Meet The Daily Show Dogs | Behind the Show

You're listening to Comedy Central Now. Hello and welcome to The Daily Show Ears edition. I'm Michael Costa, remember the news team here at the Daily Show. We're talking Daily Show dogs today because we recently held an event called in Dog Decision Rescuing Democracy, where we partnered with Headcount and Animal Haven here in New York to register people

Yeah, he's fourteen pounds.

He was twenty two before before the thyroid medication.

He looks so tiny, especially when he gets a haircut.

Wait a second, I'm hearing voices, but I don't even know who these people are.

Oh well, I'm I'm Jen Flans.

I also work with you at the Daily Show and Walter and my dog Vivian is not here a to but she is the Daily Show dog and.

A rescue where is today.

She's having a much better life than we are. She's out and about in the city with her dog Walker. She stays with him and I got a few picks earlier that she's tote around the City.

She looks great, looks like she's having.

A good She's beautiful. She's like a model.

She's a model. She's a long, leggy blonde. She's clearly adopted.

And it's a clear adoption.

This big guy, he's fifty pounds. I'm Joscelyn Khan. I also work with Walter, Vivian Jen and Michael Costa.

And this is my dog Riot. He's a rescue dog.

Came.

I've been told he came from Kentucky, and from Kentucky to Long Island. And yeah, he's fifty pounds. He's like the sweetest southern luffy guy. He probably wouldn't have survived long in the South with this kind of thick fur. But here we are, you know, in an air conditioned podcast and grown up with us.

Yeah right, I've been here since since he got to you. He's been here almost every day.

Yeah, you knows what you're talking about him.

When I came on the show, Riot was a fixture already in Quelli.

Yeah, yeast in.

Peace but Rot. As long as I have been on the show, Riot is always around putting a smile on people's face. I remember one of the first times we had a morning meeting, and there was like some heat in the morning meeting. People were arguing and it was about voter suppression and it was like getting really heated and you look over it and like Riot's tongue is just hanging out of the side of his mouth and it's just such a beautiful thing.

It's really what the dogs do for the show is immeasurable. Like you just at any moment of tension, you're running around, we're missing a deadline, relate to rehearsal, whatever it is, and then like one of the dogs comes like Tote. You're down the hallway and you're just like, how can I be stressed?

Like truly don't care about like what you're doing either, Like they just they just bring the magic into every I love when he sits on the bench instead eating and is panting but also sitting aligned up with people and it looks amazing. It's a great I have a million shots.

It's hard not to smile watching Riot be afraid of the tile floor.

That too.

Jocelyn did have to carry him down because even at fifty pounds, he is kind of a lap dog and it's scared to walk on tile.

And people are always asking me, Oh, he's still afraid of the tile, like because he's been afraid since he was little four months old.

And I was like, yep, no, this is a deep internal We don't know how it happened.

He must know something about something going on under the tile that we don't know.

And you know, don't tell us, Riot, We don't want we don't want to.

You know, a floorboard came up in the makeup room one time, and there's a lot of wires under there there, and it's possible that he does know something.

Oh he knows a floorboard did come up in the hallway ones.

Yeah, okay, so maybe Jen, you might have been here. When did the first dog walk through this of it at door?

I want to say the first.

I think there may have been a dog before for a day or so, but the first like daily show dog that came every day was Georgia Pappus's dog Cosmo.

Really yeah, she was like our e I c and she loved dogs.

And actually the production company, Hello Doggie Georgia named it.

So I'm so glad we stumbled onto the production Yes.

Right, so Georgia was the first one to introduce dogs to the office. I believe or at least make the rule,

He really wanted to showcase everybody worked with.

And we had the shot of the dogs playing poker because the dogs are such a big part of the staff. It was so cute. But anyway, then he laughed obviously,

Yeah.

Meanwhile, he came around and asked for somebody that maybe wasn't there isn't used to dogs being.

Exactly he's like dogs in our work.

Yeah, but then he came around to the point where he's like going downstairs to the catering and picking up plates for riot, Like he's like, I gotta go get right a plate and I'm like, uh.

What about dog?

Yeah, he really came around like a glamburger. Yeah.

So uh so then he became, you know, a dog lover, and there's a sister, and then Daily Show Dogs came about because the dogs were getting profiled by the doggist I think the photographer.

Yeah, okay, there was a but I remember like maybe it was YouTube particular getting the magazine article or something.

Oh yes, that was like they've done a lot of press Bark magazine.

They were on the cover.

We wanted to make it the Yeah, so we needed to.

Yeah, so the doggest because he was of the internet, that was print that was years before. But we didn't have an account to tag all the dogs like, so we so we started Johnson and I talked to Christina Pelatier, who is just a dog lover that works here and very you know great and she's.

A great she really does do She wrangles the town dogs.

She does a great job with it, and it's like just a side hustle, like she has a whole job. And a few of us have taken it on like it's a real project. But yeah, Christina, we just asked her to do it and she's like yeah.

She was like, well, absolutely yes.

And she has done so much with it.

And we have like other famous dogs accounts that are like following, and there's shelters we work with to do takeovers.

Yeah, and unfortunately, right after we started it, we were like, you know, taking.

Shots of the dogs all over the office.

We had great content, and then of course the pandemic, We're like, okay, great immediately likes later and we were like, okay, everyone's sending your dog picks from home.

I mean I set up multiple shoots during the pandemic of Walter. There was a green screen behind him at one point. I don't know, you're committed. I love it. And also another part of the Daily Show that I believe is completely unique to it compared to other late night shows.

I don't think the other even.

If they have dogs, they have not embraced they.

Don't have Daily They're not capitalizing on that the way we are.

We are pimping ours out, yes, but I also think it's one of the things that's really special that I don't know if everyone knows.

But the other shows are like in.

Thirty Rock or like big more corporate spaces, and we are of this little studio all the way to like in the River.

Basically, I always think it's funny that we are building it's next to a horse stable, like ride has grown up in the city, but with horses.

Like I'm always like, oh, he's just so he's.

Used to horses because we're constantly like walking next next to horses.

Yeah, Vivian tries to eat the horse poop every time.

I like, vivianv.

All right, we're gonna take quick break. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Hey, it's not all fun and games here at the Daily Show with the dogs. Let's and this is not on the sheet. There has been a couple scared not scary. There had to be a couple like negative dog moments.

There were definitely definitely Well, first, the saddest is when somebody here loses a dog and then it's like, oh.

My god, heartbreaking because we're all attached it.

My old dog, Parker came here every day and then it was like coming here and having everybody love her so much was such a comfort when I lost her. But I feel like for all of us we kind of more in the loss of a dog that's go every day. But then also, you know, Parker used to get into it with Ali Greenberg.

Was definitely just going to.

Say, raise your paw if you hated Parker. This guy attacked Parker a few times because Parker was curious and energetic and would would bounce around and if he was eating his food, I didn't like that someone was checking out.

Yeah, listen, they get territorial. If it's their office, it's their office.

But yeah, so there.

Can be Most of the dog owners here are really responsible. I would say they know their dogs and they know not to like if your dogs, you know, resource guard, like you don't let them around the other dogs. But then there there was like some of the dogs just too weird. Things like Qually used to rub up on leather couches, remember like a leather.

Fetish, leather towel fetish too.

He would go into John's office and like just take the towel off the towel rack, rub around on the bath man.

Who's which if you're a dog? But I did that once and he did not like.

And not for people dogs totally.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of the other Like, I mean, my Parker once stole a meap all off the catering table.

Yeah, that's an epic Parker dog legendary story.

We didn't know who did.

Like we we used to go remember when dogs would steal food out of the garbages and we'd go back and watch.

Security footage to figure out which dog ate.

It, not because we wanted to get them in trouble, but we wanted to tell the owner, dog's gonna diary of to night.

So so you know, you just reminded me there was a big dog turd in the like edit Bay hallway and someone told me it was Walter and I didn't believe them, and I went, this was back when I went Nick was Nick was at the front, and we're like rewinding. I'm like, it must have been a slow day because he was very generous with this time with me, and I watched my dog do it.

That happened with Riot recently, my daughter he got sick, you know, then we had to get a new carpet up at the upstairs.

I will say this show puts.

The dogs at such.

Level of importance here, it's really nice. It's like, you know, nobody's mad.

Everyone couldn't have been nicer about it. I felt terrible. I was sweating your tears. Everyone was so nice.

You were really that upset about it. I mean, because your dog is such a well behaved the.

Most trafficked area of the building, like during the busiest part of the day, I'm on. I will spare the details, but I'm on my knees like I was being up you know, yeah stuff, And I was genuine because our showrunners taking time whatever.

How many times Parker when she got older, got sick, yeah she was. Everybody was cleaning up Parker. It's like, okay, I remember people. Anytime I got paged in like the last two years of her life, I'm like, oh god, barfter boots.

Where school or daycare calls, it's never to say we love your kids, and she's so smart, so good. The dog park across the street, I feel like I go there sometimes with Walter. I don't ever see Daily Show dogs. There is that a well. By the way, Walter just slays underneath the bench. So it's like, why did I do this? But I don't see a lot of daily show dogs.

I'll tell you my experience, which has been a couple when he was younger. I used to go like once, you know, like I try to go every day, even comes in the morning or like the evening or.

Whatever, and just you might know this, and you definitely know.

This dog parks can't get iceal dicey like the owners. Sometimes there's some there's some stuff that goes down that you're like, you know what, I don't know if I want to be a part of this.

Maybe not.

And then like you know, there's some questionable dogs that come in and neighborhood politics come into play, like there signs up about like passive aggressive signs about this one dog that came in and ate my little dog.

Yeah, I mean you don't want to get I've seen some crazy.

I got too involved and I was like, you know what, I'm going to stay out of it.

It's like I'll just do the loopy.

Yeah, if it's like empty in the morning, it's a good place to get them tired.

But otherwise I'm like, we have at this place. Is a dog around? Yeah? Basically so they have friends here, the socialize here.

Yeah, I'm met a woman at that dog park who was like made station. Anyways, I hired her. She made me say.

It was amazing.

Ronnie hired her, and then Roy hired her all because so much business, because if she'd make of it. But I'm like, that's so funny. I don't even know if she has a dog, and then she just hangs out there looking for business.

That's great.

Now I feel bad about the guy who used to try and sell me jewelry there.

Oh yeah, he's good. I bought my wife. I'm just kidding. It's Ronnie.

It is a good place to sometimes find dog walkers.

Oh yeah, because you're like, oh that guy is being or girl, it's really responsible with that dog.

I'm like, is that your dog?

Or are you?

Oh you're a walker? Can I get your number?

Let's talk about in dog Scision? Am I saying that?

Yeah?

In Dog Decision twenty twenty four Rescuing Democracy?

Let's talk about that. What is it? How to come about?

Well, it came about because we are a dog show, right, Like we love the dogs here.

Got the Daily Show dogs.

And there's a long history of John loving dogs, and unfortunately Dipper, who was a Daily Show dog back in John's first round, passed away and John did you know attribute to him on the show, And all these people reached out to Animal Haven to donate, and then we were in touch with Animal Haven about all these donations.

It's so nice.

And then we also are in our election season, so we're trying to think of a way to combine two things that the Daily Show really loves and cares about, and so we basically were like, hey, what if we combined rescuing dogs and getting people to vote? And then we thought of a really dumb title and it was born.

We're gonna so you can actually adopt a dog at this event. You can you can come to a Daily Show event which is already fun, and you can walk out with a new member of your family who's now going to be a Daily Showed.

Dogma also a member of the Daily Show. That's cool exactly, So it's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's also very good to remind all people you do have.

To register to vote, yes, and you can't do it at the last minute. Right, we're in the summer, but think ahead everyone. Let's we like to remind people to like and it's that hard.

It's not hard.

And also I mean selfishly. You you register and you vote, so then you can bitch. Yes, you vote, so you're allowed to complain.

You can't complain unless you want to vote. If you did not vote, don't talk.

To me about it.

Don't talk. Now, let's talk about headcount. What is headcount for those people that don't know.

Headcount is a nonpartisan organization that registers people to vote and makes it easy for you so that if you you know, I think there's a lot of confusion like this.

This country makes things very confusing. Sometimes it's actually very simple.

And they mobilize on the ground and and you know, sign people up to vote.

And yeah, they used to do it in our audience line.

They did, but then they found out that our audience is generally already registered to vote. We were not getting that many people registering because we have a really engaged audience already. But you know, it's it's great. It's non partisans. It's a group that's just like, just vote.

I like that.

Yeah, non partisan reasurre to vote. If you want adopt a dog, though you have to be Democrat, yeah, pretty much obviously, But dogs give me demo. I think Walter honestly, I think part of why Walter's so unhappy is I feel like he's a Republican trapped in a Democratic house.

You guys at a lot of dinner table, he does have.

The anger of a Republican. We have more events for head coming up.

Yeah, we are partnering with headcount on. We're going to be taking this to Milwaukee and Chicago, in Milwaukee on July fourteenth and in Chicago on August eighteenth, right before the convention.

The convention, and you can register to vote YEP, and adopt a dog correct, And you can do either one of those individuals. You don't have to do both, don't have to do both.

We could just come look at dogs and register.

I think there's also head Counts encouraging you to like have your friends check their registration things like that.

So it really is. It's an event for anybody.

Yeah, and even I know what people are thinking right now. But I have young kids. You might see by Lacasa there. I have young kids. They're not even eligible to registered about yet. Well, what a great way to introduce them to how easy it is to be a member of the Democratic Society.

There you go, there you go, there you go.

I want to thank you both for being here on the in Dog Decisions. No, thank you, You're welcome.

Walter.

Any last thoughts on dogs or anything and that you want to share anything like with the guests with their dogs.

And yes, we do encourage our guests to bring their dogs if they have them.

Or if we know that they have a dog.

And I remember once Amanda ciphered, Yeah, her dog Finn, and he's kind of like fluffy and like they him and Riot had like similar dispositions and it was like they made for many pictures.

They were very adorable together.

I remember Pete when he was running for president, he just loved the dogs. They really yeah, they just stopped them. A lot of the guests get excited about the dogs. Sometimes they even ask, oh, I've seen Riot on Instagram, can you bring him back?

I mean, Riot's a celebrity.

He just had a request the other day for me to bring him back.

Well, when you're a guest somewhere and you're feeling the nerves in different plays, the lighting is different, you're about to perform, and then you see a freaking dog walk by, it just it just it totally chills you out. Yeah, it is a really smart move. Again that we're doing solely for our branding.

Solely.

We're very I think it's it's a mental health thing here. We're concerned about everyone, our g gusts, our staff and so and also you know, daycare for our dogs.

Yeah, oh my god, it's that from like logistical and financial standpoint, is tremendously helpful for me and my family.

I can just bring up, I can just bring him and like, you know, you get to spend time with him all day. He's here, he's having fun, you know.

What he's doing.

Even though in the field piece I recently shot with the pet psychic, she read his mind and said that Walter doesn't believe when I bring him to work that it's quality time.

With That makes sense.

Fact, that's just that's just one psychic.

Maybe get, maybe you should spend a couple of minutes each day just with him.

I think this is great and it's been a lot of fun being on a podcast with both of you for the first time. And uh, we'll see you at the.

Next the Next Dogcision twenty twenty four, rescuing in democracy.

There you go, Jen Flans, Jocelyn conn thank you for coming by The Daily Show Ears edition. We'll see you next time, Walter. Let's go sniff some ass.

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