Jay Leno

This is me, Craig Ferguson.

I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually it's about an hour and a half and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money. But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway, come and see me live on the Pants on Fire Tour in your region. Tickets our own sale now, and we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates. Go to the Craig fergusonshow dot com. See you on the road, My DearS.

Up.

So here's the thing.

Oh so we're not no video.

No, Well, here's the thing about no video because this is the reason why I don't do it, because people like you, some performers want so much makeup and hair done. Oh yeah, not me, No, No, So I tell you what I'm doing right here, right right as I'm enjoying a cup of coffee.

Now, I know that you don't drink coffee.

No, don't drink coffee. And those a couple of CoFe Ever had of Seinfeld on comedians and cars getting coffee? It was awful. You know, I don't like hot liquids.

Now, see this is but this is what what about soup?

Do soup come into the soup is just a way to screw you out of a meal? Soup? Oh, here's a ball, it's wet. Thanks, all right, so now waiting out a wet ball? Yeah, something I can chew, Thank you.

But hold on a second. Is it because it's a whole liquid or because it's just a liquid.

It's not a meal?

It does it have to be a meal? Yeah? But do you but you won't have soup because it's a drink.

Well, Plus, I don't like hot liquid.

If you don't like, what about gaspacho or maybe a cold borsch No?

Horrible?

So so really it's about liquid. And do you ever drink any liquids at all?

Yeah? I drink a lot of water, a lot of fruit juice.

You drink beer?

No, never had a beer. In my life, you.

Never had a beer, never a beer, you ever drink any of the hoots at all.

No, no, no, I have nothing to guess that I have no interest in it. I was always a designated driver. I was always a car guy. So to me, it's not true because you love the car. I'll drive you dregs home and that's fine.

All right.

So you so very few liquids and no soup.

Well, I see, I'm worried that.

You know.

Look, none of us are getting younger, Jay, right, right, So the certain point in life soup is kind of gets attractive to the older gin.

That's all I'm saying.

Seventy three and I haven't been there yet.

Well, saying that you know that there was your souper years, maybe coming.

Up and get used to it, let's hope not.

All right, So listen, your mother was Scottish. I and my mother was Scottish. And my wife has a theory about stand up comedians that their mothers have to be Scottish.

Or they have to be cold with bad boundaries.

So my mom was not cold. My parents are very good that way.

She have good boundaries.

I don't know what you mean by boundaries.

Well, you know, and now do I But you know a lot of people talk about it.

You know, how long are you in Hollywood? In an hour? Now? And you've got boundaries?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just wondering that.

You see, I never heard any of it. You know, It's so funny. Where I grew up, I was the laziest person that anybody knew. I come here. Oh, Jay's the hardest working guy. No, it's just where you grow up. It's that, you know, you grew up in New England with Silas Manor and Ethan Frome and all these depressing books about freshet. You work hard that you die you then you got Lulematoya.

After you get.

Then die whatever it is. Yeah, it's just all life is awful. You know, Sonny, you comes to Hollywood and all the lights of ride and it's sunny outside.

Wage were you when you came here?

I started coming here, I guess when I was nineteen twenty something like that, not in nineteen twenty when you were nineteen nineteen.

But here's the thing.

You came out here to do comedy because you're you're Boston right right right right? So did you never do stand up in Boston before you came out here.

Oh yeah, you know that was a great thing because growing up in Boston I never met another stand up comedian. Occasionally, comedians would come to like the Chateau ta Ville in Framingham. It was one of those fancy well yeah, it's one of those places like near a mall and it's got like a fountain in front that I worked there with Tom Jones, I worked there with Perry Como, I like Dion Warwick, you know all those acts from that era. Yeah, and that was and that was an opening act.

That was literally you wanted to be a stand up? Dot Young at nineteen and twenty years old. Oh yeah, you got to be fucked up in some way then, because nobody wants to be a stand up.

Why wouldn't you want to be a stand Well back in the day, nobody wants. I mean nowadays people want to do interesting.

When I watched TV, yeah, all comedians were middle aged Jewish men like Rodney, like Henny Youngman, all those guys, all all the Catskill comics, and then all of a sudden Robert Klein came along. Was a huge influence on me. Robert was about ten years older than me. And he was a middle class kid. Parents weren't wealthy, but he didn' grow up doing a depression, just talking about the same

You know that's interesting. Yeah, and you and were you friendly with George?

Yeah, it's very new judge from the very beginning. It's always very nice to me. So was client. You know, all comics are pretty nice. Steve Martin helped me get this and IHO. Steve Martin told Johnny about me. I chose Johnny about Ellen DeGeneres. I find comedians help other comedians. I don't find it to be this. I mean there were there obviously some cutthroat people around, and that's not unusual, but it's not the norm. You know, as a comic, you can't do every job. If I couldn't get something,

Billy's great guy.

Yeah, wonderful comment. Yeah yeah, And he did a great job. He killed and I felt good that I helped him. He felt good. They got to do a corporate day that paid a lot of money and it was fun.

So I'm so, wait, hello, you and i'd be friends for a while. You don't think of putting me up for the fucking corporate No.

I never never thought that. What I actually want to do it next year?

Yeah, I'll do it next year.

I'll get a fun yeah. Yeah, okay, because let me just say it's on the East coast. I like the idea cars and like cars gotta work. You gotta work reasonably clean that super I could. I did gigs with you, right, Yeah, let's do it.

I'll do it. Yeah.

I don't mind working clean. The older I get and fight, the easier it gets to work clean.

I've noticed that.

Well, you know, I find when you're twenty five, Yeah, and you say the word pussy girls go oh, well, we said, oh my god, when you're sixty five, Oh that old guys, and you know what, they got a point, Yeah, exactly, it is. It's true.

It's true.

You know, it's fun to grow India. Yeah, because my point of view is always from an adult observing things, how stupid this is or whatever it is, you know, and as a young person it didn't work quite as well as it does now. Now you can be a bit curmudgeonsly.

And I was struck by your stand up bike when we were working in the Midwest this summer, Like you threw a down manion. It's like a full solid hour and you and like the material. It's fresh and well. You try to have a joke every six to nine seconds. That's that's I think, really, you.

Think because I don't think of it like that. I mean, everybody's different, it's it's just different to me. It's like a music show. You open with your heads boom boom boom, joke, joke, joke, junk joke, and then in the middle you do the comedic version of a ballot. You tell story, Oh, you know, my ife and I would go to this place, and there are little humorous jokes along the way as opposed.

To That's very interesting to me because I do think of it in kind of musical terms. Yeah, as well, it's a it's kind of a musical performance.

Are you a musicians? You play anthing?

I played trumpet, but then I realized I couldn't talk and play trumpet at the same time.

That's a terrible instrument for you to play. You should play like a guitar.

I was in fourth grade at the time, and.

Jay, I'm going to tell you something right now. You know I adore you.

But because you played trumpet in fourth grade doesn't mean you played the fucking trumpet rightly exactly.

That's why I quickly got rid of it.

But you do see, I think a lot of the stand ups that I like are also the thinking musical terms of what they do.

You know, the most musical comic I can think of as Franklin a Ji. You know Franklin, I don't know. African American comic very big in America. He had an album out thirty forty years he moved to Australia.

Right.

He's a jazz comedian. He plays jazz and he does comedy. He has one of my favorite bits. He talks about the guy. Oh, there was an Olympic guy from some country and he ran in the marathon and he came last. He was dead last, and he just as he's running, he's going on. I mean, I've been training, I've been working a I could have sat on the couch and watch TV. I'd still be last. I mean, it's still it. There's a lot more to it than that. He does a lot better, but it's just very funny and he

Did they know it? And snap their fingers when you.

Know, not quite that much, but they would listen, you know, like Miles's audience, any of those audiences. I went, oh, this is really you know, Ross Sound Roland. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He might be before your time.

He's possible.

Ross Sound Roland correct, African American guy, blind right, but famous because he could hold a note indefinitely, and he could play two instiments in the same time. He could play the sax and the clarinet at the same time.

And that's crazy. How does that even pause?

Because he could breathe through his nose. Okay, but he was blae so and we played primarily African American audists. It places like the Sugar Shack in Boston and He would go on stage and you go, I'm gonna bring a young brother. My brother's gonna tell that it is, you know. He gives the whole thing like I was a blackad. Yeah, please welcome j leto you know, and I come out and go sh He doesn't. And he

The thing because you talk about that right now, like you even telling that story to me right now, like people are going to get bent out of shame because of you know, you mentioned race of any kind and just you know, different races of any kind. And people are already on the balls of their feet looking for a fight, which I kind of I'm getting a little tired of it. I think everyone else is too, does it?

Well?

I had the best one happened a couple of months ago. Yeah, my wife maybe in a little Chinese restaurant in Westwood. It's got like fourteen tables if that many, and the mother runs the cashier and takes the orders and the dad's to cook and looks like the kids or cousins. It looks like a family. So we got our food sitting there, and you're kind of it's right next to UCLA. In fact, it is UCLA right, and a lot of students are on the table. I just said to my wife, God,

Woman, right, and she should have probably just said, hey, you're doing a great job in that way.

But to me, because I don't really want to. I mean, first of all, I get an annoyed because I think, oh, do you really think I'm being sexist by saying that. I would say this man. I didn't say girl, I didn't say chick, I didn't say waitress. I said this woman, I mean, what is wrong with her? And she had to well, now you're if I had said server, isn't that demeaning? I mean, that's all she is.

Isn't she a woman defining someone by their job?

Yeah, I said so, but she was so anxious to jump on this.

Well, I think it's a it's a little kind of fat that the young folks went through for a while that they wanted.

Fine.

You know, well when I was, when I was their age, I was a punk rocker. I was a pan of the ass too.

Oh yeah, I know when you think about a stupid people. Our generation was the burning down the Bank of America building and oh my god, remember the SDS. To make up for racial injustice, they should kill every third white baby born. I remember something. I remember some SDS guy saying that early on okay, you know, just crazy talk, just crazy talk. So to me, a lot of his like, I never use the word bitch on stage. I know women don't like the words, so I don't use it.

Well I never understood anyone.

The look to me, an audience is it doesn't have a race or a gender or anything like that.

It's an audience is an audience and you.

Don't know, but no, but an audience does have the best audiences. It's a fully male, female, black, white, Asian integrated audience where they all totally For example, you know, if you have done a corporate event where it's all men, yes, unless it's all football jokes or gun jokes or something, it's terrible.

I did. I did a corporate events once. It will be yeah.

And I used to do this bit about Tom Cruise. This is a long time ago because I actually am a big fan of Tom Cruise. But it wasn't the most flattering really yeah. Yeah, it was a piece of stand up right, And it was just after he jumped an Oprah's couch and I was sticking around with that and I was doing this piece of this piece. It was a good it was a good bed and every night it killed. I said, well, I'll do it this corporate It was a clean bit. It was nothing like

There was this lawyer.

Oh my god, it was because you do a lot of corporate gigs and you work clean.

I've seen you don't work.

You don't work squeaky clean, no thirty right, so you you work clean, you don't you drop the F bomb and you don't do that kind of thing. But you But it's kind of it's grown up, right, it's an adult show.

But it's not an adult.

It's not balloon animals.

Right.

No, it's definitely not that you ever run into it with.

Because I've had people say to me at corporate gigs, you gotta be really careful here.

They really do you ever they ever say that to you? Now, nobody trusts.

I always ask, I go, is this like a born again thing is the chairman, the born again guy or something?

Would you be able to cope with that? So if he will, I can work.

You know something. I booked myself into Oral Robinson University once just to see if I could play it, and they said, look, we don't like sex jokes, we don't like drug jokes, politics, everything else is fine, and they were fine. They just didn't want any dick jokes.

Right, fine, so that's probably not one I should be doing. No, no, no, I don't do it, none of those jokes. No, no, no.

But what I mean And to me, a guy is paying me to do a job. I don't quite get guys to go. So I told him to go shove it and I did what.

Yeah, I don't get I got to agree with you. I don't understand that.

What do you like? Then?

Don't take the gig?

Like to me, I know the you know, to me, an audience is like an orchestra. You want to get a nice rolling laugh going. I remember I had a joke. I'm sorry I don't remember the joke, but it was when Hillary Clinton was running for president, and also so was Reggie Jackson and a bunch of other people and I had a joke about each candidate, and the Reggie Jackson joke was a political joke, wasn't about him being black.

I know what you mean.

I felt it as well. There are gags that the joke's not worth it. Yeah, yeah, l Sally, you still always say that to me. Peter Sally was my boss and late I know, you know, did the Tonight Show for so long and whenever I did a joke that I you know, it was like near the knuckle right, and you E would say, is it worth it?

Is it really worth it? That joke? Isn't that good because he would say, you know, joke's like a house or a car, there's always another one.

You know, you can do another joke right right.

And when I first started, I was like, no, that is worth it right.

Very quickly I was like, now you're right, fuck it, We'll be here tomorrow night.

It's h yeah, yeah to me, you just sort of learned to read your audience.

Hello, this is Greig Ferguson, and I want to let you know I have a brand new stand up comedy special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy, and I would be so happy if you checked it out. To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel at the Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?

Just click it and play it and it's free. I can't look.

I'm not going to come around your house and show you how to do it. If you can't do it, then you can't have it. But if you can figure it out, it's yours.

Let's talk a little bit about Late Night though.

Bring that up because of Peter when you took over on the Tonight Show.

So when was that early nineties ninety one?

I started guest hosting in eighty six eighty seven.

Right, how long would a guest host gig B would be like a week? Would it be like a night?

No? Well you get one night?

Right?

And Johnny used to do that towards the end of his run. Right, he would bring people in.

And yeah, and there were like, uh six or seven guys that were being considered.

Did you ever have guest hosts when you were doing it?

No, I had to die once. I did it once because Katie Couric wanted to switch seats. NBC thought it would be a fun thing to so we did it one day.

They did the same thing with Drew carreyh Yeah, right, Yeah, I didn't quite get that, but no, I didn't know.

To me, when you have guest hosts, it just means more work for the staff, right, because they may have to put the monologue together instead of you. They have to figure out can this guy talk to a guest and go over every single note.

It's a job.

It's very hard to do for one night. It's a little easier to do it for, you know, a couple of years.

One night. I get that? Is that something? Because it's fun?

You grew up in an ear Correct me if I'm wrong, But I think I'm right. You grew up in the air when Johnny was the gold standard and obviously.

He was the king.

Yeah, so did you have aspirations to be the Tonight Show holster? Was it just like because you were a comic you kind of drifted into that direction.

You kind of went that way. Yeah. It was the only job in show business that I liked, right, because I like to be a round show business as opposed to in it. You know. Yeah, I think I saw a movie with you in it once, like years years. That's been some terrimoryes so, but to me it was a jungle movie. Did I see you in The Jobs Bill Maher and the Job Jule? Yeah?

Yeah, I can't remember what the movie was. After some real clunkers.

As I just like you because, like I say, I don't want to be Charlie Sheen, but I boy, I enjoyed being a round Tarlishon. I enjoy watching Charlie crash and burn and and not in a mean way, just in a funny way.

You want to be around the circus folk, but you don't necessarily have that's right.

That's right, and I used to enjoy it. That's what's great about being your host of it. I don't have to go to the party. To me, it's really what happened to the party. Oh my god, I can't believe that you know and you hear the story or whatever it might be.

So yeah, I felt that way about did you watch the movies? When people were on the.

Show, always watch the movie?

See I never watched the movie.

I had a completely different What was your philosophy then, that you wanted to know the movie?

It would be to be able to talk about it.

I think people like it. I know a lot of guests if you made the effort to read their book or whatever it is they had, Yeah, they would really be impressed. I mean they would write you a note. I can't believe you went to my movie.

No, I never I never did. I did the complete opposite.

That's funny.

No, just because well you were clearly much more successful than I wasn't it. But what I felt about it is if I knew about it, then the two of us are talking about the movie we've both seen. If you were on plugging a movie and I haven't seen it and we're talking about it and you're telling me about the movie, I'm like, Oh, this sounds like a movie and I want to see And that was my philosophy. And Pete used to fight me on a law. You're like, nah, you just told me it's a big star. You got

Yeah, but you talk about what you liked about it or what the you know, the character delineation or whatever it is they did. Come on, No, I enjoyed that part of it. I would try watch a movie if I got to a part of that was particularly challenging for the actor. I remember that, and I bring it up in the interview and oh, you know, because everybody in show business is insecure. Oh sure if they think I remember once. You know, publicity agents are my favorite

You know, I bet you I can tell who there's like off the microphone. I bet you I can tell you this is.

But the thing is, I think about it as well, like the show business. Because you said everyone in show business insecure. I think you're right, and I think that a lot of people in show business they're crazy, damaged, you know, unemployable in any other business.

That's true, and they're all a little little nuts.

And the question that I go asked, I don't know if you guy asked this, but like if there was somebody on who's like super famous, like Tom Hanks was on or so, people will always say, well they nice? Was he a nice guy? Was was she a nice woman? Was Are they nice? And like, well they were nice to me? But because they're doing a talk show and they're professional. But the truth is, why is that important to people like you know, like I don't know.

Well, I'll ask you a question. Did your opinion of Woody Allen movies change after you heard all the.

Things, oh the stuff about Woody Allen?

Yeah, I mean, did a change or did you think.

Well, it's a it's a good question, but it's a little tricky for me because I wasn't a huge fan anyway.

I wouldn't a huge anyway. But I like someone I like to think like. To me, it's funny when I hear someone tell an exaggerated version of a story where they did something mean but didn't mean to But if I know there really means oh no, that kind of really did mean to hurt somebody. Yeah, you know, so to me, yeah, I think it does matter. I always equate kindness with intelligence. I've never met a kind person who was not intelligent. And by intelligent, I don't mean

Yeah, of course it does.

It's actually it's a very nice way of looking at it. I think that that's true. But if I look at someone like, here's someone I don't know, I know nothing about them, but I'm a fan of his work.

Ousio was born right right.

Osio was born, is like, you know, he's a game changer of a singer in a band hugely important. I don't need him to be nice. Did he bite the head off the bat? Or did he not buy the head off the bat? I don't know if I was, you know, like, if I was heavily involved in the world the bats, maybe it would be.

Well, but let's go back. Did the wordy Allen stuff change your opinion of his work?

You know, did it you know what it probably did? If I'm honest, I probably yeah.

I mean, I think.

Fighting a bat is different than you know.

Yeah, well, you know, yea marrying your daughter?

Yeah, so what did you do? Did you bite head over? But maybe right?

Did you actually.

Definitely marry your step dough exactly exactly?

I hear what you're saying.

These are extremes, all right, But what I think is kind of weird to me is that maybe not the nice, but the idea that everyone's.

Going to be like a Sunday school teacher.

While giving sample someone it's a way to get here. I'm not a big road rage guy. One day I'm here in La you know a guy behind b b BB, you know, like, oh, he wants to go like me, go me, It goes around me, gives me the finger, yells you know, fuck you. So I come up to the next light. I look at him. I go, let me guess, what are your fifty five bald, fat? Divorce? Your kids? Hate your job? What was your greatest day? Was it in high school? And the guy starts crying,

They don't speak to me. Oh my god, this is a terrible.

So I said, they did. I like Taylor Swift. I said, I tell you what. I got Taylor Swift on the show on Wednesday. Okay, why don't you bring your two girls? But they like to oh god, what did you? Okay, So and Taylor Swift, I told her she couldn't have been nicer, came out, gave the kids a couple of albums signed. I mean, the sweetest person you could imagine. Yeah, just a lovely, lovely person. She didn't have to do it. I said, I had this guy and I cut him off,

Oh my god.

But you know what's interesting about that story, which I like that story. I like it for you, I like it for Taylor Swift. I like the fact that it happened. I wonder if that guy, if that happened today, that guy would have a phone in your face record you slicing and dicing them and they posted it on the internet. Maybe maybe not more than likely, you know, maybe No, I got you know.

Something you can only live in the time you live in. That's it's like could Muhammad Ali beat the Rocky Marciano? You know?

All right?

You want to take that? No, all right?

You know that kind of thing.

So yeah, I know, but I mean, you're right.

I want to complain about it a little bit though, because I feel like the filming of everything is like we volunteered to be in Big Brother.

It's not even like someone each.

A funny thing about Big Brother, because people always say Big Brother is watching Blood you know, to me, probably the greatest day in media history was the Rodney King trial. The Rodney King thing is Rodney King coming along. According to the police, he had seven people in a Hyundai going one hundred and seventeen miles an hour to all exaggerated. Okay,

Have you traveled the outside of the US, travel South?

Yeah, yeah, you just shows well like do England And no, I don't really work it where I well, I've been to Italy. I'm in a Saudi Arabia but a few places. Yeah, I don't find it totally different. Everybody speaks English.

Well yeah to you, but I mean if you're doing a corporate gig in Italy.

People will speak you know.

It's like I was talking to Tomas, right, you know Tomas who works with me, right right?

Right?

So Tomas who you know produces this podcast. You also, I.

Love Italy, right, I love Italy?

Right?

And to my sister me, you love Italy, I said, yeah. He says no, he Tamasa's has managed heavy mail bands. He has to work in Italy, right, he said, if you had to work, Oh my god, A very different idea.

Yeah, it's like because it is that kind of things when people say, you know what the oh I love Scotland so much. You Scottish people are so friendly.

I mean you tried being Scottish with a nother Scottish person and see it fucking friendly?

Oh yeah, yeah, it's a saying.

So listen, let's talk a little bit about.

The cars, all right. What do you want to know?

Well, I want to know how it started. Was it your dad? Was it was.

I grew up in a rural area, and they're always broken snowmobiles and abandoned cars. Not so much now Now, when you abandoned a car, it's software does work, Yeah, it's got a computer. In the old days, people are abandoned a car because distributor broke. All right, that's an easy enough fix to somebody has a little bit of

So that was what threw you in, was the mechanical nature of the fact that you could fix them when they.

Were Anything that rolls explodes and makes no you know. When I was I was like eleven, somebody abandoned a Renault four CV, which is like the French version of the Volkswider, And we had three acres behind our house and my mother would watch us through the kitchen window and we just drive around. And so of course now the parents would be taken away, you'd be putting foster care, and you know, it would be it's a whole difference. Yeah.

Yeah, so you started playing around to the but as you go older, right, and you start like you.

Here's the thing, h here's the main facts of it. We are in an objective business. Some people like you, some people think you suck, some people think you are better than me, some people better than you. But when you have a car and it's broken and now it's running, no one can say it's not running. You know, you can say it's still not funny, even if other people laughing and you're not right, No one can say the car is not running.

You think that's why.

Old comedians, well, a lot of comedians that are in the cars because of the same reason you.

Actually most comedians are not into cars.

A second, Jerry's in the cars. Yeah, I'm in the cars a little bit. I know a million guy. I remember, you know, rich Jenny called me one time. He goes, oh, he was funny. He had the best gay marriage joke back in the days.

When it was illegal. Yeah, he would go, gay guys have the ideal life, Larry, I'd love to marry you, but it's against the law. Imagine if you can say that to a girl. Oh, I love to marry your honey, but it's against the law. Oh. I used to love that bad. And you know it wasn't offensive.

It was because that was It's just totally.

He wasn't enough anybody. He called me my time. He goes, hey, what's the best car to get girls? I go, well, I said, I I only have one girl and I've had her for like twenty six years at this point, so I couldn't tell you that. But what are you like, Well, a Corvette? Could can you get girls with Corfette? Some girls like Corvette? Some girls think, how old are you?

Just all this.

Maybe he just got it together. What's the best car to get girls? This is just my favorite thing.

It's funny because I've never really understood that as a thing. I guess maybe back in the day when you know, hey baby, do you want to sit in the rumbles sheet or something? But a rumble seat, Yeah, back in the day, in the day, in the Yeah, it was the nineteen twenties in Scotland, So it's funny. Richard Jenny rich was one of the last gigs he had actually, or one of the last things I remember him doing.

He was on my show. Yeah, yeah, and he it wasn't long after that that he that he you know, that he killed himself.

But I don't like it was anything to do with my show, but I'm be sure.

Yeah.

I met him in Australia when I was starting out. I was at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, right and he turned up. He had these two very glamorous looking women right in each arm and he walked into the and I was like, does the guy do that? No, I realized he must have had a Corvette, That's what it was. But really funny, Oh yeah, super funny.

Oh. He had very fast, quick fast, very New York. You know, he had that New York attitude. Yeah, yeah, No, he's really just a great, great comic that was a sad, sad story.

It's an interesting thing, and Rich is a good kind of example of it is that the persona that he had on stage was very different to who the guy he was. Rickles was very like as well. People used to think Rickles was like when he was on, he was the inso guy. But you remember Don, he was, Okay, he's a pussy.

Oh yeah, very nice guy. I love I love Don. Don was great. Don was great, but even Don, you know, the network would censor him and he would. I remember one time he came on and you know Kevin and Kevin eu Banks. He going, that's Kevin, ke Kevin's people in the park a lot stem on hub caps and I go no, I go down. I don't have hub

Yeah, it's funny. I never had him say do the ship joke?

Well, it was one of those things where you know, it leads up to it, and then he said, yeah, I can't remember what the bit was.

When I first when I first met him, he Peter Sally introduced me to Recles and and I said, we we come on the show, mister Rickles.

He went, I gotta be honest, kid, I'm gonna wait and see if you're ahead.

Okay, So when he came on the show, he said, I said to him, I am I am I hit now He went, no, but I felt sorry for her.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny.

He was a strange, strangely lovely.

He a lovely guy, and he grew up in the era when the mob guys really controlled it. And till the day he died, he would never tell a story I go down, let me ask you about no, no, no, I know, like I remember we went to Downtown's once and I said, well, let's let's talk like the mob. But yeah, yeah, I mean, he would just not even joke about it.

He was as Larry King. You remember Larry was kind of yeah, yeah he was. He was connected in Miami at one point.

Yeah, that was Yeah, that was the old school. Guys.

Do you ever run into that Boston when you were a kid.

Well, i'll tell you people there, I'll tell you a story. One day I get a call from Sinatra had an age named Jack Sularti. They go Jay Sinatra watching to play this Italian thing. Some some benefited in a country club in Chicago. It's Italian American thing. And you gotta work clean, you instance, you gotta work clean. It's gonna be a priest there, you know, I said you, okay, I'll work clean.

Okay.

So I get there, I get up and I do my little thing. I get some laughs and thank you very much, and I sit down. So they introduced this guy. I'm not going to say the name because his kids are still alive. A real gangster, right, okay. And he gets up there. You don't want everyboddy, Hey, what the fuck's going on? You know? Like that? And the priest goes like this, and the priest goes, but they fought shut. He's just screaming, and I mean the veins are popping. Is that when you see a psychopath?

Just lose it because you got your.

Ten grand of paper bag? Right fu shut just scrap. And the priests is holding his bag with the ten grand in it like this, you know, and he's just and guys are holding him like.

Mother fuck, just go after the priet.

You're just screaming at the guy, you know. He said, I'm like, oh jeezuz, and the crowd is like, oh my god because this guy.

Yeah, that's the way to lose a crowd if you if you go cycle on. Yeah, and it doesn't even have to be the priest, just anybody.

If I remember the story they told, the heartwarming story, some teenagers had broken into his house, yeah and still stolen something. Okay, They found them two weeks later, and they'd been skinned alive. Somebody somebody hung them by their wrists, stripped them and run a straight razor from their arms down to their toes and just peeled off, peeled off a layer of skin until these guys slowly blended it. And it was like, oh, okay, So so that was

I could never play golf with a guy who had skinned people.

Exactly, and I'm not doing it again.

Do you play golf?

No, no, I don't think if you could play it in twenty minutes, maybe, but also.

If you know, the carts are ship I mean, if it was maybe if you got it, but maybe if you had a Corvette.

Yeah, Corvette. But I mean but the point of this was just most people think, you know, my favorite thing and the French Connection was the best movie to whenever you watch TV, the guy Bob put the gun down. I know you don't want to shoot me, okay, And the guy always puts the gun down and cannon or magnum or whoever it is takes the gun away from.

That's pretty good. I believe right.

Remember that that was a French connection where the transit cop, the French guy was running from Popeye Doyle. He's on the train, he's got a gun and the guy goes, look, I know, you don't want to shoot me. You don't want to He just shoots him at four or five just he's the guy away, go okay, thank you. That's what really happens in real life. All these people think they're going to be a hero because they know he's really a good guy. No, there are evil people in

But I'm still I'm still happy about you bringing up Cannon. Canon Cannon. I love Cannon, you know what.

Like he was like a three hundred pounds dective eight.

Right right, and he would run after teenagers don't know, no, no, what it was.

Right. He would park in the alley at his big Lincoln and the crook would run towards him and he opened the door. The drivers don't bang, and that would hit them, you know, and knock him out.

Yeah. Yeah, man, I think it's maybe time for a Canon reboot.

I know, if Billy hadn't lost all that weight, it'd be he'd be Yeah, but he's all finn and gorgeous.

Now that's the problem.

He does look great. He does look like one hundred and seventy eight pounds. It's unbelieved. He lost the whole person.

Yeah that's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, but he looks he looks great. And you know something, I was telling him this the other night. A lot of guys that used to be fat aren't really funny anymore because their whole persona was based on being fat, being fat and being but you know something, You look and now you're thinking, well, he's always been a skinny guy, right, because he doesn't. It doesn't reflect in anything that he does. I mean, he's really he was.

A graceful man. I mean we talked. It was funny.

We talked ages ago because he was a big final Laurel and Hardy I was a yeah, I loved, Oh my god. And one of the things about Babe Hardy was that is his grace. Yeah, you know, the lightness of his feet, that kind of it was funny.

You know, Louis Anderson the same thing. Louis had great dignity about it. He was he moved his hands very slowly and fold them in his lap. And and and you never sawld sweating on stage, right, But he always had those bits about his mom didn't like cats because they liked the butter and all that kind of stuff. You know.

You know the guys you're talking we're talking about, you know, the like Louis was one, Gilbert was another one, Gilbert Godfried was another one. Like real kind of idiosyncratic character that I don't look, I don't pay a lot of attention to the young comics right now.

I don't know if you do. I don't see a ton of that. I see a lot of.

A lot of the same, like you know, you you know, a lot of not as much eccentricity of performance. Maybe there's some really good ones.

I mean I watched Michelle Wolf and Netflix.

You see her, you see her new special. Yeah, you know something, I thought it was terrific.

Yeah, I mean I thought she was.

Because I thought, you know, when she done all the White House stuff, it's like that's a terrible gig, you've done it done. Yeah, well, but I mean it's all politics. It's like it's how stinging can it be? And to watch her latest one, Oh these are real jokes.

She's really good.

Yeah, And really. Yeah, she's really funny. Yeah, and yeah, I really enjoyed it. And the one that's done in three parts or four parts, that's what I'm talking about, twenty minutes segment. And I watch it and I thought, boy, she's really really good and it's a shame that she got beat up so badly over.

Well, you know, it happens with the white like Colbert w be.

Up pretty badly for what he did at the White House as well, but ultimately it worked out for him. And I think that it's one of those weird gigs the way dinner. I remember when I did it. I talked to you before I did it. You remember that, yeah, because you remember you said to me, it's just not about you.

Just remember it's not about it, right right.

And I talked to you, and I talked to Drew Carey because Drew had done it as well.

But I thought it was a hard gig. It's like a really tough corporate.

Well, it's an impossible gig, yeah, because everybody's you know, looking in the mirror, you know.

Yeah, that's right. It's like, no, it's really no about it.

And when you have something about like Obama, who is a really good comic up. Yeah, he goes on first, and now you follow him.

I didn't. I didn't do it with it, but I did it with George Booth.

I did it with Reagan. I'll tell you what I did first time. I did it with the Reagan. So I'm backstage and this general comes in. He goes, hey, hey, hey, you're the comic. Yeah, yes, sir, I'm Jane Let He goes, I'm selling. This is my committed to chief. You understand that this is my boss. He is the leader of the free. Will you don't assault him? You don't tell you. He's just and he's poking me in the chest, you know. And I said, well, okay, yes, you understand. Yeah, And

It's really hard. Is there any because I've got a couple of jokes.

One of them was the white of course wonded the dinner that I never told that I was going to do the joke right to the last minute, and then I did. And I have tuned my life that I've never done. I'll tell you them in a minute. But do you have any that you thought I was going to do this joke?

You know, it's so funny. The only jokes I remember are the ones that made an impression, because as a comic, you have things that put a notch in your brain. You just remember, like that first joke I told about the you know, the robin Hood thing and all that. I remember, so you remember everything. I remember being five years old and my mother taking me to because we didn't have babysitters then, so he just took me everywhere.

Screaming, and I'm thinking, what did I said somewhere about humps?

And I always remember that because it got it. So is a comic. I think when you say something and it gets a laugh, you just, for the most part pretty much remember it because I'm told you the ones.

That you made a decision to tell the joke for another reason.

Yeah, I can't remember the joke, so I can't remember what.

I have two I'm going to tell you them.

One was a White House correspondence to her where there was a lot of trouble was the very last Bush and Cheney and all those guys were up there Rumsfelders around all that stuff, and I was going to say at the start of it, it's great to be up here. We want see all these guys together in one room again until the trial. And I thought that was a pretty good joke. And they said to me, probably a good It wasn't the White House. It was one of

So I was doing this event in Union Square, the Barnes and.

Noble, and I wanted to do this joke and my publicier says, that's a great joke, and I beg, you don't do it. I went, okay, but the joke I was going to come on stage and say in my book, Mackenzie Phillips focks Ted Kennedy.

I didn't do it, and I kind of wish I had done it, but I'm kind of glad I didn't.

No, No, that's a funny joke.

I think so.

But you know, the tempers were flaring at the time, and it was probably ay.

I always did that because a those things you want to say. I'm not going to say who it was, but I had someone on who was very sensitive and they just gotten glasses and they had a big nose, and I said, and I wanted to say, oh, did the notes come with the glasses, But I knew they'd be ye, they'd be hard.

Yeah, yeah, you can.

You know, you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. We were not in that game, you know what. I feel bad.

That was the thing about being a talk show. She got to know when I was a comedian when I did the monologue, and I was a host when I did there because a lot of times, yeah, I totally agree with the battle and you lose the war, you know, totally totally.

I always felt as well.

And this is why I love doing your show is because I felt like I was. You took the word host like literally like I'm here to holdt I want you to feel good when you having a good time.

I want you to enjoy yourself.

And that's how I took that from, you know, like it was on your show.

I was like, no, that's how I want to be because.

I've done other shows where I felt I've got to wash my ass here. You know, I'll put one foot wrong and I'm going to be made a fool of. And I never felt that when I was working with you, and I hope that anyone who was on my wo felt the same way.

It was like, you know, I'm not I don't know here.

And funny if I was talking to Kristin Ball the other day, who was like my number one all time, you know, she's like on the show every other week. She was great, she was you know, everyone has a guess like I sure you had him and I'm going to ask you.

Who it was in a minute.

But but I was talking to her and she said, well, it was weird for me because because I always thought she was a great improviser. And she said, no, I hate that. I always like knowing what I'm going to do.

I was like, that's weird. I always thought you loved.

Improvise, and then that's why you always did my show and she went, no, I just trusted you, right, And I was like, oh, that's great, it makes me feel good.

Yeah yeah, and so tell me who you were? Who are your go tos? And like, you know, Terry Bradshaw was pretty Yeah, he's very funny. Yeah, you know the ever he hit a talk show. Yes, that's right, he's a daytime talk show or something.

But you know, Terry was the best one ever. And you could not have planned this. He comes out and he goes JAYL I heard that monologue. That monologue sucked. That was the worst jokes every He's just trash around me. Yeah, And I said, I said, you know I can shut you down with forward. No, No, you can't. I can't. What I said, your fly is open and his pants were wide over. Oh my god, and he looked down and he fell off the cherry's laughing so right. He just felt so stupid.

He was.

He was a great one.

I said.

I had him thirty maybe fifty four times. Yeah, and the comics are always good. You were good, Jerry was good. Robin Williams of course was good.

Yeah, Robin kind of took cover. I used to like that. You just hand them the reins.

Yeah, right right, you just let him go. You can really interact with him. But you know what my favorite two was with Rodney because when I would watch Rodney with Johnny, Johnny would beat the straight mane tough week, Rodney, Oh, rod Johnny, I tell you this week is all right, but last week it was cold. Really it was cold

The show, Okay, Rodney Dangerfield Rodney in.

Two thousand and four, and Rodney was a little older, yeah, a little more frail. And he comes up and he's doing the show. He's doing his stand up. I knowic he's sweating more than you know. As someone who watches comics and you know them personally, you can tell when they're a little off. You know. I could tell what Jerry's killing, but it's it's not his normal, super hard kill. It's just a real And Rodney he would always touch his tie. This time his hands were kind of He's

You saw that.

Well, he was just off. He was just off. So they took him away in an ambulance. He went to the hospital. I didn't live much longer than that. And then his wife Joan calls me. He says, you got to come to the hospital. Rodney's in a coma. Okay. I get there and Roddy's lion there. His eyes are open, and she says Jay. The doctor says, Rodney can hear us,

So I put my finger in Rodney's hand like this, And I went, Rodney, that's not my finger, okay.

And Rodney's shoulders go like this. They just move and drug he moved, and the doctor comes, I mean, he move me together and and he died right after that.

But but you got to laugh. Yeah, we got to laugh out.

Of Runney, you know. And it was kind of I mean, I don't say it to be mean or to be funny. He just is a life well led you know. He and he was a wonderful guy and he was a smart guy.

I you know, you never met Rodney in the middle.

Well, you know the whole thing about being an aluminum siding salesman. You know, if comedy doesn't make him, well he did. He was a lumin siding salesman. But he was a great lumini.

He was.

He was so successful he quit show business to sell sign Then at age forty four, his face finally grew into his act. He began to look like the sad sack that he was. And that's when he really became famous. Because see, I remember Rodney before he had no respect. When he used to do bits right and he would do bad. I remember one bit he had. I can't

Yeah.

And then later he got into doing bits. Do you ever see a movie called The Projectionist? It was done I think in sixty nine. Rodney was in that place that he was good. He was good and back to school. One of the funniest Yeah, to me, that that thing about in the Union, Yeah, with the guy goes I'm gonna build an imaginary factory. Oh yeah, how are you gonna pay off this guy? And pay off that guy? You know? And are just so funny. Yeah, he was really the funniest guy. And I knew Rodney forty years.

Jokes, he that's true, with a lot of he had the essence.

He had quick jokes. One of my favorite Rodney jokes is I will pass the strip joint. He said, topless and bottomless. I went in. There was nobody there. I mean, it's a great topless there's nobody there.

Yeah, that's that's a great.

And the other joke he had, like my doctor said, he a seamen sample and he's still sampling into your own sample. So I gave my underpants. You know, just those kinds just so stupid kind of jokes and just just hilarious, just hilarious.

You ever intimidated by anyone that you ever you ever have a guest, and you guys actually get nervous.

I had a couple, but you ever have anyone? You think one day I.

Had Roger Moore on. So I'll tell you about Sean Connery for Roger Moore.

And tell you.

I said, when do you go on vacation where you go to India? Going to India?

Quite often go to India. Yeah that's quite a trip. Oh not really, Well how often do you go? Oh well, going every weekend, every weekend to India? Yes, yeah, I mean that's it's.

Not a long flight. No, no, no, we drive, really you drive to India from from England? No, no, from California. He was trying to say, India Oh, it's just like a whole wasted segment.

Yeah, you're trying to talk about.

Sean Connor is my favorite because Seawan Connor is the only guy I have heard my mother referred to in a sexual way.

That's a real man, Jamis, Oh, yeah, no, the women were different.

I introduced my wife to Sean Connery and her breast let up, and I didn't even know bress could do.

That, that's right.

Yeah, but Sean Connery probably went through life thinking that women's breast let up all the time.

That's right.

But I've never that's the only time I've seen it happen. I introduced her to and she went, oh, hello, San, nice.

To meet you. He's like, very nice to meet your Megan Boom hello Push.

Well he didn't talk to our bottom department, he I mean her, But it was.

Really I know, well, most people don't know he was mister Universe third runner round. Yeah, that's right, nineteen fifty three.

He was.

He was a long shoreman and he was a tough sound very tough.

You know the story about him and Johnny Stumpinato.

Oh no, you get the fight with Johnny.

Johnny Stumpinado brings a gun on at the set. I can't remember the movie. He was doing a movie with Lana Turner, Lana try right, Yeah, And the rumor was that Big Tam as he's known in Scotland or Sean Connery was having an affair with lannat Turner, which knowing him and knowing about oday, it's probably it's a pretty good even money bet. Stompnado, who's our gangster boyfriend? Turns up, points a gun as showing points a handgun at Sewan corner. Right, he takes the gun, he smacks he did ahead of

Of and he's the only guy, you know what to say. I was here a jokes and knee slamper. Yeah, he's the only guy I ever saw slap you gee gee, what's the leadst filthy jewel going about? G you know? I mean he would laugh like like he was a pirate and he was the only guy that ever took a shower in a tonight showed jesssing room because the justsing room is a small ones I remember, just a little Chinese shower, but nobody he's and he would sing.

Take the head and.

The news crew, news guys, news had to run down with the headphones. Who's shouting down? I said, Sean Connery. Second, Oh yeah, but oh yeah, you know it was it was he. They took this rough thug. They put him in a savile roast suit. They teld him a little bit about wine, so he came across. He was the only really dangerous Bond I never got. Roger More is always a pill, very dope guy. He's kind of like the comedy bone, you know. But him and and Daniel.

Craig, Yeah, I could believe Daniel Craig.

Daniel, but Sean Connery had the height, he had the weight, Yeah, he had the.

Threat was pretty good for the nineteen eighties.

But but Sean Conny just had the physical presence. I mean, the Bond films are funny, be goes gold Finger the Man, but a big fat guy can barely speak English, slabbering over himself. How was this guy in the song? But yeah, in the in the in the song women, Oh he's cold finger, you know, Oh please.

You know that Sean Connery. I think it's in the movie Goldfinger. He wears a little toweling many like it's like little shorty shorts. Oh yeah, the zip that goes up the front and the little thing like that. It's the most ridiculous looking out fit. Oh yeah, And I remember we were watching it, like when one of my boys was Lettle. We're watching introducing them to an know bone movie. In my I said to Meghan, that's uh, that's a stupid.

Looking at it that. She went, No, one shot Conery. I did a preslet again.

Oh yeah, wow.

And he wasn't even there.

Yeah he was. He was quite a guy, he was.

He was a very impressive.

I mean he was a guy for his time. Because you watch it now and it's so incredibly sexy.

It's shocking, but it was what it was.

Yeah, anybody, look, buddy, we're done for the recording.

You and I can talk anything. Yeah, we're done. But listen, that went pretty quick.

Yeah, well, you know, we do talk a law, Yeah, a lot more than I talked to any other former host of the Tonight Show. You're the one I talked to the well, and I think that you know, I had such a good time when we were doing gigs with our Senio this summer.

We should do it again.

Yeah, I love doing those.

He's a great guy to see you guys, is a great guy.

I tell you a story about our Sceno. It was so funny. I think I told you about with Berri manelog. You know, I was saying, no, tell me, Well, he was the only real threat. That was one Carson was afraid of Arsenio. Well because it was hip, Yeah it was. He was good black, it was young, it was everything Johnny wasn't you know. And you know, like when Dana Carvey did Carcinio, he did a comedy oppression of a

Right.

Okay, So I remember watching that shown. Now this is the time when he and I were supposed to be fighting, right you understanding, Well, he had I'm going to kick Leno's ass and all this stuff going on.

You know, it's funny because I think of you two is being very good.

We were very good and we still are and we were even during that. So anyway, so I'm watching him every night to make sure we don't do the same jokes, because you need to do that, you know. And I hear him say about December. Now, come on, I guess in September. About December he goes, and next week on the show, Barry Manilow. You know, I have to say sorry.

Sorry.

The next day I call like, oh, hi, can I speak to you, Senor Hall, This is Jay Leonard. Just a minute.

Oh, he doesn't want to speak to you. Just just he doesn't want to speak to you. I said, no, he needs to hear what I have to say.

You know. He goes, what do you want? What do you want?

Oh?

Next week, very mentel and then he falls off the chair. He's laughing.

So how I go, Oh, he wants to see his ass.

Because you realize when you do these shows, you need everybody you gotta take. You can't every night you got But and from that point now we both laughed.

At him, you know.

But when the news broke that I was going to do the late night show. When I was taking it over, I was a YouTube concert in Forum in Los Angeles, and you know the little backstage area, some backstage there, and Chris Rock is there and he comes over and he goes, you're the guy taking over the show, and I went yeah, and he goes, you guys do that ship every fucking night and I went yeah, and he went, no, man, every fucking night.

I went yeah. And then it kind of to me it was like a movie.

But see, I found every night easier because if it didn't go well, I got some I can't stop and dwell, I got.

To move out. That is the glory of it. But the truth is, but I tell you I was done.

I mean, what did you do twenty five years, twenty two years, twenty three, Well, I mean twenty five kind of guessing, you know, Yeah, I had a ten years and that's yeah, that's there's a bit two more than I really was.

Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't there appointment.

You're like, no, I'm pretty good at simple, repetitive fasts. So yeah, well I enjoy you know, I enjoyed it. I liked the discipline of writing, writing jokes every day.

Great at it.

I like that you got pencils down. I gotta go. Okay, if it didn't, if the show wasn't any good, I got another show tomorrow and three days later you forgot about that show that wasn't very good.

Yeah, that's true.

It was as interesting now though, that all these shows hang around and people pick apart from a show and broadcasting like, I.

Don't even remember doing that, you know, I know, I know, it's crazy.

You know, it's different. You know. The saddest thing about late night is everybody doing it is really good. The trouble is, you have these streaming services. You can watch the Lord of the Wings trilogy without commercials. You can watch all three Godfather movies. You know, every talk show you watch now, because the viewing audience is smaller, there's

Yeah, exactly, Yeah, No, I'm glad I got out with it. We got at the right time winning.

Oh we did. Yeah, nobody's making that kind of money anymore.

All right, well, let's get the fuck out here.

That's got to drive cars.

Yeah, anytime,