John Henson

The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot com slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. Lee's welcome today. My friend for a very long time. He has nothing to do with the Muppets, but he's still very good. John Hanson, this.

Is a rare thing, an afternoon coffee for me.

Is that bad? We'll find out you are you health craze that you look really well right now?

No, it's more of a function of needing to update your prescription right now. This is honestly, I nothing could be farther from the truth in terms of health. I you know, I get up insanely early. Yeah, but that's that's because you're crazy. That's none of it with food exactly. That's just I've known you for a long time.

I mean, you're you're up, You're you're like a deer that's going through the forest. And then I imagine you sleep like a deer sleeps like just it's quite for a little bit.

And then.

I always say, like I sleep the way your computer sleeps, like the screen is dark, but you press any key and it's right there, lights right up. But I you know, I get, you know, it's it's as if my body thinks I'm a farmer. And so I haven't used an alarm clock in ten years.

I know as I get older, you know, but I I as I got older, sleep gets harder to mean an elusive mistress. Well, it's weird, man, because when I was young, I could sleep like for But now what I can do and I'm very happy. But i've i've i've uh entered my cat years. Oh you nap a nap? I can nap pretty much like if I needed to nap, not a nap.

See, I'm an abject failure at napping, but it doesn't stop me from trying all the time. If I can get just ten minutes of gray zone, I'm good. That's that's that's that's that's meditation.

Yeah, well in that case, I am freaking Gandhi do you meditate? I do I do.

I think, you know, I it's funny. I still words like meditate like I think of it as just like framing my mindset, stilling my mind.

I think that's that's what it is. Yeah, right right.

I'm no Eggs, but I'm no David Lynch, but I'm always I still have the knee jerk fear that when you use the word meditate and conversation, people arch and eyebrow and you say like, still my mind, and people go.

Well, that sounds very practical. Yeah, But I I I sleep like a rock.

I just sleep like a rock for like four and a half hour. I think that's okay. Yeah, I think that the thing to do is I'll beat yourself up. I mean, I've just ankled to it. But the way I cope with that is I get up at about four four thirty, yeah, and I drink just enough coffee to bring me to the brink of a seizure, right, and then I when I start feeling the jaw lock up.

Oh yeah, I can switch over to water. Is there a time? And then we'll go into you in a minute and your life and important things? But is there can you see a time? Because I know, like like me. You don't drink, you don't do drugs. You have them for a long time at nine or five. But I don't know how easy it would be for me to say goodbye to coffee.

Coffee and nicorette, no nicotine.

I'm done. I'm done a long time ago with nicotine. But those are the two.

I'm like, you will pry those from my cold, dead hats. I'm not saying goodbye to those yet.

Well you know it's and well you said yeah though, which is good, right, because I would have a hard time with call you. I could probably do it, but I think, well, why why? Because coffee isn't bad for you, is it? I mean everything in moderation, right, Like I drink motivation.

I can't get to that. I drink Probably this is for me, assign and progress. This is down for me. I drink seven or eight cups of coffee more. Okay, I think I got to the root of your sleep problem.

Fucking idiot.

And if you if you saw if I were to lay out on a table the amount of nicorette gum I chew, yeah, you would you would immediately be like, we're taking you right to seaters.

Wow? Really, I didn't know you took nicer I mean, I knew you didn't smoke, But when did you stop smoking a long time ago? I was supposed going to say because I took Nicorette for about a year after I stopped smoking.

But that's I didn't even I didn't start until well after I stopped smoking. I just tried it one day because I didn't want to smoke a cigarette. And I was like this, this, this is my brand of Scotch right here.

You know, I had a scope done on my upper endoscopy scope done earlier this year. I remember that, right. So they were giving me the propofall before they put me out. Sweet my god. So just as we're getting I'm talking to the anesthesiologists. I'm in the room and he goes, Okay, you're going to feel a little I'm gonna feel little wosy for a few seconds and then it'll be night night. I was like okay, and then he said, okay, I'm letting the stuff going now. And

I actually watch the bag, like when they bring it in.

I watched that.

To me, is the drive to the dealer's house. Yeah you know what I mean, where it's like it's all in front of me. It's all I'm just just sweet anticipation, you know.

But here's the thing though, man, Like we're talking about as a couple old druggies. But but here's the thing. Kids, no or anyone I know these kids, but people who take drugs. Now that phantoel shit is that there. It's just like it's a bomb, just goes right off.

It's and if they say this all the time, is like it's in everything now, it's in the pot, it's in It's like, you know, everything is laced with fentanyl. And I'm thankful because our kids are about the same age.

Yeah, my youngest is the same age.

I mean mine is a lot so mine. Mine just turned thirteen. And I said, you know, he's seventh grade. And I thought, all right, he's entering the phase where people are going to begin to experiment. And I said to him, like, do you know anybody who's like vaped or tried pot or cigarettes or drank. And it was as if I had said to him, do you know, anybody that uses in travenous drugs. Like he looked at me and he goes, no good, And I go really, and I go, do you ever smell.

It at school? And he goes, oh yeah, all the time, every time I enter the men's room. Oh god. You know, well that's that's tricky, but it is.

It feels like, you know, the pendulum swings back and forth. And I feel like this younger generation, at least where I am, and this pocket of kids that my son hangs with is very sort of innocent.

And you know, I think so, I mean, I hope so. I mean, Liam's abit the same age as as your boy, and he's, uh, he's just you. He done thirteen a couple of months ago, and he seems very cognizant of what bad idea is. But maybe you know, I'm his dad. He's talking to me, you know, I don't know what he's saying to his buddies. You know.

All it takes is like one kid in your class with a peanut allergy, and all of a sudden, marijuana seems like playing with plutonium, Like, no, man, we can't even do skippy.

Yeah, And I know, I know it's uh it's a little tricky, but you know what, I'm glad that I passed through the drug sniper alley before they had loaded up with fentyl. That's that's terrifying. It's just terrible.

Otherwise there'd be two other people sitting in the You remember Craig Fergus, Yeah he was.

That was weird. I thought he was gonna get sober. Yeah, but he didn't. It was a really good guy. I had no idea. Yeah, well neither did he. And yeah, because it's one and done right, Yeah, that's just thing you can't just like, oh, I better clean up my you've fucked. Yeah he won.

Yeah, it's March Madness, single elimination role.

God. Yeah, it's crazy. Good sport analogy. Thank you? All right, So listen, you know that you are one of the few people I know in show business who actually has is qualified to be in show business. You know that. What do you mean because you haven't good at anything else? No? No, no, that that's as everybody else. I know, that's me. But you are like you've got a degree in acting. Uh well, and I I studied acting quite a bit. You watched a couple of.

Movies I went you know I did not finish college, as I say, you are regular show business. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I always say I went to college the same way Charlie Sheen went to rehab. We were both physically there for a period of time. I don't know that any of us took a lot away from the experience. But and I've said that joke to Charlie, So no, no, no, I think it's fine.

No, I think you're right. I don't know about it, Charlie, So, I don't know he's got it. I haven't heard anything. You're right with that, Yeah, with that tiger bloodshed.

Yeah, yeah, he's not exactly flying under the radar when he's years. Oh yeah, there's usually you know, there's goddesses.

Yeah, you know, maybe not tour he did and all that, the two and a half man thing and everything.

I remember I did an episode of Anger Management once and is that the one after him?

Yeah?

It was the one that he did on like FX, and they gave him like a hundred episode commitment, which you know, it is like an astronomical amount of money that they guarantee me. And and so I had done the episode and gone back to my trailer, and I was facetiming my then wife, and while I was getting changed and saying I'm all done, I'm getting ready to

I don't know how good it is for you to be like that though.

I mean, you know, yeah, but it was I mean it was delivered like a boss, like like like I believe it. It didn't feel like, oh, this is the one time I've done this. Put it that way. He did not have any compunction about it.

Yeah, but so you're not you're not a qualified actor, then you just a stand up. I've done it.

I started acting when I was young, so I did a lot of you and like.

Mary Popin's or something.

Uh may or may not have done God's Spell, which you know that's a that's does that.

Say a little prayer for you, say a little prefer you? Is that goad spell?

Uh?

I don't think so.

No.

I don't know what age of.

That's Jesus Christ Superstar. I can't, honestly, I've blocked it out. It was high school. But no, I didn't the classic.

Bullying story in high school because you don't strike me as someone whould get No I got.

I was it was requested that I take my education elsewhere after my junior year of high school. Really, and you know you got to really ship the bed to be asked to leave a public high school. That's not you know what I mean, that's not a there. They don't keep real tight reins on you.

And do you remember what caused any particular incident that happened.

There were a series of unexcused absences. Okay, over a couple of years, I had the sales job that I that needed attending to during school hours. Got it, and and that that was not a that was not a well kept secret, And so I repeated my junior year of high school. I had to go to another school

And do you ever hear about those ones that like people send their kids to schools and Utah and stuff like that.

Where you're like in the fucking wilderness. Yeah, and you're I don't know, No, that sounds scary. Yeah, that sounds like an episode of Dateline, you know what I mean? That sounds like you know where Q the Keith Morrison like, but Danny never came home after that.

So do you know the great Ferguson Fancy Rascals Stand Up To It continues throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig fergusonshow dot com slash Tour. See you out there, Hey, So you became a stand up then? Yeah, I dropped out of college s to do stand up, right, but stand up was stand up like a thing for you, like a lot of American stand ups. I know, everybody says Richard Pryor. Everybody goes, I was Richard Pryor, and

It was so I was the youngest of five boys. I inherited a collection of comedy album Ah so Bob Newhart, Bob Newhart, Richard Pryor, Red Fox, George Carlin.

So, I you know it was.

I remember like it all seems sort of dark, but I became so obsessed with it that I had one of those like turntables where if you closed it, it would just play until the end of the album, then get up and start at the beginning again. And I would put on a comedy album and just close my eyes and listen to it over and over and over until I could like lip sync with it, until I had memorized it.

Like I was obsessive about it.

I used to sit up and like I remember when SNL started, and I would sit up and record it on an audio like on a cassette cassette plan and just listen to that shit. So and then I was acting and training and stuff a little bit.

It sounds a little. Look, I'm not a doctor that has a little spectrum. It was not. It was not.

It was you know, not full on rocking back and forth in front of the dryer, but it was closed.

Yeah, it sounds like it may it may You may be in there somewhere.

Yeah, like anyone ever a little O c D, a little, a little uncomfortable with human interaction.

Well yeah, but you're but you're an affection man. I've known you for a while. You're I mean, look, I don't know enough of it with al I'm talking about to know if that is a thing. But I think it was more O C D O C D.

You know what I mean. It was that, it wasn't. It wasn't. That was my rain man box of matches on the ground. I just look and you know, but I would just comedy was. I think being the youngest of five and being the youngest by seven years, I had to learn to defend myself verbally because I could physically.

Yeah, what were you and your mom?

Like, my mom was a like first ballot Hall of Fame alcoholic m They sent her jersey to Cooperstown. Yeah, second sports reference. Yeah, scoring a good one. Thank you feel good about it? Yeah, but yeah, So you know, my parents divorced when I was eleven, and my mom cratered and I was living alone with her because all my brothers were in college and out of the house. But so it was like four or five years of

And bringing them up to speed.

And I went through this era of living with my mom and the years that there was like no hot food and no clean clothes and nobody getting up for school, and you know, she just was a functional and and I just watched the mask of horror come over my therapist face and she goes, you know, like the state takes kids away for that, and that was a big thing, Like, oh my god, she's right, Like in modern times there would have been some sort of intervention where it was.

Connecticut, you're from, right, yeah, yeah, so and then so that you.

Know that that was quite a left turn. And then I, you know, I exhibited itself in running with you know, wanting to having sort of a compulsive desire to to break rules to you know, well.

Yeah, I mean, look, if you get no structure and then suddenly you had much, you start like thinking it doesn't apply to you. I mean, it just was.

It was not a man, I need to bang out this book report today because I don't want to do it at the last second on Sunday. It was more of a hey, if I just don't go to school on Monday, no book report.

Yeah, you know, So when did you do your first stand up? Then? How did you like? We freshman year of college? Really that young? I take that back. Second.

It was freshman year at college. I was in and I started. I didn't start it. I was a founding member of an improv troop at Boston University, right. And then sophomore year, I did my first open mic night with another guy, a guy that I loved dearly that I went to college with his past now, but he and I did a two person thing and at an open mic night, and I was I mean, it went terribly, but I was just fucking hooked. And he never did it again, and I just couldn't.

I couldn't. I was always obsessed with that, yeah, because I remember doing stuff guys none of them stayed at it. I was like, oh, this is my thing.

Yeah yeah, and I just I you know, I think I'd only done twelve or fifteen open mic nights. When I was like, I'm out of college, I'm leaving after my sophomore year, and I'm start earning money. I went to New York and I was, you know, it was sort of a process of putting in the FaceTime, you know what I mean.

And I had a social media then used that you couldn't do your your tiktoks and no, it was just that it was just pledging the frat, you know, just being around. And there was a cup.

There was a club Boston Comedy Club, which is now you know people know and Boston Comedy Club in New York. Yeah, and I was. I started working there and then over it. I took probably two or three years before I got passed in all the clubs and was able to cobble together enough of a living just on set pay to not have any other job.

All right, did you ever do the comic strip up on a first that second Avenue and that.

Ended up becoming my home club? That ended up becoming Lucien Hold who was the owner.

Then I know that, you know, that's my first gig in America. Really. Yeah. When I was twenty one, I was living in New York City. I was working in construction in Harlem, and I had other activities downtown m but I was interested in being the stand up and the time, I don't know if this was at the same time for you. I'm a bit older than you. But you used to go up there on a Monday

So I had a couple of years to kind of incubate at the Boston Comedy Club, right, getting a lot. I did a lot of hostings, so I got stage time. And you know, you may remember this if you spend a lot of time in New York. But it was the role of the MC was not as sort of ignored in New York as it is here, Like it was a very important role. It was your show, right, and you got a lot more stage time, and it was your job, like it was your obligation to your

Did you do that?

I did that at Boston Comedy Club for a couple of years, and then I ended up auditioning Mike Sweeney, who many years as the head writer for Conan got me an audition at the comic Strip and I auditioned, and Lucian you know, pulled me aside famously long winded, but I got I love that man, and he said something I'll never forget. He goes, you are in the single largest.

Cross section in comedy.

You are a straight, middle of the road white guy, and that means it's going to be that much harder for you to break through because there's so many, so many of you.

But if you break, you throw that to me, they said, he said, Scottish and he goes.

But if you break, you break for an entire career, as opposed to if you're a character act, you get like a three year window before everybody's.

Like remember yeah who series?

You know what I mean, that.

Sort of cautionary tale.

And you know there are guys like obviously Dice had a much longer arc and but you know, the the a more sort of outside the box acquired taste, like it's you know, it has a shorter shelf life.

Well, I think that's true of all our forms. Know, just stand up. I think that if it's very you know, if you stay with like if Boy had stayed Ziggy Star does that you know it doesn't be but it doesn't stay like that, yeah.

Right, because you can't be like, you know, your second album can't be yet more stardust.

Yeah, you know what I mean. It's like Biggy started, so Biggie started the rap album.

But I ended up hosting that open mic night. And it was your job by the time that I took it over.

It was your job.

You watched all the comics, right, and then you decided who got passed onto a callback for Lucian So it was this weird gatekeepery roll.

So I think that probably happened to me. I got called back after the first one, and then Lucien Hold, who I Sadly I never connected with him later and I wish I had because he's passed now, but he he Yeah, I mean I was, I go on late night and stuff. I should have gone back and seen him. Yeah you know, and in my apartment in New York is that like a storin stroll from the Coming strip?

Oh?

By all the time, I loved that place. That was.

I went there my first night in New York City and I saw Sandler pre snl right, and I'll never forget this man. He walked on stage and he goes, you know, nobody knew who he was, you know, and he goes, sorry, I'm late everybody I was. I'm in the cab driver on the way over. He killed a little doggie, and everybody goes on and he goes, yeah, he he didn't even hit her with his car. He

Yeah, I agree, and.

I go, I got I don't have anything else I can do, and he goes, then don't give up your seat at the bar.

Yeah, you know, just don't quit. That's why I'm kind of interested in because the stand up world is very different now. Young performers male and female and come through using like short social media things and build up that way and get a following, and but it's not like that's that's not it's just not the same thing, you know, it's it's not of any last value. It's still Look, if you can make somebody laugh for forty five seconds,

Yeah, it it feels different thing to me coming from New York where there was this huge emphasis. And I'm

Sound's right, it was. It was a thing going on to something else. And I guess kind of I did that. Really That's how I ended up on the Drew Carey Show because Drew had done that through you know, his ten minutes on Carson or five minutes on Carson then and then he'd go to the deal and stuff, and I had go. I think I got the addition because of doing like a stand up at the the improv in LA and then I didn't do stand up for ten years.

I mean that's I did sort of that version of I did stand up for I don't know seven years, and now you got Talk Soup and then came out here. I didn't you know, it was different Cold Cuture, different comics.

Just like I took the path of the Grad Show and that was a great show.

Like I remember, like sixteen years I was out of stand up, and then I was like, I think I'm going to go back and try again. I ran into Joe Rogan at a club and he goes, you're going on and I go yeah, and he goes, how long has it been since you did stand up?

And I goes sixteen years and he goes, how do you do? I did all right? I mean, you know, I'm a good comic, but it's not it's not my I don't feel like that's my fastball. Really.

I mean I I I am constantly sort of taunting myself to like maybe I need to go back and and just throw out everything and start fresh of who I am now, you know. And because when I went back, it was like now I was I wasn't writing the jokes I was writing in my twenties. I was writing jokes as like now I'm a husband and a father right now, Maybe I just need to just turn the page again and start over. I feel like I am I am most comfortable, and I feel like I am

And what you did was.

Entirely throw that that format out and let's just figure it out. And to do that with no net is to me, I like, I couldn't have a greater sense of respect. So I don't know if you like when you talk about thinking on your feet, being present, you know, being spontaneous when you look at that versus you writing and doing stand up if you feel like one is definitively stronger than the other.

I don't see any well, I don't. I don't write stand up doing that way. I mean I write for myself a boy, Like if I'm going to write an act, and I do, I will like I'm going to tell this story about that the time I go that thing on my ass right, bull points, Yeah, and that's it. I never write anymore in that. And so when I when I go out and do it, it's like it changes every night.

It's not.

I mean, it's no, right, very few things land the same way every night. Yeah, And that's what you do, right.

I mean, it's certainly what I did when I was doing a lot of stand up, right, Like I remember, you know, doing weird shit like you know, in my twenties before I got talk soup, I remember doing things like, you know, because sometimes you're performing and it's late at night, or you get you're in you know, you get a crowd that's not necessarily kind of you're not able to

And go to ever work.

It's funny because it would be like it'd be funny and then it would get quiet, right, and then it would get really funny, and then it would get annoying, and then it would you know, it would.

Just like go through these cycles.

But I remember being like saying, once, oh, I know what you're thinking. Surely he has to turn around. Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me teach you a little lesson and something I call commitments, you know. And but yeah, I mean it was because then it really did feel like there was nothing to lose. There were no rules, you know, you were just like read.

So was that leading up to going into the super No, that was before talks, all right, so you're going to talk soup and talks like it's one of those life changing gigs, right, That's one of those legacy gigs because no matter what you do, it'll always be part of the show, part of the wikipedia.

And that was very much a bullet pointed TV show. It looked like way vibe.

I mean that that talks to what you were doing in talks of very much influenced well I did in late night. I was very aware going on Late night, like what skunk Boy was doing on Talk Soup. I want that vibe. I'm very I'm very aware. Did it get you? Well, you know, I got my own podcast.

It was I always think about this, like I had a director, Fred Mendez, who was brilliantly funny, and you know, he would come over the stage announce, and whenever we had like you know, our sketches were like drawn up a play in the dirt, like all right, so I'm going to say this, and then you come in and you say, you know, and you know these guys are crew guys, isn't they like yeah, and you just knew when you had built something that was too heavy to fly,

I'll see you on the beach, you.

Know, likefore the boatlands on Normandy Beach and fucking people's because it was like you just knew this is gonna be a catastrophic failure and that was sort of that was the beauty of it.

Yeah. But the thing of what people I think, or what I never understood ely in Camedy is that failure. And Carson was a master of this. When it goes wrong, it's better. Now. You can't fake when it goes wrong. You can't fake it going wrong. But if you try and fail, then that is gold. You know.

It's the difference between you know, obviously without naming names, and I don't even have specific examples in my head, but when you're watching SNL and someone really breaks as opposed to when someone fans breaking, and you know, it's there's.

The fictureak thing bothers me because I'm like, that's now. I mean, look, I'm the world's worst. If I can't hold it, and but I can't, I feel like I can't tell when it's like yeah, that's oh, yeah, I did.

I did a movie once, really terrible movie with Kevin Nealon and we started getting.

You know, you and I in the same movie. By the way, we were Yeah, I looked at your bio today. We were in a movie together. What Yeah, life without a dick. Oh my god, that's right. I'm in that movie.

I am in that movie for two seconds, all right, Well I think I'm in it for much more than Yeah. Yeah, big scalehill scale, yeah yeah. Oh that's so funny.

Oh my god.

I worked with him on an ABC pilot years ago that I loved, and at one point I fired him on the air, like the in the middle of the pilot, I go, hey, bicks, uh, come and see me after the show, and he goes, okay, and I go and bring all your stuff. But I Kevin and I got the giggles. And we were shooting overnight in front of the improv and the sun was starting to come up, and people were panicking because they're like, dude, this is the last night of shooting. We don't have the we

Tons of those, so from all over the lord ton of shows. I mean, the thing was wow I was doing but the time I got to late night, we didn't care. Yeah. You know, it was like by the time the Skeleton was out there with Josh over tombs and stuff, It's.

Like there was an acknowledged irreverence to like it was almost a dare, like what what are you gonna do?

I kept calling him for the CBS eventually said stop saying that, or we're just gonna, We're gonna there's gonna be trouble. I used to call it don't give a Fuck TV, and THEYD theyvid call it. They'd call it don't give it Tucci fruitsy TV. And then I did it like two four times, like you know it's coming from upstairs. Now you got to stop saying don't give a fuck? Yeah, yeah, because and also I get the same week it was when I was saying CBS with

I learned over the course of doing Wipeout seven seasons of.

White Out also, I want to get to that because wipe up to me, well, carry on talking about white pepforms.

It became clear that, like you're you're filtering your comedy through like there's the producers you work with, and there's the producers at the production company, and then there's the executives, and so you know, there's like nine people that a joke has to make it past to get into the show, and so you start losing jokes that you fall in love with. And so there were there were two ways that we dealt with it. I'm sure you did very

The show by the Indigenous peoples of America for a joke that I had made that was a little dark, and there was a letter writing campaign and phone calls to the executives and and.

I I had.

And then they called me and it was a It was a joke that John Anderson and I were very rarely on camera together, and we were on camera and I had improvised it and it had gone so well they didn't get a backup, so they had nothing to cut away too. They had no way to edit it out. And they called me and were like, hey, what the hell, man, you made this joke and it upset people, and I go,

So oh no, once it goes through the edit process, even as to it, then at that point it's on them. Yeah, totally.

So now when they repeat that episode, they literally just dropped the audio so it's just our mouths moving and there's no audio and then it comes back like seven seconds later.

Maybe they should have done that in the first place. No one to go upsets. It's a different world though, man, because you know, if people get upset back then, they had to be together a lay right campaign and you know, and get organized and come after. You know, it's easy to get it's easy to get into trouble. I've I've done it, a little trouble. I've done it. Yeah, I mean it's it's Did it freak you out when it happened to you very much? Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, because it was you know, I put a joke on Twitter that I.

Remember it was some some political joke or something.

Yeah, yeah, And it drew an official response from a White House spokesperson and it was but it was such a it was at the time. It was two thousand and twenty, so it was the beginning of the pandemic, you know, financial collapse, widespread unrest after the death of George Floyd. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? People are going to be clutching your pearls over what is clearly a joke by a guy who has never said anything remotely serious in his life. Yeah, and but

I don't be saying that. If I want to tweet it, I got a fucking Twitter account. I can do it. You know, leave it the fuck alone and let's have enjoy a quiet, sneaky night in the club.

Right.

You know this is not forever, because it's not for everybody. I used to remember this happened a lot in late night. If you I noticed it the first time. When remember those like vegetarian vampire movies that were like all the kids were watching for a while. What was It's like Twilight? Twilight, Yeah, that ship is like that. You know, it was like the vampire was like nice and everything in your boyfriend and I remember I had one of the actors on

Feelings and wear eyeliner and.

Walk you to school and stuff. But but one of the actors we were taking around, there's no but I wasn't sufficiently referential to the actor. For the fans of that actor who were on I can't even remember who it was, and but they were like people gave me a hard fucking like, but the fuck, I don't even watch these fucking movies. How come I have to be like, now, I have to be a fanboy for the thing? You

Well, I think the mistake that I made was I had been you know, I was sort of exercising my my I was feeling my oats on on social media, and I, you know, you get away with something, you push the envelope and then you think you can push

Is when so called legit press started using Twitter and social media as a source, right, and then you go, well, it's not a source, man, It's like it's like walking into a bathroom reading something on the stall and saying sources say yeah, sources say what where? I mean, what the Well, that's the thing.

It's it's useful as like up to the second news, but when the news is coming, when it's now being mirrored back from social media, it's like, no, man, you guys tell us, we're not telling you.

Yeah, it's it's very odd, but of course it's really it's about money. It's always about money. And you follow the money and you get the storyline. Remember the wire, you know, follow the money. Yeah, And when it's the money, the money is in the clicks and the information sharing and the information the clicks. It doesn't matter about being right. Nobody gives a shit about being right, he said. Maybe some guy on an actual paper that's made of paper,

I think I am where I am now with social media is what I believe is a similar place to where you are, which is it feels like an obligation.

Now, oh, totally it is. I hire people to do it for me.

And you and and and you have this sort of lifeline of like fine, I'll fucking post something on Instagram every once in a while, but I cannot bring myself to be one of those guys that is like I need to have X number of followers and I'm gonna you know, chase the followers and the crowd and the reaction. It's it just, I don't know, it just makes me feel OOGI. Well, it's it's not the same. It's no, it's no fun. Yeah, it's gonna be fun, or I

Yeah, I know. So if it's no fun, I thought, that's why I want to very I mean, we're going on all over. I want to talk to you about WIPE. I'll tell you for why because from my money, hands down, guaranteed fucking laugh every single episode, every single no matter how many times I've seen the reruns, that fucking show every time I see now it's deep into the you know, the thousands, and kind of like the satellite, it's everywhere.

It's fucking it's on Apple TV and Netflix and there it's late.

People can really hurt doing that.

Yeah, I can imagine some of those, like.

The boxing glove that comes out the fucking wall though.

Man, it's you know, I I remember running into Johnny Knoxville at one point and he goes, oh my god, I love Wipeout and if without dier thing.

That same movie, it's the zeleg that brings us all together.

I literally go, really, it seems so tame compared to like the jackass stuff, and he goes, uh, yeah, you know, it's just fun watching people get smoked.

And I was like, that's it, that's it, and it is.

I think Wipeout is in essence, it's it's a sort of universal form of physical humor that just bridges ages and backgrounds and and and you know, interests, and it is and it.

Also doesn't pretend to be anathon. It's no. And I think that's really funny. Like when you who is your co host on that? Yeah, John Anderson, right, you and Joanah Anderson doing it is the kind of serious sports guys with like fucking chef's kiss. I mean, it got it just perfect. The tone was just perfect.

It was a little Laureland hardyish where he was the guy who knew what he was doing. And I was the idiot that etole I.

Say, sports guys like every fucking commentary it was.

It was.

It was so much fun to do and and I remember I remember auditioning for that, and you know, you just went in and they showed you a run and you just vamped over it, and and I just remember going like, oh yeah, Like he goes, do you want to watch it first?

One? No, like, you know, let it run? And he did it.

I did it for like whatever two and a half minutes, and he goes, you want to do it again? Nope, Like I'm you know, I'm good.

And it was. I loved that show.

I love doing it. I've had I've had some you know, I think my one of my social media bios says, uh, talk soup wipe out and a few shows no one watched, you.

Know, I talk to though. You know, let's know, let's not be wrong about talks. If I am doing the late night show, if my late night show is I don't know, Bowie, then talk soup is the available underground.

Is it is?

It is?

It's gratifying now to to occasionally hear from people who I am enormous fans of, who grew up watching that show and we'll say yeah, like I remember running into you know, Sasha Baron Cohen Yeah, and him going I grew up watching that show on Sky TV And I was like what, and he goes, oh, yeah, it was a huge influence on me. Or going to like an SNL taping and you know, people like Kristen Wig or you know whoever like telling you like, oh my god,

Well, the thing is though, it was it was so fresh, and she was like talk soup. She was like that, I think they live. I remember having a conversation the last week I was doing Late Night. I was sitting with producer Magnate, this is a friend of mine, and make said, you know, it's shame people really love this show. It's a shame here stepping back, and I was like, they may love it now, it's not as much as

You know you you sort of Barry Sanders that show where you like you retired at the top, like you know what I mean, you stepped away from that show without writing it into the ground. And that was I pulled the plug on my time I Talk Soup after four and a half years. Now, that was a daily

That show because it was on ice floes, you know. And I just thought four and a.

Half, like, it's fun now, but it could be ringing a fucking towel to try. I just don't want to be around. I love this too smart to leave.

The party a little bit early. That was then a little bit Yeah, I feel it's just like just like enough. Remember having this conversation with Jared Butler, Gerald Butler, Jerry Butler, right, and we were working on a movie, one of these Dragon movies. We're talking about it just when I was quitting, and he said, you're a quitter, and I went, yeah, I don't know. It's probably better to get out, Like it's like being a boxer. Leave before you get hurt.

Yeah, you start, you know, Yeah, it's getting take off before you're sitting in the corner with the coloring book, you know what I mean.

Yeah, And I kind of I kind of feel that way. But I fucking much respect to you, man, and I really mean it. I really mean it. You are the archetype of an arco. TV don't give a fuck TV was put together. You were right there. You were Warhol and boy and fucking Jack's ballock. You were rut there fucking doing well. That's that is.

That is more kind than I deserve. But I I am grateful to have been in the right place at the right time for that rf TV because there there was there was no supervision, so there won't you can't have that, you know, there was no We'd go months without seeing. Nobody ever sat in on my tapings, Nobody ever told me what we could say on the last executives.

Now it's a career, like being a stand up is a career. You believe that ship, it's a career like people. My dream is to be a stand up. My dream was to you know, it was to be anything but a fucking that though. Yeah, but there you go. It's it works out the way it was that John your joy. It's great to be a man. I'm so wonderful to say, I'm so happy you came and talked about ship, which you know is marsh to me. It's always good to say, always good to talk to you.

I thought thought that nothing