A Tribute to Joan Rivers

Our special tribute features the best of Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lynne Koplitz’s interview with the late Joan Rivers, plus new reflections by comedians Eugene Mirman, Chuck Nice and Leighann Lord. Read more and listen to the full episode: http://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-tribute-to-joan-rivers

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. This show features the comedian Joan Rivers, who sadly passed away recently. Joan was a guest on StarTalk during our first season in 2009, and we've excavated that old show to pay tribute to her today. Back in 2009, my co-host was the comedian Lynn Koplitz, and Joan Rivers was Lynn's good friend and comedic mentor. So, in this first interview clip, Lynn, Joan, and I hang out in Joan Rivers' New York apartment and talk about some highlights from the 1960s, her appearance on The Ed Sullivan

• 1:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Show, and the Apollo 11 moon landing. StarTalk Radio is here in Joan Rivers' library, and I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with Lynn Koplitz and Joan Rivers.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Joan, it's my library. I should be in here.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Joan, StarTalk, as you know, we talk to anybody who's got something to say about the universe, and we know you've got stuff to say about everything, including the universe. So, you realize that in space, particularly in orbit around Earth, there's like no gravity, there's like zero G, and on the moon, it's like one-sixth G. And so, with less gravity, things float. Do you have any thoughts about that? Do you ever thought of living in space because things float?

• 1:43Speaker 01

  No, what I've thought about is, I know that if you go around the Earth, if you go backwards, you get younger.

• 1:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was in the movie Superman.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's not real, though. That was just Superman.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Well, apparently Suzanne Somers now lives in a rocket ship. So, no, I don't like any of that stuff. I don't like the outfits, so I wouldn't live in outer space.

• 2:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's all about the clothes?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm sorry. You got the wrong person here.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  I agree, but I like the idea of zero gravity, Joan, because gravity is what pulls everything down, so it does give us that more uplift. That's the only reason I would even consider going in space, is the idea of I don't have that drag down.

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Joan, you don't need any more uplift, apparently?

• 2:23Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, the point is, yeah, so you would have things up, you still have to wear those stupid spacesuits.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good point.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  They look like gay exterminators. I don't like the spacesuits.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good point. So even if you're floating, no one knows because you're wearing a spacesuit.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Yes, you're in a stupid spacesuit. You can't get your toes down, those big boots, the gravity boots. It is so not for me.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you want open-toed gravity boots?

• 2:46Speaker 01

  I will wait to go on the moon until they figure out a way you can look nice.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  I could totally see you doing for QVC, something designer in the whole aerospace line.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  What would you do first? The moon pin?

• 3:00Speaker 02

  And it makes you look thinner.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  She looks thinner.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Neil was actually taken, you're gonna die when I tell you this, to a diamond mine, where they blindfolded him because they didn't want him to have an app on his...

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a diamond factory, where they're making them in a lab. They're making gem quality diamonds in a lab.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  But they blindfolded him because they knew that he could have an application on his phone that could like, track where they were going?

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Secret, because they're worried about De Beers, you know, coming at them, because they're just making it in the lab.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Oh, and coming after them, killing them. Absolutely, this is a big business, don't screw around. Where is it?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  That's exactly what I asked. That was exactly what I said. I said, "Where is it?" But, do you think you can make a moon rock cell, instead of a diamond, on QVC?

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, like asteroids and moon rocks and stuff?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  I think people would love, when people claim they brought moonstones back, you know, I think people would love to wear that. And would you have to give it a mystical quality? This will bring you good luck, or this will heal, you know, get someone that's interested in that nonsense.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, Joan, you've had a lot of gigs in your life. In fact, one I remember, last time I saw you live, was in the 1960s on the Ed Sullivan Show, and following the fifth dimension, and I came out and you signed my autograph book at the time. Do you remember that?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  No. But I remember the fifth dimension because they were adorable and I have a picture of all of us. Ed Sullivan was live and if you were on the second half, you got cut because people went longer on the first half than was supposed to. I have a picture of the fifth dimension and me all looking up, watching a clock, which is hilarious. Because we knew if somebody was going longer now, you were gonna get bumped. So I love the fifth dimension. I love their outfits.

• 4:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that was of the day and of the moment.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Joan, back in the sixties, that was the Apollo era and we landed on the moon then.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  So what was it, nineteen sixty?

• 4:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nineteen sixty-nine, July twenty. So do you remember? What were you doing?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  I was at Fire Island and I remember that we had a wonderful little house, my husband and I. And we had friends over and I remember sitting and watching, as we all did, on television, watching them land on the moon. And then all those insane rumors started that they were, they didn't land on the moon, they did it in a, in New Jersey, in a, in a

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a hangar.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  In a hangar, remember all that stupidity. And it was very exciting. And I remember that China, do you remember this? Came out and said, "We have our own space plant and we will have," I remember this clearly, "a restaurant up on the moon in two thousand and one." China made a big announcement and Israel already made reservations.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  But I remember China saying that, "You think you're so smart, we will have a restaurant up on the moon in twenty-five years." And I thought, "Oh, just say how smart we are."

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I have to say, but it would have no atmosphere.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  No, oh, oh.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got one. I said one.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this next clip, my frequent co-host, the comedian Eugene Mirman, spoke about Joan Rivers as a pioneer of stand-up comedy. So Eugene, we lost another one. And, you know, she's in your field. She's one of your own species. And I just wondered how you guys, as a community, reacted and how did you react personally to this news of Joan Rivers' passing?

• 6:12Eugene Mirman?

  I think that people reacted or it's funny that I wouldn't say like, oh, in a celebration, but I mean a celebration of her life, but not of the death.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 6:19Eugene Mirman?

  She's been a constant throughout comedy. She was one of the people who created stand-up comedy. You know, as we know it today, she's one of a handful of people that sort of helped shape an entire art form that now we think of as a very viable thing. But at the time that she began, and also as a woman, it was probably, you know, it was very rare for anyone to be a comedian, you had to do it for a living as a job.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. And people always ask, did they influence you? That's too trite to ask you, but can you, can you comment the kind of comedy she did? Not all comedians resonate with that. So how would you say she influenced or did not people who just had a completely different line of comedy than what she pioneered?

• 7:06Eugene Mirman?

  I mean, I think that she pioneered, you know, stand-up in general in a big way where...

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Regardless of what you're joking about.

• 7:12Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, exactly. So I think that when you sort of broaden an art form, you broaden it. You know, stand-up comedy used to be, you know, you'd almost have a joke book and you would just sort of read these jokes and the stuff. And then she was one of a handful of people who was like, this is my life. And she also had just a sort of a dark, a very funny kind of sharp, dark wit. And whether her specific type of comedy is something you do or not, it's still influenced the entire world or genre. And then different people, as time comes, take pieces and things from that world.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And she was also self-effacing. And I don't know how many people did that before she did. I just don't know.

• 7:52Eugene Mirman?

  She was sincerely self-effacing in the sense that there were people who had a lot of jokes that would be self-effacing, you know, or they had like a shtick, you know, where they were like, I'm the guy who's always cheap or whatever. But they didn't have an earnestness the way that she did about sort of life in the world and an honesty. I think that what she, she wasn't just self, I mean, she was self-deprecating, but she did it in a really, a very relatable way where it was very human and very personal, um, which is, you know, something that very much started probably in the, you know, late 50s, early 60s as comedy grew.

• 8:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But also, she was self-aware of how much plastic surgery she got, and she didn't hide that fact. And I got the sense that she would be first in line to make fun of her own plastic surgery, leaving you with nothing to joke about, because she was already there.

• 8:44Eugene Mirman?

  Right, there was no point to tease her. I mean, what's so great is that, yeah, she both knew what she wanted, which was to have, you know, plastic surgery or whatever, and also knew that it was something you could make fun of. Uh, it was, it was very much all things at once.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She would make fun of stuff she did with herself, knowing that she would also make fun of that in other people. That's the honesty I think you're talking about there.

• 9:06Eugene Mirman?

  Yes, exactly.

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, if you were asked to give parting words to her lowering casket, um, what, what do you think it would be?

• 9:16Eugene Mirman?

  Thanks, see you around.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're more creative, come on.

• 9:20Eugene Mirman?

  I'm sorry, I barely had to say parting words to a casket. I mean, with a body in it, I understand. I'm more of a comic and less of a eulogizer. Do you have a way of rephrasing?

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so how about, okay, so Joan is on her deathbed and you've been called to give her one last thing to laugh about. What do you think you would tell her? She's self-effacing and she knows she's not gonna make it till tomorrow. And she said, give me Eugene Mirman. I wanna laugh at something.

• 9:46Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, I don't know, probably like, be careful what elective surgery you choose.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's macabre and funny at the same time, yeah.

• 10:00Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I don't think there's anything I would, I think my hesitation is, I don't think there's anything I would say that would have offended her. My fear is that what I would say wouldn't be funny enough.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Funny enough, and she's like, get out of my.

• 10:12Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, exactly. My hesitation is not like, I don't know what to say that like, really explains what she did for both like our culture and for comedy. It's that I'm like, I don't know that I have a good enough joke that would be worthwhile of her, you know, honor, to like be self-deprecating or funny enough. That's my fear.

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I remember in the day, I mean, I'm old enough, a little older than you. When a comedian came out to do stand-up on The Tonight Show. Everyone gathered around, because when else would you see a stand-up comedian? I don't know back then if there were comedy clubs, were there back in the?

• 10:47Eugene Mirman?

  No, there were, well, I mean, there were probably like two or three, yeah. When she was doing comedy, it was being invented, as a thing.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As an art form, and so?

• 10:55Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, no real, yeah, there weren't clubs.

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, is today anything as singular to the new comedian as a shot on The Tonight Show was back in the 1960s?

• 11:05Eugene Mirman?

  There's basically nothing, meaning, in the 1960s, if you got on The Tonight Show, you became famous. And, and you often spent years, you know, I think she was 33 when she first did it. You, you spent years getting to that moment. Now, there's hundreds of internet things and all this different stuff, so there's nothing that can make you overnight, really, in any, as it could before.

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there are more comics than ever before.

• 11:28Eugene Mirman?

  Yes.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that's a good thing, even if this field is crowded, there's more total comedic entertainment out there for all of us.

• 11:35Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, it's crowded, but full of a lot of people.

• 11:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we even borrow some for StarTalk.

• 11:40Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, and now, also, the difference now is you can also make yourself famous through a lot of channels that you didn't have in the 1960s. I think of it as kind of an advantage, but it is too bad that occasionally no one can become famous overnight.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right, Eugene, thanks, we'll see you in the studio.

• 11:58Speaker 04

  You have a dedication, can I read it? Sure. Says to Edgar, your husband.

• 12:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, I have to do that.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  Who made this book happen. Who made this book happen, and to Johnny Carson, who made it all happen.

• 12:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  Well, that's very sweet of you, that's nice.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  Of course, I didn't make it all happen.

• 12:13Speaker 05

  Oh, yes, you did.

• 12:15Speaker 04

  We can, I can only take credit for, for putting you on the show, but I did say one thing that night, which I have seldom said on this show over the years. You finished your routine, and you were devastating, and the audience was just falling apart, and you walked over and sat down. And I said, you know, you're gonna be a big star.

• 12:32Speaker 05

  I remember.

• 12:32Speaker 04

  And that's something you don't say, because it always sounds like, you know, you're just...

• 12:35Speaker 05

  And I looked behind me. I couldn't believe you were talking to me.

• 12:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  And here you are.

• 12:41Speaker 05

  And Mill Kamen was on the show with us that time?

• 12:43Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 12:45Speaker 05

  And I was playing those terrible, I mean, I was playing with awful shows. Oh, God, I mean, I looked at...

• 12:51Speaker 04

  You were opening for...

• 12:52Speaker 05

  Everybody.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  You were playing, playing Little Coffee Houses, Place in the Village?

• 12:56Speaker 05

  I was playing, I wouldn't even go into the act. I was opening for Juanita and her amazing vibrator. I mean, I...

• 13:05Speaker 04

  Nevertheless, a fine act.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  And I was so bad.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  Juanita didn't skyrocket, did she, no? Shorted out one night and the career was over.

• 13:18Speaker 05

  Looked like Don King.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Do you remember? Do you have fond memories of the early, early times in the career, or...

• 13:28Speaker 05

  I do now.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:29Speaker 05

  Looking back.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, we were all down the village together. Bill Cosby was there, and Richard Pryor was there, and Barbara Streisand, it's all in the book.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  And we were all stumbling all over each other, and that was exciting then.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 13:42Speaker 05

  But I'm glad it's over with. I mean, you know, you can eat ketchup soup for a little bit, and then that's it, you know? I was, I had no boobs that time, you know, I looked terrible, yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 04

  You mean, these have changed since sixty-five? I mean, I know the dresses. I mean, has there been new additions to your person that...

• 13:59Speaker 05

  Well, what I did, I put in what I had in in sixty-five. There's a lot of rubber in me tonight. See, I had some boobs. I had so much rubber in me, they erased what I had.

• 14:11Speaker 05

  Except, you know something? With age comes wisdom.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  You don't need big boobs to be feminine. Look at Liberace.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. This is our tribute show to the comedian Joan Rivers. In this next clip, I talk with Joan and my comedian co-host Lynn Koplitz, all about astronauts, space travel, and exploration.

• 15:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, astronauts have been criticized in the past for not being articulate in expressing what they felt, because they were just getting the job done. Go to the moon and come back. Do you think we would be better off to send a comedian as one of the astronauts? Or maybe the first one to land on the moon who was a comedian?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Who cares?

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just wondering.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Who cares? I really couldn't care if Shaggy Green landed on the moon.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  But you know what? Here's my question.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  You know, they could... Wait, wait, wait. Dane Cook, they should send him because he's not funny.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  When Neil Armstrong landed, you know, he had this pertinent statement that he made.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First words from the moon.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Small step for... What is it?

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Now, how do you think that would be different if a comedian was there?

• 15:49Speaker 01

  He'd say, "Brrr, brrr."

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Knock, knock, who's there? "Me on the moon."

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Why did the astronaut cross the moon?

• 16:00Speaker 02

  I get aggravated all the time, Joan, because you always hear about men in space, but we don't hear a lot about women in space. And Neil and I were talking about this and women's issues. Like, I think I would be interested in knowing about how a woman shaves her legs.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  I would like to know what a woman does seriously. I'm not making jokes about her period in space. What do you do? That's why I think there's so few astronauts' ladies that they send up. Remember that idiot that drove wearing a diaper? Of course...

• 16:26Speaker 02

  No, you think she's an idiot because I say she's a genius. Everyone called her crazy. And I was like, only an astronaut comes up with the clever idea of going from Texas to Florida and wearing a diaper so she'd save time.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  I know, but for God... Would you want to sit next to her in the car? I mean, remember that she went to kill her boyfriend of the astronaut's wife? Only an astronaut would think that. But I've always thought of my body as kind of the last frontier. And my G-spot is a place that no man has dared to go, so...

• 16:56Speaker 02

  And if he does, he may not come back.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  You'll get sucked into some sort of black hole, is that what you're telling?

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's some concern, because in the long voyages to Mars, people have to live in close quarters for a long time, and they have to be really friendly with each other.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. I find that really, you better make them very ugly lady astronauts. You don't put a good-looking, hot little astronaut in there with other men. You put in like a big lumpy astronaut.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  I don't know if you know this, there is a Nassau sex tape out there, because they wanted to see if they could have sex in space, and they actually taped it. And I was saying that...

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've never seen it, I haven't seen it.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  And I said that I thought the favorable position would be doggy style.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  It would have to be.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  You have to hold on to something.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  You have to hold on to something.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta brush up on your laws of physics if you're gonna do sex in space.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  You understand, of course, that this is what you're gonna put on as a viral video.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Now I feel like Joan Rivers is actually gonna go in space. You have a plan. You're gonna leave here and call Melissa, "I've got a plan." We're going in space next week.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so just to recap, we put bad comedians on the moon. We put ugly women astronauts.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  In the space station.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the space station.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  And I think we make sure we regulate their cycle, and make sure that they're not PMS when they're up there, because we don't need someone having some sort of space craze.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  I wonder when they do send up the women astronauts, they have to take that into consideration.

• 18:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To cycle, well, I mean the launch date.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Or do you, when you're in space, not have your period, the way ballerinas don't?

• 18:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 18:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, ballerinas don't because they're basically dysmenorrheic, right?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Ballerinas are also busy working and working out. A lot of women athletes don't have their period. I wonder if astronauts do. See, that's the kind of things people would love to know, but no, they tell us the stupid things.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, there's other stuff they don't tell you. They don't tell you every time an astronaut throws up, they don't tell you that.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  And they do throw up all the time, and they're in that little helmet. Yeah, they do.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it floats in the air, and they have to like vacuum it up.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  And that's why they would take a woman in space.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Hey Joan, could you think that up?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Now, we did another show Joan on commercial space travel. Do you think you would spend $200,000 to have a seat and fly on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to space?

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Only if there was a first-class section.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  There isn't. JoJo, right now, there's no flight attendant, or meal included.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  And you can sit next to anyone.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Nope, nope, nope.

• 19:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It might not even have a bathroom, because it's just a flight up and then back. It's just like it's a suborbital and you come back.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  No, I definitely like first class. I like my own bathroom. I want to be given earplugs. I want to be given... No, I would not go.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Wouldn't you be angry if you didn't get a window seat? That was my whole thing.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For 200 grand?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  For 200 grand, I want a thing that you can sleep on.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Sleep a seat.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Definitely a flight attendant.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For 200 grand, rubbing your feet.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  A flight attendant? I want three gay men lined up.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  And a gay show massaging her.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  No, now, my cousin married a woman who was at Harvard, who worked on making spaceships edible. Because if anybody got... Worked on this the day she died, in a program at Harvard. Because if they went up and they got stuck in space, it would take them like eight or 10 years to get somebody else up there to bring them back. So she, I would say, "How are you, Shirley?" And she'd say, "We made the most delicious split pea desk."

• 20:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's nasty.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  It's really true. Really.

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It makes sense, though, when you think about it, because...

• 20:36Speaker 01

  And he says, "If they're stuck up there and they say, 'Lynn, we can't... We're starting right now, Lynn, to figure out how to get you down. We'll be up there in 2014.' What are you gonna do? You're gonna start eating your spaceship."

• 20:49Speaker 02

  That's what I was gonna say is, first of all, I would lose weight before I went up, because I would not want people looking at me with a bottle of A1 going, "Oh, she's got the big booty. We start with her."

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, have you ever performed for scientists or anybody at NASA? Or just a geeky craft?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yes, as a matter of fact, I was hired to do a Trekkie convention and do my act, but it was in Miami, so there were mainly Shekkies, not Trekkies.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  But like a Jewish Trekkie?

• 21:17Speaker 01

  A shekki is a Jewish Trekkie?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  I've been around you long enough now. I knew exactly what you were. I saw the look on Neil's face like, what's a shekki? Because Neil is genius level, so he immediately wants to know why he doesn't know.

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't want to embarrass myself by wondering what a shekki was.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  See, finally, you feel like I normally feel.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how did that go?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  It went very well. They were adorable. Remember, anyone who's interested in space is smart. We know that. They're interested in something outside of the shell of people like me who all care about is decorating my apartment. It's the only space I am interested in.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  But you know what? That's what I always tell Neil, that I'm like Saturn, that everything revolves around me.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Saturn has a lot of moons, so Saturn has its own little solar system, actually.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Now, let me ask you, was Saturn the one that got hit?

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Jupiter got hit.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Jupiter got hit. God, that really upset me.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jupiter got slammed by a comet, and Jupiter has the biggest gravity in the solar system, so it was kind of asking for it. But it's a shot across our bow, because we've got these things that could hit Earth.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we always wonder, if you know we're gonna get hit tomorrow, and that's the end of civilization, what would you do today?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Eat Italian food.

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it? No?

• 22:24Speaker 01

  No men, no sex, no nothing. If I knew tomorrow we were gonna be killed and demolished, I would go in and eat fettuccine. That would be it for me.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So not even men? Men are not doing it for you anymore, huh?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Oh, no, men are doing it, but fettuccine does it more. I would have fettuccine, and I'd probably have french fried onion rings. I would, they'd come and get me.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  See, but you know what? Joan, we can get that right now, and you can scratch that off your bucket list.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then you'd get fat. I would like to know.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd be fat and dead, and it wouldn't matter.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  I would like to know a week before it happened. I wouldn't even tell anybody. I would just go in and start eating.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  See, now, I like that, but I would do that now. So for me, if I knew I only had a week, I think I would start open-handed slapping people.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Wouldn't that be great?

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Just open-handed slapping, like in the middle of the drugstore. The minute the girl's like, we don't have those batteries, smack!

• 23:22Speaker 01

  I was in dinner, and I was a friend, and he's a very elegant gentleman, very English, very distinguished, and he said to me, "Look around this restaurant, there are at least ten faces here I'd like to slap."

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's why we need the comments, that people that deserve getting slapped.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  It's a good idea to slap people. You get out of the taxi cab. I need a tip. Really come closer.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Okay, to my knowledge, no comedian, other than myself, but I was probably drunk, has ever seen a UFO. Have you ever seen a UFO?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  No, but I have a friend who is doing a documentary on us. And she has interviewed so many really smart people who will not give out their names because they feel it will really hurt them by saying they have seen it. I have not seen it. A friend of mine in Connecticut saw them. She and the husband saw it in their car together. But I don't know. I never had anyone from Harvard or Yale ever come up and say, I've seen a UFO. It's always like two idiots with no teeth. I was skinning a rabbit and there it was.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Or they use it as some sort of excuse for something. I'm sorry I didn't come home. I was abducted by aliens and probed.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  But I also had another friend who's very smart. He does Alf. You remember Alf, the funny little comic?

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The show, the TV show.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  TV show and the character. And he writes Alf. And he swears he was in his house at Malibu and he opened up his eyes and there was this thing hovering right outside his window. And then woke his wife up, showed it to her, and then again it went away. So I know two people I respect that have seen them. And then a lot of people that are asses that I don't respect that have seen them.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But none of them are dragged to like an alien carcass in front of you to look at?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  No, but my cousin Sheila claims they abducted her from a Starbucks. And they took her towards, I think it was Venus, and they let her go because she kept saying, are we there yet? Are we there yet?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  They brought her, they brought her back.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, when your friend saw the craft hovering outside the window, was Anne Hesch in it?

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Is anything odd that happens? It always seems like Anne Hesch is involved. Now, we have done a show recently, Joan, on aliens and search for life on other planets. And in the movie Men in Black, Dennis Rodman, who's your friend, right?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  My very good friend.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Is actually an alien in Men in Black.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  And in real life.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Well, that's my question. I want to know what other celebrities you think might be aliens?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  I think Tom Cruise, for sure.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Tom Cruise, well, they believe in all that. Oh, Angelina Jolie with those stupid lips. Those are not human lips.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right. She has a velociraptor kind of feel about it.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  There are many celebrities.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  I think John Travolta, because he's either the Antichrist to me or an alien, because I don't think your career could go from Vinnie Barbarino to like Oscar winner without having some sort of...

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some kind of help?

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, you've got some sort of pact with somebody.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  There's a pact with the devil. You can see that in his eyes. And he has pointy ears.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Does he?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  He does now. Do you think that there is life in outer space as we know life?

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent question, and if you look at how big the universe is and how common the chemistry is of life, we're made of ingredients that you find everywhere in the universe: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen. It's the most common ingredients in the universe, and the universe is vast, and it's been around a long time. It would be inexcusably egocentric to suggest that life on Earth is alone in the cosmos.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  But we keep thinking, the search is for intelligent life, what we might find is like pond scum. Like, at this point, we're dumbing it down.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Slime, slime, anything. Anything, any, any. So, so that's an interesting point. If, if we find life out there, it could be smarter than us. Or dumber, right? Do you have like a feeling about that? If they're smarter than us, are you worried they might treat us the way we treat, that would make us pets?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 27:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So who should fear whom? Should we fear aliens coming to us, or should they fear us if we visit them?

• 27:21Speaker 01

  No, I think we should be terrified if they're coming to us. Terrified. I don't want to know about it. I don't have to make friends with them. I don't want to wear a dog collar. I'm not interested in them saying she used to be a funny person on Earth.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  You could end up a pet in someone's house.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  I could be a rescue pet. But I always wonder, the whole universe, it's something so incomprehensible, at least to me. Because where does it stop? Where do you fall off? You know, and if it goes on forever, are there other planets that we could eventually connect with? Other solar systems?

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Well now, does this scare you? In the movie Contact, the radio waves that we send out, they go out to space, and if we are to reach other life forms, it will probably be through radio waves.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Radio waves that we've inadvertently already sent out, the early TV shows.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Like our mammograms are out there. Your boobs, Joan, could actually bring aliens here.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  So you mean any kind of radio wave that...

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so...

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Jack Benny's old shows are out there?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  And Hitler, the Hitler speeches, that's why in Contact, the Hitler things, so everything from I Love Lucy to Hitler, the aliens are gonna think of us as we love a quirky redhead, or...

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the old Jackie Gleason, those are, those are our emissaries, because that's moving away at the speed of light, and aliens will first see that about us before they know anything else.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  I think that's fabulous. That means I can see my original Carson shot again.

• 28:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They'll be, they'll be looking at it.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, right back to me, you know, always bring everything back to yourself. Well, that's good for me.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  And that's how your marriage is going?

• 29:01Speaker 06

  No, it's not too good.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 29:02Speaker 06

  I don't get along too well with his friends.

• 29:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, really? Problem with their friends?

• 29:05Speaker 06

  Well, I don't fit in, like, um, all, he's a producer, you know?

• 29:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 06

  And all his friends are like these very beautiful wives, you know, like these tall, sexy, you know, like the legs never stop, you know, the women, like the legs go like, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, there's a belt that baby Brazil in the head, you know these women?

• 29:22Speaker 04

  You have trouble?

• 29:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, they're beautiful, you know, but dumb, but beautiful.

• 29:29Speaker 06

  But dumb, you know, dumb.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dumb, dumb.

• 29:31Speaker 06

  Like I can't even spell it, you know? But nobody cares they're dumb but me. Like the husbands don't care. Yeah, my mother, she, like she brought me up wrong. She, my mother gave me philosophies, you know, as a kid during puberty. And she would say to me like, looks don't count. You know, when a man goes out, he takes that little misspainted face, right? When it comes to marriage, he's looking for other things. When it comes to marriage, a man wants a woman that'll cook for him and sew for him. A man is looking for the mother of his children, right?

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 29:58Speaker 06

  When it comes to marriage, a man doesn't want to come home after a hard day at the office and find some wild looking sexy white lying on a carpet saying, "Hire a tiger."

• 30:07Speaker 06

  Yes, he does.

• 30:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He does. In this next clip, I spoke with another frequent StarTalk co-host, the comedian Chuck Nice, where he reminisces about Joan Rivers' particular comedic style. So Chuck, thanks for doing this. You know, I wish it was on Happier Times. You're in the same world as she is, right? Professional comedians. How did that hit your people?

• 30:30Chuck Nice?

  I'm more like orbiting her world. You know, it's like her world and then I'm like a moon around her world. You know, that's kind of how.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love the astro reference there. Very good. So being my co-host has rubbed off a little on you.

• 30:47Chuck Nice?

  But Joan affected everybody. If you're a comedian, she had an influence on you whether you know it or not. She is one of the funniest comedians of all time. Not just funniest female comedian, but one of the funniest comedians of all time. You never thought she was going to die because she was so full of P and V, if you want to say that.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  P and V?

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Vim and vigor. And the P and V is another way of saying vim and vigor.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I don't know what to, I'll stick with the V and V. All right, go on.

• 31:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but you know, the thing that she did constantly is that she didn't care how you felt about the joke. It's a joke and she's going for the joke and that's it. And you know, you always have people who are like, you know, well, that's just wrong. And I can't believe you would say something like that. You know, we all know the answer to that is it's a joke. Okay. No, I don't believe babies are delicious. I don't really believe that. It's a joke. So, you know, I think that's the greatest thing that she had, which was, you know what? I don't give a damn what you think. I'm going for this joke.

• 32:05Chuck Nice?

  It may seem inappropriate, but you have to be able to divine that it is indeed a joke. And I'm not a horrible person who believes that, you know, serial killers sometimes do a service to society.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I was privileged enough to interview her. Uh, she was in our first season of StarTalk. I think that's even before we linked up with you a couple of years later. And so I was in her apartment on the Upper East Side and there against the wall were these file cards. You know, can you imagine like a library, what they used to look like, these three by five card drawers?

• 32:45Chuck Nice?

  I'm quite familiar with the Dewey Decimal System.

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it was a whole wall of these. I say, what are those? They're jokes. You pull out, it's a joke. Yeah. Pull out another card, it's another, and it's like, then you realize she's not just somebody who happens to be funny. She's actually thought this stuff through and it's her life.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And you know, when you tell that story, I'm ashamed to be a comedian. You know, I have a bunch of notebooks sitting around with stuff scribbled in them, haphazardly. You know, unfinished thoughts that I occasionally go back to and that's my method. That's how I work and her method was the right way to work.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Joan certainly would have loved that we were just having fun in her name.

• 33:27Chuck Nice?

  You know, that's the great thing about her too, is that she planned out her funeral arrangements, and she said she wanted it to be very Hollywood, and she didn't want a bunch of people sitting around in a macabre, traditional setting where everyone was lamenting the loss and mourning. She wanted people to be laughing, and, you know, it actually came off that way, and Howard Stern did her eulogy and opened up with a line about how dry her vagina was, because that's something that she talked about on his show. And she wanted it that way. So, I mean, true to the end and even beyond, Joan Rivers is always about the funny, and that's a cool thing.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. This is the final part of our tribute to the comedian Joan Rivers. I spoke recently with another comedian who often co-hosts StarTalk, LeAnn Lord, about the influence Joan Rivers had on her career. So, LeAnn, on StarTalk, I'm privileged to work with professional comedians, and then Joan died, and I thought I have direct access, you know, degrees of separation to Joan, and I'm just wondering, how did it affect you, and what was she to you? What does all that mean in your profession?

• 35:03Speaker 08

  Well, it feels like it's been a very painful year comedically, in terms of who we've lost. You know, it was right behind Robin Williams, and it was almost like, oh no, you know, we're not ready. I mean, but you're never ready to lose an icon. And I think one of the things that people kept saying was that she's an icon. She's always there. So, the longer you have someone, it's almost like your parents, the longer they're there, the longer you think you're going to have them. You start thinking, well, maybe she's a vampire, maybe she's a mortal, maybe she's worked something out.

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wasn't just the surgery on her face?

• 35:36Speaker 08

  Wasn't just the surgery, you know, there was actually maybe a portrait of her in her attic that we didn't want to look at.

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very literary reference there, the portrait of Dorian Gray.

• 35:44Speaker 08

  Yes, English major, gotta throw it out there.

• 35:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Throw it out there, okay, it'll stick somewhere. Yeah, so as an icon, that would be to all of us, but to you specifically, growing up as a comedian and coming on to the scene, did you reference her in your mind, in your heart, in your soul?

• 36:01Speaker 08

  To be honest, I think I was a little bit removed from Joan Rivers. I think I was more influenced by the people that she influenced, if that makes sense.

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that works.

• 36:10Speaker 08

  So I was a big fan, you know, of Elaine Boosler and Rita Rudner. They would have been the more direct line to Joan Rivers.

• 36:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are female comics who had a certain irreverence about them.

• 36:22Speaker 08

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, they were, you know, for...

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wasn't just the one liner, it was an entire...

• 36:26Speaker 08

  Exactly.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Disrespect.

• 36:28Speaker 08

  For Elaine Boosler, yeah, for Elaine Boosler, she completely spoke her mind and looked incredibly gorgeous onstage. I remember her special, she's dressed, you know, in a sequin mini dress in pumps and running around onstage very energetically. Rita Rudner did her show in ball gowns. I mean, you can sort of trace that back to Joan, who always got onstage looking fabulous. You know, she looked fabulous and then just she opened her mouth and all was fair game. You know, she was honest. And while I'm not a huge fan of humor, that's like, that's such an attack style. Right, yeah, it's not my style at all, but wow, was she ever honest. And did not hesitate to point that at herself, which you have to respect that.

• 37:12Speaker 08

  Again, I say the word icon, I say the word pioneer. She wasn't just a stand-up, she did so many things as a writer and an actress and a director. It's like, wow, you know, there's the blueprint, boys and girls. You want to be inspired.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I remember correctly, a few years ago, she was roasted on Comedy Central.

• 37:30Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she'd be like the ideal roast candidate, because you know, in the old days, she was there with Johnny Carson and...

• 37:35Speaker 08

  Right.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many decades has this been, you know?

• 37:42Speaker 08

  Did we veer into math? I don't know.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why'd he tell you to be math on the show this time?

• 37:47Speaker 08

  Yeah, no, I've been deceived. But you know, it's funny you should mention the roasts. I actually am one of those odd comics. I don't like roasts. I think they're too mean. I I don't watch them. But I heard an interview that she had done and she talked about the roast. And she knew what was coming. She knew it was gonna be mean and they knew it. She knew exactly what they were gonna go after. And her philosophy was, if you can't take it, you don't dish it. So she knew what was coming and her best defense was to be prepared. And she said, I know what they're gonna say and I'm gonna get them at their own game.

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, no one made more fun of her own plastic surgery than herself.

• 38:22Speaker 08

  Exactly.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if she's doing it to herself, what?

• 38:25Speaker 08

  Exactly.

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's your angle on that, right?

• 38:27Speaker 08

  Which is almost kinda how many of us get started as kids in school getting picked on. It's like, you know what? I'm gonna make more fun of me than you can and make you laugh and then people stop sort of making fun of you. So it goes back to that base there. So she, in her own words, owned her own roast. Which, you know, if you're gonna be roasted, that's the way to do it.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the way to do it. When we interviewed her, we were in her apartment and we did it in her library.

• 38:52Speaker 08

  How old are my?

• 38:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like a Venetian. Venetian palace. It was gorgeous. And it was an entire wall of sort of card catalogs, like what you used to see in libraries? Where you pull out.

• 39:03Speaker 08

  No, I'm unfamiliar. I've been born and raised in the digital age, Neil. Come on.

• 39:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were lying.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you pull out the card cal- and each one was a joke of a different, of an entire wall.

• 39:18Speaker 08

  She was one of those. Okay.

• 39:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you realize, this is not just some woman who happens to be funny walking down the street. There's an entire comedic culture and industry that she created. And I'm just wondering, is that, is that a lost? Generation of comedians, is it?

• 39:38Speaker 08

  Uh, no, no, I don't think so. I think everyone has a different work ethic.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 39:41Speaker 08

  You know, there are comics that, well, one of my favorite books was, uh, written by Franklin Ajay. I love his book because it, it interviews all these famous comics and it talks about their process. And you could go from someone like Sinbad, who at the time says he wrote nothing down, to George Carlin, who wrote everything down.

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 39:59Speaker 08

  So I think it really just depends on who you are and your work ethic and how you do things. I'm one of those comics, I like that method, you know, that Joan is doing. I've taken mine digital, you know, it's completely on my computer. I of course print it out from time to time because you don't always want to look at the screen. So I, I think I fit in that Joan Rivers school of making sure everything is cataloged. The only difference is I'm doing it digitally.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you were at her funeral and I didn't get to see the funeral, but there was a lineup of people, what would you say to make everyone think and laugh and?

• 40:30Speaker 08

  Oh, man.

• 40:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All in the same moment?

• 40:34Speaker 08

  Joan, we love you, we're gonna miss you, thank you, and which jokes of yours can I use now?

• 40:43Speaker 08

  What's up for grabs, what's up for sale? What can I say and just put a footnote while I'm on stage?

• 40:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what I would ask? I'd ask, did she leave permission to have scientists open her casket once every 10 years to see if anything has changed?

• 41:01Speaker 08

  Oh, that's mean.

• 41:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, she would, that's a joke she would have given.

• 41:06Speaker 08

  She would love that.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She would totally have done that. I mean, she was 81 and still at it.

• 41:11Speaker 08

  That's why I thought, you know, she was gonna live forever. She had, you know, kind of morphed into a cyborg, you know? And she was gonna continue.

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Leanne, thank you for these reflective comments. And we'll miss, we'll all miss Joan and we'll miss her as one of our first guests on StarTalk. But I feel privileged to have you and other professional comedians carrying her legacy, just trying to make people laugh.

• 41:35Speaker 08

  You know, if I could be half the comic and have half the career that she made for herself, I too would have a library.

• 41:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this final clip, my comedian co-host back in 2009, Lynn Koplitz and I spoke with Joan Rivers about her interest in science and her hopes for the future. Have you ever chased a man who had a slide rule or a calcu- I mean, any-

• 42:01Speaker 01

  I like a very smart man. So I think math is a very sexy thing on a man. I think it is on a woman too because it's not to be expected. I mean Pamela Anderson now, that she knows she has two breasts, everyone is so impressed.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  If you could pick two, you prefer smart, or wealthy, or good-looking?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Wealthy and more wealthy.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Wealthy with a bad cough.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  I want an old man with a bad cough, an orphan and a nurse. That tells you he's going.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  No living relatives.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  The older the better, and maybe we can just shoot him off into space.

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well Joan, I saw a pillow here that said something about a man in five minutes or some- what was that pillow?

• 42:42Speaker 01

  No, it's a person can earn more money in five minutes by marriage than they can earn in a lifetime or something it says. And it- but that could be a man or a woman, if they're smart.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  But I do like the idea of getting an old man with a cough and no relatives, and then giving him as a gift, like the way, remember when Sharon Stone gave her husband the kimono dragon visit and then he bit her?

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  I like the idea of like, I'm giving you, you're gonna be on the intergalactic virgin, um, the virgin galactic, um, first, the first commercial spaceflight.

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First flight.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Good luck.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Didn't Martha Stewart was dating this very wealthy man who paid to go into space?

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Charles Simone plunked down 20 million to go into space.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  And did he go?

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he did.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  And he came back?

• 43:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He came back.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Good for him.

• 43:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're just worried that she was trying to get rid of him, that's what you're-

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Oh, I think, yeah. Honey, I, I love you, but I'm off to Mars. I mean, look, if you got the money, do what you want.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So did you take science in college, like math and physics?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  I loved biology. I was very good in biology. I was very good in geometry. I was a terrific geometry student. Cause it's very logical and I like the logic of it.

• 43:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're liking smart men. So a man with a pocket protector, that's not like birth control for you?

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  It is for me. I like them cute and dumb. I like them very smart. I like them smart.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  At this age, I just like them alive. If they have a pulse, they say he's hot.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  You're very smart. You majored in geometry, did you use geometry?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  No, I've never used geometry. I just loved it because I love things that make sense and you can control. And geometry is a very controllable science.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay, so is humor and comedy, right?

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Comedy is not controllable because you can think something is very funny and nobody else does. You don't control an audience, you can never control an audience. But geometry, yes, you can control this to that equals this. It's controllable and that's it. And you can't change it and I can't change it and that's it. Comedy, you have some idiot in the front row that can ruin your whole show. So there's nothing to do with it.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  Neil's always asking me if there's a formula to joke writing. And my type of joke writing, there's no formula. I'm just kinda, I don't work that hard.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  You can't, there's no formula.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  No, I don't think so either.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  And the strangest things they think are funny. You know, you'll write and work on something you think is hilarious and it is, and then you'll say, "Buh buh", and they'll go, "Ah!", and you go, "That's funny? Okay, that stays in the act."

• 45:09Speaker 02

  I always have them laugh at the setup. Like, I'll set up a joke and they'll laugh and laugh and I'm like, "Really? I haven't even gotten there yet. I don't understand why we're laughing."

• 45:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we conclude that comedy is not geometry.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  It's not geometry, it is not a science. There is no such thing as a science of comedy. And people that try to teach it, I feel, are so cruel. So if anyone is listening out there, if you've got any kind of a logical mind, don't take a course in comedy.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  I took one.

• 45:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just while we were on the subject of geometry, I'm obliged to say that geometry means earth measurement. Geometry, earth measurement, from ancient Greece when they first used math to measure the earth.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Very interesting.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Isn't it great? And by the way, did I tell you that Neil can sometimes cure any kind of insomnia you might have?

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's my duty to share you.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Neil makes fun of me a lot on our show.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I do not.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Yes, you do. He makes fun of me because there are certain things that he thinks that should be tans of knowledge for everybody that...

• 46:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't know. For example, I, I could not at first name all seven planets, so we thought it'd be fun to see if you...

• 46:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eight planets, there are eight planets.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Okay, whatever.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  All right, I'm sure Mercury.

• 46:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Venus. Earth.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Mars, now I'm getting.

• 46:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're good so far. That's four for four.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Uranus.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Saturn. Pluto.

• 46:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pluto got demoted, but we'll give you one.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Oh, don't do that.

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pluto had it coming. Pluto had it coming.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Ha- no, Pluto is a planet.

• 46:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It had it coming.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  It's taught that ethical culture school and it's staying a fucking planet.

• 46:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're sticking with it.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  It's a planet. Pluto and then who's on the- where- then out here is Jupiter.

• 47:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you got Jupiter and did you say Saturn yet? Did you say Saturn?

• 47:03Speaker 01

  I said Saturn before.

• 47:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think you got them all.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Did I get them all?

• 47:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  That's because of my grandson that we made, uh, we've also made a thing that goes around a mobile. Mobile.

• 47:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're hooking him up. He's gonna be the next astrophysicist.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Well, kids love that and they should know where we are in the, in the universe and they should know about Earth and they should know about how we're ruining our planet. I think it's all very important to make them aware.

• 47:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we did a whole show on telescopes. That was in fact our opening show. Yeah, cuz it was the anniversary of Galileo, four hundredth anniversary of Galileo on his telescope.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  I, I dated him.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  The telescope was, he had a very small, you know what, and so he made this law.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was small.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  It was an extension. You know how men.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  The bigger the telescope, the smaller the...

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, did you ever own a telescope?

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yes, I have a country house and I have, uh, views of the mountains and I love to look at them. I own a telescope. Also, again, it's, it's a great decorating prop.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  You love to look at the sky or you love the, the mountains, not the other neighbors?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  No, no, I like to look at the mountains in the fall cuz it's pretty. I don't care what they, no. But I think it's wonderful. I love the heavens. I think they're very beautiful. I can't even find the stupid Milky Way though. I'm not very good.

• 48:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, not from New York, you're not gonna find Milky Way. You gotta be like in the boonies for that.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  I feel better than, cuz I, I can't find the North Star. If I was stuck in a boat, I'd be screwed.

• 48:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, it'll give you GPS and then...

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yes.

• 48:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So have you ever been to the Hayden Planetarium in your whole life?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Of course. I'm a New York child. I've been there as a child. I've been there as a mother and now I go there as a grandmother. And it's wonderful. My grandson loves it. My grandson's at that magical age where everything is wonderful. We did a whole astrological chart up on his ceiling.

• 48:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The like sticky stars on the on the.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he loves that. He's very impressed.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  And you know, they have a night at the planetarium where you can spend the night at the museum, actually.

• 48:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called night at the museum. You spend the night in the whale room. It's great. And you and you you tour the exhibits with flashlight at night.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  It's a little bit like a homeless village. They all stay.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  And they sleep? Do they sleep there?

• 49:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They sleep in the Hall of Ocean Light.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Fine. Terrible.

• 49:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's part of the the mystery of it because you're a little kid and you get private tours of dinosaurs at night with flashlight.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  That's so exciting. I'm gonna do that. That's a brilliant idea.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Have you been disappointed by anything science has promised you?

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yes. TiVo. I'm very disappointed because I can't work my TiVo.

• 49:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you have the TiVo, though.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  But scientists have promised us stuff. Uh, voice commands never work.

• 49:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They they never work.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Do not work. Voice commands do not work. Uh, a great diet pill.

• 49:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  A cure for cancer.

• 49:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Uh, all these cures that we have spent millions and millions. A smaller microphone. I always say to them when I'm on Broadway, you wear these big chunky microphones, these mic packs. You can get a man to the moon and you can't make a smaller mic pack?

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Well, one of my biggest problems is mammograms. I think it's ridiculous because I always say that you know a man invented that because if the same test was needed for men, it would be some sort of warming space gel that they would drop their testicles in. Barry White would come on and they'd have a cocktail fly by with us. You have to still smash your breast between two cold boards. Like, that just seems very strange to me.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I liked it.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  Neil has referred to me on our show as a Luddite. Now, at first I was very angry because I didn't know what Luddite meant and I thought it had something to do with the big butt. But apparently, it's a person who's frightened of technology. So I wanted to know how tech savvy you are, Ms. Joan.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  I am very upset. I have now that Skype thing, so I can talk to my grandson and see him. And it kills me because now I say to myself, does my computer make me look fat? I mean, I can't, it's ruined my life. I like the old days. I don't like that they can reach me on my BlackBerry. That you are totally reachable around the universe. I find that awful.

• 51:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need your own time.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  I need my own time. I hate when people say, "Well, I emailed you." Yeah.

• 51:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Joan, we're sitting in your library. There's not a single trace of technology in the entire library. It's a very classical library.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Yes, it's very, but behind one of these bookshelves is a TV screen.

• 51:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that what those fake books are on the shelves? One of those sawed-off books on the side of the wall?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  He noticed it right away.

• 51:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Joan, my last question. What do you want to live long enough to see, technologically or scientifically?

• 51:37Speaker 01

  That Bernie Madoff gets out of jail, calls me up and tells me where the $62 billion are. Bernie and I spend it all.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  I would like to see the planet cleaned up. We're being very serious for a second. I shouldn't be. But I think it's a disgrace what we are doing to our atmosphere. It's a disgrace what we are doing to our planet. And I think we'd better clean ourselves up.

• 52:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you know, Venus already has a greenhouse effect. It's 900 degrees Fahrenheit on Venus. It could melt lead on Venus. So, we already have an example of a planet gone bad. So, your deep concern about the Earth is very well taken.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  I want you to tell me why, if we could have saved the universe, why did all these hybrid cars come into fashion very quickly three years ago and gone out of fashion?

• 52:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there's not many of them now that I've seen. Yeah, they came and went.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  You know why? Because they're not, I'm telling you, it's because they're not sexy, because enough celebrities aren't using them. I'll tell you something.

• 52:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're ugly. They're ugly cars. They're ugly. There you go.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  I can convince people.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Planet, who cares? That is an ugly car. You are saving the planet. It is the same thing, again, and I'm getting off the set, that I read in some, I don't know, Time magazine, if we all painted our roofs white, we would deflect so much heat off the planet.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Then make a rule, every roof has to be white, that's all. Then nobody can say, "My house isn't pretty with a white roof." If everybody's roof is white, that's it, and you've saved the planet, you idiots.

• 53:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, plus you have cheaper cooling bills in the summer.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Yes. You know, in some countries, you actually get a tax write-off for beautifying your home. Like, if you beautify your property, you can actually write that off your taxes.

• 53:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who comes and judges that it's beautiful?

• 53:17Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  I do.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  No, like, lawn care and maintenance and stuff is a percentage of that is a tax write-off. Why not make those things tax incentives? Paint your roof white and drive a hybrid car, you get a tax...

• 53:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so you use the same drivers to make that happen, I see.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And also, I'd like to live until they can tell me, "Nothing is gonna fly in from outer space and destroy us." That is very scary when they say, "A meteorite may come down and may kill you." And that's terrible, which makes me wanna charge up more on my Amex card.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  That's so funny, I have the same way. Can you tell me exactly when it's gonna hit?

• 53:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, actually, so it's not the day we'll tell you it'll never hit, it's the day we tell you that if it's headed towards us, we can do something about it.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. I just wanna know. Science, I think, wastes so much time on stupid things, and I think we should clean up the universe, clean up the space, and, uh, don't worry about going out into space, they'll come and find us.

• 54:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Joan, any parting thoughts for the StarTalk audience?

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Just that, I think, how wonderful it would be if there was something out there, and if they were all single and Jewish.

• 54:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Joan Rivers, I gotta hug ya, Joan, oh my gosh. Thanks, Joan, for doing this interview for StarTalk Radio. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the Sloan Foundation. This is Neil deGrasse Tyson, compelling you, until next time, to keep looking up.