we were all making our way, trying hard.

• 35:18Conan O'Brien?

  And you played football in college?

• 35:20Speaker 03

  I did. Uh, which they were, that was great. They were, um, that, that was a good group because they had a really good goal, which was win football games. And the fraternity at that time, I hear everything has changed since then, but, uh, at the fraternity at that time, you know, the goals were much different. Maybe they are the same now. I don't know. I'm wandering around.

• 35:42Conan O'Brien?

  I would hate to be in your mind. It's just such a rat's name.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  That's you saying that.

• 35:47Conan O'Brien?

  I, that's me.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  I know.

• 35:49Conan O'Brien?

  That's me.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:50Conan O'Brien?

  But, um, yes, so I see now why you left college.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  I wanted to live in a sorority. Cause they, they was, they were clean.

• 35:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  And full of girls.

• 35:59Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. You're bored. Just bored to tears.

• 36:02Conan O'Brien?

  I'm no, I just, I'm trying to figure out if that's a cool thing to say in the modern era. I wanted to live in a sorority because of all them goyos.

• 36:11Conan O'Brien?

  Are we allowed to do that anymore?

• 36:13Speaker 03

  I, well.

• 36:14Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, you didn't do that other stuff.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  You said way different. Yeah.

• 36:17Conan O'Brien?

  And with the.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  I wanna live, I wanna go with the goyos.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  With the sword cane, it really.

• 36:29Conan O'Brien?

  You gave this guy a sword cane.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  I, I loved playing football. That was, it was very dangerous, but, but, but, uh, ultimately very rewarding.

• 36:37Conan O'Brien?

  You are a very muscular man.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 36:39Conan O'Brien?

  We've talked about this and this despite the fact that you don't really do weight training. I've tried to encourage you to do that.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  I do do weight training.

• 36:46Conan O'Brien?

  Really?

• 36:47Speaker 03

  Yes. That's all I do.

• 36:48Conan O'Brien?

  Be more muscular if you did that.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  What?

• 36:51Conan O'Brien?

  You, uh.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  It's a downtime.

• 36:52Conan O'Brien?

  When do you work out? You get up in the morning, first thing?

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Well, it depends on the day. I haven't worked out today because I had to wake up early. Uh, so.

• 37:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, clearly you were 20 minutes late.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Oh, to get your gift. Am I the latest out of anybody who's done your podcast?

• 37:07Conan O'Brien?

  Uh-uh. No, who was the latest?

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Because she had to go get you a gift too.

• 37:12Conan O'Brien?

  Right. And you know what? Kesha was super late, but no one minded.

• 37:15Speaker 03

  No.

• 37:16Conan O'Brien?

  Because she came in, she was fantastic. She looked amazing. All of her stories had a beginning, middle and end.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  She was kind of wearing pants.

• 37:25Conan O'Brien?

  There was, yeah. And she had a shirt with your face on it. Yeah. Oh my God. That was the, that's what I love so much. I was like, you look amazing. And then I did the whole bing, bing, bing, a woo ga, a woo ga. And then I was canceled.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Wait, um. Ah, if I had, mm, okay. If I had just worn a t-shirt with your face on it, I'd love you. This would be my favorite podcast. Ever, episode ever. I have a Craig Kilborn shirt, but that's about it.

• 37:48Conan O'Brien?

  Really?

• 37:49Speaker 03

  No.

• 37:49Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  I gave it to, that's to the Smithsonian.

• 37:51Conan O'Brien?

  Okay. Um, these.

• 37:53Speaker 03

  The only one.

• 37:54Conan O'Brien?

  Your asides are jewels. Each aside you make is just an absolute jewel.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Two out of four are kind of enjoying them.

• 38:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I, I, I love it. I love it. I don't know where they come from. I don't know what they mean. You're a Seattle guy.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  Yes. Uh, as are you, an honorary Seattle guy.

• 38:10Conan O'Brien?

  I am an honorary, I married into Seattle. I was just from Seattle. I go there all the time. I love it.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Greatest city. You invented everything.

• 38:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. It's just, uh, the, the sky being three inches above the sidewalk.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:21Conan O'Brien?

  Um.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Airplanes.

• 38:22Conan O'Brien?

  Coffee.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Perpetual depression.

• 38:24Conan O'Brien?

  Online shopping.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  I do love.

• 38:26Conan O'Brien?

  Pickleball? Shall I go on? I love Seattle. I really do. And you, um, you got sort of your start in Seattle because you did theater games. I didn't know this about you. So I always try and find out something about you that I didn't know before. You did theater games improv.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:41Conan O'Brien?

  At Pike's Place Market?

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:43Conan O'Brien?

  Where they throw the fish and, fish and catch them?

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:45Conan O'Brien?

  I'm there all the time because we sort of always stay in that part of downtown and I wander around. So I'm there constantly. Tell me, what was it like doing improv while people were throwing raw fish around?

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Well, the, uh, theater is now, uh, you, you've been to the gum wall?

• 39:01Conan O'Brien?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Uh, the gum wall at Pike Place Market is truly a disgusting, it's gotta be the most unsanitary.

• 39:08Conan O'Brien?

  Describe what it is.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  Monument in all of the world is my guess. It is just people chew gum and then stick it to the wall.

• 39:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  And you think, oh, that, there are millions have gone through. As a thing, that's like what they. Yes. Yeah. And it smells like a homeless person's crotch. There it is.

• 39:25Conan O'Brien?

  There it is. That's the gum wall.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  And I know what a homeless person's crotch smells like.

• 39:28Conan O'Brien?

  You know what I?

• 39:29Speaker 03

  It's, there's the theater. That literally, that window is the theater window.

• 39:34Conan O'Brien?

  Where you got your start and now it's covered in gum. You know what I love to do? I do this all the time. I go to the gum wall. I peel off a piece of gum and I plant it on a crime scene.

• 39:43Conan O'Brien?

  I've had more innocent people who are just tourists arrested.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  I swear to you, officer, I was not.

• 39:50Conan O'Brien?

  Ah, moving along now, you're coming with us.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  It was a wonderful time. It was a wonderful time.

• 39:56Conan O'Brien?

  So you like doing improv?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  It was so great because it got me comfortable on stage for hours and hours and I was able to.

• 40:03Conan O'Brien?

  And when did that go away?

• 40:05Speaker 03

  How dare you? How dare you? Oh, I don't even need this. I don't need this. I've got my sword cane right here. I, I think, um, when did it go away? No, it really did like, I was just like, oh, I could be on stage for hours.

• 40:26Conan O'Brien?

  That's what I did first. I, I did improv and it was when I first got started out here, 1985.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  I thought it was the 50s.

• 40:34Conan O'Brien?

  I'm sorry, 1955. I had my hair greased back. I just voted for Eisenhower. I remember just, it gets you up on stage and it gets you thinking and moving and, and I loved being in front of people. So it was great.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  It was great. Yeah. And they kept me, it was called Unexpected Productions. We did theater sports and, uh, it was just hours and hours of so, and I remember, I remember thinking, this is what I, this is what I want to do. This is, I gotta do this as much as I can until I have to get a real job.

• 41:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Boy, they're still doing it. There's people in that company that I, they're still going.

• 41:06Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  And, and I've gone back on stage.

• 41:09Conan O'Brien?

  They're lifers. Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. And they're so much better now. I mean, I'm like, God dang, this like getting, it's like playing a sport you haven't played in years. I'm like, I'm sorry, no, not very good at this anymore. Oh, so.

• 41:22Conan O'Brien?

  Always a good thing to start off with when you're on stage.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  I suck at this and then it just gets super racist.

• 41:28Conan O'Brien?

  But you're good at it.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 41:31Conan O'Brien?

  You know all the different races so well.

• 41:35Conan O'Brien?

  You've gotten much better.

• 41:37Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 41:38Conan O'Brien?

  So, um.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  It's, yeah. Have you been to a theater? We should go to a show there sometime.

• 41:43Conan O'Brien?

  I've done to a bunch of different shows. I haven't been to a show there, but I have seen a lot of theater in, uh, in Seattle.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  What happens when you walk in?

• 41:51Conan O'Brien?

  What does that mean? People go, I'd fuck him. I don't know.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  No, I mean, if Conan O'Brien walks into the.

• 41:58Conan O'Brien?

  That's what people say audibly. I'd fuck him. It's weird.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  You're like, we're doing this 12th night.

• 42:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, exactly. No, no, what do you mean when I walk in? Nothing happens. I, I sit down and people go, ugh, that guy. I just saw him at the market. He was peeling gum off a wall.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  And he framed those people.

• 42:15Conan O'Brien?

  Planted it.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  What's the last play you saw?

• 42:18Conan O'Brien?

  I don't remember. We used to, all the time we used to go see theater with our kids, you know, kids there. So, you know, we would go to see, uh, Christmas Carol, that kind of thing. Christmas Story.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. Christmas Story.

• 42:29Conan O'Brien?

  Whatever it is.

• 42:30Speaker 03

  You just watch a movie. The John Hugh, the famous.

• 42:34Conan O'Brien?

  I used to take my kids to see movies and then I would say, wasn't that a good play?

• 42:40Speaker 03

  And then they.

• 42:40Conan O'Brien?

  And then I got points for taking my kids to theater. And people would say, what did you see? And they would say.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Endgame.

• 42:48Conan O'Brien?

  We saw.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  The play.

• 42:50Conan O'Brien?

  Adventures Endgame, as done by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Um, that's a great scam.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Oh, I love the theater. What did you just see? Obsession.

• 43:05Conan O'Brien?

  So you come down to LA, cause I'm trying to figure out your trajectory. You come down to LA and you're, you're getting little acting parts here and there?

• 43:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, uh, I went to acting school at the University of Washington.

• 43:17Conan O'Brien?

  UW.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  UW. Uh, Go Dogs?

• 43:20Conan O'Brien?

  Let it go. Let it go.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Uh, and, uh, and I, yeah, I did for three.

• 43:26Conan O'Brien?

  People, people listening to this on their serious, on their serious radio are stopping their rental car, getting out and shooting into the hood with a gun.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  Why would they destroy their car?

• 43:38Conan O'Brien?

  And I didn't say it wasn't an overreaction, but.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I will say we have the coolest student of all time at the UW, who went to UW.

• 43:48Conan O'Brien?

  Who's that?

• 43:48Speaker 03

  Who was the coolest? You went to Harvard, right?

• 43:50Conan O'Brien?

  Sure.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  You bring it up all the time.

• 43:52Conan O'Brien?

  I think you just did.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Coolest graduate of all time, other than you. You have presidents, right?

• 43:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 03

  And you guys, did you go to college? Harvard?

• 44:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, everyone here, that's the only people I hire. Yeah, that's why they're all wearing mortarboards.

• 44:08Speaker 03

  Bruce Lee, we had Bruce Lee.

• 44:10Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yes, of course. And also, guess what? Bruce Lee's buried there.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. Is he really? Yeah. On campus? He's right, not on, he's right on Capitol Hill, right near there.

• 44:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And so is, uh, Jimi Hendrix.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:20Conan O'Brien?

  Coolest people are, are buried in Seattle.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  This is, Sarah's parents, no joke, are buried in the same, uh, graveyard as Jimi Hendrix. Her father, cause Sarah's father died a long time ago and was buried there. So, uh, there, there's a fun story.

• 44:35Conan O'Brien?

  I thought of a sketch, this is, since we're doing, um, you know, crazy, uh, side commentary here. I thought of a sketch, uh, not long ago where it's heaven and someone gets up to heaven and they've just died and of course their dream, you know, whenever someone who loves guitar dies, they say, you know what they're doing right now? They're jamming with Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon and Elvis. And that guy shows up and Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon and Elvis are just so sick of this shit. That's all they, and they're like, they, and God is like, come on, it's what they, no!

• 45:18Conan O'Brien?

  I can't fucking do it anymore. These guys can't even play.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  And the guys from Jethro Tull are like, we, we'll play with anybody.

• 45:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  You guys wanna do some rock flute? Sorry.

• 45:29Conan O'Brien?

  Those guys are still alive.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  I think they're still touring.

• 45:31Conan O'Brien?

  They're alive and that's an incredible band. I think you picked the wrong band.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Glass Tiger? Remember that band?

• 45:38Conan O'Brien?

  What, why do you do this?

• 45:39Speaker 03

  They're still alive.

• 45:40Conan O'Brien?

  And when I say, why do you do this?

• 45:41Speaker 03

  Don't forget me when I'm gone.

• 45:44Conan O'Brien?

  When I say, why do you do this? I mean, why do you come here when I ask, when I ask you?

• 45:48Speaker 03

  I was invited and much like a vampire, now you're screwed. You invited me into your home. Never invite the Joel McHale in.

• 45:57Conan O'Brien?

  I'm here forever now.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  Is it weird when you have guests on that are way less famous than you?

• 46:04Conan O'Brien?

  No, I love that. Cause then I get to be the, you know, the alpha dog. That's fun. Then I get to go like, ah, look at you. You haven't achieved what I have achieved. See? Now listen to me, see?

• 46:14Speaker 03

  You say?

• 46:14Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, no.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Did you, like, when you interviewed Mick Jagger, were you like, kinda, you're in LA all the time. You could've come to the studio.

• 46:24Conan O'Brien?

  I did. I actually made a, I was very passive aggressive in the interview. I said, oh, I guess we had to do it here in London.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:32Conan O'Brien?

  Cause you're Mick Jagger. And a lot of people said it ruined the interview because I think I spent most of the interview just, I couldn't get over it. So couldn't you have met me halfway? Which would be. Which would be in Nova Scotia?

• 46:47Speaker 03

  He just strolling through Halifax, along the beach. Was he nice?

• 46:52Conan O'Brien?

  He was lovely.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:53Conan O'Brien?

  He was lovely. Incredibly smart, whip smart. So.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  What are you saying?

• 46:58Conan O'Brien?

  You'll get there. You just need more time. You need more stage time is what you need.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 47:03Conan O'Brien?

  I'm very fascinated with, and maybe we've talked about this before, but it can, it just fascinates me. Anytime I visit you, you have a new vehicle, but it's not, um, let me paint the picture here. It's not like, oh, he's got a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or anything. You have what looks like stuff you got at an auction house. Like something that says US Navy on the side and it looks like it used to have a machine gun on the back, but doesn't have the machine gun anymore. You get these things.

• 47:35Speaker 03

  I can get that in Georgia.

• 47:35Conan O'Brien?

  Is that a little, yeah. Is that an obsessive compulsive thing?

• 47:40Speaker 03

  Yes. I think it is part, yes.

• 47:41Conan O'Brien?

  It gives you a lot of joy. I, I don't begrudge you that and it's cool. It's very cool stuff.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:46Conan O'Brien?

  But whenever you get in it, you show me these things. You're like, man, you gotta get one. And I get really excited. I have a little bit of that thing when I'm with someone, I'm, and, and someone I like, and I do like Joel a lot. I get excited about the thing they're excited about and then I'll be saying like, yeah, yeah. And then while getting the car with Lys on the way home when we're at your house and I'll be like, yeah, I don't know. I, I'm gonna see if there are any, uh, naval trucks around that, that have a rig in the back for a weapon. She's like, you're not doing any of that. And I go, I know. And I wake up in the morning. I'm like, I don't even wanna do that. So Sarah puts up with that.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  She's very patient.

• 48:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  And, uh, she, like, okay, this, for example, I, I do have a truck from the air force that is parked outside my home. Cause I want people to think that I'm slightly crazy.

• 48:35Conan O'Brien?

  But also it might be a crime deterrent. Because I wouldn't, if I was gonna case a joint and I saw there was a giant, I mean, huge.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  It is a huge Chevy case.

• 48:45Conan O'Brien?

  Machine out front, bits like matte gray and it says US Navy on the side and it looks like it has the apparatus to have a machine gun. I don't think I'd go inside that house. I'd go into the other house and I'd be surprised by a gentleman with a simple walking stick. Oh, hello. I'm of no threat to you.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I would say anybody who's listening to this, if you, uh, look at that truck and think, oh, he's just doing it as a deterrent and you can just walk right in. I dare you. I fucking dare you. Uh, that was.

• 49:24Conan O'Brien?

  Cause I got some theater games waiting for you.

• 49:27Speaker 03

  I will play.

• 49:28Conan O'Brien?

  We'll start slowly.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  Put my hands.

• 49:30Conan O'Brien?

  Go off track.

• 49:31Speaker 03

  Under someone's armpits and pretend to swing at you. Yeah, so I know a guy, his name's Brian. And I'll be like, oh, that was really cool truck. And then he will send me five links going, hey, I found that truck you just happened to mention.

• 49:44Conan O'Brien?

  Don't you hate it when, that happens to me sometimes with guitars. I'll, I'll say, ah, I mean, that was, you know, Gretsch Roundup, that's a really great guitar. Man, I love those guitar. And then I have people in my life that are enablers.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 49:58Conan O'Brien?

  Drug dealers that say, hey, I just found this link. That guitar could be yours for 700 million dollars.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  And you're like, okay.

• 50:06Conan O'Brien?

  No, I say no.

• 50:08Speaker 03

  You've said yes before.

• 50:09Conan O'Brien?

  I have a couple of times, but not.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  How many guitars do you have?

• 50:12Conan O'Brien?

  We don't want to talk about it.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Okay, so here's what you have started in my life are these glasses.

• 50:18Conan O'Brien?

  Jacques Marie Lamarche.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  Yes, now I just buy these.

• 50:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  And it's cheaper than cars.

• 50:22Conan O'Brien?

  You know what they're for? They're for people with big heads and faces.

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:26Conan O'Brien?

  And you know who turned me on to them? A man named Jeff Goldblum.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 50:30Conan O'Brien?

  Jeff Goldblum, I was doing some project with him somewhere on the line and we were in a voiceover booth together. And I looked at his glasses. Jeff Goldblum is the coolest guy and he always wears the coolest stuff and we're similar build. I looked at his glasses and I said, those glasses are amazing. He's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, my boy, oh, my boy. Oh, Jacques Marie Lamarche, mm, yeah, mm. And then he took them off and he was touching my face and then he was touching my chest. There was a long embrace, a hotel room, and then, uh, he was right. And he told me where to go and how they, and they're fantastic.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I, Sarah's, now I have bags of them now. And Sarah's like, what, you have a backpack full of these? What are you doing? And I'm like, I just, I, my new, I, it's avoids, it helps me to avoid buying something large.

• 51:22Conan O'Brien?

  The internet would destroy you because it's too easy to buy things.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:26Conan O'Brien?

  Someone like you who sees things and, oh, really cool, a grenade. I can have a live grenade from the Korean War and you would click on it.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  I have one of those.

• 51:34Conan O'Brien?

  Do you have a grenade?

• 51:35Speaker 03

  I have a grenade.

• 51:36Conan O'Brien?

  Do you seriously have a grenade?

• 51:37Speaker 03

  I have a grenade that doesn't have, obviously, the charge in it, but.

• 51:41Conan O'Brien?

  How do you, I don't, I don't trust you not to have a live grenade in your home. And I don't think you really checked.

• 51:47Speaker 03

  When I pull the pin, I do feel excitement, cause then you can put it back in. But I've got a bunch of bullwhips. I was trying to get you a bullwhip for today.

• 51:57Conan O'Brien?

  I prefer this, a bullwhip, you actually have to be able to move your arm a little bit.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  I saw you playing cricket in that thing, you move fast.

• 52:05Conan O'Brien?

  I do move fast.

• 52:06Speaker 03

  It's much, it's cat-like.

• 52:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  It scares me.

• 52:10Conan O'Brien?

  I'm a stealth athlete.

• 52:11Speaker 03

  It's like watching a stork run away from a, like a wildebeest or something. I'm sorry, I had to turn it back on my, I had to turn it into an insult, I'm sorry.

• 52:20Conan O'Brien?

  You did, it's okay, you learned that near, at the fish market.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  Well, I got, that's how they got us offstage, they just huck a salmon at us. You know?

• 52:30Conan O'Brien?

  Joel, let's.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Did you know, and I've said this to you before, you're the only show I've ever written a letter to.

• 52:35Conan O'Brien?

  When?

• 52:36Speaker 03

  In 96 or five? I was living in my parents' home. Oh, so it was 93.

• 52:45Conan O'Brien?

  It was any time during college, or for 10 years afterwards.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  I've never written a letter.

• 52:50Conan O'Brien?

  And you wrote a letter, that's nice.

• 52:52Speaker 03

  But when, it was before the devil and the, the angel and the bear sketch.

• 52:56Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 03

  That would be on either side of your shoulder.

• 52:58Conan O'Brien?

  We did a repeating sketch where I was in a moral quandary. And I'd wonder what to do and the old thing where an angel would appear on one shoulder and go, return the wallet, Conan, that's the right thing to do and God will bless you. And I'd go, huh, but I wonder if there's another perspective. And you'd think a devil would show up on the other shoulder, but it was a bear. And the bear didn't know anything.

• 53:16Speaker 03

  Well, the bear would always go, uh, don't, always maul with your front paws.

• 53:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it would, it would give me advice, just specific to bears. Oh, I love going past the old stuff and thinking about it, but it was, those were good times. So you wrote me a letter?

• 53:28Speaker 03

  I wrote you a letter.

• 53:29Conan O'Brien?

  A fan letter?

• 53:30Speaker 03

  Fan letter, yeah.

• 53:31Conan O'Brien?

  That's so nice.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, we, you were the, uh, like when you came on, we're like, people our age, what, like 30 years younger than you. We were, yeah, when you came on.

• 53:42Conan O'Brien?

  You joke, but it is true. Anyone my age or older thought this was a disaster, what is this man doing? And then it was young people that were like, oh, this is cool.

• 53:52Speaker 03

  He's doing it all, he's doing all the stuff we want to do.

• 53:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's nice.

• 53:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was, yeah, and I remember just thinking, man, if I can just be an enterta, if I can somehow entertain.

• 54:01Conan O'Brien?

  You will get there.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  Then I was like.

• 54:03Conan O'Brien?

  It's going to happen for you. You just need a few more trucks and nine more glasses of liquid.

• 54:12Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, I have to ask because everyone wants to know.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  No one wants to know.

• 54:15Conan O'Brien?

  One of my favorite shows of all time, we talk about this a lot and, uh, and my family as well, my kids.

• 54:22Speaker 03

  The Great Indoors on CBS.

• 54:23Conan O'Brien?

  The Great Indoors on CBS.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Your favorite.

• 54:26Conan O'Brien?

  And, and, Animal Control.

• 54:28Speaker 03

  Animal Control.

• 54:29Conan O'Brien?

  And Animal, Animal Control, uh, that's a very good show, but, I mean, the show that they've built religions around, community. There's always talk of a movie, I ask you every time, you say, possibly, maybe, it could. Is that happening or not happening?

• 54:44Speaker 03

  Possibly, maybe, it could.

• 54:46Conan O'Brien?

  Got it.

• 54:47Speaker 03

  Uh, we have the money, it's getting the schedules together. And I know, it's been going on for years now. Uh, I ruined it one time, uh, cause I, uh, I think I did, I recorded a, a commercial for a gambling app. But, uh, and that fucked up the schedule.

• 55:05Conan O'Brien?

  You fucked up the gambling, you fucked up the community reunion because.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like a morning.

• 55:10Conan O'Brien?

  You were shooting a commercial?

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, it was, uh, for another schedule thing that I couldn't move and, but, uh, but then it was, yeah, so it's just, it, it will happen. We have the money.

• 55:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  I swear.

• 55:24Conan O'Brien?

  Stop saying we have the money, you, you sound like you're.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Do you even have a script? You just have the money?

• 55:29Conan O'Brien?

  We got the money.

• 55:31Speaker 03

  Dan, Dan Harmon, if you're listening, please, let's do it.

• 55:35Conan O'Brien?

  I've never heard a guy just keep saying, we've got the money, we've got the money. It's like you're a kidnapped victim. We got the money together, just give us a half an hour more.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  We don't even want the money. Uh, but that's one of the hardest things to get, right? Is like the funding.

• 55:50Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  You don't believe me?

• 55:51Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know, I don't know much about movies.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  What?

• 55:53Conan O'Brien?

  But, um.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  I loved you in, um.

• 55:57Conan O'Brien?

  Clearly.

• 56:01Conan O'Brien?

  Joel, I'm gonna let you go.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 56:02Conan O'Brien?

  I'm gonna tell you something.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  I thought we were gonna talk to somebody.

• 56:05Conan O'Brien?

  No, we don't talk to other people.

• 56:06Speaker 03

  Someone phones in from.

• 56:08Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, you're thinking of a different show.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 56:10Conan O'Brien?

  We don't solve crimes here.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 56:12Conan O'Brien?

  Um, we cre, we clearly create crimes.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  You've got a weapon.

• 56:15Conan O'Brien?

  Animal Control, season five of Animal Control.

• 56:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, the 27.

• 56:19Conan O'Brien?

  Premieres Sunday, September 27th on Fox.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:22Conan O'Brien?

  And is available next day on Hulu.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:25Conan O'Brien?

  And, um.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  And now it's on Netflix.

• 56:26Conan O'Brien?

  Do you enjoy the making of the show? It seems like you guys really have a good time.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  It's great, the cast is great, everyone's cool. And, uh, I like the, having the animals was, it's strangely delightful.

• 56:38Conan O'Brien?

  Isn't it fun to be around animals? Whenever we had animal segments on my show, I was just deliriously happy that critters were roaming around the halls.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  It was, we just had a bunch of baby goats and they were so cute and I was like, okay, just take one of these home? And they were like, it'll be 240 pounds in about six months. And I was like, well, it's just like a lot of my relatives.

• 56:56Conan O'Brien?

  Eat it before then, yeah.

• 57:00Speaker 03

  Uh, but it's been, yeah, we just finished and it was, uh, so, yeah, thank, I can't believe it, season five.

• 57:05Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I want to thank you for this incredible, I mean, if you see me strolling around with a cane, don't screw with me. Because this walking stick is fantastic.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  I think.

• 57:15Conan O'Brien?

  It makes me really happy.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  If I ever come back, I'm gonna bring a bunch of knives and then we can, you know, hash.

• 57:19Conan O'Brien?

  Only one of us is allowed to leave the room.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:23Conan O'Brien?

  Something tells me, I think you're the one that would live because I think you have a Derringer, a women's, like 19th century Derringer, a very small one on your ankle.

• 57:33Speaker 03

  Oh, it's on my garter, thank you very much.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  Respect me, please.

• 57:38Conan O'Brien?

  Come on. Joel, uh, I, you're a good, you're a good friend, I always like seeing you, I love hanging out with you, we always have a good time.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Let's eat.

• 57:46Conan O'Brien?

  That would be nice.

• 57:48Speaker 03

  Oysters.

• 57:49Conan O'Brien?

  Boo, meat.

• 57:51Speaker 03

  I love, you love a steak and I really appreciate that.

• 57:54Conan O'Brien?

  I'm an Irish potato steak guy.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Cholesterol?

• 57:56Conan O'Brien?

  We don't talk about it.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  All right.

• 57:58Conan O'Brien?

  But it is so high that if I was, if I was strapped into my car and I stopped short, a cholesterol me would come crashing through my chest.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 58:10Conan O'Brien?

  You could just paint it and put it right in Madame Tussauds.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  What does it look like? I mean, it's just.

• 58:16Conan O'Brien?

  It's me, it's, it's, it's me, it's, yeah, let's not, let's not push that image too hard, cause it won't hold.

• 58:22Speaker 03

  Who do you have coming up next on the show?

• 58:23Conan O'Brien?

  We have some really good people, they show up on time.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  Oh, shit.

• 58:28Conan O'Brien?

  Everything they say follows a continuous narrative and links together. There's no hemming and hawing, there's no slurping of drinks. But if they don't have a sword cane, I don't want to talk to them. God bless you, Joel McHale.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  Thank you. And watch, watch, uh, you know, Animal Control.

• 58:44Conan O'Brien?

  Animal Control.

• 58:45Speaker 03

  And 1% Club.

• 58:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  And, uh, Crime Scene Kitchen.

• 58:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 03

  And House of Villains.

• 58:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and your, your commercials.

• 58:52Speaker 03

  And, uh, my, that's my commercial for Jackpot Party.

• 58:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Where you're encouraging people to, to gamble.

• 58:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, gamble irresponsibly.

• 59:01Conan O'Brien?

  Very good, that's, that is, that is the company's motto.

• 59:05Speaker 03

  Gamble irresponsibly, cash your paychecks.

• 59:11Conan O'Brien?

  You can always live at home, kids don't have to live in cool, it's cool.

• 59:13Speaker 03

  Bring your kids. Uh, thank you for having me, guys.

• 59:16Conan O'Brien?

  Thank you for being here.

• 59:24Conan O'Brien?

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

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:28Conan O'Brien?

  You fell for it.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam.

• 59:30Conan O'Brien?

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

• 59:33Speaker 01

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

• 59:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I don't know where they got that impression. Criminals are now using AI to make scams look more realistic than ever. In 2025, AI fraud spiked 1,210% and cost Americans $893 million. That's incredible. Well, with AI, it can get so smart now.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:59Conan O'Brien?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  Maybe I should start scamming.

• 1:00:01Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's not the point.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  That's not the point of this. It's so much money.

• 1:00:05Conan O'Brien?

  One accidental click, Sona, can expose your information, putting you at risk of identity theft. Luckily, this is the point. Not that you should start scamming, but that everyone should get LifeLock.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 1:00:15Conan O'Brien?

  LifeLock has live US-based restoration specialists who will be with you every step of the way to fix your identity theft, from first alert to full restoration. This is fantastic. How do you not have this?

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:27Conan O'Brien?

  If you have expenses or money stolen due to identity theft, you're backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million coverage in some plans. Join now and save up to 30% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 1:00:45Conan O'Brien?

  Technology can generate salary recommendations in seconds, but building an offer that lands skilled talent, that takes more than just an estimate you came up with.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:00:55Conan O'Brien?

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

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:00:59Conan O'Brien?

  Did we use a salary guide with you, Sona?

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Uh, no, but maybe-

• 1:01:02Conan O'Brien?

  For several years, I just gave you groceries. Remember?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

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

• 1:01:07Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, well, anyway, now you got Robert Half's new 2027 Salary Guide. As a staffing firm placing talent every day, Robert Half combines compensation data with the experience of local recruiters. You can hire with the confidence that comes from experience. The new Robert Half Salary Guide is here. Visit roberthalf.com/salaryguide.

• 1:01:30Conan O'Brien?

  This is a paid ad by BetterHelp. Mental health awareness is on the rise, which is a good thing, and a lot of people, thanks to days like World Mental Health Day, which I think is October 10th, have people thinking about how to take care of themselves. And I think for some people, therapy can be a great way to support their mental well-being. Remember, therapy isn't just for big life choices. It can be a place to talk about relationship problems, work issues, or simply the sense that something feels a little off. With over 30,000 therapists worldwide, BetterHelp is one of the leading online therapy platforms. They serve millions of people globally. BetterHelp

• 1:02:13Conan O'Brien?

  therapists have at least three years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. Plus, BetterHelp makes it easy to fit therapy into your routine. They've got flexible ways to connect that work for different schedules and lifestyles. Your mental health doesn't need a special occasion or anyone else's permission to matter. BetterHelp can connect you with a therapist who gets you so you can make space for what matters to you. Visit betterhelp.com/conan to explore your payment options. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash Conan.

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  How about we do a review the reviewers?

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02:51Conan O'Brien?

  I love it.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  Just to remind people, this is where I go to Apple Podcasts. I look at a review for the podcast, and we read it, comment, and review on the review.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:03:00Conan O'Brien?

  Very nice. It's our take on their take.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  This is titled Conan Movie Role. It's five stars out of 16.

• 1:03:09Conan O'Brien?

  Out of five. It's the new scale, yeah.

• 1:03:11Speaker 03

  Hi all. I love the podcast and listen regularly. I should mention, this is from someone called Devanks.

• 1:03:17Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 1:03:18Speaker 03

  I love the podcast and I listen regularly. I just wanted to share my response to Blaze's question in one of the recent episodes about who you could play in a movie, I believe. I think Conan could play James Garfield in his biopic, but we could change the ending so he doesn't get shot. Do you think you could play James Garfield?

• 1:03:33Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, well, first of all, this was just done. There was just a, um, a brilliant, I thought, limited series about the assassination of Garfield that I loved called Death by Lightning. Yeah, Michael Shannon played Garfield. He was amazing. And Matthew McFadden played Charles Gatto, the, uh, the kook who shoots Garfield.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  What was the deal? He was shot in a train station or something like that?

• 1:03:56Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, yeah, yeah. Um, Garfield was, hadn't been president long and was doing a really good job. Um, and this is a different time, but he was gonna go get on a train. It was, I think, the summer, and he was gonna go join his wife, family at a beach house. And so he was walking to the train station.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Jeez, it used to be so easy.

• 1:04:19Conan O'Brien?

  And he walked into a train station and-

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Just kill a president.

• 1:04:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, this guy, Charles Gatto, just shot him.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  You could just go and shoot a president. It used to be so easy. Um, it's good that it's not.

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  I feel like I should say that. Here's the thing. I don't know anything. I don't know anything about James Garfield. You can play him any way, and I'll be like, oh, he's James Garfield.

• 1:04:43Conan O'Brien?

  Right, yeah, yeah. You know what? You, your gift is that you know nothing about American history, so any, no, no.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  It's not even that.

• 1:04:52Conan O'Brien?

  No, but it's a gift.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  He's like one of the presidents that, all I know is that he was assassinated.

• 1:04:57Conan O'Brien?

  That's a shame.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  But I don't know where he's from. You could have a southern twang. I have no idea. He could be-

• 1:05:02Conan O'Brien?

  Ohio? They might think he's from Ohio.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  Why did Gatto shoot him? Was there a reason?

• 1:05:05Conan O'Brien?

  Charles Gatto was a disappointed office seeker. He, he had given, um, a speech or two. No one asked him to. He would just get up on a street corner and give a speech, and he felt that he had helped Garfield get elected. And then, um, he was a kook, so he would, this is back when if you wanted a job in, in, in government, when a new president was elected, you got to go hang out in the White House and wait to try and get an audience with him. So there are hundreds of people standing around, waiting to talk to the president. And he just left a note that said, I would like to be the ambassador to, I think he said, I would like to be, very much like to be the ambassador to Paris or something. And he had no experience.

• 1:05:48Conan O'Brien?

  There was no reason. He was, he was a weirdo. He had gone to a, um, free love camp. Might have been Oneida. It's like upstate New York. He went to a free love camp, and none of the women, you know, it was everyone in open relationships, having sex with each other, but no one would sleep with Charles Gatto. And one of the-

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  He's an incel.

• 1:06:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and he was. He was like the first, America's first incel. And one of the-

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:06:12Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, the women's at the camp started calling him, their nickname for him, his name's Charles Gatto, was Charles Get Out, because they're always telling him to, they're always telling him to get out of our room.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 1:06:22Conan O'Brien?

  So he was very bitter about that. And he finally decides that he's been screwed over, and that if he shoots, if he kills Garfield, Chester Arthur will become president, and then Chester Arthur will give him a job. So, not good reasoning.

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  Do you think that this is accurate, or do you think there's a president that you're more suited to play? If you had to play any president?

• 1:06:42Conan O'Brien?

  I think, I mean, I think I'm very Lincolnian. I really do. I, I'm the exact same height as Abe Lincoln.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:06:49Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, I'm, uh, you know, I'm, uh-

• 1:06:52Speaker 03

  You've got that dark complexion.

• 1:06:54Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, let's just watch it.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Very dark hair. Yeah.

• 1:06:57Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, no, no, no. I'm just saying, same height, prominent cheekbones. I'm a depressive.

• 1:07:04Conan O'Brien?

  I use humor to, to see my way through, uh, just the terrible tragedy that is the Civil War.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Conan O'Brien?

  Um, so yeah, I think I'm Lincoln.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, if, I mean, if Daniel Day-Lewis could do it, you could do it.

• 1:07:16Speaker 03

  I've noticed all the presidents you're associated with are the ones that are getting assassinated.

• 1:07:22Conan O'Brien?

  Or I could be Gerald Ford.

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, there we go.

• 1:07:24Conan O'Brien?

  Because I can fall down pretty easily.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:07:26Conan O'Brien?

  I know how to do that.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Was Gerald Ford the one who was like, kinda jockey?

• 1:07:30Conan O'Brien?

  He was a jock. He was really good-looking, too, as a young man.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Gerald Ford was jockey?

• 1:07:35Conan O'Brien?

  Oh yeah, he was a football player.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, even I knew that.

• 1:07:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, not that I don't know about history. I know about some stuff. I just, I knew Gerald Ford was a jock. You could do, you could be a jock.

• 1:07:45Conan O'Brien?

  No, I don't think I could be Gerald Ford.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  You could be like a, a guy who used to play sports, who doesn't anymore.

• 1:07:51Conan O'Brien?

  No, I mean, I, I don't know who I would be. I mean-

• 1:07:54Speaker 03

  You kinda look like, um, what's his name? Tyler?

• 1:07:57Conan O'Brien?

  What?

• 1:07:58Speaker 03

  Don't you?

• 1:07:59Conan O'Brien?

  Tyler, the Creator?

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Conan O'Brien?

  I get that all the time.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  Maybe that's not who I'm thinking of.

• 1:08:04Conan O'Brien?

  I get that all the time.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  That's not who I'm thinking of.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  Probably a James or a John.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:08:08Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, there's a good case to be made that Gatto didn't really assassinate him, because Charles Gatto shot him, hit him in the, uh, low back, and then all these doctors without cleaning their hands, uh, and one in particular just kept jamming their hands in there to try and find the bullet, and he got sicker and sicker and sicker over months and months and months. And they just, finally, he died, and they realized the bullet, when they did the autopsy, had a cyst formed around it. He, if they had just left him alone, he'd have recovered fully, but his body was riddled with infection.

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  He wasn't the one that his wife basically took over and ran the presidency while he was sick? Was that McKinley?

• 1:08:44Conan O'Brien?

  No, that would be, uh, Wilson. Wilson had a massive stroke, uh, and when he was, um, out pushing his plan to end wars, and he was trying to sell it to Congress, and he was working really hard, and he had a massive stroke. And then his wife would go into the room and confer with the president, and then come out and say, you know, all food is half off today for women.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 1:09:06Conan O'Brien?

  Stuff that was, no, I'm kidding. Uh-

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Was she good?

• 1:09:09Conan O'Brien?

  What's that?

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  Was she good at running the country?

• 1:09:11Conan O'Brien?

  I don't, I don't know enough about this. Um-

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Yes, you do.

• 1:09:15Conan O'Brien?

  I don't. I was just gonna say, I think you-

• 1:09:18Speaker 07

  All of us in this room.

• 1:09:20Conan O'Brien?

  I can't hear you. Can you just be louder?

• 1:09:22Speaker 07

  I'm trying. All of us in this room, you could say anything about any president and we would believe you.

• 1:09:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Speaker 07

  And I do remember one time, I don't remember where we were, but you had said that, we were talking about Lincoln. And you said that you went to go to the Lincoln Museum.

• 1:09:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 1:09:38Speaker 07

  And his coat was there.

• 1:09:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 1:09:40Speaker 07

  That he had been shot in. And I was like, oh my god, that's so cool. And you're like, oh, and you talked a little bit about how he got shot. And then you're like, and because I'm famous, they took it out and they showed it to me. I was like, oh my god, that's amazing. And then you said, and then you asked to try it on and they let you try it on.

• 1:09:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Speaker 07

  And I was like, whoa, oh my god, they let you try. You're like, yeah, it fit me perfectly. And I was like, and, and then you said, and then I did a little dance. And I still believed you.

• 1:10:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 1:10:06Speaker 07

  And then you said, and then I ran out of the room.

• 1:10:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:10Speaker 07

  And they changed, and I was like, you did. And you were like, dude, at what point are you gonna say that this is fake? And if you start. I just started believing you.

• 1:10:20Conan O'Brien?

  If you start a story and it's, always start with the plausible. You always keep it plausible. Like, oh, I went. And it's like, and then give real details. And then you're like, and then you start to just push it a little bit. And at a certain point, people have followed you so far down into the coal mine. And that's one of my favorite things to do, is wait and see when someone goes, wait, what?

• 1:10:42Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Conan O'Brien?

  That you put it on. Yeah, I put it on. And then I started doing the Charleston.

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  If they're in that deep, they have to admit to themselves.

• 1:10:50Conan O'Brien?

  They have to admit that they have, A, that their lives have been wasted.

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:10:54Conan O'Brien?

  For the last 20 minutes.

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:56Conan O'Brien?

  And that they've been talking to a sociopath.

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:10:59Conan O'Brien?

  And then they have to admit that they believed everything up until, okay, I believe that Conan got to put it on. Because he lives in a bubble and people treat him really nicely. And then when he said he started doing kind of a little bit of a robot dance, they're like, okay, well Conan, I could see him maybe trying to get a little bit of a laugh. But once I'm running out of the building and running through the streets of Washington going.

• 1:11:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  I just love, they took it out because you're famous.

• 1:11:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  Like, you're just, because you're a famous guy, they took a priceless coat from the display.

• 1:11:32Conan O'Brien?

  That is the plausible part of the story. It is. I mean, I'm not just saying because me, I'm just saying that people sometimes bend the rules a little bit and say, you know, yeah, no one has laid on this bed since Jefferson died here at Monticello, you know, in 18 whatever, oh, seven. Oh, that's fascinating. You know, Conan, I really love the podcast. Yeah, my, man, my dogs are tired. My feet are on fire. Why don't you just stretch out? Oh, this is great. Oh, no, I wet the bed. Why'd you wet the bed? I don't know, I got really relaxed. I had so much lemonade outside.

• 1:12:14Speaker 03

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

• 1:12:34Speaker 03

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

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  Oh, look. You just got added to a meeting. About coordinating another meeting. To prepare for the pre-meeting. Ahead of the follow-up meeting. Which will, of course, require a recap meeting. And then, another meeting. Hit your booking point? Book with Southwest and enter airplane mode.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

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• 1:14:15Speaker 03

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