After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Adam Carolla on Colbert's Demise and Why Kimmel is Like Trump, PLUS Jessie Murph’s Wildly Controversial "1965"

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Emily Jashinsky is joined by Adam Carolla, host of “The Adam Carolla show,” to discuss the meltdown over Late Night, why comedy needs a revamp, Donald Trump’s and Jimmy Kimmel’s “Alpha” personalities, his take on Ellen leaving the U.S. for the U.K., what really went on behind the scenes of Ellen, the need for less wigs in the WNBA, and he walks down memory lane and reveals the secrets of his time with Dr. Drew during Loveline and Dawson’s Creek. Then Emily dives into the controversy over 1965 by Jessie Murph, American Eagle’s ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, and why college is proving to be a dead end for some in Gen Z.PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229.Delta Rescue: Visit https://DeltaRescue.orgto learn more Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right. Hey, hey, hey, what's up, everyone? Happy Monday. It's 10 p.m. So, you know, we are here live on after party every Monday, 10 p.m. every Wednesday, 10 p.m. The hardest days are Thursday through Sunday when I don't get to convene with everybody here live. It's the most fun that you could possibly have professionally underscored. Actually, that point is underscored by our guest tonight, who is the great Adam Carolla host of the Adam Carolla show. We are then going to get into the, uh, the, the very deep, and I mean that not so sarcastically, discourse over Jesse Murph, which is like half a name, Jesse Murph, and Sydney Sweeney. So a lot to get to today. Let's go ahead and start with the one and only Adam Carolla. Do we have Adam guys? Well, we're working on it. This is live, of course. So we're working on getting Adam Carolla, who is going to be joining us to in just one second because I can see Adam Carolla. Oh, Adam Carolla has joined us in real time. Adam, thank you so much for being here.

My pleasure. I've got a lot to talk to you about, and I want to start with Late Night. And probably the best way to begin is maybe with this clip of David Letterman, who's offered his analysis of Stephen Colbert, not just Stephen Colbert being eliminated, but actually the entire Late Show franchise being eliminated.

So if it's all right, Adam, I'm going to play this clip of David Letterman reacting to everything that's, happen and get your reaction on the backside. This is S-4. Don't know that? These guys are bottom feeders. That's exactly what this is. Of course they know that broadcast television is withering. So now they just want to make sure on top of buying something that doesn't have the same value as it had 30 years ago, they don't want to be hassled by the United States government. So they want CBS to take care of all of that mess.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll get ready for you. I don't finish it. I think this at one day, if not today, people at CBS who have manipulated and handled, handled this, are going to be embarrassed because this is gutless. I only wish this could happen to me. This would have been so great for me. Yeah, this would have been unbelievable. And now we all got to walk around. We've got to kiss Stephen Colbert's ring now. Okay, Adam, do you think the people behind the cancellation of the late night or the late show, and Stephen Colbert's tenure on late night will one day find themselves, quote unquote,

embarrassed by the decision. No, I don't really think anyone in show business, they don't get embarrassed by sex tapes. They make money off it, you know? It's hard to embarrass showbiz folks. It's like embarrassing divorce attorneys or something. Like, you know, how can you live with yourselves? Like, what do you mean?

I love me, you know? So, no, there's not going to be embarrassing them. You know, I used to work for a living in the construction field, and it was always really, no matter how long I've been in show business, I can't get over, like, when Conan was pissing and moaning about being promised the 1130 slot, and he's angry because he always wanted to do that. It's like saying, I always wanted to play shortstop for the Yankees, and now I'm pissed. It's like, well, oh, sorry, it's a very limited job. You're getting millions of dollars from these people to work in the evenings. And I'm just old-fashioned. I don't really care who you are.

I don't, if it's John Stewart, who I think of as a friend or Colbert or Letterman or Conan or anybody, like, I don't know, when you're getting paid millions of dollars by an entity, it's their prerogative to do whatever they want. And if you're not owed anything and they didn't chip you. And, you know, really think about the optics of making $20 or $30 million a year and then playing the victim to, you know, the people who watch you's average income is $49,000 a year. You know, it's just, I'm maybe old school, but I do believe if you employ somebody, you're allowed to fire that somebody. And you don't have to explain to them why and you don't have to talk about the politics of it. one way or the other, you cut the checks, you're done cutting them checks in six months or

whenever it is, and that's your prerogative. And the people that got rich off it should shut up. Well, okay, so speaking of another person who got rich off of it, but who I think actually maybe has a better take here, this is Jay Leno, want to get your reaction to this one. This is S6, Jay Leno, kind of talking about how different the format of late night is now. And, And, you know, I don't think he mentions Stephen Colbert directly here, but they're clearly doing a sort of, I call it monoculture versus microculture. Carson had, and we have a Carson clip too, but Carson had just a much bigger slice of the public to appeal to.

And I think Jay Leno here is lamenting that people now are appealing to smaller niches. So let's go ahead and play S6. It's fun to me when I got hate letters from statements and you and your Republican friends, well, Ms.line, I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy. Over the same joke. And I go, well, that's good. So that's how you get a whole audience. Now you have to be content with half the audience

because you have to give your opinion. Why shoot for just half an audience all the time? Why not try to get the whole... I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture. I don't understand why you would alienate one particular group, you know. Or just don't do it at all. I'm not saying you have to throw your support or whatever. But just do what's funny.

Adam, one question I have for you, because you'll know the dynamics better than I do for sure, is now one reason, actually, people alienate half of their audience is because so many fewer people are watching in general that it's easier to sell ads to a loyal group of people rather than trying to bring in a giant piece of the pie because everyone has so many different choices. Do you think that's what's going on here or is there something else happening? I, you know, I don't know what. the dynamic is behind a lot of stuff. Like, I can't tell if it's just a personal preference thing, or it's an overt, you know, attempt to make money.

I personally have just always sort of said what I wanted to say, and I never really thought much about who was angry or who was listening or anything. I mean, every comedian says that, but I think some probably don't. I think I think Colbert and any late night comedian, and by the way, news anchors used to be this way, and Sunday show anchors used to be this way, and reporters used to be this way. They felt there was a kind of a thing in our society in general

where you were a little bit stoic about things. There's no Pedro Piscale talking about. about all this emotional difficulties he's having. Was he not stoic? You want to call a guy pussy, right? And thrown him off the ship. Like, well, what I'm saying is, is there isn't it, I mean, I'm just sort of thinking this out in real time,

but it wasn't about late night and it wasn't about politics. It was in general, if I'm having issues at home, or I'm an issue with my children or whatever, that's our business. That's like our family business. I'm not going to take to some Twitter that didn't exist back then, but write op-ed pieces and stuff talking about how much I hate my daughter or something or my son's transitioning or something.

It was like there was a decorum. It's like people used to dress to go on an airplane. And so late night show hosts, news anchors, news reporters, doctors and lawyers weren't going to oblige and give you, let you know how they felt about everyone all the time. You know, they, you know, if you, if you brought up a Trump-like character, you know, in the 60s, then Jack Parr would have said, well, not exactly my cup of tea, but I'm sure some people find him amusing or some, some snarky and a little underhanded, but then when you'll

fuck Trump and start screaming it over and over again into a camera lens, you know. So it was like there was a decorum. And we didn't know what Johnny Carson thought politically because he didn't, want us to because he didn't believe just like whatever marital issues he was having or situations at home, that wasn't our business. He was there to entertain us and we weren't there to know everything about him. And now we've gone into some realm where these people have to be more than talking heads who entertain us. They have to be our friends and our, you know, co-sponsors And so they're going to start talking about things that they never would have talked about that were personal.

You know, Jay, I should say, David Letterman famously had his whole heart situation and a medical scare and he got out there and, you know, came to tears and was talking about the surgeons that saved him and stuff. And it was a moving moment. But Johnny Carson wouldn't have done that because that wasn't for us, you know, and it wasn't. comedy. He was doing the comedy. That was him. That was his doctor. So I think in general, it's just a lot more sharing going on. And I think if it's, you know, the ladies from the view or a late night show, I think we're going to know how they feel about politics nowadays. There's no more of that. And I don't know that people want to go back to those days where we had no idea, you know, I mean, hell, a guy could be gay for 50 years and be on TV every day,

wouldn't do it. That guy's a bachelor and he's 74 years old. Well, we knew David Letterman wasn't gay. Let's roll this clip of Johnny Carson. He had a room. Let's roll Johnny Carson. This is S5. He was being interviewed actually by Mike Wallace. And this sort of gets to, I think, the sentiment that used to drive the entire late-night ecosystem. So this is S-5. Do you get sensitive about the fact that people say, You'll never take a serious controversy. Well, I have an answer to that. I said, now, tell me the last time that Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Benny, comedian, used his show to do serious issues.

That's not what I'm there for. Can't they see that? But you're not... Why do they think that just because you have a tonight show that you must deal in serious issues? That's a danger. It's a real danger. Once you start that,

you start to get that self-important feeling that what you say has great import. And, you know, strangely enough, you could use that show as a form. You could sway people. And I don't think you should as an entertainer. Adam, there it's almost eerie how accurately he describes what Stephen Colbert has become, at least from my perspective. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I mean, sadly, there's a lot of, look, I wrote a book 15 years ago called

in 50 Years, Walby, Chet. and basically happened in 12 years. So, I mean, there's lots of tape, lots of books, lots of KGB agents from the 80s explaining what they're going to do to the American mind. And you go, but that's what we just did. That was COVID, you know. So there's a lot of prescient stuff out there. I agree, on the other hand, it's your show and it's got your name on it.

and you should be able to say what you want. And then once you say what you want, you should be prepared for any consequences that may arise from saying whatever you want. So I think that's the stage we're at. I don't find it, I don't feel like Kobe's been victimized. And I don't feel like this is anything other than what shall be

when you just do what you want to do. I mean, personally, I, you know, as long as stuff is funny, that's kind of, that's the bar that it needs to clear for me. Sometimes stuff just turns into something else, like activism or something. Yeah, let's put this Trump post up. This is F1. This was a truth social from last Tuesday. He said the word is, it's a strong word at that.

Jimmy Kimmel is next to go in the untalented late-night sweepstakes, and shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely no talent who were paid millions of dollars for in all cases, destroying what used to be great television. It's really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it. Let's also then put up Kimmel's response. This is F2. He said, I'm hearing your next responding to Trump, or maybe it's just another wonderful secret, alluding, of course, to that Wall Street Journal report that Donald Trump said something about a wonderful secret in a Jeffrey Epstein birthday book,

which is something that sounds like a madlib. But Adam, did you predict that Kimmel would become a chick this quickly? Well, first off, can we leave poor Jimmy Fallon out of this? The guy just does impersonations, does a great Bruce Springsteen plays the acoustic guitar. I mean, I don't know how he got balled up in this whole mess. I don't know that Fallon's ever done anything political. Jimmy is always been feisty, I guess would be the, when we were taping the man show once,

he literally almost punched a guy in like the front row, kept telling him to shut up or something. The guy, like, I don't know, a guy was probably drunk or something. And I was like, I was like, it's going to be a lawsuit. I don't know. You were the chick in that situation. I was the chick in that. I was the chick in that.

that situation. Jimmy hates Trump. Trump hates Jimmy. Jimmy's pretty alpha E. Trump's pretty alpha E. I realize there's a lot of alpha on alpha battles going on. You know, us betas are just popping the popcorn and sitting back and watching.

Letting the alphas go out. It's weird. I like Trump and I like Jimmy. Like I've known both. Obviously, I know Jimmy a lot. a lot better. They're both exquisitely different, but, you know,

there may be some of the same kind of alpha componentry, somewhere lurking in both of them. And, you know, the thing about Jimmy is my daughter's working for him right now. I mean, not at the show. She's on it doing his lawn. But, no, she's at the show. And he's treated me and my family and my kids, especially like, you know, precious gems, his whole life.

He's always been generous with me. He's always been good with me. So I cannot summon any negative words about Jimmy Kimmel. I don't agree with everything that comes out of his mouth, but I didn't agree with everything that came out of his mouth when we shared an office together for all those years. But I've always loved Jimmy, and I've always felt indebted to Jimmy. And I like Trump as well.

And there is probably some universe somewhere where those two avatars could have a beer and have a laugh. But not today. What a beautiful moment that would be. But is, so, okay, Trump is actually arguing something that a lot of his detractors, or a lot of his supporters are not.

They're saying this had nothing to really do with Donald Trump. It was just that Colbert wasn't very funny. And here you have Trump saying, I hope I was the reason that Colbert started to fail. Well, I don't like when people hang the not funny on people they disagree with. You know what I mean? Like, I disagree with a lot of comedians.

And there are some who aren't funny. But like, you can't go about Jimmy. You can't go, not funny. You know what I mean? And in a weird way, I think you hurt your case, you know, when you just start, people I've had it obviously done to me

people do that thing where they go this guy's an asshole and he's not funny and it's like well you know Jimmy's been doing comedy for 30 years

he's been getting paid to do comedy for 35 years he is funny he knows how to be funny you may not agree with the some of his jokes

but I don't like when people get you know wholesaling you know the untalented Jimmy Fallon's very talented talented guy.

And I get what Trump's doing. He's got to paint with a broad brush. But in a weird way, I think you kind of hurt, you know, I'll put it to you this way. It's like when AOC goes, Elon Musk, that guy's an idiot, man. He don't know anything, man. It's like, okay, bitch, you seem stupid. You seem really stupid now because, yes, he knows things.

I'd say it's fair to say he's not an idiot. And by the way, if he's idiot, if, if Elon Musk is an idiot, that makes AOC fully retarded. Right? I mean, she's got to be almost vegetable. Medically. She's like Terry Shivo. I mean, right? I mean, if you're just doing, we're not in good shape either if Elon Musk is an imbecile.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. On the grand scheme of things. but so I don't like when people do that. Just say, you know, the guy's smart, he's done some good things. I disagree with this latest thing he did or whatever that thing, whatever your bitch is currently, you know. But I feel that way with comedians. I hate when people go, oh, and funny, you know.

Well, it's the same standards. It's like if the resistance wine moms are laughing at something that Colbert said and the like MAGA voters are laughing at something that a kind of right-wing coded comedian said, it's funny because people are laughing. It's sort of the same, it meets the same very low bar. Yeah. Well, I don't, you know, I do think, I do think Trump is responsible for a lot of people's, I don't know, demise. I'm not talking about Kimmel, but I'm just saying in general, he gets under their skin and then they get a sort of obsession with him.

and then they become preoccupied. And it's like in a movie, it's like in a basketball movie where you say to your little player, you know, go bug their star center, just keep bugging. And eventually the guy snaps and punches him and gets thrown out of the game.

Like there's an element of that with Trump. And the guy's laying on the ground, he's got a bloody nose and he looks at his coach and he smiles, you know, because that guy's going to the locker room. There's an element of that with Trump. Well, okay. So that's a great, there's a great transition into the one and only Ellen DeGeneres.

And I want to ask you, Adam, if you stick around to this very quick break, all about Ellen's move over to the United Kingdom. First, though, over the years, I have, of course, been clear about this. I'm not just pro-birth. I'm pro-life. And being pro-life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but long after. And that is exactly why I partner with pre-born.

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to see her baby. And when she does, she's twice as likely to choose life. twice as likely to choose life. Preborn is trying to save 70,000 babies this year. So don't just say you're pro-life. Live it, help babies and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com slash Emily or call 855601-229. That's preborn.com slash Emily. Speaking of babies, let's bring Adam Carolla back in to weigh in on Ellen DeGeneres, who is now in the United Kingdom for some reason. So let's go ahead roll this clip of Ellen DeGeneres from last week, S-7 talking about what she perceives as a grave injustice occurring under our noses here in the United States.

People in America and Republicans who are quite like to undo the right for gay people to get married. I mean, that's back on the table as a debate, I think, isn't it? Absolutely. The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage. They're trying to, at the very least, stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it. And Portia and I are already looking into it.

And if they do that, we're going to get married here. Honest to God didn't realize. They love their bodd lines. They love it. I thought they were married years ago. She says she's also, this is F3. She says she moved to the UK because of Trump, which reminds me of exactly what you were just saying, Adam,

that something about Trump himself seems to have triggered the unraveling of very talented people. Do you consider Ellen to be one such case? Well, Ellen has always been a mean person. And it's not, you know, she had her dust up with the press and these stories probably three years, two or three years ago. But I did her show. And I mean, look, I'll tell you truthfully sort of how it works when you do every show. Every show has its own kind of personality, the show itself. not the on-air show, but the behind the scenes,

they all take on sort of the personality of their leader. And it's sort of like when you go into a business and people are always all friendly, or they're going to a business and everyone's sort of dushy, you know, and you're going like, what's going? Why is everyone so mean and crappy in this business? You know, it's the owner is that way, you know? And so when you would go do Letterman,

I'll start here. When you do Leno, Leno was fun and breezy and easy and people were nice and they were kind of laid back and they weren't looking over their shoulder at all. And it was very kind of laid back. And Kimmel's show is laid back and nice and people are nice. And Letterman show people are scared or they were scared when I did. Two times I did. They're scared because Dave would scare them. and Ellen's show people were scared, real scared.

And I knew they were scared because it's like, I was just sitting in my dressing room, and they're like segment producer came in, and he went, all right, so we went over all the stuff. We're going to talk about, you know, Christmas vacation or whatever it was. And I go, yeah, yeah. And she goes, you're not going to talk about meat or beef or anything like that, right? And I go, no, I'm not.

I'm just going to talk about the stuff we talked about going on vacation or Christmas or the kids or, you know, their anecdotes, you know. Okay, all right, okay, all right. And he, like, came back like 20 minutes later right before I went out. And it's like, okay, but don't talk about beef or meat or any. And I was like, you got two warnings? Yeah, yeah. And I was like, oh, this guy's scared to death.

This guy's scared. And then later on, I talked to someone who, signed an NDA, so I won't say his name, but he wrote for Ellen. And I just went, how's Ellen? And he said, worst person, worst person. And then we went, not worst person I've worked for. Worst person I've ever met. And by the way, I knew the guy did Rosie when Rosie was the Judy Chub Club, the worst and the meanest. So I don't know, some kind of, some sort of mean off between Rosie and her prime and Ellen. Ellen in her prime, you know, the Clash of the Titans.

Mentioned mud wrestling. She's, I like that, but. So she's not a nice person at all, which now everyone knows what I knew 15 years ago or whenever I learned it, but now that seems to be common knowledge, which I was, I was trying to explain everyone how mean she was. not because she was mean to me because everyone was scared of her, which means she's mean. She's not going to be mean to me. I'm a guest on the show, right?

I wouldn't know it for my exchanges. I would know it with how her staff was cowering. So also, they make so much out of this. Like they're going to try to do it. They're not going to do anything. Obviously, it's a form of narcissism where I'm going to have to come here and do that. And she crosses her legs like Barack Obama, which is. that. So specific.

It's such a specific. Well, the more progressive you are, the deeper your cross. Okay. And if you watch Barack Obama, his is like a full, deep, deep cross, because he has to, him and Justin Trudeau and Gavin

Newsom have to do like super deep crosses to signal to their constituency where they're at. You learn the further left you go, that's a sort of that's passed down. politician, position. Trump puts his souls of his feet together,

spreads his knees as wide as they can, and then makes a diamond around his nut sack so everyone can, like an offering. You know, it's like accentuate. Hey, over here, right down. Here we are. Can't get my knees closer than 26 inches together. Nobody will ever do it like him.

No, no, I'll ever do it like him. Well, okay, so here, let me play this WNBA clip because I bet they do a deep cross. Well, actually, maybe they do more of a trump. I'll get away in after that. Let's first play S-10 here. This is WNBA player on Sunday, losing her wig in the middle of a game,

and then a fan got kicked out for making fun of the lost wig, S-10. It bounced around a lot, but at the end, I went through the rim. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, she's going to go ahead to the back. back. Time out call for copper to deal with the malfunction. Here are a beautiful passer, Christy. Just what she's been able to do from a center standpoint, Christy. And now they have an issue with a fan.

as the officials as Phoenix's bench had an issue there okay amazing so she runs into the locker room Adam I imagine or I just assume maybe this is an incorrect assumption but that you were watching this live so tell us what that meant to you in the moment

well I about lost my wig I don't I've said it a million times these WNBA players and or NFL or NBA, but when your hair is three and a half feet long

and it's braided and you whip around like in the post, you're going to detach someone's retina. Like it becomes a weapon. Like there's certain things like like UFC fighters. You see those guys, some of them had like the big lumberjack beard.

Those gloves are like three ounces. You've got five inches of lumberjack beard growing from your chin, that's like adding another two ounces to your opponent's gloves. Like, seriously, like, they shouldn't be allowed to have huge beards. If a guy throws an uppercut, he starts connecting with the beard five inches away. By the time he gets to the guy's chin, he's got another inch and a half of padding, you know? And, like, there's stuff that I'm not kidding about. Like, they should just go, look, you want to play in the WNBA.

You can. You cannot have hair down. to your waist. You're not allowed to have a wig. You're not allowed to have big long nails. You're not allowed to have crazy eyelashes. And you want to play in the NFL, you can have dreadlocks, but you have to tuck them into your jersey because we need to be able to read your name on the back. We cannot have your hair obscure your name. Why do we have names on the back of jerseys? I cannot read yours shut down cornerback for the Ravens because your hair is over it. Like, certain rules.

This is make rules. And they're constantly whipping around. Their hair's like whipping around. They're grabbing each other by the hair. No wigs. It's got to be the rule. And you can have hair as long as you want, but you've got to like tuck it into your jersey.

Or like, look, if you work at a Taco Bell, they got rules about hair. Gotta wear hair in it. Yeah, but Taco Bell makes a lot more money than the WMBA. Yeah, that is true. I'll see guys working in factories. stuff who have beards. I got a beard net on, you know? Like, hey, it's a rule. You work here. Make it. Well, okay, so the WMBA obviously wants to get paid a lot more right now.

And I've actually seen even like Dave Portnoy saying their ratings are going up. They're making more money. They probably should get paid a little bit more. But at the same time, they've always been basically subsidized by the NBA, whatever their ratings are going up or however many tickets they're selling. It's, it's, it's, it's, just absolutely nothing compared to the WMBA and so, or to the NBA, and so much of this is coming specifically from Caitlin Clark, who every game, it seems like, is being targeted for death is about to get the absolute, like, death penalty every time she steps foot on the court because people have so little tolerance for the woman who is now bringing in all of the

revenue for the sport. So where do you fall on the WMBA pay scale, Adam? Do you think they're grossly underpaid? Well, that's the beauty of women. They will hate. the one who does the most, it gets the most attention and makes the most money for them. They will hate her the most. That's the beauty. That's the real wiring of women. You know what they go, how come we can't have a women, woman president? We have 51% of the population.

Well, you can't, that's why. They all vote for Biden. Yes. Caitlin Clark has come in, revolutionized the whole league, and it's going to get everyone paid more, and they all hate her guts. That's the beauty of women. I don't study the economics of the WNBA anymore than I study the economics of Coburn late night.

But if you're losing $40 million a year and we're to believe that, then yes, you should be you should be 86th, as Comey would say. Do you know that guy as a WMBA fan, by the way? Oh, he loves it. Well, he's 6-8. Deep cross. Deep cross, like the tall latest. So, you know, my whole thing is like, look, let's just sit down and look at the books.

See how much you guys are making. See what the TV revenues are. See what the turnstile revenues are. And we can see about how we're going to whack that up. In the meantime, Caitlin Clark's going to get paid more because she means more to her franchise and is doing Nike deals and things. But I just mean, I don't have a hard and fast. rule about it one way or the other. I'm just like, why don't we take a look, see what the numbers are, and do some projections, and then pay accordingly like many other entities.

Yeah, it seems sort of common sense, but we're well beyond that. Now, Adam, I had to ask you about your, what I think can only be described as stirring cameo on Dawson's Creek season six, and I'm going to do something. I don't know that it's ever been done before. I'm going to make you watch a clip of it live. They're still buzzing about it. I know. Every day. Every day I hear someone at the water cooler. So this is S-8. This is Adam on season 6 of Dawson's Creek. It was an episode called Loveline that I will say held up very well. Let's go ahead and roll it.

Were there any warning signs and any problems in the relationship? No, none. Well, I did sleep with one of her friends. But just one, right? Women don't know her. They don't mind that kind of stuff. Can't be that. But she knew about it and it was before we got together, so that doesn't really count, right?

Have you simply tried asking for an explanation? Well, that's the thing. Every time I try to talk to her, she treats me like I'm Father Damien. He was a leopard. Yeah. Oh, sure. The famous leper, Father Damien. Drew, you wrote your thesis on Father Damien, did you not?

Alright, uh, listen. I say, run. I mean, this chick's a head case. She's going to take you down. I promise you. Thank you, Adam, for that astute insight. But if you don't mind me saying so, I think that CJ's problems here are really subordinate

to those of the many members of this audience who have actually paid good money to listen to your vastly underqualified advice. You're so lucky I don't know what subordinate means, honey. Adam, you definitely know what subordinate means. You know, I think she won an Oscar, and yet my acting was on a par with hers. So that's not mean I deserve an Oscar,

as well. Yes. This is the WNBA standard, so I think you already have an Oscar. You're right. Yeah. Did you write those lines for yourself, or were those lines written for you? I don't remember that much about the week we spent filming with Dawson's Creek because we were doing it.

They filmed in Wilmington. of the Carolinas, which one? Yeah, North Carolina. North Carolina. They filmed in North Carolina. And there's a three-hour time difference in North Carolina. And we had to do Lovelin the radio show every night. And that meant that we had to do Loveline radio show from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Every night. And then go back to the hotel. and go to bed about 3.30 or 4, and then they would send the car to get you at 6.30 in the morning because you had to shoot on set all day. They were early calls, you know. So I was going to bed at 4 and getting up at 6.15 or something and going to the set every day.

And, you know, going to hair and makeup, I don't know, 8 o'clock or something. And then I'd just go right to my trailer and try to sleep. and they'd come, we need you on set now. And I'd be like, and I just get up and walk out on set. So I don't remember that much of it because I was, I was sleep deprived

the entire, it went on the whole week that way. But what year was that? Like 2000 or? It was probably 2002, 2003. 2003? Was it that late? Yeah, I think the show ended in 2003, and that was the last season. Oh, it was 06 was the last, sorry,

season six was the last season. Yeah, you closed it out. You're the book end. So weird, because I'm thinking where I lived and what my situation was and stuff, and stuff, and I feel like it was 2000 or something, but I don't know, maybe it was 2003. Anyway, point is, someone could look it up.

I don't remember much. I remember, in general, people would write stuff for me, and I usually go, well, let me say this, not say that, let me fix this, and maybe put in this joke and say it my own way or some version of that. That's probably what I did. Those hours are so grueling. That's an incredible sacrifice for Dawson's Creek. I mean, if you were doing like Brokeback Mountain like Michelle Williams, I can understand working those hours. But for Dawson's Creek, that seems like a lot at him. Me and Drew were doing a version of Brokeback Mountain back then anyway. If you want to

get into it. And there was no Oscar. No, nothing. Not even a thank you. So under-recognized. Adam Carolla, this has been a pleasure. Thank you for indulging me as we forced you to relive 2003 and your appearance on Dawson's Creek and for all your insights into the world of comedy and women's basketball. Thanks for having me. Of course, of course. It's been a pleasure. That was awesome. Now, quick break here. Let me tell you a story about a guy named Leo Grillo. Well, on a road trip, Leo came across a Doberman and this dog was severely underweight and clearly in trouble. Leo rescued that Doberman and named him Delta. Sadly, Delta was just one of many animals that needed help, which inspired Leo to start Delta Rescue, the largest no-kill, careful life animal sanctuary in the

world. They've rescued thousands of dogs, cats, and horses from the wilderness, and they provide their animals with shelter, love, safety, and a home. This dedication in everlasting love to animals is Leo's mission and legacy. Delta Rescue relies solely on contributions from people like us, and if you aren't caring for these animals to be part of your legacy, speak with your estate planner because there are tax-saving estate planning benefits. Two, you can grow your estate while letting your love for animals live well into the future. Check out the estate planning tab on their website to learn more and speak with an advisor.

We call a dog man's best friend for a reason. you can help those who need it most, or you can leave them in the cold. I'm kidding, but you can help those who need it most. Remember, that is Delta Rescue. Thanks to Delta Rescue.org. And deltarescue.org today is where you can go to learn more. That is deltarescue.org. Head there today to learn more.

All right. I have a lot to say, surprisingly, I surprised myself with this, about Jesse Murph, who, because again, that feels like half a name to me, I want to just refer to as Jessica Murphy because it just seems right. I will call her Jesse Murph. I assume that's her whole name. But I'm going to do something of a weave here, as Trump would say, because what's really buzzing over the last few days has been Jesse Murph, this new 1965 song and music video. There's also the Sydney-Sweeney American Eagle ad, which you've probably seen at this point. and a couple of other things that I think are relevant in the realm of things that are being discussed right now in actually the news world.

So one of the reasons I wanted to talk about 1965 by Jesse Murph, Jessica Murphy, probably not a real name, but it sounds like it should be, so I might just decide to go with it, is that it's really what she's doing in this video. This is 1965 being performed by her on The Tonight Show. and actually this ties into everything we were just talking about with Late Night 2. You're going to see some of this come up on your screen. Jesse Murph, there you go, doing a sort of mid-century, I mean, it's really given Priscilla. That's the first thing you have to say. There's some other kind of obvious parallels and sort of just generally the style of the time as well. But the lyrics I'm going to read and put up on the screen in just a second

because they're a pretty fascinating juxtaposition with what you're seeing on the screen right now. And the reaction from a lot of people is worth talking about too because I'm actually not convinced their left is wrong about everything that's going on here. So let's put these lyrics up. This song is going, like, I mean, it's a big, what's the best way to put it? I was going to say going viral, but everything that's popular right now is viral.

So it feels a little redundant to say that. But this song is actually causing quite a debate, I think especially among Gen Z. But here's the intro. My hair is high. Coke is cheap. It's a great time to be alive. Studies are not saying that cigarettes are recommended and women belong in the kitchen. That's like sort of a little voiceover. She says, we'd go to church on a Sunday, wake up on a Monday. You'd go to work and I'd stay home and sing and do fun things. This line that I'm about to read next has been particularly, particularly focused on. I might get a little slap slap, but you wouldn't hit me on Snapchat. Don't effing text me at 2 a.m. saying, where you at, boy, f you, you'd handwrite me letters when you went away. You'd make me feel better. You'd know what to say. And maybe you'd still be a hoe. But if you cheated hell, I wouldn't know.

I want you to love me like it's 1965. Oh, oh, I want you to want me. I think I'd give up a few rights if you would just love me like it's 1965. Okay, so now here's some of the reaction. This is from someone on X who says Jesse Murph's entire existence as a pop star is a gigantic fash indicator. There's another one. Jesse Murph, new song, 1965, has a lyric that says, quote, I might get a little slap, slap, but you wouldn't hit me on Snapchat,

referring to how she would rather be subject to domestic violence in 1965 than modern-day dating. And I cannot stop thinking about it. That's so insane. This one's good. Jesse Murph is like if someone made a Russian nesting doll of Lana Del Rey, Amy Winehouse, Snooky, and a single crack rock. Another person that next, that one was well done. But let me switch back to the lyrics here. This is absolutely in conversation with the New York Times essay that we talked about last week

where the author earnestly wax poetic about what she describes as quote unquote heteropessimism, which is basically this pessimism about men, which I think we more accurately described as heterorealism, because men will be men until the end of time, and there simply can be no doubt about that. But norms, of course, change. And one of the reasons we talked about that New York Times essay and that New York Times author, yearning for a more responsive, this is someone, by the way, who was in an open marriage, divorced, on the dating scene, talking to people about groups, sex, whatever the hell else goes on.

in that circle of people. But just having this deep, deep frustration with who men are. And I mean, dating has, dating norms have exploded in many different ways over the last several decades. And I don't think it's wrong to read these Jesse Murph lyrics, actually, as yearning for a time when men in a, to a point, by the way, worship she's actually even invoking violence and saying she would tolerate violence.

She would prefer to tolerate violence, a little, quote-unquote, slap-slap, because there's something more attractive to her about that time compared to right now in 2025. So when you have presumably people on the left saying things like, for instance, Jesse Murph's entire existence as a quote-unquote pop star is a gigantic fash indicator. People have said something similar for what it's worth. People have said something similar about Sidney Sweeney. We'll get to that in just a moment. And, you know, it's anyone who is like blonde in doing Americana,

that's like a hit new trend to say people are fash indicators. But with Jesse Murph, I'm not convinced that that's actually incorrect. And I think this is a really interesting piece of pop culture. The video, the actual official music video for it, is interesting in a lot of ways that the Tonight Show performance was. But you see, I call this like cultural physics. You know, it's the pendulum swinging back with Gen Z after being exposed to the excesses of,

was arguably like fourth way of feminism at this point. I often quote a BuzzFeed article from a few years back in which one of the young women who was interviewed, the headline of the article was something like Gen Z has soured on sex positivity, and I'm paraphrasing it. But one of the young women who's interviewed, who is a rape victim, says in the article, she mentions HBO's girls, she says sex in the city and says,

HBO, quote, did a number on me about how the culture of sex positivity was way more perilous, way more fraught, and full of pain was not empowering like Gen Z was told that it would be. And that's really sad because it shows an experiment obviously played out in real time, and there were real life guinea pigs who turned out to be the victims of an experiment that people, when it was starting, we're cautioning against, of course. And, you know, here women are in 2025. And because that experiment was so deeply painful, they are wanting to swing so far back,

or they're at least flirting with the idea of swinging so far back and singing about it sort of flirtatiously, romantically, nostalgically, about a time they don't really remember in 1965. But that's because the pain of Snapchat, for example, is so emissurating that they want to swing back to 1965. And you see this in the sort of exaggerated beehive hair. It's this two absurd proportions. And that's what the lyrics of the songs are doing, right?

Like they are, they're not literal in all likelihood, and I'm probably giving Jesse Murph a little bit too much credit here. I'm not sure who is the, like, if, there was any type of intellectual, if there's any type of intellectual formulation that went into these lyrics, I actually think there must have been. I don't know if it came from her or someone else, but I think this is so intentional the way that the lyrics are written. Just again, to zoom in, embarrassing fact about me, I do have a degree in creative writing with a concentration in poetry. It costs my parents a lot of money.

But here we are. If you look at it, you can see that there's a lot of, this is the second verse, you'd show up the door with flowers and ask me, what I am doing in our half past three. We'd go to dinners and movies and such. We'd just hold hands and I'd love every touch and I'd be 20 and it'd be acceptable for you to be 40. And that is zuffed up. I know, but at least you wouldn't drive off before I get in the effing door. And then there's just a lot of F words.

I actually think that what's happening here is pretty intentional, and whoever wrote these lyrics or whoever wanted these lyrics to read the way that they do, she is credited as a writer on the song along with a few other people, which could mean many different things. Just asked Taylor Swift. Maybe I shouldn't have gone there, but I did. This is pretty clearly a deliberate comment, and I think it's deliberately absurdist,

and you can see that in the music video with a beehive hairdo that's going up like 10 feet high. She's since posted it on her Instagram, but it's doing something on purpose. And I think it's also really striking to see that on The Tonight Show, which is one of the, I think, iconic brands

of that time period. And so to see someone doing this, kind of reactionary tribute to the era while also acknowledging its negative qualities, but saying I'd rather have it, it goes beyond simple nostalgia, right? It goes beyond romanticizing. That's what nostalgia is. It's having them like romantic yearning for a time gone past that is, that is, is rooted in kind of glossing over whatever was wrong in that time period or or saying, well, those were those days were still better. And that's what's happening here in 1965. And you hear it even sonically, you have these clever jumps, jumps from trap music, basically in the verses,

to almost like a duop like Everly Brothers type sound in the chorus. That's why I think this is entirely intentional. And it's not just sort of an accident. It's also in the Marshall McLuhan sense, you can see how the medium of music is changing the message of music because these songs now are written for TikTok in the most conspicuous way. They're written with these little snippets that you can tell are intended to stand on their own and to be extreme within the time period, actually of, like, however long a TikTok is, I don't know, 30 seconds or a minute, whatever it is, these verses are meant with the chorus to kind of stand on their own. Nobody writes for albums anymore. That's nostalgia. But, you know, you're not telling a story

with an album anymore. You're telling a story in an individual verse, which is kind of exactly what Marshall McLuhan was talking about when he said that the medium is the message. And, a song like this, I mean, it's abundantly obvious. So just all of this is to say, I think there's something really important going on here when people say Jesse Murph's entire existence as a pop star is a gigantic bash indicator. Millennials kind of had this moment of just irony. And we talked about being like irony poisoned. And boomers are criticized, you know, for being naive. Gen X is criticized for being kind of nihilist.

But there's something about this that isn't ironic from Gen Z that's actually sort of serious. And it's not surprising that people are reacting to the

emissorating conditions of the time period after the sexual revolution. I mean, in 1965, like she's saying she would swap a few rights for that type of, and you see this in the music video as well, she's looking for a very, let's say,

I'll put it euphemistically, strong masculinity, and including the excesses of what strong masculinity might, what form strong masculinity might take. Does it, you know, again, talking about domestic violence, for example, it's, that's what people have called, that's what the left often called toxic masculinity. And the proper response from the right was not to deny such a thing as toxic masculinity because there's masculinity and femininity and there's toxic femininity and toxic masculinity,

and there's virtuous masculinity and there's virtuous femininity. The proper response from the right should have been to point that out and say, you are being a sex essentialist. That is biologically accurate, even though you're also trying to say that we all exist somewhere on a, a spectrum and, you know, many people are not falling onto the binary, rejecting the binary altogether. There is no such thing as a binary gender is all a spectrum. And the correct response from the right should have been, it's not, you're obsessing on toxic masculinity and you are demoralizing men and you're pushing men further away from virtuous

masculinity by actually pathologizing normal male behaviors. And that's where, you know, we spend so much time talking about women and women's reactions to the sort of post-sexual revolution period. But they're also reacting to how these norm shifts have changed men. And how, for example, let's go ahead and put this up. This is really interesting. This is F8. This is from Fortune, some reporting from Fortune, which crunched the numbers and found actually that Gen Z men with college degrees now have the same unemployment rate as non-grad. And fortune puts it, and I think this article was published in the last day or so, quote, assign that higher education or that the higher education payoff is dead. Well, women, guess what kind of man women want?

Women want men who earn more money than them and are in the same sort of socioeconomic class and making more money than them. There's an abundance of research to that effect. And women have not, now there's a mismatch, right? The numbers don't work out. Women have not gotten what they've wanted. And men are now in this position of just complete desperation. It's definitely pushing some people into nihilism. It's pushing other people into Peter Pan syndrome or the men into Peter Pan syndrome.

They never grow up and they're just endlessly promiscuous. And then look back in all likelihood 10, 20, 30 years from now and regret a lot of the choices that they make. that they felt sort of forced into. But sexual politics are completely confused right now. And just there's no clarity. So it's not surprising at all that some women are going to react to those dynamics by with the sort of cultural physics, right?

The pendulum swung far to the left. And now the pendulum with some people is swinging back far to the right. I don't know that that's going to represent all Gen Z women. But I do think that is going to, represent some Gen Z women. So let me just share this Jesse, Jesse Murph. I keep wanting to call her Jessica Murphy. But let's share this. Yeah, so this is an Instagram post from Jesse Murph where she's definitely given Priscilla. She's giving Lana. She's posted pictures of Priscilla on her Instagram. I did a little search through it. The last couple of days, oh, here she's posting Swiss

and tequila. Why not? But yeah, I mean, just really, really giving Priscilla and then giving Lana, who's always giving Priscilla. And it's just this giant sort of, and that's actually what pop culture is. It's always in conversation with the past. I've seen some criticism of Jesse Murph and saying this is what happens when people lose their cultural literacy. Well, mass culture, like global mass culture, love her own, low alone.

national mass culture is new. This is one of the things that's always frustrated me about, like, people who are super, super, super deep into music, or movies, like total cinephiles that are older. So, like, you were actually working from, like, one generation of cinema when you started getting into this stuff, maybe two generations, maybe three generations. People now obviously have a lot more ability to watch it, but same thing with music.

Like this is mass music, mass popular music, let alone music that was mass distributed is relatively new. It's like within a century. And so it's now all building and building and building on top of each other. And to some extent, that's always been the case since there was a printing press

and especially accelerated when there was TV and radio and internet that shrunk the globe, right, and it accelerated culture. And so culture is always in conversation. And so it gets really, really meta. And you end up having all of these layers that you can't necessarily disentangle, right? You can't just divorce Lana Del Rey from the mid-century period because that wouldn't make any sense, right? She is reacting to it.

It is part of her. It doesn't come out. It's a layer that you can't separate. And I think there's something happening here with Jesse Murph. and it's not ironic. And the thing that set Lana Del Rey apart, I think from a lot of people of her era, is that she also wasn't ironic.

And that was at a time when irony was, you know, the currency in popular culture. And that's not what she was doing. I think some people mistakenly thought it's what she was doing. But Jesse Murphy, I don't think, has been ironic here. I think this is serious. And do I think it's fascist? No.

But I think it's genuinely reaction. And that's probably the answer or the solution. It's incumbent on us. If Jesse Murphy reflects some significant portion of Gen Z who in their immiscerated dating culture of Snapchat, you know, confusion and pornography, and what she's clearly unattracted to in men, which is a kind of weakness, she's obviously looking for strength, which she sees as a forgotten male strength. That, the answer here is to present healthy options. If we accept that she represents some significant portion,

and I think she does, and I don't think it's everyone. I think, you know, when people get desperate and people are emiserated, they find different flavors of solutions. You know, I think you see some of this with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Some people have turned to Bernie Sanders and Democratic socialism and Zahramam Dani, some people have turned to right-wing populism and Donald Trump. And both for good reasons, by the way, because they are in precarious positions. And in the dating world, that's where Z has been left for all kinds of different socioeconomic reasons,

including the one we just put up on the screen. And so it's incumbent on culture to present healthy, virtuous paths forward. And that's really the solution here. it could be a path provided by the left. I'd probably disagree with it. Maybe I wouldn't, but I probably would disagree with it, or a path provided by the right. But what's being presented right now is basically nothing.

It's not healthy. And so in the absence of that, you find people going towards extremes because they're obvious and they often are more satisfying and easy, accessible. So some thoughts on Jesse Murphy at least. Let's also, let's run this Sydney Sweeney ad. Sydney Sweeney is selling American Eagle jeans now. That's probably the most predictable sentence of 2025. Let's go ahead and roll S-9 here. Jeans are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.

my jeans are blue Sydney Sweeney has great jeans So lots of lots of different reactions to the Sydney Sweeney has great genes ad But one thing you do see there is this kind of

intentional focus on the female form right The figurine The the voluptuousness of Sidney Sweeney There I say she's in the Fulcanianian

Canadian tuxedo, which I know it's called the Canadian tuxedo, but there's obviously a deep element of Americana to it. And she's basically looks simply adorned, right? Like there's not a lot going. She's not overly done up. She's not wearing a crazy different amount of patterns or textures. She's wearing normal Canadian tuxedo as one does when they're selling jeans makes sense. But I think what's interesting to me about this combined with the Jesse Murph video is that Sydney-Sweeney, by the way, is also being criticized for all of this because American Eagles doing something a little bit clever there. And Sidney-Sweeney says it at the end, where she says, see what I did.

there. And she's obviously alluding to the double entendantra of saying Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, meaning she's super pretty and also is wearing a nice pair of jeans, but has also been interpreted as a kind of dog whistle because Sidney Sweeney is a white blonde. And the brand is called American Eagle. There's some truly, there have been some truly deranged reactions to the Sydney Sweeney ads from like, or the Sydney Sweeney ad from people with like purple hair. And the idea that American Eagle was doing

this intentionally is a dog whistle to the like, I don't know, tiny percentage of the country, still too big, but that is going to watch Sydney Sweeney and think, yes, American Eagle, this is now the neo-Nazi gene company.

I think is a bit far-fetched. But what you get from Sydney Sweeney, I think like Jesse Murph, to be honest, is the idea that you want to sell something different. And again, in the Lada Del Rey era, there was sort of the Kardashians, and then there was the, Camille Pollyas written about this, and what I would pay to hear Camille Pahlia react live

to that Jesse Murph video, to the official music video itself. I can't even come up with a figure because it would, bankrupt me probably. But she's talked about the Kardashians versus some of the, at their time, sort of, if you go back to like when Lana and Kardashians were peaking in 2014, it was one or the, like one extreme or the other, you're either sort of stick thin or Kardashian. Because the Kardashians were more voluptuous, which Pollya actually compares to the Venus of Willendorf, and great art on the human condition

that represents the full-figured female and true femininity. Go read her on that. It's just fabulous. But it was one or the other. The stick-thin look was in Kardashians were popular in sort of a mass basis, but weren't high art.

That figure wasn't represented often in high art in a way that was seen as you know, kind of aspirational. That kind of changed. And one of the people who sort of had a role in change, and that was Kanye West, but we'll shelve that topic for another day.

It was interesting, though. And to see, I think, this emphasis on traditional femininity, which I think you do see with the Sydney-Sweeney ad, and Jesse Murph sort of looking back to something that is what she sees as traditional, but is also clearly, I mean, nobody should long to be in a relationship where they're getting slapped. Clearly unhealthy on a very obvious level on that point.

There's something going on. And I think one of the fascinating things about pop culture right now is that it reflects this recognition that there's a better way to do things. And it's really interesting to see that be worked through in real time. It's another kind of rare source of optimism. And maybe there's no reason to pull optimism out of that Jesse Murphy video, Jessica Murphy video.

But there is something about it that's at least positive because the first step is admitting you have a problem. And we obviously do have a problem right now. with demoralized men who do feel to many women weak and not stable and not masculine. And that's a problem. It's obviously a problem. Solution is not to go back to unhealthy norms where I'm sure many of the Tadcast will disagree

with what I'm about to say. Women couldn't have credit cards in their names. Although I can think of some people who would like to maybe take my credit card away. You know, every once in a while, you get down that Amazon, you get down that Amazon rabbit hole, and there's nothing that can stop you. There's nothing that can stop you. Maybe that's just me.

All right. So did I weave? I think I wove. I guess I, did I weave? Who knows? I don't know. I try to, I always try to weave at the end. who knows if it's successful.

But we call it the weave. Great, great fun to talk to Adam Carolla earlier tonight. I was looking at our guest lineup for the weeks to come. They're fantastic. So stay tuned, of course. Thanks for watching. It's so much fun to do this live. Have a blast.

I have a blast. It's awesome. I remember Emily at Devil Maycare Media. You can hit me up there. Respond to almost every single email. Read them all. Doing my best to keep up with it. But Emily at DoublemareCare Media is the spot to go.

Otherwise, the place to be is Wednesday, 10 p.m. here at Afterparty. If you're not here, you're missing out on a lot of fun, like Adam Carolla telling wild stories about production on Ellen, which is not what you thought you would get tonight, but it is what you got. And that's why you tune in live. And that's why you watch the show or listen to the show, whichever you, whichever you do. desire. All right. We'll see you back here Wednesday, 10 p.m. live, where you can catch up afterwards on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you then.