Jimmy Kimmel

that I don't want to do. But you're right, and in fact, I was. I was just thinking about this because I was thinking about a dinner I had at my house with a bunch of comedians, and um, you has some guys that I always loved, and I thought, wow, I hope I never get over that feeling of two things. Number one, I can't believe these guys are in my house, and then number two, I can't believe this is my house. Let's just go back for a second. Was the negative

thing a joke? Because don't forget a Letterman. Letterman is you know, uh famous for being self loathing and finding the cloud in any silver lining. I am not self loathing by any means. I you know, I think I have relatively good self esteem. But I don't want to do anything I have to do. Even if I enjoy doing the thing I have to do, I want to do it. It's a weird thing. It's like anything that's on the schedule as my enemy. Uh my dream day

is something that has no appointments on it. So you know, I know it's not the greatest way to look at things. It's actually a very bad way to look at things. But it does seem to be conssistent throughout my career. Okay, so let's say you have a day with nothing on the schedule. Is that end up being great? Were does the day drag? Oh? The day never drags. There always

a million things to do. And my wife makes fun of me because we have a beach house and we'll go there on the weekends and I'll just sit at the table in the kitchen and work all day with the door open. She's like, you know, you never even you didn't even look, you didn't go outside all day. It's like, I know, I just need to catch up. I just I that's what relaxes me being caught up on that huge list of things to do? Do you actually have a list? Keep a list? I do I

keep a list? Is it a physical or do you keep it in an app? I keep it in you know, the notes app. I keep mind too. It goes to do April, and then I don't get to most of the things, and it becomes to do May one and so on. Now do you have certain things that just stay at the bottom month after month after month. Let me look at it right now and I'll tell you this will be in true thing. Okay, um, yeah, there are certain things that, um that do stay at the bottom.

One that aren't urgent, and there are things that I hope to get to, but like I have to make a video for a charity that doesn't have a real hard deadline, so I haven't gotten to that. There's a listed something that says t shirts. I don't even know what that means. Uh. There's something that says fire pits

with a question mark next to it. So well, it's funny because at the bottom I have this I have to make this phone call to this rock star I know pretty well, but I know what's gonna be like two or three hours, and I haven't quite geared myself up for it. And now it's been like five months, and I said, well, if I cross it off, does that mean I'm not doing it or just that it's

in my mind? But let's go back. Is it just a hurdle that once something's on the schedule and you start, you forget it, you know your anxiety or you're not wanting to do it just a years or do you have to kind of get revved up and get into it. Um No, I'm okay. Once I get you know, I have so many things to do that it's just like I'm like a like a hooker in some ways, it's just like, all right, let's he here we go. All right, let's just do this. And there are a lot of meetings.

The meanings are the things the thing that I don't necessarily care for. But most of it's fine. Most of it is me doing what I call homeworks, is editing scripts and going through hundreds of ideas and figuring things out. Yeah, that kind of thing. Okay, let's separate their meetings that are business and meetings for the show. What percentage of there meetings for the show and what percentage or meetings

for external stuff for the show for external stuff. Okay, so during COVID, were those meetings done via zoom or conference call or what they're mostly still being done via zoom. I don't know if you know this, Bob, but COVID is not over yet. I know that Steve Cropper thinks it is. But well, I will tell you it's a very strange thing if we get into this, because I'm taking it very seriously. I know. I mean you probably do too, those of us who know a lot of

different people. I know a lot of people have died, and it's definitely possible. And in my particular case, I take the one drug that if you take it, the vaccine doesn't work. So I have been vaccinated months ago, and they now have a test that can literally show how many antibodies you have. And the threshold on the test is one. Most people have over twenty. I have point one. So I don't go down my whole avenue. But I will say I'm taking it unbelievably seriously. Other

than doctors, I'm not seeing anybody. I'm going hike in the mountains. Otherwise I'm home. I'd close up your nose holes if I was you. I mean, just that's a boy. That's scary. I'm sorry you're going through that. That is, but I will tell you I was just at it. I just did a shoot this morning at a gymnastics place, and I'm trying to learn to do a cartwheel and one of the people neither can I by the way,

none of one of the people that works there. You know, we were putting a mask and somebody's like, yeah, her husband passed away from COVID. It's like, oh my god, you know it's you. It's easy to forget that these numbers that you see on CNN, that there people, and that people lose their loved ones to this, and that it's not just an inconvenience, which I think is what it is for probably most people, just in inconvenience. That's more than an inconvenience. Well, there's so many things there.

I mean, well, people don't realize is someday they're gonna die, even like Sumner Redstone or as Jerry Seinfeld says, we're here to be replaced. And what they when you die, I don't care who you are. Life goes on. So you think what you're doing is so important. It's really a strange thing. But when you have these meetings, do you run the meeting? Um? Not? Usually no, who runs the meeting? The meeting is usually focused on me, So

it depends on what department I'm talking to. They're usually pitching me stuff or trying to get my take on something. Usually I don't run the meeting, no, okay, But in the meeting it demands your attention the whole time. Yeah, so you're not doodling. You're not, you know, surfing the web while you're doing this whatever. I am doodling, but but my not different part of my brain is paying attention. Okay.

Can one say that you're moving so fast and there's so much in the landscape that really you don't have time to think about it and what it means. Yeah, there are a lot of things I don't have time. There are things I wish I'd had more time to think through. But you know, the worst part of this job is being asked a million questions and knowing, unless you're a lunatic, knowing that yeah, a certain percentage of your answers have to be wrong. There again't all be right.

So you could ask like two questions in a day, and that doesn't even count picking between jokes or bits or whatever it is, and um, a certain percentage of them are not going to be right. And it's you know, that's just something that you have to accept. You know. I go to a therapist for that because it's very hard. He says, just make a decision, whether it's right or wrong. It's you know, it's what you've already achieved that you

know that a certain number will inherently be wrong. But I will tell you, Bob, I'll tell you a weird thing. I can make a million decisions when it comes to work or you know, comedy or material whatever, But when it comes to trying to figure out what to do for vacation, I am I mean, and my wife is this way too. We cannot ever make a decision. It becomes like we almost always make the decision at the last minute. Well, we're absolutely us two, but because we

just can't, it's just two. It's overwhelming and it's a weird thing. And we have talked about it, like why is this Why can't we figure this out? Why is this so difficult? And I don't know what the answer is. I really don't. Generally speaking, of you, the kind of guy who doesn't plan ahead. I know, I very much plan ahead, very much. So so it's only in this one area that you're stifled, so to speak. And so how many weeks a year are you off from the show?

I am off? Now I have a new arrangement with ABC where I take the summers off I am off from, which is really just July and August. So I'm off July and August, and then we have I think, um six weeks spread throughout the rest of the year. Okay, you know famously Johnny went to four days, but Letterman had five shows a week, even though he did two on one day. To take the summer off, must have been pretty confident in your status to even ask for it. Yeah.

Actually I didn't even ask for it. I was thinking maybe that maybe I've had enough. I don't know if I can continue going at this pace. And either my agent or ABC or some combination of the two said, well what if you had the summer off? And I said, well, that would be great, and I think I could that I think could keep me going for a little while. Okay, so you have a summer off, you have young children. What's the general plan. Now. You know that's hard for me, Bob,

I can't figure it out. Well, let's start for the beginning. Your house is in the South Bay, right, your beach house. Yes, okay, that's a big thing in l A. Because most people are north, they are Malibu. Whatever. How did you decide to be south? I have had I have a very small house. Our house is square feet and I have had it since. I've had it for sixteen years, I think. And I love it down there. I like people on the beach. I don't like Malibu. I don't like I

just don't like the way it goes, you know. I like to see umbrellas and children and families and groups of people on the beach. I enjoy it. Nobody bothers me down there. People are very nice, and it's just it just relaxes me. When I I come over there. There's a little hill that I go down to go down to the beach. When I go over that hill on Friday, I feel a sense of relief and it's like, oh, this is the weekend. It's happening. And do you have

anybody's who have houses down there? Um? Almost my whole family lives down there. My parents my in laws, my cousins. Uh, so we have a lot of friends down there. Okay, let's queer switch gears completely. Uh. The reason we're doing this podcast not that is we had a series of emails about the whole late night world and you were telling me that primarily or a big factor is creating stuff to post online. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, amplify that. Well, I don't know

if I put it that way. I just you were talking, you know, I think you, um, you are a harbinger of death when it comes to all of our businesses that we've loved throughout the years, throughout our childhood, and um, you know, for the most part, you're right. But I do think that what people miss and people are so focused on, like Nielsen ratings when it comes to and I'm not talking about primetime television. I'm talking about late night television. If you were to look at the Nielsen ratings,

you'd say, wow, things have really gone downhill. But if you look at the reality of late night television, it's that people are watching it on YouTube. People are millions of people every night are watching my monologue and Cold Bear's monologue and Falon's and Seth Meyers and James Cornet Are they just we actually um offered our product up for free to YouTube and we get almost nothing in return. And now people don't have to watch our show anymore

because they know they get it there. Well, one thing we did discuss. You weren't sure the answer to this is to what degree it is monetized on YouTube? Um, well it is monetized. But the I mean you're talking about compared to television rate revenue, You're you're talking about probably ten of our revenue comes from YouTube. Okay, So what is the goal? Is the goal you say a lot of people they're watching, they never watch you on regular television when you're on for an hour, So it's

not revenue. Is it to keep your name in the game? Is it for personal satisfaction? What is it all about? Well, it just kind of happened, is the truth. It was. Um we started The reason we even started a YouTube channel was because we made this video called I'm Fucking Damon and everyone was posting it and it was getting millions of views on a lot of people's pages and it had nothing to do with the revenue. I just

didn't like the way some people were posting it. Some of them were cutting out the interest and it was like messy. I didn't like how it was being presented, so I said we should we should start our own YouTube channel so we can post these videos in the way we want them to be posted and then viral videos from late night television shows just for those people. Were just for those people who may not be you know, your biggest fan. What year are we talking about, Um,

we are talking about Let's see when was that video? Maybe? Okay, I can figure it out because it was made for my forty birthday, but then there was a writers strike so we had to hold it. I think it was two thousand eight beginning. So this was really early YouTube, before all the influenzer craziness, never mind Instagram, etcetera. Yes, it was very early. I'm I'm certain we were the first show late night shoot to have a YouTube channel.

So then we started posting our videos there just because you know, you want people as many people to see your stuff as possible. It seemed like a way, uh to catalog your show and your best bits, and then people could go and look at something you're particularly proud of. We none of us realized that it would go completely upside down and most people will be watching on YouTube, you know, and that's what has happened. But you can't really put it back in the box, you know. It's

it's you can't just get off YouTube. It's not because you'd have to coordinate with all of the shows to get off YouTube, and then you'd have pirates putting the stuff up anyway, and it usually takes twenty four hours to get it taken down, so it would just be you'd wind up just like chasing your dog around in circles. What did ABC say about this? They, you know, they

felt the same way. They're like, yeah, fine, you know, uh, let's we'll put it on you We'll go on YouTube, okay, because some of these channels they insistence on their own domain page and they kill it on YouTube, etcetera. You got no static or you were so early that the paradigm was set before they realized what was happening. Yeah,

and we were all in the same boat. None of us saw this as the basically outlet from I mean, we're we're all we're all doing shows for YouTube and being paid by someone else to do them, which is a great spot to be in if your YouTube. Okay, but let's talk about Jimmy Kimmel. So now you're creating a show every night. To what degree in the back of your mind are you thinking does this work on YouTube? Very little? I I always try to remember what I'm doing,

what I was doing at the beginning. Um. I have an idea of what is going to work. But I do not program the show for YouTube. Do you watch the YouTube numbers? Yes, we do look at the YouTube numbers. You particularly you watch them. I look at it every week. I get a report on on it every weekend, and every once in a while there's something. If I'm particularly interested to see how it's doing, how it's playing, I will look. Okay, Now you must know what works and

doesn't work on YouTube, right, I have a pretty good idea. Yeah, So what works generally and what doesn't work? The monologue is works best of all, um the um uh, certain comedy bits, when you really put your foot into them, those will play very well. Mean tweets. Um. There's certain bits that we do regularly that do well because people

know to look for them. What doesn't do well is music. Weirdly, Um, of course we have it's difficult because there are licensing agreements that prevent us from posting many of the performances that we have. So it actually surprises me a little bit because I would think that music would be more popular on YouTube than it is. Uh, just going back, what is the life span? Obviously these things live on

YouTube essentially forever. But if you do something, do people then watch within twenty four hours or is it a week? What you know? What's the wind of the greatest number of people watch a clip? Definitely the first twenty four hours. Um, it will extend to a few days usually, But then what happens, which is interesting is you build this catalog of material and people will will come back to that material and um bits that you did ten years ago and watch that stuff and it gives you a kind

of a huge viewer base. Okay, do you have any idea because the monologues are in the neighborhood at ten minutes, do you have any idea what percentage of people who start stay for the whole monologue? Um? I don't know. I did know at one time. The monologues are usually around fourteen minutes, fourteen fifteen minutes. Um, I know that they do well when they're long people. I think most people tend to watch the whole thing. Okay, now your

monologue is a little bit don't. Let's start from the beginning. You were not a stand up comic before. Maybe we'll get to that later. But Johnny used to do his monologue and it was almost like it was clear he didn't write the jokes, and he'd be laughing at the jokes. Okay, and then Letterman made a whole thing of you know, the joke doesn't have to be good, etcetera. But you have changed the monologue, and you'll have footage and all

kinds of things within the monologue. It's just that when you've even Bill Maher and HBO, he does his five to ten minutes. Then we go into the show. Whose idea was to change it up like that? Um, it wasn't really anyone's idea. Just happened. It's just I wish I could say there was some master plan, but it when I started the show. First of all, Regis called me and he gave me. I said, give me some advice, Regis, and he said, well start, how do you know Regis?

I I you know Regis and I gravitated to each other somehow, Um, I've done it. I've done Regis when I was hosting The Man Show and oh Regis. I know how I know Regis because he liked I was on Fox NFL Sunday. I was a prognosticator and Regis is a big football fan and he liked me from that. And I was actually contested on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire long before I had the talk show at ABC when Regis was the host, and um, Regis and I had a little chemistry. Somehow he got a kick

out of me, and I out of him. So Regis called me and he um. He gave me the advice to make the monologue my own. He said, the rest of the show is about other people. It's about the guests, about the music and whatever you have going on. But the monologue that is your time. That's that should be, that's yours, and don't forget that. Don't turn it over to others. Um, do the monologue. Be the guy who

does the monologue. And I was like, okay, thanks. What My plan when I started was I had nothing written. I had no jokes written. The first year and a half of the show, I would go in, I'd sit there. I didn't even stand up, and I bullshit my way through the monologue like it was a radio show. And as like as I I became more discriminating, I started evaluating the show a bit more closely. I got over the like, oh my god, we're just lucky we got this show on the air tonight phase of the of

the job. I started writing more, and I started refining well and planning and doing and shooting bits with real content, and um uh, these are things that I don't know why I wasn't doing them. I looked back on those early shows and I go, I thought I was pretty smart. I guess I wasn't. I had no idea what I was doing. It was a big mess. Everything was a mess. It was just a fucking disaster. It's a miracle that

we made it to the second year. Okay, so is your show the type where you're open to anything someone comes in with a wild idea. Do you tend to say yes? So you're the kind of guy says no. Um, I don't know how to answer that. I know what works for our show, and I know what doesn't, and I know I've learned over the years that there's always this idea when you started talk show. Then I'm gonna mix it. I'm not gonna do it the way everybody

else did, and I'm gonna bit's. I'm gonna revolutionize this and and what you wind up doing is something that's not a late night talk show. You wind up doing something else. And maybe what you're doing is good, but it's not. You know, it's like being a baseball player.

In a lot of ways. You still have to have, um, you know, ninety ft between the bases and sixty six inches to the pitchers mound, and yeah, maybe there's gonna be a little bit of variable when it comes to where the outfield fences or the shape of the field itself, but ultimately you just have to you have to work within a box or else you're not doing a late night talk show in the same way these morning television shows, you know the Today Show, um, you know Good Morning America.

They're kind of doing the same thing but with different people. And that is you learn what the viewer wants to see at that time, that's what they want to say. We've done these big shows where we've had these like we had krentin Tarantino direct our show. Once we had um, you know all these different we've done, these unusual bits were like I'd get on a bus and do the show from the bus for the whole night, and you know, all these crazy stuff that took a huge amount of work,

and it always rates badly. It's weird. It's like people just want to see the show, Like, all right, you with your whatever the funk you're doing. I don't know, but people want to see you do a monologue and then go sit down at the desk and then throw it to either a comedian or a band. Okay, you have a young family, You're doing a five night a week show. To what how do you keep up? I mean, how much time do you have to surf the web just to get a feel for it on these varying sites.

To what degree do you have to immerse yourself in the world of the people who are the guests, whether watch a movie, read a book, whatever. How do you manage all that? It's a lot. I you know, my schedules basically, I go to the work and go to work in the morning, I come home, I get home at about six o'clock. The next two hours or for the kids, and then the next four hours or for homework. So I put the kids to bed, and then I'll go through all my emails and all the stuff I

couldn't get to while I was planning the show. I um will if I have a movie I need to watch or TV show I need to watch, I'll do that, and then um it all starts over again the next day, So there's not a there's not a lot of time for um me to do anything other than work on the next day show. Do you ever just fly blind? Say, man, I've been studying too much. I do this so well. I can have anybody as a guest. I don't really have to prepare. No. Never, I don't never do that. Yeah, never.

But let's assume it was a test like the Tarantino show. Could you do it? I could do it, and some of them would be good. Some of them might even be better than the way I do it now, but some of them would be very bad. And I go for consistency, and I don't want to get lazy. And I think when you start getting lazy, that's when you should stop doing the show. I still want the monologue every night. I wanted to be as good as it possibly can be given our time constraints and um, the

constraints of the world. But every night I work on it as hard as I can until the moment I have to step on the stage, and then I do it. And there's times like I'm very good at reading a teleprompter. I can you can wake me up in the middle of the night, and I could read a teleprompter very well. But every night, even though I don't enjoy it, it's probably my least favorite part of the day. I go through.

I read through my script and I committed to as much to memory as I possibly can because I know that it's gonna make it three better if I do, and that three percent makes a huge difference. That's what people don't realize. Okay, you grow up in New York until like you're nine or ten. What's that about? What's that like? UM? Brooklyn typical lower middle class upbringing mill basin down at the bottom of Brooklyn, UM an Italian Jewish neighborhood, running around with kids, Mets fan um, flipping

baseball cards, playing stickball in the street. And UM I moved when I was in fourth grade. That's when my family decided to Okay, you're in New York Okay, you're going to school. You're good athlete. Um, i'd say intermediate. I say, I wouldn't say I was a good athlete, but okay, not bad. But you played a lot. You're always game to be in the game. How good a student were you? Very good student? That's very good student. Did everybody else? Did you go to public school or

Catholic school? Public school? Okay? Did everybody realize that you were doing that? Well? Yes, I was. I know it sounds like a German. I was always the smartest kid in my class. Okay, so you were the smartest kid in your class. Did people resent that? No? I was also the funniest kid in my class. Okay, would you also say you were the most popular kid in your class? No? Well yes, um, in the way that I didn't want to be not not with girls, for sure, and not

nobody was. Let's start with New York. You leave it here in fourth grade? So girls aren't that big an issue? No, they were a big issue. Yeah, I mean they weren't an issue, but yeah, there's definitely. I mean I was interested in girls from kindergarten on. Okay, wait, how many kids in your family? We don't know there's three kids in my family, and where are you in the hierarchy? You're the only So all the hopes and dreams are you? What kind of personality does your have? What did your

father have at the time? My father is the kind of guy that will tell you about his knee operation for four hours straight. What if you try to interrupt him, he'll he'll get back on. You can't get him off track. It's impossible. Okay, does he tell a good story? No? Your mother verbal? Nonverbal? My mother was class wit in her giant high school in Brooklyn, Madison and very verbal, literally never stops talking. Okay, So how didn't work between

your mother and father? He's telling a long story, she's the witch. She's talking. Who can get a worded edgewise? Well, he, my dad operates. They just talk simultaneously. And I'm not joking at all. Like you can be sitting in between them and they're both talking to you, and you look to them with you know, a look of amusement at first, and going like you can both see that you're both talking to me, And I know I have two years, but I only have one brain and I can't process

both of this stuff. But my dad talks at a very My dad's like it goes like this, like, so your mother, we made a car rental, Uh, we're going to Avis and that was a thousand dollars. So then I looked, I got my discount from American Spread. And then my mother is at full volume talking about something else. So it's it's almost I wouldn't say it's harmony. It isn't. It's a cacophony, for sure, but they managed to just talk at the same time constantly. Okay, and how did

you deal with this, dude? Were you quiet or did you jump into I was pretty quiet. I picked my spots, and I really think that's what attracted me to radio, is just being just never really being heard in the house. Okay and usually Okay, how far a part of the other two kids in the family from you. My sisters three years younger and my brother is nine years younger, well nine years younger. It's like a whole another generation. Okay, what's your sister think about all this? About? What about

my cacophony? And there's no room for anybody? And now she comes along, you know, I have to tell you, um, well, first of all, just to give you an idea of what it was like in my house. Um my sister's birth announcement. My wife discovered this as my mother was showing her my baby book My sister's birth announcement said, and I quote, Jimmy has a sister. And it's not the way it really played in the favory. It kind of did. Yeah, my my sister was my father's favorite,

and um my brother. I think yeah, I think it was you know, mom with the sons and dad with the daughter. Okay, now, somebody who's like the class wit usually gets sent to the office this trouble. The parents are called in. Not every day, but you don't go unscathed.

Did that happen with you? Oh? Yes, absolutely, I mean it wasn't so it was, you know what, you put yourself in a position when you decided to be the I was more of the class clown in the class with probably, But when you put yourself in that position, you have to be prepared for shrapnel. You're gonna get it. I mean, because every once in a while, the teacher's gonna get really mad. My favorite teachers were the ones that that laughed along with the rest of the class.

And I had a couple of great ones who you know, who really you know in the way, that's your first audience, right. So I had these teachers that got a kick out of me, and I think part of it was because I was such a good student, so they didn't hold it against me. But then every once in a while, I have a teacher that would just lose their minds. Okay, your parents would be called in, since your mother is such a wit, what would she say about your behavior?

I don't think you know. I went to always really big public schools, so there wasn't a whole lot of parents being called in. Most of the punishment was meted out within the confines of the school, like I'd have to go sit in the hall, and which is a weird punishment. It was like, I'd rather be in the hall. I don't know what kind of punishment this is, but uh it was. Uh. My parents didn't get called to school a lot. I was always nervous they were gonna

find out what I was up to. Um, But only when I was adulted I realized my mother was probably up to the same stuff. Okay, and your father and mother were both of them working in Brooklyn, or just your father just my father and what was he doing at the time he worked for My dad didn't get his high school diploma. He he went and got his g e D. Okay, couple, wait wait wait wait wait before we go there, your father, how many generations in America?

My father many generations in America. Okay, so it wasn't like he was an immigrant dropping out of high school. What do his parents think about him dropping out high school? You know what they didn't know? I think, um, I think my You know, my grandfather on my dad's side was an elevator operator for his whole life. That's what he did. So the idea that you would you would be expected to achieve something that wasn't something. We didn't

have that in my family. You know. My grandfather on my mom's side, who was still like the funniest person I've ever met my life, was an upholsterer and a film splicer for his whole life. And both my grandmothers were moms. They didn't they went home and they cooked and did all that stuff. But there wasn't I mean, my dad was first of all. Definitely, my dad got a g D and then went to like night school to get his college degree. He was. Oh, so he

ended up getting his college degree. He got his college degree. Yes, and um, there aren't many college degrees in our family. Okay, how about your two siblings? My neither one, none of us, none of us have a college degree. Okay, how did your parents meet? They met at a bowling alley in Brooklyn. Was an instant attraction or what's the legend? I think so? I think it was. And they got married very young. My my mom was twenty when they got married. My dad was twenty two. And when did you come? I

came when my mom was twenty one. I came, um a little over a year after they were married. Okay, so your parents come in good front you one day say we're moving to Las Vegas. When you're a young kid, that's like the worst thing that could ever happen. You're leaving all your friends, etcetera. Not really, because my grandparents lived there and my cousins lived there. They moved two years out of us, so you know, we're it's a very tight Italian family. We were, we were excited. I was,

you know. And also when I was nine years old, you don't know what's going on. It's like, oh, alright, we're moving to Las Vegas, you know, so we'll live there. And I had some good friends in Brooklyn, but we were kids, is you know, kids move on to other kids. Did you stay in touch with him? You ever seen him? Since? I do. Actually, there's my best friend as a kid, as a kid named Paul Kaplan. He's not a kid anymore, he's an adult man. He was the craziest kid in

the class. I was always attracted to the craziest kid in the class. He really was a nut, this kid, and he still is a nut. In fact, he was one of the um bleacher creatures at the Yankees games. You know those guys, And it makes perfect sense. And of course he's the guy. It's Paul Kaplan. And I know he won't mind me telling this story. Got hit by lightning in his living room. Who tell this story? He could actually look it up and find it in

the news. Paul was sitting on his couch in Staten Island watching a Yankees game and an errant bolt of lightning came down his chimney and burnt his couch and his hair and his TV and him and everything. And whether after effects or like, is he okay? You know, it's hard to tell because it seemed like he'd been hit by a bolt of lightning before he was hit by a bolt of lightning. Okay, you moved to Vegas. What is your father do in Vegas? My dad? We moved there with no job. So my dad was working

at Equitable and IBM in New York. He was like a computer program when computers were the size of a house. And we moved to Vegas and um we my dad got a job at a company called Suma Corporation, which was owned by Howard Hughes, who was not alive at the time, but they owned seven hotels in Las Vegas.

And my dad got a job in management information services, which I still don't know exactly what that is, but I do know that one of the things that he was involved in was setting the odds on the slot machines, so they were just the slot machines. Whatever the payout is. He was involved in that. So what was his viewpoint on gambling? What was the mantra in the house? The

gambling was not encouraged. And in fact, my dad made a big impression on me, one of the few big impressions that he made advice wise, we were walking through one of the casinos and he goes, you see this beautiful hotel. I said, yeah, he goes, you think they built this from people winning? And I went, oh, no, I guess not. I haven't read this. Las Vega us a monument to losers. The whole town wouldn't exist. Okay, need let's just say the weather is a little bit

different in Vegas than it is in Brooklyn. To what degree you adjust depressed and so, I mean it is really hot there in the degree a hundred and nine, you know, it was it's cold in the winter to in Vegas it can get pretty cold. In fact, it's snowed the first year we moved to Vegas. Um. But you know, I was a kid that did whatever. You know, whether it's scorching hot or freezing cold, you're out in

the street playing. Okay, So in the summer, even though it's a hundred degrees you were out making mischief very much so. And in fact, my partner in that mischief is a guy named Clito Escobido. He was he lived right across the street from me, and we became best friends almost immediately, and he is my band leader on my show Wow amazing connection. You're very loyal guy. So you're going to school. You go to public school in Vegas? Yes? And or is it the repetition of the same thing.

You're the best student in the funny of the class clown. Yes. Yes. In fact, when I moved to Vegas, I was way ahead of the other The kids in Brooklyn were as far as public school goes, were quite a bit ahead of the students in Las Vegas at that time, So I was like a year and a half ahead as far as what we're a learning host. Okay, you say you've always been interested in girls, So how does that start playing out? Um? Uh, it didn't didn't play out.

I would be quietly interested in them, terribly shy. Um never would I. I mean I once that in the sixth grade, I asked a girl named Lynn Englestad to the dance, and it took every bit of courage I had to ask her, and she immediately said yes, and she as I recalled, she's a beautiful girl, and I just I was so taken by her, and I couldn't believe she said yes and then went on the day of the dance, which was like an after school thing. I was two. I was so embarrassed I hid from

her the whole time. Okay, I understand that. What happened the next four years in high school nothing. You got married at a very young age. I know that's because I thought I'd never have a girlfriend. I was like, I better get married to this one. And why did that marriage end? Um? She hated me. Yeah, we didn't get along. I think was the problem. And so you have your first kid at what age? That's a lot of responsibility. She turns thirty in August. What's she up to?

She's an artist. She lives in the Mojave Desert. She makes ceramics, and she's doing very well. Wow. And your other kid from that marriage is my son. He is twenty seven. He is he works on my show. He makes funny videos with his friends, and he's interested in doing the type of nonsense that I do. How did the those both of those kids get along with Molly and the younger kids? Oh? Great, they get they get

a look great. In fact, is our son's fourth birthday yesterday and the day before yesterday, and um, it was my birthday yesterday. So for a minute there I thought, oh, wait a minute, what's your birthdate. Ap Okay, this is one we came, you know what. We were happy that he came on the twenty one because you know what April is, of course, not just Donor Day, but Hitler's birthday. And you don't want that. But uh, just in case there is something to astrology, you don't want your kids

born on Hitler's birthday. But they get along great. I mean they I mean they all love each other. And to what degree do you have contact with your first wife? Uh? Not a ton. We you know, our kids are getting married, are olders. Kids are scheduled to get married this year and next year. So that has brought us together a bit, and we get along now. Fine, it's just when we're living in the same house, it was hard. And did she get remarried. No, she but she has a long

term partner and she on the payroll. You mean as far as alimony goes. Yes, yeah, she doesn't want to get married. Okay, when someone looks at you're reading my mind, Bob. When someone looks at your career, those of us who were in l A know this ship doesn't happen by accident. People are not successful by accident. So it's a personality. I mean, my interaction with you have been significant yet limited.

You're very open, you're very warm, you know the same type of thing like me and the girl said, comes come down to the show, come hang out. It's like, you know, it's all it was overwhelming. I couldn't go. But uh, is you know what kind of guy are you? Are? You just a guy's guy and you know everybody, and therefore opportunities come along. Um. No, I am a very hard worker. I am. I always have been, always, I mean since I was when I was when I was

in high school, I worked seventy hours a week. In addition to going to high school, I worked at a pizza place, and I worked at a clothing store. And I just, I don't know, I think maybe it's anxiety or something, but I was always worried about money. When I was in radio, I was, you know, really just barely making it for a long period of time, ten years of really just kind of like going to the A T M And hoping that I will have more than twenty dollars so I can withdraw to twenty dollars

to have lunch type of deal. And so that has always been with me, and that is you know, that makes it hard to turn things down, but you have to, you know. But definitely it when you go the first like thirty something years of your life and then career not having any money at all, it's um it really can like your priority. You know this the things that you you have to explain to your younger self or sometimes difficult. I mean it's you know, they're like, wait,

I'm gonna say no to this. It'll take me an hour. I can make this much money, and you know, it's a constant struggle. Okay, but let's talk about musicians. The guy whose name is on you know, not Elton John, not Rod Stewart, not Drake, but the people who work with them, who are actually players, irrelevant of their personalities,

they are unbelievable networkers. They maintain relationships with a lot of people because it's all gig work, and they know one point they're gonna work a relationship, they're gonna give a relationship. Was that at your experience in l A, No, not at all. I didn't know anybody, and I never intended to do anything other than be a radio disc jockey. I did not think I would be good at at at and being an actor. I'm still not an actor. I'm very aware of that. I did. I just wanted

to make money. You know. I was on the radio and people thought I was funny, and they would call me and say, hey, do you want to write for this? Or would you like to audition for this? And I'd be like okay, and then you know, most of them went nowhere. But occasionally I would happen upon something that was um that worked out, and I had a weird you know who Fred Silverman is, right of course, so Fred Silverman for those who know, it's the only person

who ran ABC, NBC and CBS. And this is when not simultaneously, but simultaneously, but this is when everyone was watching. This is you know, the set of these and eighties and a titan of the television industry. But now he's an old guy and he's mostly retired, but it's got a production company that keeps them busy. And I get a job writing for a game show, so I'd go do my radio show and then afterwards I spent a few hours writing questions and jokes for this game show

they were putting together. Have any idea do you remember what you were getting paid? Um? Probably four hundred dollars a week something like that, which was great for me, I mean, which I was excited about. So and I meet this guy named Alan Rutcker, who's a great guy and who wrote U History of White People in America with Mark mull and I enjoy hanging around with him. So I stay a little longer than I've been planning to,

and I start now hosting the run throughs. They do run throughs to work out a game show, and work out most every show, well literally a little bit slower started writing for the game show. Any writers are there? Just me and Alan? Okay, who is doing the run through? Before you? No one? There was no show before we worked it out. Okay, did you say, hey, I'll be the guy doing the run through or did someone say, hey, you know, just have him do it. It wasn't either

of those things. It was we were writing the material and and then somebody had to read it aloud, and so that became me. So I would do this and we try to figure out O this and the show was terrible. It was not working at all. It made no sense. So but they were paying us, and I thought I liked Alan, and so I was like, whatever, so I would host the run through and then there we were gonna they were gonna find a host for

the show. And in fact, they were interested in getting Kevin and Bean, the guys I worked for at k Rock, to audition. They wanted them to audition separately, and they were gonna bring in all these hosts that people know well. Ll Fred Silverman comes in to see the final run through and he's I mean, he's great, look and he

looks like an old TV executive. He's got a glass of iced tea in his hand at all that gets refilled at all times, and uh, you know, big belly, and he's he's dressed immaculately and he sits down and we do the run through and Fred says, and I swear to god this happened. Fred goes canceled the host auditions. This kid is the host. Didn't even know what my name was. Wow, And I was like what. He's like yeah, um and um it was I was like just to stop. Yeah,

were you doing stick as the host? I mean I was walking around okay, and but not with the intention of being the host. You know, that didn't my mind. And in fact, I knew this show was not getting on, so it wouldn't it didn't even matter. But what happened was we presented this show to a lot of buyers. We had a um you know, we had a presentation where all these different buyers from these different networks came in, and many of them liked me. They didn't had no

interest in the show. But one in particular was Michael Davies, who went on to produce Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and who produced a show called Win ben Stein's Money, which was my first show, and he called me afterwards. He's like, I thought you were really funny and I'd love to have you come audition for this show When ben Stein's Money. We were planning to do it with ben Stein solo, but we feel like we need a sidekick. And I said, well that sounds funny, that sounds like

a good idea. The game show host plays against the contestants. And so I went in and it was great, right, I mean, it really worked. Immediately Ben loved me, I loved him, and that was it. I was. Then I was the host of a show that one Comedy Central its first Emmy, I think, and was on every night twice a night. Um, you know we were on uh just before the daily show, um, every night, and um, that's really how it started for me. Okay, how much money were you making a k Rock? K Rock I

was making when I started. I was making fifty dollars a year. When I left, I was making like and how many years were you there? I was there for five years. Okay, how did you get that gig? I got that gig in a weird way. Guy named Kevin Weatherly is a great program director. Um was. Everyone at k Rock was from Phoenix, Arizona, and that's where I went to college, and that's where my parents lived for a long time. So I would call into this radio station,

k z z P. You know that station. Actually I don't huge in the eighties, I think they had the biggest market share of almost any radio station in the country, A huge HR station, very very popular. And I would call into the afternoon guys Mike Elliott and Kent Voss and they took a liking to me. And then I got to know this guy, who is your goal? In calling? I just like being on the radio. I was, you know, excited to be on the radio. You know, I'd call in.

They tape a bit with me, I do character or something like that, and and then okay, well you're going to you we're going to University of Arizona. Are you studying radio and television? First of all, how dare you Arizona State University? Whichever? You know? I'm not obviously I'm not Arizona Fluid based on I didn't know the station. No, I went no, I was not studying uh that I was studying English. Okay, And you didn't finish because because I got a job as a disc jockey and a

morning as a morning radio disc jockey in Seattle. And how long had you been at college. I've been there like two and a half years. I went to you and l V for a year two So you're none of this is planned. None of this is I gotta break my way out of the boonies. I gotta be somebody. No not, so you're calling into the station. Continue, I called into the station. I actually gave them an idea that they used and became a really big deal for them.

There was we had a governor named ev Meekum who was like the first of the great Republican racists that made the news. He uh, he was a he got elected kind of by accident because there were three people on the ballot and the ballot was split. He got elected. He one of his first orders of business was to do away with Martin Luther King day as a Yeah remember that, remember that? Yeah, they were boycotted by and so anyway, you remember that song brand new lover by

dead or Alive? Of course I wrote this brand new governor while we need as a brand new governor. They recorded it and became a big deal. In effect, you too asked they heard it when they came to town to record Rattle and Hum, and they asked the radio station for cop a copy of it, and they played it in the sun Devil Stadium before their concert, which was like, you know, it's crazy. I was, this is you know, I was just a kid, and you know

that I have this happened. You actually even hear it in the background as Bono is sitting by the pool um in the Rattle and Hum documentary, and and so they were like, wow, that was great, and they trusted me, and I started doing a lot of stuff with them. And when when did you start getting paid by them? I never got paid by them, but one of the guys, Kent Voss got a job doing mornings in Seattle and took me with him as his producer slash sidekick and

making how much? And you're married at this point, yes, but no kids at this point, no kids yet. No, but it's not a lot of money. And in fact, the general manager told me I'd be making thirty thousand dollars a year. And when I got up there, I looked at my paycheck, the first one I got, and I thought, well, it's doesn't add up right now. It seems to add up to exactly twenty thousand dollars a year. And I went into his office and I said, hey, you know, um you told me it was thirty thousand.

He said, no, I didn't. I said, I even have my notes, right, these are the notes I made when you call you? And he's like, nope, sorry. I was like, fuck, what am I gonna do? So then Kent had to live with us because we couldn't afford the house that we'd rented on twenty thousand dollars a year. So Kent said, okay, I'll stay with you guys and we'll split the rent. And that's just how that worked out. Okay, So how

do you get from there to k ROCK. I got from there, we were fired there, moved back in with my parents and Phoenix. Finally got a job in Tampa at Q one oh five, another huge radio station. UM I was the producer and on air character guy. Then I got a job. I got fired from that job, got a job in Palm Springs. I worked there for uh eighteen months. I did not get fired. I got a in Tucson with one of the guys I worked with back at kazy ZP. We worked there for ten

months and got fired. And then I got a job at k Rock through Kevin Weatherly, who was the music director and van driver in in Phoenix and who I met at a wedding in Cleveland and hung out with for a few days. And at the end of it he was like, you're really funny. I think you'd be great on Kevin and Bean show. Okay, you get fired multiple times. Everybody in radio knows that, but Jimmy Kimmel gets fired. Does the sky fall or do you say,

no problem, I'll get another gig. The sky falls and falls hard, and and I turned into you remember R and R. You know, the of course radio and record So that was really the only way to get a job unless you knew somebody, and I didn't know anybody

at all. So every Thursday, R and R will be delivered to my house, and the nightmare was when it was delayed by a day in the mail and I would be waiting out by the mailbox at my parents house after we've been fired for that R and R to come so I could go through the want ads and get those cassettes in the mail immediately, because I know, I know that every radio station has a box of cassettes on the floor of the program director's office that

never get listened to. And we always thought, oh, if we can get it there first, maybe they will listen to it first they've placed this ad and hopefully somebody will hear it and hire us. And that was just that's not how it went. We wound up getting a job at Actually, guy Mike Elliott, who we worked with in Phoenix, got a job as the morning man at Q one O five in Tampa and he had them he sent for us basically, so we he got us the jobs there. So it all comes down to who

you know. Well, yeah, but for me, it was the same read people over and over again. Hey, it's still the people you knew. So all of a sudden, instead of being behind the mic, you're in front of the camera. That's a big switch. What was going through your head? By the way, I disagree with the it comes down to who you know, because you also have to be able to do your job. A lot of people that goes without saying okay, alright, especially when it comes to entertainment.

People are lining up to work for free. Okay, But if you're trying to get a job through an ad, odds are you will never get it, never mind their ads where they're never really even gonna hire anybody. So it's ultimately something you know through personal relationship. In my experience, Yeah, I mean when you got to a certain level, like you say, k Rock, you get phone calls, you get emails out of the blue. Right, that's that's many steps down the road. Yes, it was a lot of steps

down the road. So now that you're in front of the camera, does a light bulb go off? And you had to say, wait a second, I see a whole new opportunity that maybe I'm not really a radio guy, I'm a TV guy. Yeah, but not it wasn't a light bulb so much as it was a uh it was on a dimmer switch, if it was a light bulb, because I just kind of really just saw these as opportunities to make a little extra money. When I started wind ben STIGs money. And for the first two seasons,

I made five fifty dollars a show. We won an Emmy, We won an Emmy, and I made five I think, what what's your agents say? Um? He said, You're lucky to have a job. I think the most I ever made was like eleven dollars a show. And keep in mind, like, if you like, if the ratings we had on that show would make it like one of the now, if we had those ratings, it would be one of the

top ten shows on television. You know, you know, you look back and you go, oh wow, these networks were really making out because if they can still make money now with the ratings they currently have, who the hell knows how much money they were making back then? A lot? Okay, So who represents you now, James baby Doll Dixon. I can tell my audience about him, well, he is um. He was described as built Carter as a character right out of a Damon Damon Runyan novel. He is. He

curses a lot, he smokes a lot. He is the Tan beyond belief at all times. He is um a character, the the character of characters. He is a brazen man. He asks for things that no decent person would ever ask for when he comes out to visit. He doesn't stay in a hotel. He stays in my house. We have a guesthouse next to my house. He won't stay in it because he wants to be in the house with us. He smokes in my house even though I've

asked him not to a million times. He litters. He is He's the last living human who doesn't know littering is not a good thing to do. He is just a character. Okay, So how did he become your agent? How did you meet him? I met him he was an agent at William Morris. I had a different agent at William Morris, but he was my uh Daniel Kelson, who is the producer of The Man Show. He was his agent, and so we got to know him and

we just got such a kick out of him. We became very close and Um, he's one of my best friends. He really is, and he is a nut. So what's his skill. The key has you keep working with him. His skill is he is a great negotiator, and even though he asks for the moon at all times and then wants them to throw Mars in with it, he everyone loves him, which is flipping the story around. You give good hang. So that must have helped your career because the natures, especially when you do filmed entertain Man

or you know, these shows, there's a lot of hanging around. Yeah, okay, so people just like Fred Silverman, they said this is a good guy to have around. Yea, Fred didn't know me at all. In fact, I'm saying that is the start. And once you start having a job with all these you know, okay, what do we know? You're on wind Benstein's money. Then ultimately you do the Man Show. There's crank anchors and all this other stuff. This doesn't happen

for most people. Okay. And you're telling me that you're not really a hustler, that you're not out coming up with gigs, unless you want to say that, I have an inaccurate impression. I am a hustler in the way that I will sit at my computer or for a time my typewriter and work on projects and come up with a million ideas and then um some of them. I mean, I have you see this cabinet behind me, but you can't this. Yeah. Yeah, they can set the podcast,

but I can. I have all my different project There are projects from when I was in high school that I have saved up. And it's funny because you go back to that stuff sometimes, like you know, somebody wants something. You're like, oh, you know what, I wrote something that might work for this when I was twenty two years old, and then you dig through and you find it and you freshen it up, and uh, suddenly it's new again. Suddenly finally somebody is going to hear it or see it.

And I just work a lot. I've just always been interested in, um, in coming up with a show or cartoon or something. I you know, I just okay, So you're the type of guy we're hanging out, you say, hey, you give you give somebody your script or what your address? You don't want to send you something? No, I wouldn't do that, um, but I might tell you an idea. I mean, I remember how I got Crank Anchor sold to Comedy Central. Was I was at dinner here with the president of the network at the time, and I

told him I had this. I was like, you know, it would be a great idea if we took crank calls. And at the time I wanted to be Acclaimation show, and later we turned it into puppets, but um, if we and we made them into a show, and he's like, that's a great idea. I want to do that. I never really pitched it. I just kind of floated it out there. Okay, how did the Man Show come to happen?

The Man Show was, Uh. First of all, Adam Carolla and I were characters on Kevin and Bean Show at k Rock, and we were very became very good friends. And uh, he did a character called Mr. Bertram, which was a shop teacher who would use the state He would call in to give messages to his students who

were on the way into school. That was the conceit, and he became wildly popular, so popular, in fact, they hired him to do love Line on kay Rock, which is a syndicated show, and then uh, love Line on MTV.

And at the same time, I've been doing when Ben Stein's Money, and I was the sports guy at k Rock and Adam and I would go to lunch every day and we talked for three hours and it just eventually occurred to me that we could probably put that time better to better use by working on a show together. So we started talking about doing a radio show together, which is our initial idea. We wanted to do afternoons at UM at the local FM talk station, but they

weren't interested in us doing that. Weirdly, Comedy Central was. In fact, we sold the Manchow to ABC through that same guy, Michael Davies, who hired me for when ben Stein's money. I told him the idea, I said, what about if what if we did a show for guys? Um Oprah was super popular at the time, the shows only for men, and we tell women they're not allowed to watch it. And he's like, I like that idea, and he pitched it to ABC and they bought a pilot.

We went and pitched it and ABC made a pilot, which one they saw it, they were like, oh no, we're never we will never put anything like this on our air waves. But a lot of other networks like Facts and Comedy Central made offers. Once the tape started to circulate around UH to what degree would you be able to do that show today. I think you would be able to do it, but you wouldn't be able to get sponsors for it. I think it would be

very popular, but with there would be no commercials. And to what degree are you talking with Adam Carolla at this point? Always? You know, we're like brothers. We you know, we don't talk a lot on the phone, but we love each other, and um, you know we check in. Uh yeah, we texted, okay. But the reason I asked this is his politics are pretty to the right left. Well yes, um, uh, mine are definitely to the left

and they always have been my whole life. Um, but his politics, I think are better described as all over the place. But the only exposure he gets is from the right. So you'll see him on Fox News screaming about nonsense, and um, that's because they're the ones that put him on. If other people put him on, you might hear some of his other opinions, which are pretty liberal. Are you know he's gotten socially? Uh, he's the guy's

is pretty liberal. But yeah, he's definitely moved in that direction much more now than he was in the past, and it has an affected your relationship I don't love it. I don't love it, but I love him. Okay, So he was on keless x I was on that station, and then the station flipped format and he went to a podcast. He was very early on that. But needs to say, there's so many other people in that sphere at this point in time, and therefore he has been

somewhat marginalized, as has everybody this Internet era. There's so much input. Do you think there's a chance to bring him back to a wider audience And did you ever think about working or with him or having him come on your show? Well, he's you know, he's been on my show. I didn't mean as a guest. I didn't state that. Well, oh, um no, I mean I don't really bring anybody on my show. And it's just me and Dillermo standing in the corner really and occasionally my

cousin Sal does something. And Adams really carved out a nice situation for himself because he doesn't have a boss and he doesn't have to worry about the things that a lot of people have to worry about, and he seems to attract a number of sponsors who are comfortable with the content, and he's got his own world that he's created. I mean, he really has his own world. He's got all his race cars in this warehouse and he does his podcast from there, and he seems pretty

happy with it. Okay, let's jumped forward for those who were not students. What year do you start hosting the late night program? I started two thousand three. Okay, this is important because the landscape is completely different then. Okay, you know we have Letterman, we have Leno. Letterman is beating Leno until all of a sudden he hosts the Oscars and that hurts his ratings because people see him. Timeline is a little off, but he was hosting late night.

When he did did the Oscars, Letterman, Leonar Leno and he just want just get the Uh. Dave was on it twelve thirty and then he went to one. He went to eleven thirty. Uh ninety two was it? Um? It was yeah, right around there, and then he did the Oscars like nine, three, four or five. Um, gosh, I don't know exactly what. Okay, So continue, continue to

your narrative. When I when I when I went on the air, I was on at midnight actually twelve o five and Dave and j were on, and then I think Craig Kilbourne was on A twelve thirty and Conan was on A twelve thirty. I guess what I was saying, and it wasn't making the point clearly that you have these two institutions. Okay, Letterman in Leno and to a degree,

everybody's fighting for scraps. Then Dave says he's gonna call it the day this were already in the j went to ten, then came back to eleven thirty, and they announced at the Olympics that for the Olympics they're gonna blow him out and they're gonna bring Jimmy in. So all of a sudden, it's a whole new landscape. And you have been there chugging along, but you weren't Letterman or Leno but building your audience. What did one went through your mind when all of a sudden you say,

wait a second, they're rejiggering the whole landscape here. Well, they definitely My show definitely played some role in them replacing Jay with Jimmy, and Jimmy show much more so. Obviously he was doing very well at twelve thirty, but I was gaining on Jay, and they got nervous. Now, unlike Howard you have interacted with Jay. He famously got into it with him on Squeen. Do you ever see Jay anymore? Ever talked to him every once in a while,

you know, I've kind of I used to. It's funny, I I this grudge I had against Jay Leno really was not about me. It was about Dave and the fact that I thought Dave deserved the Tonight show. And and you know, if you read any account of how Jay got it, it's just a little bit sneaky. And so I always just had that in my in my head. And now, you know, especially since Dave has like done some stuff with Jay, and I was like, why am I still fighting this war? So Jay has been very

nice to me. He's uh, he's he he is. Um. He called me when my son had his heart surgery, and he's done some nice stuff for charity for somebody that is important to me. And uh, we've we we don't have that. We're not friends, but we don't have that um negativity between us anymore. Okay, let's go back to that point where you're making headway on his ratings. Are you fully aware of that and are you driving and and are you saying, man, we are on a role.

How do we keep this role going? Yeah, we're just saying, hey, first of all, you guys have to put us on at eleven thirty. You know, we want to be on at eleven thirty so we can really compete with these other shows. And they took him a very long time to come to that decision, but they did. To what degree was the show different from when you went on

at twelve oh five. I'm not talking about Letterman changing the show, which I thought was a mistake for the earlier I like when he were the boxing shoes and you know, didn't wear the suits. But I'm talking about how much did you learn along the way, such a when you hit you were really ready. Um. I don't know that I was ready, but I thought I was ready.

I you know, you you do get better at this as it goes on, and um, you know that's why it is so unfair to judge someone based on their first show or first week of shows, because it's it bears no resemblance to what they do years later. But I felt I was ready and I really wanted to and I could see that, you know, Dave and Jay were getting older and they weren't gonna be on forever, and I wanted to establish a foothold at that spot before the next shows came in. You know, that's that

was what we wanted. And um it took a lot of convincing to get them there. Okay, So Jimmy comes on, what do we know? Johnny did a show that was really a talk show. Dave really did a show that was a comedy show, completely changed the landscape of late night television. Jimmy comes on. He is great at skits, not a great interviewer. What do you think of Fallon as competition at the time, and it comes out to great ratings. Listen, it was like if for a time it felt like you were in the corner of the

ring being pummeled. It was just like the ratings that he was getting for a long period of time or astronomical. They were like, what what is going on? And they were putting on home run viral bit after home run viral bit, and it was really like he almost had to just like rope a dope it and just try to wait it out because there was no other choice. It really became a phenomenon beyond late night television. What did you think about Colbert getting the gig? I think

that was absolutely the right choice. I was always a big fan of his. Always I thought it wouldn't work, and of course it didn't work at first, and then he changed some of the people working with him, and then all of a sudden Trump gets elected and Colbert starts talking politics and Fallon is a man out of time. It definitely, it was definitely well. I don't think any of us would describe that as a positive turn of events.

You know. I think if you gave Stephen the choice between No Trump and his show, Finding It's It's Mark, I think he would go for no Trump. But yeah, definitely changed what t late night television was for and what it was about. It. It definitely made the trivial seemed trivial, whereas before that it was all trivial. Okay, Now you evolved to the point where you're making news

for your political stance. Needles to say, it is to the left, and anybody in the public eye knows that if you do that, there are people who will relentlessly usually the same people attack you, if for no other reason, telling you your stay out of this lane. So what were the decisions to go in that area and to what degree? With our stones and you know, slings and

arrows thrown at you, there was no decision made. It was so plainly obvious that we couldn't ignore what was going on, and that what the things that I said had to be said. And I knew that I knew what I know my audience, I mean, you know, I came from the Man Show. My audience was the most republican audience of any show on late night. And but sometimes circumstances dictate, uh, what you are going to do, and in this case, they very much did. And I knew that it was going to split my audience in

less than half. But what else? What am I gonna do? Ignore what this maniac is doing to our country? I mean, it's it's It was not even an option. And there was a time where ABC was uncomfortable with it, and they gently a couple of times tried to get me stop, and um, you know, I remember a conversation I had with UM, with someone who was running the network at the time. I was like, hey, listen, Um, you know, I get it. I understand where you're coming from. I

know you want to get the biggest number possible. But this is what I'm gonna do. So let's just be honest and if if this is not acceptable to you, I understand that, but I'm going to go I'm going to keep doing this. So, UM, I just want to be honest with you, be upfront, and then I'm not gonna pull punches. I'm not gonna reel it in. This is how it's gonna be. I get it if you don't want me on your air anymore, but this is what I'm gonna do on your air every night. To

what were your active politically prior to Trump selection? Um, most of my activity was related to charity. I wasn't, but I was. I've always been interested in politics. I have always been a Democrat. My parents are very liberal. Of course, that's where I got it, I'm sure, and I've always been. But I've never donated to a candidate or anything like that. Um. You know, I always felt strongly about who I was voting for, but I I never had actually done anything other than vote. So you're

doing the show. You have writers, What do the writers provide and what do you provide? Well? Um, every day I get like thirty pages of material email to me. I go through all of it and I pick what I want to use, and then um as the day goes on. I have a writer named Josh who sits next to me, and he will put together a monologue and I will follow closely behind him, editing the monologue as we go, so I'm like a paragraph behind him at all times. And I do a great deal of writing.

There are sometimes where I use a lot of the writer's material, and there's sometimes where I go, Okay, I just this is something I need to just write on my own. When it comes to personal experiences or when it comes to serious subjects, generally I will do that sort of thing myself. Okay. You reach seven figures of people every night, and compared to other outlets, that's a very significant number. But it is less of the audience

than it was in the pre internet era. As we talked, to what degree does this frustrate you, I say, it's not. You're not the only one. Everybody in the landscape. The only person who had universal mind share was Trump himself. Okay, but whereas you know, when I went to high school, everybody went in on Tuesday and talked about what was on laughing. We don't all we're not even all on the same page. So someone who is making content on

a regular basis, servicing a base audience is your goal. Well, how do I grow my audience or how do I do something so special that it goes above the fray and it gets noticed. I always just I'm a niche performer. Inherently, I've always been that. I was. I was the third banana on the radio show here in l A. Some might even consider me the fourth banana after Mr Burcham I was. I did a very um niche game show

on Comedy Central. I did a show that was, you know, just for men on a cable channel, and I was on Probably the most mainstream thing I've I've ever done is making football picks on Fox on Sunday Morning. So I've never felt like I should be reaching a huge audience. I've always been happy with the audience that I that I get. Um yeah, and but really most of my effort goes into how can we make this as funny as possible? Is never about like how do we you

know what I mean? Of course, I'll look at you know, if the ABC promo department has ideas, I'll be like, oh, yeah, maybe we could do this, But it's never about It's never if you. I think if you focus on that, you fail. I just you know, I think like if you think about I know you talk a lot about musicians and making a record, I think if you sit down and try to make a hit record, you're already on the wrong track. I you know, I mean, I know it works out sometimes, but you know that's that's

not how you should do it. That's a longer discussion, and I agree with you conceptually. But moving on about you, Yeah, you're a niche performer who ends up hosting the Oscars, doing a better job that anyone has done at least in decades. It is acknowledged you do it again. So yes, all of a sudden, you do float above the fray. Yeah, and but that doesn't mean I'm not still a niche performer at heart. And uh, you know, I'm not your

classic television host by any stretch of the imagination. I've got a New York accent, I'm not particularly handsome, I'm not necessarily I'm not the guy that would walk in an audition for a job and nail it. I'm somebody that kind of grows on you, I think, and who tries to be for me? I just try to I feel like and I always felt like this when I was on the radio. It's not about hitting a home run today, it's about hitting a double every day for years in a row. And that's and if I can

do that, I'm happy. Okay, that may be your perspective, but you are literally the face of ABC. You do the upfronts, never mind their big events. I can't talk about an equivalent face of the other major networks. But think about this though, Bob. Yes, maybe I am. I guess maybe one of the more prominent personalities, and maybe I'm the face of ABC. But ABC isn't isn't what ABC was when we were young, you know. I mean we think still think of it everything you're saying. But

let me dive to my ultimate point here. Okay, when you talk about important subjects on your show, there's inherently influence there. I can't tell you how many people turn into your show or already agree with you, or disagree with to tune you out, whatever, but it's influence. We have seen this with Fox News. There is power there and I'm sure if you sit in your office having a right. There's occasionally something so heinous they just have

to talk about it. But most of the time you're saying I feel this, and this needs to be amplified, and there's influence in there, and you have a much larger audience than everybody. It's like in the New York Times yesterday they talked about these anti protester laws being passed in different states, such it, if you hit a protester in the street with your car, you can't be held liable. Okay, I mean that's just insane. I don't it was in the New York Times. I think the

more people know about that, the better it is. You have a much bigger platform than almost anybody. Yes, everybody's platform is smaller than it used to be. But saying that, you were very high in the network that still exists in the in the hierarchy, and to sort of what degree do you say I have a certain power and I have a certain responsibility. Not only that I think I can influence people. Um, I know I agree with

all of that. I mean I do, yes, I do have a certain amount of influence power whatever, how whatever you want to call it. Um, I know this based on my own experiences. I know this based on listening to Bruce Springsteen when I was a kid, and that helping to shape my worldview how I I think about politics, how I think about You know, you're a kid who graduates high school in n you don't know a lot

about Vietnam um. And then you hear you hear, you know, Bruce Springsteen sing Born in the USA, and you think it's a Rara America song. And then you realize like, oh, okay, well that isn't what it is, and oh wow, that I didn't know that stuff, and and uh, you know, you're influenced by it and influenced in not just as when it comes to important things and unimportant things, and so um, I just try to say what I believe.

I remember this reporter wrote something as guy he's still a popular guy, and he's he was a nice guy. But he wrote something about a friend of mine, Carson Daley, and he wrote something about him being a douche. And I was upset because we'd had a dinner and Carson was there, and I called him and I said, Hey, do you think Carson is a douche? And he said, no, I don't think that I said, well, why did you

write that, he goes I don't know. I guess I don't know it worked because everybody at that time was saying, you know, his image was like that he was some kind of a douche. And I remember just I said, you know, maybe when you're writing, I don't know if you want to take any advice from me. Only say things you mean, and you know it's hard to stick to that, but I try to. Okay, but let's what degree do you believe that you have influence. I know I have influence, I just don't have a real measure

of it. And I think sometimes I have more influenced than others. I think, and if there is anything important that we're doing on late night television, it's reminding people that what was going on was crazy, because I think it would be maybe easy to forget that, especially if you're not somebody who is really connected to the news. I mean, I know so many people you think it's the biggest story in the world. They don't know anything

about it. You know, smart people, people who you know are have big careers and whatever, but they just don't pay attention. I think what we offer is um maybe information it's um like when you when you give a dog a pill, you know you put some you put some peanut butter on it. Okay, talking about something really important, your weight. You went on late night TV. You became very thin, thinner than you were before. Everybody has been on TV knows two things. Yes, the camera does add weight,

and no one likes how they look on television. So to what degree were you conscious of your weight? And to what degree are you conscious now and watching what you eat and exercising, etcetera. Yeah, I mean I'm conscious of what I eat and exercising. I just don't actually do I don't do the things that I need to do. I um, I am an extreme person. I like when I lost weight, and I've been pretty heavy for like ten years on on the show. When I decided to

lose weight, it was almost like a game. It was almost like, well, let's see if I can do this. And it's just starved myself for like six weeks and that's how I got my weight down. And it wasn't any It wasn't healthy, that's for sure, but it is I have to say probably the great my biggest daily shruggle is that because I love to eat and um, you know, I'm come home sometimes and make dinner for the family and then I just sit there and watch

them eat it. And it's terrible. If there's one thing I could buy, it would be the ability to eat anything I want. That would be the you know, that would be better than any house or car or anything. And what do we do? The The exercise? Um, to the degree of zero. I exercise. I was exercising for a while. I had a guy that would come to my house that I really got along with. UM and then COVID happened and he couldn't come to the house, and now he doesn't come to the house anymore. And left to

my own devices, I will always find something else to do. Okay, filling a couple of holes. Are you still a sports guy? I have? I yes, I do. I I enjoy sports. I mostly pay attention around the playoff time, but I have I will say that the last four or five years have made sports seem less important to me. And what about football and c t E. UM, I think that it is. UM. I I feel guilty sometimes watching sports. Uh. Football is not my favorite of the sports. Baseball is,

and it's less of an issue obviously there. But I have a hard time watching boxing, um because I know what happens to those guys in the long run, and I feel like it's like it's not so much different from watching cock fighting. UM. But I think I am somewhat willfully ignorant when it comes to watching football and guests. Now, the show's Letterman changed this. It used to be on Johnny the gifts just came Letterman. You have to come with the story. It became a comedy bit. How do

you view this and what makes a good or bad guest? Well, if you have a great story, I am that's a good day for me because it's a lot less work and I can just sit there and enjoy and keep the story moving. Um. Some guests are harder than others.

We definitely do things the way Letterman did, where we have a pre interview and if the guest has nothing to talk about, they sit on the phone with the producer for a long time and then they come to me and say, hey, there's this that this person can talk about, or this and this, and I say I'm not interested in that, or I am interested in this, And then sometimes the best interviews, it all gets cast aside and we get to none of that material. It's

more of a safety net than anything. But if somebody is a great story, you want to make sure you get to it. And if somebody is a great joke. The good thing about knowing what it is before and is you don't want to step on their punch line. You don't want to step on the end of it. And you know, as a comedian, you're always like kind of thinking like, where's the funny line at the end of this, and you don't want to take that from them. You want to make sure that that that there's room

for them to be funny. And your two favorite guests Charles Barkley is uh somebody that I'm always very very happy to have on the show. I love I love him. Um, It's really hard to narrow it down to two, but I will say it was always a thrill to have Don Rickles on the show. That was fun. Okay, So looking forward, how much long are you gonna do this? Um? Probably not that much longer. And when you stop doing this,

what do you plan to do? I will You know one thing I know is that whatever I think is going to happen, that never seems to be the way it goes, and that things come out of the blue. And sometimes I get excited about things and I can't control myself and I go, oh, yeah, I should definitely do this. And sometimes before you know what, you're off to the races and committed to something. You now realize that you have to be committed to. But I will

definitely produce television shows. I will, um, probably send jokes to other late night hosts when I think of them if I feel I don't have an outlet. Um. And I actually bought a fishing lodge in Idaho that I am enjoying remodeling and and fixing up. And um, I'm planning to spend a good amount of time there. Would you ever retire? Um not. I don't know that I ever fully retired. Maybe I will. I'll always do something I like to draw. That's really what I love to do. Yes,

And um, I will always keep myself busy. I always have a project and I'm I'm working on Let's go back to the hunting uh fishing lodge that I assume is in the Panhandle of Idaho, which is where Mark Ferman and a lot of white nationalists move to. It's actually not. It's it's on it's on the it's an hour from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Really yeah, on the borders. Yeah, Okay that that sort of catches me off guard because everybody else I know as a house like in Sandpoint, etcetera.

How'd you end up getting a place there? I went fishing there one summer and I said that I caught a lot of fish. I shouldn't have a place here. And so I knew the places for sale, and I started keeping an eye on it. And I have this buddy named Oliver White who's got a couple of fishing lodges and in the Bahamas and he um, and the hurricane actually demolished his fishing lodge, and I said, would you want to work on this with me? And would you want to be the guy that runs this lodge?

And he said yes, And um, you know, because obviously it's not something you can do alone and you need somebody who really knows what they're doing. And we've been working on this for the last year and a half. So this will be a commercial enterprise people, Okay. And it's up and running now. Yeah, it's been open since Okay, So what's the name of it? Since we're talking, called the South Fork Lodge. Okay, And you grew up in Las Vegas when you become such a big fisherman, I

used to fish in Las Vegas. In fact, Cleto who I mentioned earlier, who is also in my band, UM would take us to Lake Mead and we go fishing. We almost never caught anything, but we loved it more than anything. And when I'm out on the river fishing is when I really am able to stop and enjoy life. Okay, what do you do with all your money? Um? I spend it on the fishing lodge. I do a lot of stuff with with my money. Um Uh, I donated all to charity. I you know what I like to

do good things with the money. Um. I bought my parents a house, about my in laws a house. Um I bought the fishing lodge. And um, I don't love the stock market. I don't love any of that stuff. To me, it's like it's gambling. Is a bunch of people making money without actually doing anything or making anything. Um. So I like, I'm more interested in real estate than Okay, but you're handsomely paid, so I must assume there is uh cash stock or something somewhere where you know your

liquid assets? Where are those? Um my liquid assets? I don't really know. I don't really I was gonna be my next question. You don't know someone's managing that. You don't think about it. I don't think about it. I'm I. I know I have enough money and um uh, and I know I'm not being robbed. That's the extent of it. Oh, believe me, A lot of people have been robbed. Okay, so both you and me, even though I'm older than you, we grew up in a completely different America. Yeah, what's

gonna happen in America? Well, um, I like to think we're gonna we're going to reunite. But it doesn't feel like it right now, that's for sure. It doesn't even feel like I mean, even something like COVID. This should have united us. This should have been the thing. This should have been our World War where everybody pitched in and helped each other. And instead it became another right versus left situation, which is just absolutely crazy. And I

don't think anyone expected it. And I don't know that it's going on in other countries other than the countries that are influenced by the way we do things, and who see like, oh, okay, if I take that anti mask position, I'm going to attract a certain amount of people who don't trust the government and blah blah all that bullshit. Um I don't feel that optimistic. I really don't. Um. I hope I'm I very much hope I'm off and that there will be a time where we um are

all Americans again. I mean, you know, I have a flag on my house and um uh. And people sometimes get the wrong idea, which bothers me. It's like, like, hey, this is not their symbol. This is our symbol. This is You're supposed to love this country and be patriotic, and I'll do all those things that we learned. We're also supposed to be critical of our country, and we're also supposed to be welcoming to people from other countries, and we're supposed to help people who are poor. And

this idea of America first is a disgusting notion. It's it's disgusting. It's it's not that's not America. America inherently is. It was a refuge for people from all over the world to come and work together and build something. And obviously you know that there have been the groups that have been discriminated against in horrible ways. Um, but ultimately we I think we all when you and I were kids, used to feel like we're America. You know, we're all rooting for the same team. And um, now we seem

to have two teams living under the same roof. Let's just drill down a little bit. We have now reached the point where everybody wants a COVID vaccine has one. How do we nvince the how can you help convince or other people help convince the people who won't get to give vaccine to get vaccinated. I can't, Bob, I'm I do not have that cash at However, there are people like Donald Trump, for instance, who did get the vaccine, who credits himself greatly for developing the vaccine and speeding

the production of the vaccine. And why he hasn't turned well, I know why he hasn't turned the corner on that and just outright said you need to get the vaccine. Why he didn't put out a picture of himself with a needle in his arm shows his his his selfishness, his that he did that he cares more about his about keeping everyone under his his horrible little umbrella than

he does about their actual lives. These people are their lives are in danger because the people who they followed don't care about them, and they need to do or those people who who do have the trust of that community. The musicians and the athletes and the you know UFC fire. You know, these people need to speak out and they need to tell people, especially the ones who are getting the shots. We know there are lots of Republicans getting the shots. Why where are they Why aren't they telling

people telling their people to do it? Because the more I tell them to do it, the less they're gonna do it. Wow. Okay, and you're a student of the game. What's going to happen with the landscape? Let me painted for a second. Used to be network television and the movies. Now we have internet platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, etcetera. That's one thing. We have network television and the networks were smart because they ended up buying some of the cable channels.

It's just not ABC anymore, just like it's not just not BC or CBS. But we know the ratings for the networks have gone down. There are a lot of channels on that are built into the cable system, that are supported by us paying for cable that don't exist otherwise. We have the movie studios that are only making a certain kind of movie. We have multiple streaming platforms. How do you see this all playing out? I love it.

I think it's great. I think the idea that some sixteen year old kid can have his or her own TikTok video popular channel and get millions of people watching and actually make a living, uh, is a great thing. I wish I had that when I was a kid. I think I believe I wish I did too. And it was so hard. I mean, I just think about my career. It was so hard to get on the radio. It was just so hard to get in in a

in a studio in front of a microphone. And I will is under the thumb of these companies I worked for, because when I got fired, there wasn't enough. I couldn't go across the street. You know, the radio stations consolidated and it made it impossible you had to move to another city if you wanted to stay in that music format. And the idea now that anybody can can have a podcast, and that everybody's got a shot at it becoming popular, and that I mean, I just think it like it

opens the doors to the best talent. It gives you practice, which is something you really, you know, you can't get from calling in every once in a while to a radio station. It gives you those reps that you need to um, you know, to host something later in your career. And I think it's great. I think you know just what you said about the movies, and they're only making these movies, these huge superhero movies, this kind of stuff.

The punishment for that is going to be they're gonna be a million little mini movies, studios making a million little what we call them TV shows because they're not in theaters. But who cares about theaters anymore? And I think that the power structure is completely upside down, and I don't think that's bad for anyone other than the people who are at the top of it. And the future of talk shows, the future of talk shows will be shows that have much smaller audiences but have particular subjects.

And you will be able to find a talk show that you love because it really pushes every You'll be able to find a talk show about um, you know, sculpting and clay, you know, and those people on those shows aren't necessarily gonna make fifteen million dollars a year, but they might make a hundred thousand dollars a year. And that's you know. I mean, if you can do what you love and make a living from it, that's as good as it gets. And who do you listen

to for information? I mostly read, UM, I listened to Howard all the time. Not necessary for information, but just for entertainment, and um, that takes up most of my And I always read your newsletter as well. I I always read it. Um, I don't, but I always read it, and I think it's I it is amazing how much how much material you put out and how many um thoughts you have on Israeli television shows. They're the best. All the television shows I'm got happen to be Jewish.

But I didn't say, oh, I gotta sit at home watch is really television. You know what's gonna happen, Bob is you're eventually. It hasn't happened yet, but the relentlessness of the newsletter is eventually going to convince me to watch an Israeli television show. And when that does, I will send you an it happens, I will send you an email letting you know you've won. Okay, I got a couple, you know, because just to stay there for you know, they have a new season of Stistle. So

a lot of people are watching this. You've made this up. There's nothing. Well the reason I mentioned it. This is about super orthodox people in Israel, so you don't want to recommend it to non Jews. But all of a sudden, the non Jews have called on. I mean, it's one thing where you say you gotta watch this show. Okay, this is not that show, and then you say, well, maybe you want to watch Game, which is about the modern Orthodox. They're Orthodox, but they have regular jobs. Okay,

came now. But Prisoners of War was considered to be the best uh foreign TV show of the last decade. And that is first of all, it's very heavy and really great. But okay, let's just talk about the streaming TV for a minute. Okay, there are a couple of unbelievable shows that everybody should see. If you watch cops shows, the best cop show made you read a spiral? Have you seen spiral? I've not seen it. No French show. Unbelievable did you say French show? Yes, not deep meaning okay,

but incredible. Have you watched have you watched Morgan? I'm not watching it. I've seen You've seen you write about it. But for me, even pleasure is part of my job. So when I watch shows, I need to watch things that, uh that are going to that I can talk. You know. You know Howard Watson watches nothing but shitty television shows. That's because he know he's accumulating material. It's if he watches a show that's really good, there's not much to

say about it, you know. So for me, like I don't want to watch The Bachelor, but it's part of my job, and then it eats up a lot of like viewing time. And there are a lot of movies I don't want to watch, or TV shows, but I have the guest on, so I have to watch their show. So I don't have the luxury of watching Schmischel or whatever, Smuggli or whatever you watch. And I understand your point, and I understand the point you mean about Howard. Ironically,

some of these shows would help with your material. But the interesting thing, especially with COVID, people have watched so much television that they're finally looking for new television. People are lazy, So let's just watch what everybody else watches some of this stuff. If you watched Morgan, which is basically a Danish political show, the woman who is the star is so charismatic and there's certain ways she behaves

in a right end. Person is so evil and it talks about politics that would give you material because it would stimulate something. Back. Have you watched Patriot? Yes? I have, and it's a very odd show and you know, not that much happens, and you watch it, but you can't stop watching it. One of my favorite shows of the decade is it's so weird, like that that through line with the singing what's happening on the show is such sounds like such a stupid idea, and yet it is great.

You know, it's a cult people who've seen her. So what else have you seen? The like? Um? You know, the Patriot is one of those few shows that I'm able to watch from my own I was able to watch from my own pleasure, you know, because most of the stuff I watches is because I have to watch it. But um, what do I you know, I watch um Better Things Pamela Adlin show, very good. She there's something magical about her. You know, she's a she's a pip squeak. She can be sensitive, but she also can throw it

out with an edge. She's a tremendously natural actress too. U and and I find I love that show. So just having watched that show, did you watch a zse on sorry shows none? Yes? Yes, yes, that was phenomenal. Yes? Really? Did you watch Rami on Hulu? Yes? Rami is great? Yes? Yes? Because okay, so continue, you're gonna mention something beyond you know it's funny. I I don't know why. It's always hard for me. And then once we're done, I'll think of eleventh things I didn't mean to when people say

what records you're listening to? If you had something in the top of your head, I don't want to push you. The only other show I want to definitely mention, though, Chad. Have you seen Chad? No? What is Chad? This is a show on TBS and I watched it because I had to because I had the star on the show and is very, very funny, and I think you would

like it. Well, what's it about It is about a it's a an adult woman playing a teenage boy and a Ranian boy, and um, he is a hopeless nerd and as weird a character as you've seen on TV. And it's just very well done. I want to talk about one other show though. There's a show called The Bureau, another friend show about the French CIA. The first season not as good a one it turns out they do. That's fascinating because their secondary characters they're always were overpowered

by the Americans. And the other thing is they can operate in countries where we can't, Like I ran okay, but it comes very tense as it goes along, very much like you know, what you would expect from a movie. But uh, you know what kills us. I only watch shows with my wife, so uh, if you know are we have we have a few hours together, so when we watch stuff we watched together and m and so we have to pick shows that are of mutual interest. Well,

I find the same thing. It's like when I watch certainly you know Israeli show Our Boys was too violent for my girlfriend who I live with been together sixteen years next month, just as I say, my girlfriend, But uh, the other thing is go mora. Do you know the show? Yes, I you know what many of my friends have. My girlfriend won't watch it, so I you know, I only got through one episode. If I don't watch with her, my mind wanders. It's funny. So it's the same thing

everybody talks about Peaky Blinders said. My girlfriend didn't like it. I mean it's not I could watch it myself, but not really happening. And ever read a book? Have I ever read a book? No? Now? Do you have any time to read a book? Not much, but for work. I just I had to read Hunter Biden's book. Um, I had him on the show. That was the last one I read. Hunter guilty of any of the ship. The Republicans say, the laptop, it's ridiculous. How about Bayner's book?

You can have been around? No, no, no, no, he's he's he's suddenly very compassionate. I find that annoying. Okay, that's good. Who have you not had on that you want to have on? Not too many people. I've had almost everybody, but Madonna is somebody I had a I had the hots from Madonna when I was in high school. And she's never been on the show. Do you think you would be able to do your show if she came on or she would take over. She probably take off for you. It would be anybody you haven't met

that you'd like to meet. Um, you know, I Banksy to me is a very interesting character who I would love to have on the show. I think if your own any Banksy, I do, I have a couple of them. Yeah. What do you think about the self destroying uh artwork? I love it. I's he's brilliant. It's it's just uh, you know, I can't get enough of that kind of thing. Ther irreverence, the irreverence, the creativity, this even weird prank element to it. And um also just putting a pin

in all that art ship. Okay, since we're there, n f T S, what's you take? You know? I think I kind of know what they are. I've you know, I think when you hit a certain age, or at least from me, like I now have lost the ability to read directions and figure out how to do things, Like my brain is not a sponge anymore, it's a rock. And um, I think I have a basic idea of what they are. They seem to be imaginary baseball cards.

As far as they are, you understand it completely. And that was the best way for me to understand that a guy what imaginary baseball? Did somebody say that because I said none of them? He didn't use the term. You can own the term. It's great, but that's what he exactly said. I was a baseball card collector. I just want an interest, just like people own baseball cards. They're gonna have these, you know, fake baseball cards. And I felt the same way about it, as you're just ridiculous. Spot.

Maybe we should start selling imaginary baseball cards. I think you know, the window is already closed. I've got a jim Rice that I think people will be really interested in right now here. It is. Oh, I could see it. The appers to close. Jimmy. I won't keep you any longer. You know, it's interesting because you always try to find the hot point, and now I realized the hot point would be just having the conversation. I should have just brought up bullshit like a friend instead of all this

other stuff. It's like when Howard he had mad Dog on, did you listen to okay? Mad Dog kissed? Howard's asked way too hard okay, and then they you know, they cover something usually, but then he asked, mad dogs take the last half hour. I don't know if you heard that. Brilliant. Okay, he should ask him anything. Godfather one, Godfather too. He had a take on everything, And you say, god, I would love to sit with this guy because what I

love to do most is argue about all this fucking ship. Right. Yeah, yeah, you know there's if I can think of one person in my life, it's Adam Carolla, who has a take on literally any subject and a funny take usually. And in fact, I was walking with this this journalist Bill Carter at the beginning of my show, and I was telling him about Adam. I said, Adam has a take on give him. Look when we see him next. We're walking around the corner. I said, give him I think

anything you can think of. And he's like, I think. He had like a cocktail in his hand with one of those little red drinking straws, and here comes at him around the corner and he goes, Adam, what do you think of these little And I was like, yeah, that was strawn and they're straws, but they're not straws. They're like he went in the whole thing. I was like seeing there you go. I know, as I say,

I happen to like mad Dog. You know. That was one of the weird things where we went to went to satellite and lost a good percentage of his audience was supposed to Howard. But I think we've come to the end of the feeling we've known. Jimmy. I really have to thank you for taking all this. That was fun. Thanks Bob, appreciate you having me and uh, it's good to chat with you with words instead of typing Yes. Until next time. This is Bob Lefts. Thanks