Jay Leno on Comedy, Supercars, and the State of Hollywood

This is our full interview with comedian and former Tonight Show host Jay Leno. We discuss what he learned from Johnny Carson, why he thinks late-night television is dying, how politics changed comedy, why he refuses to retire from stand-up, his advice for people afraid of AI, and what it takes to stay funny after decades in show business. TBPN is made possible by: Ramp - https://ramp.com Public - https://public.com Cisco - https://www.cisco.com Console - https://www.console.com CrowdStrike - https://www.crowdstrike.com Figma - https://www.figma.com MongoDB - https://www.mongodb.com NYSE - https://www.nyse.com Railway - https://railway.com Shopify - https://www.shopify.com/ Codex - http://openAI.com/codex Sign up for TBPN’s daily newsletter at TBPN.com Follow TBPN: https://TBPN.com https://x.com/tbpn https://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/technology-brothers/id1772360235 https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

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

• 0:00John Coogan?

  We have Jay Leno joining us here in the TD. Jay, thank you so much for coming on the show. Business, science. Thank you. Yes, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate you coming down.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  We're shooting porn.

• 0:16John Coogan?

  Why?

• 0:17Jordi Hays?

  Why is that?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Just the studio.

• 0:19John Coogan?

  Just the studio is a little DIY for you?

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

• 0:24John Coogan?

  What does it take to make a great studio?

• 0:26Speaker 01

  I'm not really sure, but this is certainly qualified. My GPS, I said, "Kowanga." It's somehow it read "Cochran." I'm going, "Why am I downtown?"

• 0:36John Coogan?

  Oh, okay.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 0:38John Coogan?

  We're happy to have you. We're hanging out.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Let's talk.

• 0:41John Coogan?

  What did you drive here?

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I drove a 2012 McLaren.

• 0:44John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. One of the first ones. I've been involved with the company since the beginning, so. Yeah, really good. I enjoy them. Terrific cars, terrific cars.

• 0:52John Coogan?

  What do you like about them most? What do you think of the criticism? It's the rich guy go fast car.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a rich guy and I go fast.

• 1:01John Coogan?

  There we go.

• 1:02Jordi Hays?

  Guilty.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Well, no. Well, you know, I like it. I like it because I was in on the ground floor. I find customer service has been great. You know, when I bought the car, I'm specing it out and I said, "Let me carbon fire it." He goes, "Do you track the car?" I go, "No, this is going to be..." He goes, "You don't need a carbon fiber brakes. You can save 20 grand." "Oh, okay."

• 1:25John Coogan?

  Yeah, instead of trying to upsell you.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  I did that. I had the car six months. They called and said, "Oh, there's an upgrade from whatever it was to 617 horsepower. You want that?" I said, "How much is it?" He goes, "It's free." "Okay."

• 1:38John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  And, you know, I bought it. I bought the P1. I bought the new W1 for him.

• 1:45Jordi Hays?

  Track-only W1?

• 1:47Speaker 01

  No, no, it's a street. You know, I'm a... I don't want to be that guy, the fat guy in the leather racing suit that doesn't quite fit. If I'm going to race, I'm going to race Miata's, you know? I don't want... You know, I did the... I did a celebrity I was once with, with Dan Gurney, right? Sorry. Right behind Dan. One of the things where they gave everybody a Toyota Celica. I'm right behind Dan Gurney. Okay, I'll do it. Brake lights, brake lights. Turn, turn. Okay, good. And then he's a little bit ahead of me. Okay. And I... Now he's in my rearview mirror. I go, "How did that happen?" And then he passes me. He lapped me. I have no idea how we did. I go, "Okay, that's not..." I'm not a race car driver. I enjoy automobiles. I'm working on them, but I am not a race car. You know, driving is like sex. All men think they're good at it. They're not.

• 2:32Jordi Hays?

  No, it's the most... It's the most like, actually, driving on a track is the most humbling thing ever.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Plus, you know...

• 2:38Jordi Hays?

  There's something about like, something about cars. It's like, the reason that F1 is still, I would say, almost challenged as a sport is that in almost every other sport, you can tell what the athlete is going through and you can tell how intense it is. You can see the sweat. You know that they're running back and forth, all these different things. In a race car, you can't, one, you can't tell that it's physical unless you've been in a race car. And two, they make it look so easy that it almost...

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 3:07Jordi Hays?

  And it's just like, oh, they're just going around in circles.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Well, that's what... We live in there now where everybody thinks everybody else's job is easy.

• 3:13Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  You know, no matter what you do, like, oh, it's Tonight Show, so you come in at like 3:00, you have your jokes to read, and then you leave at like 5:30. No, no, I get there at 7:00 in the morning. I leave at midnight, you know? Why? Well, I got to see the movie. I got to read the book. I got to pre-interview. You know, I mean, yeah, but that's kind of... See, I'm a huge believer in low self-esteem. You know, it's the key to success. If you don't think you're the smartest person in the room, you just shut up and you pay attention. And that's what I did when I got to the Tonight Show. Give me the best lighting guy. Give me the best director. Give me... And please, tell me when I suck. Just tell me when the show sucks.

• 3:47Jordi Hays?

  Sure.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  The show sucked. Okay, look, what do I got to do to make it better? But, you know, I have friends of mine in the business and, you know, nobody lies. Nobody tells them the truth. They go, "No, you're good. You're really good." "No, you weren't." "Okay, whatever you're doing, change it because it's not working." So, that's what's working.

• 4:04John Coogan?

  Did you have any rules for the Tonight Show? I was listening to an interviewer. He said he has one rule, which is that the current guest cannot trash-talk the previous guest. He didn't want his show to be a place...

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Who's that?

• 4:19John Coogan?

  This is a random podcaster, Joshua Citarella, but he was saying that he didn't want each interviewer to be... Each guest to be a referendum on the previous one, trying to score points on the last interviewer that he...

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I never... That was never a problem.

• 4:32John Coogan?

  Okay. But did you have any like rules that you felt...

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Well, the rule I had was anybody can pull the cord and stop the train.

• 4:38John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  You know, we had interns. I go, "You guys are in your 20s, okay? I'm old. Tell me if a joke sounds corny or if it's dated."

• 4:47John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Or just let me know if I sound like an old...

• 4:49Jordi Hays?

  I'll tell you if it's cooked.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I'll go, you know, that's kind of an old reference, yeah. I remember one day, I'm watching TV and the Stones are on and all their endless comeback tours, you know? And I said, "Oh, God, they look pretty good," you know? And look over and the interns are, "Pfft," throw a laugh and I go, "Mr. Leno, they're really old." I went, "Well, yeah, but this..." I'm telling them, "No, they don't look..." It just made me laugh. It just made me laugh. I go, "You know, you're right. You're right. Guys, they look like old guys playing guitar."

• 5:16John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, back on cars, the ZR1 Ax.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Fabulous car. You know something? That is the greatest performance bargain in the history.

• 5:25John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  For less than the sales tax on a Ferrari, you get a car that's faster.

• 5:29John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Okay, not quite as sophisticated and all the things that go with it, but, you know, it's very, very good.

• 5:37John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  And the nice thing about American supercars is you get in with your phone or your devices and everything syncs up, "pfft," right away. You get in, even McLaren or, you know, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, hang on, oh, my phone...

• 5:51Jordi Hays?

  I forgot about that.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  It doesn't quite work, you know? And plus, you know, a lot of them don't meet emissions or don't crash standards. Do the phony Montana plate thing. "Okay, now you're in jail." You know? That's the great thing about it. And it's extremely well... You know, the greatest thing that happened in Detroit was going bankrupt.

• 6:11John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Because they fired all the marketing guys, the guy from Whirlpool and, you know, "I'm with Maytag, but I can sell cars." And it's all engineers now. And even Mark Royce, the president at GM, he's at Nurburgring like once a month.

• 6:23John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  He went 233 the other day in the new Corvette around Nurburgring. What CEO, what company would allow the CEO to run 233 miles an hour? So, and it makes for a better car, a better vehicle.

• 6:35John Coogan?

  Is that worth chasing? Because the ZR1 Ax has, you know, track car performance from just a few years ago and now it's a road car. Is that worth the automotive chasing?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing. I don't think you've ever seen an ad for the ZR1.

• 6:47John Coogan?

  No.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Because they're all sold out.

• 6:49John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  GTD Mustangs, that's the record at LeMans. I've never seen an ad, "The new Mustang with the guy, you know, with two-day stubble and the girl, ooh, looking over." You know? None of the... If a product's any good, it sells itself.

• 7:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  And, you know, in the early days of automobiles, it was race on Sunday, sell on Monday.

• 7:08John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  And that kind of fell into... It just didn't work anymore. They just stopped. GM had a ban on racing and, you know, all that. But once they got back into racing, once you could see American stuff as competitive, people like to root for the home team. I mean, I do. I mean, I love my McLarens and everything, but I'd love to see Ford and Chevy beat them.

• 7:27John Coogan?

  Cadillac's doing F1 now.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  I know. How hilarious is that? I mean, you know, the last...

• 7:33John Coogan?

  You go to the race on Sunday, you buy an Escalade on Monday.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  That's right. Or, you know, the great one is the Blackwing.

• 7:40John Coogan?

  That's what I got outside.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Isn't that a great car?

• 7:42John Coogan?

  It's fantastic.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  You know, it's fantastic. The last stick-shift Cadillac was 1948.

• 7:46John Coogan?

  Been a long time.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  And now you go to... And the fact that whoever thought that Cadillac would have a stick, but Ferrari, BMW, Lamborghini, no.

• 7:55John Coogan?

  Well, they're bringing them back. What do you think of the E manuals, the Manwale, the manual by wire?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Well, same thing, I think, of a blow-up doll. If you can't get a real girl, I guess it's okay. You know, I mean, it's kind of embarrassing and I hope nobody sees you, but, you know? No. You know?

• 8:14John Coogan?

  Seems like the young people might still... It might be good enough. I don't know.

• 8:19Jordi Hays?

  Well, they won't know the difference.

• 8:20John Coogan?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Well, the young people, you know, when I was a kid, every guy pretended to be in certain cars because it got you girls. So, even if they knew nothing, "Hey, what's the mill?" You know, all this kind of stupid stuff. Now, when I meet car guys, boy, they're committed. Men and women.

• 8:34John Coogan?

  Because they're watching YouTube videos, they're all the data.

• 8:37Jordi Hays?

  Way more information.

• 8:38John Coogan?

  They can learn all the cars.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Like Sydney Sweeney, you know her, the actress?

• 8:40John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  She is a welder, a fabricator.

• 8:43John Coogan?

  That's right.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I mean, she really knows her... It just makes me laugh now. She's like, "Oh, the sexy girl." Well, she was always attractive.

• 8:49John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  But she used to... Well, she worked for Rod Emery.

• 8:53John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  And I worked with him, I guess, you know? But she apprenticed in his shop and he taught her a lot. It just makes me laugh. So, the young people I meet, men and women, that are really into cars. And unfortunate, unfortunately, manual sells. I mean, it gets them in the showroom, you know? And then the wife goes, "I'm not driving this." All right, honey, my wife doesn't like the stick.

• 9:18John Coogan?

  What do you think of the idea that the car industry is currently going through their equivalent of the quartz crisis where customers will either be buying an appliance, which will be a self-driving Tesla probably, or something that's completely manual, completely, you know, real engine, just in motion and they'll have that?

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Well, that, yeah. I think what you have now, electric cars are the quartz vehicles.

• 9:46John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  And mechanical cars. I mean, I think supercars will be like snowmobiles or any other recreational vehicle. You take it out on weekends and people will continue to buy the one with the most valves, the most cams.

• 9:57John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  I mean, just watch, along on its own. I mean, it's the most complicated way to tell time.

• 10:02John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  A Timax or a Citizen for $50 is even more accurate because it's electronic. But there's a certain... I enjoy winding it. It has a certain feel to it. I like it, so. And I think people will seek out the car. You know, I've got the Dodge, the Demon, and I've got the Challenger. And the Challenger's a 6-speed manual. And obviously, the 10-speed is quicker with the automatic, but I like driving the stick better.

• 10:31John Coogan?

  Yeah. Do you like drivers' watches?

• 10:33Jordi Hays?

  Go for it.

• 10:34John Coogan?

  Do you like drivers' watches?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I've got a... Yeah, I've got a history in 1921.

• 10:38John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  We have the Jay Leno watch we actually put out. It sold out three times around our third or fourth...

• 10:45John Coogan?

  Amazing.

• 10:46Jordi Hays?

  Do you think going to the track, participating in motorsports will become more popular as more of the cars on the road are self-driving?

• 10:56Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think so. You know, we have a situation now where unfortunately, the whole company, there's no middle anymore. You have poor people, or you have rich people that can afford, you know, I'm like with the Mission S, the Porsche. I see Porsche moving upscale, and I want to be like Ferrari, sell fewer cars to more money to fewer people. I'm starting to see, in the old days, every Porsche, you know, Ferrari had 800 miles, a Porsche had 60,000, a Corvette, same thing. They used to do the shootouts, which is fastest. The only ones that showed up would be Corvette and Porsche. Everybody else just, just didn't, you know. And now you have cars like people buy a GT3, and I'm putting it away. They

• 11:39Speaker 01

  know what's going to do. Okay. I mean, that's the sad part. I would hate to see them become, Porsche have always been expensive, but they're not rare. There's a lot of them around. They make a lot of cars. But using that Ferrari model, well, you can make more money with fewer cars. But now you have this elite clientele, and, you know, the great thing about Corvette is it's an aspirational car. If you're a guy with your own plumbing business, boy, you can aspire to own, yeah, it's over 100,000, but it's not a million. So at some point in your life, you can get one. And that's, that's what I like about it. I hate, and everything is that way now. Hotels are either, you're either Motel 6, or it's the Four Seasons.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  The middle dies. Yeah. Restaurant, fast food or top end restaurant. The Applebee's, the Denny's, just regular restaurant, because we have no middle class anymore. That's the sad thing.

• 12:33Jordi Hays?

  Were LA's roads always horrible, or have you felt them getting?

• 12:40Speaker 01

  No, they've always been horrible.

• 12:41Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I joke, I joke about the G-Wagon being like the LA car, because you need like a four by four to get around.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Well, that's because, gee, these roads are awful. That's what people say. Yeah. You know, it's so funny, and it's no excuse for, I mean, I go to Detroit, and you got Frosties, and it's winter. Okay, understandable. It's a beautiful day, every day, except for that Thursday when it rained. I don't know why the roads have to be so awful. I mean, it's really, I've, and Tesla especially is susceptible to this. I've had five blowouts, just bam, hit a pothole, and you go, and just, just huge, and they'll take weeks for the pothole to be fixed. And when you hit the same one twice, that's when you really feel crazy.

• 13:27John Coogan?

  Yeah. There's a huge pothole on my commute here. It's, I've hit it every day for a year. Constantly. I need to report it or something.

• 13:34Jordi Hays?

  Our friend Jason had the idea of like going and, and doing a performance art, going and filling up overnight, filling up all the potholes with dirt and flowers, as a way to try to, you know, draw attention to it. I don't, I don't think it would fix it. Maybe LA has bigger problems.

• 13:48John Coogan?

  Yeah. Do you think Mission S will be fun to drive?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. All Porsches are fun to drive. The electric ones is nice, but that, that's the classic example of quartz versus mechanical. Porsche people don't like electric. It's just, I mean, it's fast, it does anything it's supposed to do. You know, I drove the Remac, and it's, although it's two and a half million dollars more, it's a tenth faster than the Plaid. And it's, and that's it. There's no, there's no click to the shifting, and you know, the same when you wind with these, you hear the, it's either get it or you don't.

• 14:27John Coogan?

  Well, it feels like Mateh learned a really valuable lesson from that project, which is double down on heritage and, and mechanics and the emotion, and it doesn't seem like he's going to be going deeper down that path.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  No, I, I think, because remember, they were all supposed to be electric at 2030, everybody. And that, that went away. So now I think you'll, you'll have your high end, extremely complicated mechanical cars, which is what people like. The more valves, the more pistons, more whatever.

• 15:00John Coogan?

  Yeah. It's interesting. What do you think of the Tesla Roadster demo? The circus act of the kick flipping?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think.

• 15:09John Coogan?

  People don't want electric cars. They put rocket engines on it. That's not technically electric.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  No, but I think, I think you're seeing Tesla move from a car company to a space company. I mean, what you're doing is showing off your space technology. Okay. Because you've got cars from China, you've got cars, Tesla's getting hit on every side, plus the politics of it somehow getting involved in that, cost him a lot. But with, with the gas prices, well, Tesla sales were back up again, so they did okay. But I think the car business is, it'll be hard to make money yet, because somebody will always have something cheaper, you know. So I, I think, I think that's their transition into driverless and outer space, I think.

• 15:56John Coogan?

  Yeah. How did you grapple with the pull of politics through your career as a talk show host? It feels like there's a lot of pressure from audiences to address the current political, take a stance.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I'm, I'm, you know, write joke, tell joke, get check. Very simple. Very simple. It's very simple. You know, it depends. Johnny and I had the same theory. I'm not putting myself in Johnny's class. I just mean the fact that you make it to both sides equally. And that worked fine. And then all of a sudden, other talk shows come out, and you've got to take a side. Well, it's not my job. It's not my job. You know, when you go out in the real world, when you perform in Hollywood, well, you get exactly the audience. You do a chump joke, and they all cheer. Okay, fine. You go to Indiana, and half of them or a third of them boo. That's unfair. It's whatever. And when you

• 16:50Speaker 01

  sell real tickets to real people, so, you know, I announce, I just taking politics out of the, I mean, a few references, you know. And ticket sales are up 20, 30%, because people just, it's like when I go see James Taylor, I don't want to hear a lecture. Well, yeah, I like the rainforest. Yeah, it's good. That's a tree, and, you know, I can't, I can't hear Sweet Baby James. You know, I want to hear, I want to hear the music. So it wasn't that hard when I did it. It wasn't that, I mean, when I knew Dimson, you and your Republican friends, I hope, Dimson, you and your Democrat buddy, when both sides like you and hate you at the same time, well, then you know you're doing something right.

• 17:30John Coogan?

  Yeah. What else did you learn from Carson?

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that, as, as a model, that format is dead. I mean, podcasting is the new thing. I mean, the thing that really killed it is not the fact that Lethem and I were so good, or any of that nonsense. We just happened to be there at the right time. It's, it's the last days. They passed a law, since they weren't making as much money, after 11:30 at night, you could have another eight minutes of commercials in an hour. You know, if I see Jake from State Farm again, I'm going to shoot myself in the head. You know, I mean, I try to, I try to watch late night. I watch them on lock. And then there's six minutes of commercials, and, and the 30 second spots are so well

• 18:15Speaker 01

  done. They look like two minute spots. Cars and explosions and airplanes. Okay, really? And I go, Jesus, don't we come back?

• 18:23Jordi Hays?

  The, the market open on CNBC is brutal, too, in that you have like one minute of content, and then back to ads for lots of minutes.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's terrible. And it's funny, because TV used to be, you'd go out and say, you ever see that commercial with the guy, oh, yeah, yeah, it's it. Nobody knows.

• 18:41John Coogan?

  Oh, that's right, because everyone's seeing slightly different ads.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nobody, nobody sees.

• 18:45John Coogan?

  It's really hard for even ad breakthrough.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  The only thing where network or traditional TV, sports, and some event happening right now. Let's go with our cameras right now, and that kind of.

• 18:57John Coogan?

  Everyone used to know like the Clydesdales, or the Coo Coo Peller Bear, and like those, those.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Well, for example, they shoot game shows now in Ireland, and they fly Americans over.

• 19:09John Coogan?

  Whoa, to be in the audience?

• 19:10Speaker 01

  To be in the audience. So you think it's shot in America, but it's shot in Ireland. I don't know why it costs so much. You know, we did a, I did an awful show for Mattel, this Hot Wheel show. It wasn't a very good show. And we, for two years, three years, we shot at my garage, and I donated the garage, and they made a donation to a charity. It was cheaper to send 175 people to Ireland, put them up for two months, pay them a verdiem than it was to shoot in my garage for two days.

• 19:41John Coogan?

  That's crazy. Is that taxes in Los Angeles and California? Or tax incentives?

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Well, all, all the things. The other get the incentives. Like here, if you go down Coanga, it's $5,000. You make a left, oh, it's another 7,500. But you can go right. They have, there's a formula. They figure out where you want to shoot. You can just go on those streets. You go down the other street, I saw you go down the other street. You know. I mean, it's starting to change a little bit now, but it's a bit like the barn door, you know, the, the horse is left. I mean, everybody's in Atlanta and every other place now.

• 20:15Jordi Hays?

  How did you, how did you navigate this relentless nature of, of show business? This is something, you know, we start.

• 20:22John Coogan?

  You didn't find it relentless? 7:00 AM to midnight every day?

• 20:26Speaker 01

  I had real jobs. They suck. You know, you get paid pretty good. You know, if you're a cop or a nurse, your days are hell. You get hurt, you get beat up, and you make $400 a week. You know, I always tell people, the way show, you're going to get screwed. But when you get screwed, you get a big pile of money. See, here's the thing. You're going to get screwed, you know. I always tell, I always tell guys, don't fall in love with a hooker, because that's what show business is. Eventually, it's going to end badly. But when it does end, hopefully you have a big stack of cash. You know, my favorite joke, I did a joke about Charlie Sheen. You know, Charlie Sheen went through $200 million. Remember

• 21:06Speaker 01

  when he was that whole thing? And the joke was, he spent it on cocaine, gambling, and women. And the rest of the money, he just wasted.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  That's my favorite joke.

• 21:22John Coogan?

  What, can you explain to me?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:25John Coogan?

  The difference?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:26John Coogan?

  Between what it takes to perform at various times, slots, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30. This informed so much of the late night wars and I never fully understood why someone would work at midnight but not 11:00 PM. We came up in the on-demand era.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Well, I think, yeah, that's right.

• 21:48John Coogan?

  It doesn't matter.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  That's what it is.

• 21:49John Coogan?

  What was it?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Well, who's up late at night? College kids?

• 21:52John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Out of work people?

• 21:54John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Whatever it might be.

• 21:55John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:56John Coogan?

  So if the audience is different?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, who goes to bed at nine? This person, that person?

• 21:59John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, that's really the way that, that's really the way they do it.

• 22:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Because when you watch every ad now, it's Advil and all kinds of pain relievers and, you know.

• 22:09John Coogan?

  For the late nights.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:11John Coogan?

  Got it.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, all like.

• 22:12John Coogan?

  And so you would see that feedback of someone took a particular slot and they're not performing well in the ratings because they had a more mature or maybe a younger target audience in mind for those jokes and they weren't landing.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's really, you see what people laugh at. This is why I went, this is why I was on the road every weekend. Because when you're in the studio, a guy pushes a button, laugh.

• 22:36John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Applause.

• 22:36John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Exactly, I rest my case.

• 22:40John Coogan?

  Yeah, we just got.

• 22:41Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I was about to ask, I mean, it's so much, it's actually, people that make content today have it so easy because you put something out.

• 22:48John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Jordi Hays?

  Like, we'll get text messages live from our friends that are, that are laughing, whatever, something's funny, or, hey, you should have this person on right now, or this thing just happened, or the chat will update us, or someone will leave a review and say, you know, John just talked for 10 minutes straight, no one else said a word, stuff like, stuff like that. And we, we take all of that, some of the stuff you naturally take to heart, other stuff you ignore, whatever, but you guys, you're just kind of like in a bubble. And so for you.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Well, the trick is not to be in the bubble.

• 23:21Jordi Hays?

  So you go on the road and you just deliver?

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you try, if this is really, and you get a sense of where people are and where, and what, what's, what's fair or unfair when you, the real, the joke should be pure, you know? People always say to me, I bet when, I bet you wish you were on TV now with Trump. I go, no, because I don't like Trump, I can't stand the guy. And when you don't like someone, it's harder to be, you know, with George Bush, I go, you know, I don't think President Bush quite understands, and, and people would start to giggle because you're alluding to the fact that maybe he's not the brightest guy. But you, you're not just say, he's a big jerk, he's stupid, you know, you're not doing that, you just get, I don't, yeah, I don't think he quite gets it. And then there's snicker, snicker, you know? And that, that's, that's what worked for me, you know?

• 24:07John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  But when you dislike, when you truly dislike a guy, it's hard to be funny about.

• 24:11John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  I used to, there was a comic, I won't say who he is, but he got divorced, so it's the worst thing that happened, he'd be, he'd be, I'd say, anyway, my ex-wife!

• 24:22Speaker 01

  And the joke wouldn't be, get funny because it sounds like the final, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:29Jordi Hays?

  Did you ever have, is there anybody that stands out as somebody that you, you would sort of joke at or criticize on the show, but in real life you were, you were, you got along really well?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Well, that's just about everybody, I mean, that's what the show is, you know? Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, that's basically what you did, that was your living, you know?

• 24:46Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's fair to say.

• 24:48John Coogan?

  Yeah. How do you think about the importance of repeatable formats? Like, top 10 lists and certain headline?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Well, if something works, you do it again. Headlines work for us.

• 24:58John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  The man on the street stuff worked for us. Because we never talked to, and we never had a ringer.

• 25:04John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  We never talked to more than 20 people a night.

• 25:07John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  And we'd use 16 of them.

• 25:09John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  You know, how was Mount Rushmore formed? Erosion. You know, and really, like, not only five, five of our greatest presidents, I mean, the wind, the rain.

• 25:20John Coogan?

  Yeah. Magic.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  And in the right order.

• 25:23John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, what, what's the odds of nature doing that?

• 25:28John Coogan?

  People on the street.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that, that, yeah, you know, Letterman had the top 10 list and we had headlines, Jaywalking and some of the other stuff, yeah, I enjoyed it, it was fun, I enjoyed it.

• 25:40John Coogan?

  Did you and the team try and incubate those? Like, think of new formats that would be repeatable?

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you try some of the ones that are not repeatable, you don't repeat.

• 25:49John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  They don't work, don't keep doing it.

• 25:52John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  You know, that, that, comics are inherently lazy and they'll get, you know, this joke worked in Denver two years ago. Okay, that was in Denver two years ago.

• 26:00John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Okay, it hasn't worked in two years. You either go move to Denver and keep doing the joke, or you can come up with something new, you know?

• 26:06John Coogan?

  Yeah. The Holy Trinity. I want to hear your reflection on the Holy Trinity and then.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Of supercars, you mean?

• 26:13John Coogan?

  Supercars, we're back to cars, sorry.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:15John Coogan?

  And then I want to hear, do you think we are about to enter the new Holy Trinity? With the W1, the F80 and the Mission S? There's been some grumblings about that, but people are debating.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Well, I, I mean, that's kind of, I, I think the P1 has proved itself.

• 26:33John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  The 918 was good.

• 26:36John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  But now, the standard GT3 911 faster than 918 was, I mean, progress moves.

• 26:45John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  It's, I mean, it moves tremendously fast, so you never quite know what it's going to be, what it is to one generation.

• 26:52John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  I mean, when I was a kid, the 427 Cobra, that was it. You know, Carroll Shelby used to put a $100 bill on the dashboard and then he'd nail it, if you could, you could get the $100 bill, you could keep it. And nobody ever could because you just, you know, you just, so that was sort of the, that was sort of the standard bear.

• 27:09John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Before that was Aston Martin, zero to 60 to zero in like nine seconds.

• 27:15John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I'm thinking, oh, the, the, the, the, it had brakes and it goes fast, you know? Now those are, you know, you know, an old lady in Nissin Altima can do that, you know? So, yeah, I mean, I don't really buy the Holy Trin, you know, the Holy Trinity. It, it sells magazines, people, people need, want to take a side, your dad liked Ferrari or you like red or whatever it might be.

• 27:36John Coogan?

  They want structure, they want a format.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 27:39John Coogan?

  People like these formats.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Well, they don't really read magazines anymore, I would hate, I would hate to be in that business.

• 27:43John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  The magazine business.

• 27:45John Coogan?

  There's a couple that are still doing well.

• 27:46Jordi Hays?

  Rising economist, I read the Financial Times.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, yeah, those are, those will do well, but it's just.

• 27:52Jordi Hays?

  Surprising thing is the coffee table book business is booming.

• 27:55John Coogan?

  Oh, really?

• 27:56Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 27:56John Coogan?

  Is that true?

• 27:57Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 27:57John Coogan?

  Interesting.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Well, my favorite, I love celebrity books.

• 28:00John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Celebrity, you know, I've written a book.

• 28:02John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  And it's a children's book.

• 28:04John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  And it'll say, page one, cat, and I have some clever drawing.

• 28:08John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Okay, that's not a book bomb, okay? That's a pamphlet, it's this cat, school, car, okay, this is for someone, prepubescent, some child at eight, five to six, you did not write a book, but I would have celebrities come, yeah, I've been working on this book for a while, Jay, and I think it's, it's a children's book. It's the most simple poem and it's usually roses, always begins the way they always, and I would pretend that, oh, this is really, yes, that's not really a book. But you get, all you need is a good illustrator. And then you put the word cat or tree or something in there.

• 28:42John Coogan?

  Cat. What, what business?

• 28:44Jordi Hays?

  Why don't you, why don't you, why don't you make the, the final children's book then?

• 28:48John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:48Jordi Hays?

  If it's so, if it's so easy.

• 28:50John Coogan?

  If it's so easy.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  I did, I had a children's book, it was called A Roast Beef Could Fly, it did, it did really well.

• 28:55John Coogan?

  That's great.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  No, it was really popular.

• 28:58Jordi Hays?

  You, you think it was more of a book, more of a book than a pamphlet?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Well, it was, it was, it was a children's book.

• 29:04John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  And it came with a CD where you could.

• 29:07Jordi Hays?

  Children's books, for me, pamphlets for thee, kind of thing?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think.

• 29:13Jordi Hays?

  We'll, we'll get copies.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  If you have more than 300 words, okay, it can be a book.

• 29:19Jordi Hays?

  Okay.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Okay, when you have, when you have 15 words.

• 29:22John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Mine was based on a true story.

• 29:24John Coogan?

  Okay, yeah.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Did you ever read the book?

• 29:26John Coogan?

  No.

• 29:26Jordi Hays?

  No, but I will.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  I rest my case, you know?

• 29:28John Coogan?

  Yeah, okay.

• 29:28Jordi Hays?

  I'll order it, I, I mean, we burn through, we burn through books.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Well, this you should burn through, and you can burn this one when you're done, yeah.

• 29:36Jordi Hays?

  No, no, no.

• 29:36John Coogan?

  Vehemently against burning books. What, were there any particular business opportunities that you turned down while you were in the thick of?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, a million bucks, the whole of a Budweiser can.

• 29:48John Coogan?

  Okay. Would that be on the show? Like, how does that happen?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't drink, so I don't want to, I don't want to be a guy, go to a bar, but I don't drink.

• 29:55John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  And plus, you can't get greedy. I was on TV every night.

• 30:00John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  I don't need to be on TV when I'm in commercials in between when I'm on TV. To come off TV and go, hi, I'm Jay Leno, you know, so, so, so, you know, my favorite was, hi, I'm so and so, and I'm here to tell you about, no, shut up, I don't care really what a celebrity has to say.

• 30:15John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  But it just makes me like, you don't know what you're talking about, you know?

• 30:19John Coogan?

  What about something more behind the scenes? Instead of being a spokesperson, someone comes to you, I mean, the car, the famous Carson story is the suits that he was not compensated for appropriately.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 30:29John Coogan?

  I'm wondering about other business opportunities?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Well, I have, I have some, I have car accessory business.

• 30:33John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  I do polishes and things, something that has a shelf life.

• 30:37John Coogan?

  But did that come up after you had finished your run in Hollywood mostly, or?

• 30:41Speaker 01

  That came after The Tonight Show.

• 30:42John Coogan?

  Yeah, after The Tonight Show.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:44John Coogan?

  But were you getting your door beaten down by business opportunities throughout The Tonight Show?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Well, people come with, you know, watermelon on a stick, this is going to be a big thing.

• 30:52John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Okay, great, thanks, Bob. You know, no, no, I, no, I, I.

• 30:56John Coogan?

  Stay focused.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  You know, I had, I, I make money doing this.

• 31:00John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  This seems to pay extremely well.

• 31:02John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  I will stick with this.

• 31:04John Coogan?

  That's great.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  You know, I had a friend of mine, he was a doctor, optometrist.

• 31:07John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  He always wanted to open a hot dog stand, so he opened a hot dog stand. And it was doing okay.

• 31:12John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  And then, well, let me open another on the other side of town where there's more people. And that did okay. And then he's running between, and then he lost his optometry business.

• 31:20John Coogan?

  Wow.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Because he, really, really, Bob, you have the hot dogs, you know, the I thing is, I think pays a little bit more money.

• 31:26John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  No, but this, yeah.

• 31:27Jordi Hays?

  My, my thing is when I have, like, um.

• 31:31Jordi Hays?

  I have a guy that I've got my hair cut.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  And quite lovely, I must say, yes.

• 31:36Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, you too. I'm aiming for this.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  I believe that is called a quaff.

• 31:42Jordi Hays?

  Anyway, so I'm sitting there, he's cutting my hair.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:45Jordi Hays?

  And he starts pitching me on the business that he's working on overnight. And I'm sitting there thinking like, you're sitting there with scissors around my head.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:53Jordi Hays?

  Cutting my hair. I want you to be dreaming about cutting hair. I want you to be going to sleep. The last thought that you have is about the haircut that you're gonna do in the morning. I don't want you to, in this case, he was, you know, building some AI mumbo jumbo.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you're correct. You know, this, and my business is nothing harder than writing a joke. And I see comedians, hi, I'm so and so, but I'm being serious now. And I want to do a special on, well, no, there are people that do this better than you, you know? Write, write the joke. Just, that's what you do. You write jokes. Why would I hire a comedian to give me a serious eulogy about whatever it might be? You know, why would I do that? But comedians do it all the time. Or they want to sing.

• 32:35Jordi Hays?

  Oh, sure.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Or they want to act.

• 32:36Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  You know, um, you know. Seinfeld and I always used to say, what if we went on vacation and we liked it? Then we'd be screwed. So we don't go on vacation. Because telling jokes is, you show up, you get a huge amount of money. You know, I was in, uh, where was that? Alabama. Plane landed at 6:30, quarter to 7:00. Got to the theater at 7:20, went on at 8 o'clock, come home. Fabulous, you know, no rehearsal, no team, so the drunk, the bass player's drunk, we gotta find a replacement. You know, that's, comedy is, if you can do it, it's pretty easy and it pays very well. And you get paid for doing the same thing over and over.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  You know, you can do one HBO special and get this much money. Or you can do 100 dates and make twice that much money. And you didn't give all your material away for free, you know? You make, you're on HBO, you're making a tenth of a penny per customer. You do a live show, you're making $25 a customer, or maybe even $50 a customer.

• 33:43John Coogan?

  Yeah. Did you prefer comedy tours via plane or tour bus? Did you ever do it?

• 33:52Speaker 01

  I travel by myself. I don't.

• 33:53John Coogan?

  So plane?

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, plane, yeah.

• 33:56John Coogan?

  What, what makes for a good tour bus experience?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  I have no idea. I don't believe there is such a thing as, I don't believe there is such a thing as a good bus experience. Okay, you know, this, this, just hearing that.

• 34:07Jordi Hays?

  Mr. Four Wheels over here, all of a sudden.

• 34:09John Coogan?

  Wow, big talk about being into motor vehicles and.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  No, I, you know, I don't get the whole.

• 34:13John Coogan?

  Hopping a plane the first chance it gets.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  You know, the trick is I can go to work.

• 34:17John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  And when you have a plane, you're flying, and you could do something else. I work on cars during the day.

• 34:23John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  And then I go on and I work, you know, that's that old saying, that heart, it's healthy, that's where the head and the hands work together. You work all day or something. Oh, then you stand on the stage and go, this is so much easier than putting a transmission in.

• 34:36John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  And if I put a transmission on, I might have made 80 bucks for that day. I tell jokes.

• 34:43John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's, it's good, it's good.

• 34:46John Coogan?

  How much were you traveling? What was like your, uh, your peak travel year?

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Well, I'm doing 200 dates this year.

• 34:53John Coogan?

  200 dates.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  I, I've done that, when I was doing The Tonight Show, I probably landed to 140 or so, because it's only on weekends.

• 35:00John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Or I would do Vegas after The Tonight Show during the week, that kind of stuff.

• 35:05John Coogan?

  So you'd fly?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah. I'm, I'm still working. You know, I enjoy it. It's a lot of fun, you know? You think of a joke, you tell it, you know?

• 35:15John Coogan?

  That's great.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:16Jordi Hays?

  Where, where does your, um, like, where are you, where are you sourcing? How are you, you're in a bad spot. You're like, I need some new jokes. What's your process? Is it sitting down and just, and just, you know, not getting up until you got something?

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm dyslexic, so I have nothing written down.

• 35:33Jordi Hays?

  Sure.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  If I don't carry it in my head, that's why I like to work. Uh, yeah, you remember stuff that, that's funny. You know, sometimes just simple jokes are easy to write, like, like this joke. Guy goes to the doctor, doc says, what's the matter? Says, doc, hurts when I press on my rib cage? Hurts when I press on my forehead? Hurts when I press on my cheekbone? Hurts when I press on my shoulder? Doc says, you got a broken finger.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  It's stupid, it's simple, you know, it's not, you know.

• 36:09Jordi Hays?

  I didn't even need the laugh track for that one.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Well, they all, it took the audience a little longer to get it. But I mean, just those kind of things, it's just, it's fun, when you think of something like that. I would share with people anyway, so why not get paid?

• 36:24John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Very simple.

• 36:27John Coogan?

  Did you always have the drive to continue creating, continue telling jokes? Or was this something that like, steamrolled?

• 36:34Speaker 01

  No, I always have, you know, I had depression era parents.

• 36:37John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And if I don't work this week, I think I'm broke. You know, I have a pool in my house.

• 36:42John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  I haven't been in it in 30 years. Every time I get near the pool, I hear, oh, is that what you do? You're a rich guy now? You sit in the pool?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Well, you got nothing broken here? No, all right, yeah, I'm fine.

• 36:52John Coogan?

  You got the McLaren, the rich guy that goes fast.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Well, the McLaren, I'm driving it to fix it, to, see, I justify.

• 36:59John Coogan?

  Sure, sure.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  There's no way to justify sitting in the pool.

• 37:02John Coogan?

  In the pool, you got no time.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  The only time I did sit in the pool is when I went in to fix the light.

• 37:06John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Okay, and I fixed the light. Now I'm wet, I'm wet for a reason.

• 37:10Jordi Hays?

  Well, do you maintain, do you maintain your pool yourself? Like, do you do all the?

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Well, I try to do what I can. I mean, I, you know, I don't do all of it.

• 37:16Jordi Hays?

  Well, no, but it's a good motivation, because if you're, if you gotta pay somebody else to maintain the pool, you're like, if I don't, if I don't go to work today, I'm gonna go broke.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Something, exactly. But that, no, that's the way I think. I mean, and you know, funny stuff happens. You know, I, I did a corporate event for McDonald's, and they gave me like a stack of Happy Meal coupons. So I'm not gonna throw them out, I'm gonna, I might throw you. So I'm driving the McLaren SR, which got the. So I pull into the drive-thru, and I say, I may have a, uh, two Happy Meals? Uh, sir, we only limit to one Happy Meal per customer. I said, oh, well, okay, just one. And he go, hold on, oh, you're Jay Leno. Let me get, no, don't get to my, no, don't get to my, okay, then the manager comes out, he's got the paper hat, you know? Oh, Mr. Could you pull up to the side here? Okay, pull up. Now the door goes up. Now all the kids see the door go up, so they come running over. The guy go, now, we, normally, we only allow one Happy Meal.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  I'm listening to this, and I hear a guy go, it's Jay Leno who's arguing over Happy Meal. I'm not, I'm not arguing over, I'm just talking to the guy, you know? And it, it just, to me, it just seems, it's just like, it, it just really made me laugh. Just the fact that he's, well, he has norm, and we're gonna do this for you.

• 38:25John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  But normally, we would only allow one Happy Meal. You'd have to get in line again to get the second Happy Meal.

• 38:31John Coogan?

  I feel like you must get recognized.

• 38:33Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, you got the paparazzi being like, Jay Leno holds up.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like getting recognized. It's like high school with money, you know?

• 38:38John Coogan?

  Have the phones changed the interaction?

• 38:41Speaker 01

  No, it's always, you know, so I generally like people. I like to talk to them. Nothing annoys me more than celebrities that just, yes, what is it? I'm sorry, you know, why are you in this business?

• 38:53John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  And does it take a little longer? Yeah.

• 38:56John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Like, for example, in the real world, one out of every 50 people I meet is a car person. So I can actually have a conversation.

• 39:04John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  When I go to Pebble Beach, every single person there is a car. So you can't go 10 feet. You tended to get, so, so, and now I find that kind of void though. Because I don't want to be, I don't want to say no to people. I know, I'm sorry, I'm too busy.

• 39:16John Coogan?

  It would be four hours to get one mile or something.

• 39:19Jordi Hays?

  Did you, uh, I'm sure a lot of your peers over the years retired. Is, uh, is retirement, uh, did anybody?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Well, when you have a stroke, that's when you retire.

• 39:31Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, but, yeah, yeah, yeah, but did any, is there a way to do it well? Because I haven't seen, I haven't seen anybody, at least so far in my life, like, retire that well.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, what are you gonna do? Drink? Gamble? I mean, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Retire? I mean, to most people, it's, it's your life anyway. If you have, if you're selling insurance, okay, that can get a bit tedious. You don't want to sell insurance when you're retired. But just, I mean, you're still gonna think of funny things to say when you're retired, but you want any place to say them. And they, you see, the, the thing about comedy is when you stop, you can never go back. You can't go back five years later. Because people now expect you to be five times better than the last time they saw you. And they think, you know, they think you're just talking off the top of your head all the time. They're like, you've done this a million times, and we've tried to perfect it and hone it and all this kind of stuff, you know?

• 40:27Speaker 01

  So when you haven't done it, and when you haven't done it for a long time, the stage is not a strange place to be. When you're on stage every day, it's a second nature. When you do it once a month, and someone, somebody, somebody, your attention, your attention goes to that, you know? So you, you have to keep doing it. I mean, I remember Eddie Murphy said, oh, he's gonna get back into stand-up, and I would love to see him do it. But he was out of it for 10 years. And where do you practice? Eddie Murphy's gonna be here tonight. Oh, he wouldn't have. Well, he's, he's trying new stuff, you know?

• 40:58Jordi Hays?

  He's working muscle back, yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I heard people say to me, I, I was on, I let him, not let him, a felon or somebody. And I said, I did new materials. Guy goes, you know, I saw you two weeks ago at the Comedy Magic Club. You did the same material, so it wasn't new. I go, no, it's the first time I did it on TV. You have to, I try to, you see, you have to practice. I could see this is just, yeah.

• 41:19John Coogan?

  It feels like people have sort of lost the comedy conventions, like they don't fully, because a lot of it's just.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  No, they haven't, you know, it's exactly the same.

• 41:26John Coogan?

  No, I, I mean, the audience understanding the conventions.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  No, I don't find, no, I think it's always, you know something, if I showed you a Rudolph Valentino movie from the 20s, it was, had women swooning, you'd be laughing.

• 41:40John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  It's boring, it just takes a long time, and it's all, ah, okay. But if you see Keaton Chaplin, you know, fat guy, tuxedo falls in a mud puddle. I'm sorry, people laugh just as much now as they did. It really has, funny is fun. That stupid joke that I just told you. You could have told that at any time from, from, from the, uh, from the, um.

• 42:04John Coogan?

  The discovery of the broken finger.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, for, for any point in history, from the Renaissance to now, it would work.

• 42:10John Coogan?

  It'd still work.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:11Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Is that always, I mean, it's funny, because in tech world, everybody's been watching, and, and more broadly, everybody's been watching the new Nathan Fielder movie. And it has this reference to, uh, Who's on First.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:23Jordi Hays?

  And so people have been watching that back and saying, it's like, it's a little hard to get through now. Because it's like, six minutes long, and they're going around and around and around.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it takes a long time. And you have to, I remember watching, uh, you know, that came out right after. Hiroshima. And they, and they, I got to say, you see Hiroshima? Looks like Emmett's Field after a Dodger game. I go, okay, well, that, that wouldn't, that wouldn't work now.

• 42:50John Coogan?

  That would not apply now.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  No, no. But you just fought these people for five years.

• 42:54John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  The Japanese were the worst to the American prisoners of almost any people, torturizing. So it seemed justified to say at the time it got a big laugh, but it wouldn't work now.

• 43:04John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  You know, but you, you, comedy's got to change with the times.

• 43:08John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  I mean, when I was a kid, you'd see racial jokes on TV. Oh, my God. Or women drivers. Well, women are fine. Why, why can't, why, why couldn't a woman drive? What are you talking about? You know?

• 43:18John Coogan?

  Yeah, all the tropes change.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. I remember.

• 43:21John Coogan?

  The structure.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  I think it was when Harry Reasoner retired, he said, bringing women in to be anchors is not something I think that people will listen to. Oh, shut up.

• 43:30John Coogan?

  He said that?

• 43:31Speaker 01

  That kind of, you know, that, that kind of stuff.

• 43:33John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  He also said, I'm glad I'm leaving now because I don't want to have a computer in my house. I mean, people talk that way. Why would you want a computer? Well, how bothersome and annoying would that be?

• 43:48John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  But, you know.

• 43:49John Coogan?

  No, everyone does.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 43:50John Coogan?

  Everyone does. Do you like the cell phones going in those sealed bags during a comedy show?

• 43:57Speaker 01

  I, I don't care.

• 43:58John Coogan?

  You don't care?

• 43:58Speaker 01

  I, I, I don't care. I mean, it's like, if your stuff is good enough for somebody to steal, I guess that's flattering, I suppose. You know something? What are you going to worry about, everything?

• 44:07John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Somebody, somebody told the jokes I told.

• 44:10John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Well, okay, you know, you didn't pay anything for the joke. You just thought of it. Yeah, I mean, if somebody steals your movie, of course, that's different, but.

• 44:17John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  No, I don't do that. I, I don't like, I don't like charging people for autographs or, or a picture.

• 44:24John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  You know, it's $300 to take a picture. Really?

• 44:27John Coogan?

  People charge for photos and autographs?

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, a lot of people.

• 44:30John Coogan?

  The thing that I've heard is people will grab the photograph and say, I'd love to sign it. Who should I make it out to? Because they don't want to sign to no one, so that it.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Oh, and it shows up on eBay.

• 44:40John Coogan?

  Yeah, when it shows up on eBay. Who cares?

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, and somebody paid $50 for your picture. Oh, that's, that's, that's pretty good.

• 44:47John Coogan?

  Yeah, it's pretty nice.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Somebody actually bought my picture. Well, that's, you know, if.

• 44:50John Coogan?

  Just be happy.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Be happy, you know?

• 44:52John Coogan?

  Just be happy.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Be happy you don't have a real job.

• 44:55John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Because real jobs are horrible. I rest my case.

• 44:59John Coogan?

  Yeah, it's true. This is a pretty good gig.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  No, no, but it is.

• 45:02John Coogan?

  No, you're 100% right.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  I mean, it's fun. You come to work and, you know, it's not the same thing every day.

• 45:08John Coogan?

  No, no. Because the news moves. It's so refreshing.

• 45:11Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, people, people have asked us, I mean, we, we never, John had done some media stuff prior to this, but I'd always been more behind the scenes and I never would imagine being on, being on camera. It wasn't something I aspired to. I didn't, I didn't necessarily do it for attention, but the fact that every single day, like, John and I would be having the same exact conversations, whether or not we were getting, it was a career or not, right?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing that will save you.

• 45:40John Coogan?

  Please.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  No matter how much you're in media now, nobody knows who the hell you are.

• 45:45John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  They, they really don't.

• 45:47John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  You know, some people. One guy came to the same media, he said, oh, I didn't know you were a comedian. I thought you'd just, like, bring a couch out and interview people. No, no, I was a comedian. Oh, good, good. You know, most, nobody pays.

• 45:59John Coogan?

  The world's huge.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Nobody gets recognized. I mean, unless you're the, the it girl or you're the athlete or something. Like, when I, when I was, when we would do The Tonight Show in the 70s and 80s, every, next day, everybody, hey, you, hey, that's that guy I saw you last night. Now, you, you would have to do 25 or 30 appearances to get more than a dozen people. Because nobody, it's so fractured now. Everybody's watching streaming and we all just, there's no central, you know, I used to watch, like, the, the network news because I would learn about stuff I'm not interested in. So, oh, now I have that. Now I don't have that knowledge anymore. I just watch the news that I want to watch.

• 46:38John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  So you watch either your Trump news or you watch your, you know, MSNBC.

• 46:44John Coogan?

  Something that's perfectly suited.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, people only agree with you.

• 46:47John Coogan?

  Yep, they're in their bubble.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I mean. So I, that's why I like the road. You get outside your bubble and it's fun, yeah.

• 46:53Jordi Hays?

  What advice do you have for people that are afraid of AI?

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Well, the same thing I have. You know, I have a steam engine from 1866 in my garage, a big thing. And a lot of it used to break in and smash it because with the big wheel, it ran a thing and it put 125 people out of work at a factory because it's a big, you know, you didn't need all the people doing it. You know, in the, you know, there's a book you guys are probably like, like, by the time we went to, it's called Precision. It's the history of precision. And before mass, you know, the, what do you call it?

• 47:30John Coogan?

  Mass manufacturing.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Mass manufacturing. Every town had a craftsman. You had a guy, you'd have a gunmaker. And he would make a gun.

• 47:38John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Or maybe three a year and a few people left town would have it.

• 47:43John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  And then Colt comes along and the mass manufacturing of guns and everybody can have a gun. Not quite as precise, not quite as nicely made.

• 47:51John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  But at least you can have it, you know? And so the craftsmen went out of business because craftsmen, you don't really have craftsmen anymore. Even woodworkers that can really make furniture.

• 48:01John Coogan?

  What about Christian Von Koenigsegg? He's a craftsman, isn't he, not?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, Chris, yeah, he is. But he, I think he's independently wealthy.

• 48:08John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, that's, he can afford to build $5 million automobile.

• 48:12John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  You know?

• 48:13John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it feels like the craftsmen do stick around, they just become incredibly.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Well, what I'm saying is.

• 48:18John Coogan?

  They're not a vital part of every town.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'll always be, they'll always be craftsmen.

• 48:23John Coogan?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  It's just, it's not like it used to be. The reverence is not there.

• 48:27John Coogan?

  100%.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  You know, the name and all that kind of. Now we're sort of getting back to it. You, when you buy a Corvette, the guy who built your engine, his name is on the, on the block and a plaque. And, oh, and in fact, I had the guy and his family come out to visit my car and the kids got to see their dad's name on the, you know, they, like.

• 48:45John Coogan?

  That's cool.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's kind of cool.

• 48:47John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  So, to a certain extent, we're getting back to that a little bit, but, yeah, I'm a very optimistic person. I think it's fine. I mean, for all the, you know, I like watches. I have a very obscure watch, 1873, and you wind it by, when you open the, the case.

• 49:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  That, that's how it winds.

• 49:05John Coogan?

  Oh, interesting.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Built eight, oh, the guy only made three of them. I said, let me see if there's anything on the internet.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Second and a half.

• 49:16John Coogan?

  Full history.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  The guy, exactly, all this, I was trying to find how long the stem was. All the information, I went, oh, my God. This is unbelievable. I mean, that would not have been possible.

• 49:27Jordi Hays?

  Now, if you're, if you're like enthusiast in like a very niche category, it's like the most amazing thing in the world. Because before, I, I mean, I just remember, even in cars, you're like, let me spend eight hours navigating around some forum.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:42Jordi Hays?

  Or, or let me look at all these old YouTube videos. And again, it's just like, as much as it's part of the process of like searching and hunting for information, I don't really miss like spending three hours trying to find one fact that I'm just trying to get that so I can do something else.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Well, the sad thing is the disappearance of libraries. And that's really sad because that, now you have poor people who could not afford a computer or whatever, could go to a library and they were now equal to everybody else because they had access to the same information. That's what's bad.

• 50:14Jordi Hays?

  Really, I don't know.

• 50:15John Coogan?

  Everyone has a phone and everyone can get information, but the phone also has all the distractions on it, whereas the library didn't.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 50:22Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 50:23John Coogan?

  What do you think, Rudy?

• 50:24Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, I, I, technology is more, I thought you were just saying the disappearance in libraries as like a, you know, a place that, that people would go. I mean, we still massively utilize our local library and just because the kids.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  I go into any library, when I was a kid, it would be very crowded.

• 50:45John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Now the few people milling around or something, you could get the homeless guy looking at porn and, you know, that, that's, that's about it.

• 50:53John Coogan?

  Yeah. Well.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  You can't look at, see, you have to go to the library to look at porn. That's sad, see?

• 50:59Jordi Hays?

  You should, you should have an Apple Vision Pro.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 51:04John Coogan?

  Well, you could, you could start a new library or museum or something.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But no, I, I think it's all good. It's, you know, you can't stop progress.

• 51:12John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  You know, this, that's a stupid thing with these tariffs.

• 51:16John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  You know, the, the great thing about America was you could get stuff that was restricted in other countries.

• 51:22John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  You know, it's like.

• 51:23John Coogan?

  It wasn't the Soviet jeans thing.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. So you could just buy, get whatever you want. Now, oh, no, we, we can't have that because, you know, we're going to build a wall so, so we don't get the new technology. We'll live on the old technology. Meanwhile, everybody else is expanding. Yeah, exactly. This is why we got to where we are now, because we didn't have tariffs, so.

• 51:43John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  That's, that's my idea.

• 51:46John Coogan?

  Do you have a bucket list?

• 51:47Speaker 01

  No, I'm trying to get out of doing stuff, actually. Nothing, I don't want to go anywhere. No, I'm, I'm fine. I'm doing all right. I'm okay. Write jokes, tell jokes, get checked.

• 51:58John Coogan?

  Get checked.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Very simple process.

• 52:01John Coogan?

  I love it. That's a great philosophy. Well, that's a fantastic place to end it. Thank you so much for coming.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Well, thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. Thanks, you guys.

• 52:07John Coogan?

  Thank you. We'll close out the show. If you're, you can just hang out.