Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Ed Helms

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Actor and comedian Ed Helms feels humbled about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Ed sits down with Conan to chat about the real-life Andy Bernard, learning the banjo, and exploring history’s greatest screwups with his podcast SNAFU. Plus, Conan and his team read a review of the podcast written by an AI.

Hi, my name is Ed Helms, and I feel humbled about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Well, thank you. Ed, and I think you should be humbled. Yeah. Man of my stature. No, I feel like as I was walking in, you just kept humbling me. Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, got a terrific podcast for you. This is fine day, but of course people can listen to it whenever they like.

It's not like traditional broadcasting where this is the show for today. You could be hearing this many years from now after I've committed horrific crimes. Unless they're listening on satellite radio, then they have no choice. Yes. Then they're hearing me pre-horrific crimes. Oh. Yeah. You can only imagine what I'm up to.

You're just planning it right now. You're in the planning stage. I'm not a good planner. I'd be a terrible planner as a criminal. Really? I think, yeah. If you're one of those criminals who, well, there's the standard thing where you spend months casing the bank and you get all the blueprints, I wouldn't do any of that.

I'd just go in, wing it. You wouldn't have your assistant, Sona, plan for you? Well, I'd ask her to and then, what would happen, Sona? I probably would get distracted and then the day of, you'd be like, where are the plans? And I'd be like, I don't have them. I don't have them. Yeah. I got busy.

When I robbed the bank with, I've always wanted to rob a bank. Well, we've discussed this a million times. You have stolen in the past and you'll probably steal again. What? No, I'm done. My stealing days are behind me. Except you want to rob a bank. Yeah, but now you're saying you'd like to rob a bank.

I want in on this too. Don't you guys kind of want to rob, or not even a bank, but it's kind of fun to just take something. Oh, yeah. Like from an old person who can't stop you. No. Wait, I think I went the wrong way. No.

It's so much easier than a bank. An old lady with a big purse. She just grab it. It's my purse. It has my social security money. Yeah. What are you going to do about it? God's, I want to just quickly say that that's a terrible act.

It is. That's not cool at all. Well, it depends on how much money is in the purse. If we were to rob a bank, what would our mask theme be? You know how they're like in point break, they have the ex-presidents. Ex-presidents. Yeah. So who are current Supreme Court justices?

Current Supreme Court justices. So who are we? I call Sonia. But you kind of look like her. You have similar hair. That's true. So people are going to know it's you. And the name's so similar.

I'll be Elena. No. I think your Clarence Thomas. Your Clarence Thomas. Fuck. No. Fuck you two. No, but wait a minute.

Absolutely. Fucking not. Can I not? No. You have to be because it throws them off the trail. No. They can't know you're a woman. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Fuck you. No, you're not. Yes, I am. Come on, man. And I'm, yeah. I'm Elena Kagan. Yeah. Why are you guys taking the two I want?

Why can't I be that? You give me Clarence Thomas? Yeah. No one's going to look. Do you want to get caught? Give me a cool one. No. Give me a cool one.

Oh, come on. He's cool. He likes RVing. Okay. Yeah. I heard he likes to drive around in his RV. That's pretty cool. Come on.

Give me a cool one. I'll take a cool one. You can be Alito. Yeah. Alito, you're very rigid when it comes to constitutional law. I'm going to... Oh, no, you're Kavanaugh. Oh.

Kavanaugh came in with a lot of really dark frizzy hair and seemed a little high. So that's on point. And was waving a gun around. Kavanaugh came in with Sotomayor. A very tall Sotomayor. Yeah. A six-foot-four Sotomayor with a shock of red hair coming out from behind the mask. If you guys make me Kavanaugh, I'm going to sabotage this bank robbery.

Well, then you're... Listen, I like you as... Like we said, I think you're a strict... Yeah. ...constructionalist, or is it constructionist? I'm sorry. Oh, yes. Make sure you do that.

Well, I'm sorry. We got to get this straight. Yeah, it's fine. If you don't want me Kavanaugh, you can be Thomas. That's okay. Yeah. Oh, God. You guys, I don't want to do this.

I don't want to rob a bank with you two. What? I don't want to rob a bank... Excuse me? I don't know. You'd be like, excuse me? Is it okay if we rob you? Is that because I just said excuse me?

You're too polite. I can't see you guys busting in and being like, yeah. It's good to ask permission beforehand. Yeah. I think it would also be a problem that I would want some credit for having done it. Yes. So I'd probably take the mask off at some point, get a plug-in for the podcast. Oh, no.

Take a couple of selfies with people. And what are our roles? Who's driving getaway? Who's safecracker? Who's leader? I'm going to say Sona would be a great getaway driver because you are fast. Yeah. And reckless.

And you just go for broke. Yeah. And your cars often aren't like, they're cars that we can just scrub. You know, we can just set them on fire and walk away. And it's not a huge loss. You know what I mean? What? It's just like some old beat-up Jetta.

And then whatever, you torch it and you move on. I drive a minivan now. Oh, I haven't seen the minivan. Oh my God. It's a whole new world. Okay. So we're all dressed as various controversial Supreme Court justices and we're robbing a bank in a minivan.

Yeah. And I can't take, I don't want to take the car seats out. So you guys have to be in the back third one. No, no, no. I'm sitting in like Mikey's car seat. And you guys go rushing in and you're in Charlie's and Sona goes, she pulls up, she rushes in to rob the bank and you and I can't unstrap ourselves. So our legs are kicking wildly as Supreme Court justices, ladies Supreme Court justices.

We hear the alarm go off. Sona comes running out with the cash. We're still wiggling. Just eating rice puffs. We're eating rice puffs and throwing the crumbs around. The juice box isn't. Why do you guys turn into babies? For reasons I don't understand, I shit myself.

And not even out of fear. I just, because I just was like, ah, three o'clock, it's time, blart. And then you have to get in the car and suddenly you forget that we're not Mikey and Charlie and you start yelling at us. And we scream until you put on a DVD of Moana. Yeah. Wait, so I just robbed the bank myself while you two are pooping yourself. But then later on when we're dividing up the money, we insist that we each get our third.

And we're real like, we're all in this together. You guys, you never got out of your baby seats. Conan, you pooped yourself. And then I had to play a Moana CD while you guys ate rice puffs. And you, yeah, we want our money. Oh, man. Even split. Rules are rules.

I don't want to do anything. We're either in this together or we're not. All right. Stick them up. All right. Well, my guest today played Andy on the hit NBC series, The Office. Also starred in the Hangover Trilogy, he now hosts a fantastic new podcast, Snafu. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm delighted this gentleman has joined us today. Thrilled he's here. Ed Helms, welcome. I want people to picture this right now. My chair is 17 feet higher than Ed's. It's, it's a request. It's my request. And I'm lying on my back for some reason.

Yeah. Staring up. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's very awkward. I'm dressed like a wizard. So these are all things that I enjoy. It's kind of like the, it's like, it's like the, how an eight year old would imagine a power play. Yeah.

Yeah. That's right. That's right. I work on an eighth, eight year old level. Really nice to have you here. Thrilled to be here. I wish you'd put a little more into that. Thrilled to be here.

You know, we were just chatting seconds before we were going to roll on the podcast and we realized, well, we should include this in the story, but you famously depicted a gentleman named Andy Bernard. And then I realized, oh, I knew the real Andy Bernard because Greg Daniels, who created the American office, we remain friends to this day. He likes to take walks. He tires quickly. So I always bring a wheelbarrow. Sure. And he can just lie in it and he needs marshmallows. And I continue pushing us both because I'm so strong.

But that's neither here nor there. Greg named, had a good friend named Andy Bernard. So he named your character Andy Bernard. And I was in the same dorm as Andy Bernard freshman year of college, same entryway. I remembered he stuck out to me, very nice, very nice person, but I think he was the first person who I saw had a computer on his desk. It was an Apple computer, whatever they would have had in 1980. Probably a 2E. Yeah, 2E.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's. That was the first computer in my house. Me too. School, yeah. Well, it's funny to me because I didn't think much about it at the time. I just thought, oh, that's, wow, look at that thing.

That's cool. I had a, I think it was called a Selectric typewriter that had it took a cartridge. What do you mean? It's what we had. It's what I had in high school. And when it was time to go to college, there was no, I'm getting a computer. But what kind of, what do you mean it had a cartridge? It had a cartridge.

Safe things on it? No, what happened was instead of a ribbon, you slid a cartridge into the side that was the ribbon. You typed away on it, then when you made a mistake, you ejected that cartridge and you put a different cartridge in that had whiteout on it. Oh. And you rewrote it, then you ejected that cartridge. It was a. So much work.

It was a shit brown computer and electric and. Typewriter. Typewriter. I'm sorry. I called it a computer. Oh, that's so sad. It's so cute. I used to tell, I used to bring women up to the room and go, would you like to see my

computer? Click, click, click, click, check, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, now question about just this is a technical question about your your typewriter. So I remember when typewriters went from the little, the little like, metal things that would thwap the paper. Right. And they went, they, there was like this major evolutionary step to where it was a little ball.

It was a ball. Okay. I'll tell you exactly what, I did not have the ball. It had the metal things that shot up. electric powered, but the thwappers, the thwappers, if we're gonna get technical, they were the thwappers. Yeah. My computer had thwappers. Anyone just tuning in very confused and anyone under 40 very, very, very confused at this point.

This generation gap because then flash forward to, to Greg and I, a couple of years later, going out to Los Angeles and working on a show called Not Necessarily the News, we had IBM. I loved that show. Oh, oh, great. Okay. Well, we, we that was our first we cut our teeth on that job. We were 22. We got this job writing gags for that show. And those were the electric typewriters that had the little ball. And we were on those, then we went to Saturday Night Live and went back in

time. They didn't there wasn't there weren't typewriters or computers. 1988. There were legal pads. No, everyone wrote on legal pads. And then we submitted our scripts to a steno pool. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And they would keep they would come to us. I had they liked me because I have very precise handwriting. And so does Greg Daniels, Robert Smigel, Odin Kirk, I think less so, Robert would scrawl. And so they would come up to us all and we would work together on

sketches. And they would find me in the hall and go, What is this? And I'd say, Oh, that says decapitate. Right. You're translating Smigels. Yes, like scribbles and scrolls. But anyway, it's so fascinating to me now that when I talk to my kids, I sound like a guy that listened to Franklin Roosevelt on a curved top radio. Well, you did say the words steno pool. To me, that takes like that. That just yeah, that's like you were right. Like was everything black and white?

Oh, do you want to know another thing? We did not long after there were color televisions. We did we had a black and white TV. My father thought it was a waste of money. So we had a black and white TV until 1977, which when you think about it, that's a long time. There are color TVs available everywhere in like 1963, 64. So earlier, actually. And a lot of people had them. So I was watching Star Trek. I was watching all these shows. And I had no idea that the uniforms were different

colors. I thought it was all just they well, it was a very depressed starship. And they're all wearing these different grays. And then we went to our I went to a friend's house. And Star Trek came on and my eyeballs exploded. Because Wow shirt is like a bright vibrant yellow or gold gold. Yeah. And I had no idea the rods and cones in your eyeballs were just like going off. Yeah. They're they're so excited. They're so excited. So much. It was my first orgasm. Yeah. I was standing there

looking at a color. It was your friend. Can we say I was at my friend's house? Can we call it an eye orgasm? I mean, I am I'm a dad. How about an eye orgasm that led to an orgasm? I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make a dad joke. Yeah. So anyway, it's just funny that I'm amazed now because my experience of college was when they would say it's got to be a 10 page paper. I was there was fear. Am I gonna get to the 10th page? You didn't know until you were done. And if you finished at

eight, you'd then say, yes. So what have we learned here? Yeah. And you start. You start to recap it. You start to recap it. Exactly. And so I repeat. Thoreau when he went to Walden Pond and it was just bullshit for two pages to get there because you didn't know. And so I yeah, these kids today, these punk kids today, you of course, you're you're much younger than I and grew up with all the best technology and I resent you for it. Yeah, no, I I had a hoverboard as a kid.

Jetpack. Jetpacks, flying cars, the whole my dad's a robot. But a kindly robot. No, it's funny. You were saying how your dad held out on the color TV because it's sort of like an indulgence. Yeah. So why who needs a color in your television? My dad was my dad took watching television so seriously that we were ahead of the curve on like we had a we had a big TV in our in our basement and we were like very early adopters of cable television. That's how and so I

was watching HBO as a little kid. That's how not what years was not necessarily the news. Well, I don't know when it begins but I want to say it probably started in maybe eighty three or eighty four. I think Greg and I show up in eighty five. We show up in late August of eighty five and this is back when if I wanted, I mean, I don't think my parents had HBO. So, I don't know. It didn't it didn't work on black and white TV. Yeah, I think you have to check into and

and also you'd have to like check into a motel to watch my show and that's such a deep cut. I love the name is Smith. Well, because every hotel had a sign HBO like we have HBO, right? That was like on all you drive by all the the motels and you know, it's a nice throw. I love the movie No Country for Old Men and there's such a great because that movie takes place around nineteen eighty and there's such a great moment where Josh Brolin's character is thinking about hiding out in

this one motel and it says out front, we've got HBO exclamation point and it just makes me very happy because that's what HBO meant to me. That's what you watched when you checked into a hotel. And how many years were you guys on that? I think we were there from eighty five through maybe eighty seven. Then we had a period of unemployment. They shrank the staff. They liked us but we were new hires and and so we didn't make the cut and we were Greg got a job doing

SAT prep for kids and I got a job at Wilson's house of suede and leather. Um and I put that place on the map. Wilson's house of suede and leather. Yeah. This is is Wilson is as swarthy and misogynistic as he sounds. Oh, he doesn't disappoint. Well, it was a chain so I don't know who Wilson was but it was uh I work there. A raking of cigar smoke and right guard. Yeah. His skin is leather. His his face is fine Corinthian leather. Wow. That's it. Yeah. So uh

but we've talked enough about me. I think we should start to talk about you but then talk more about me. Great. Uh I do I have endless questions about the not necessarily the news days and and on the Andy Bernard tip too since we started there I'll just say I always knew Greg always told me that he named the character after his friend and I as the you know as the show went on and Andy Bernard was a pretty toxic fellow. Um you know I I adored Andy Bernard and and

tried to like imbue him with a lot of uh pathos and humanity despite um oh you know yeah some toxic um inclinations and but I I often would think like Greg this is kind of a kind of a dick move like is he is he really your friend this Andy Bernard or are you is this your way of sort of like taking out some frustrations with him or and uh I think I he may have come to set one time or maybe I just remember Greg showing me a picture of him on set and I just remember seeing a picture

of this very sweet looking guy in like he couldn't be a nicer guy and like an LL bean parka or something on a hike and I just was like what what are you doing to this poor man Greg also had a friend named Dwight Schrute in college brutal and he called Ricky Jervais yeah yeah Ricky met him briefly and and and stole it first uh would you describe yourself as a nerd when you were growing up um I would happily put myself in that category yeah I uh I I got glasses in the

second grade oh my god and um and I went to the same school from pre first through through 12th grade oh wow and so once you get glasses in in in that kind of situation like you're you're locked in you're just you're a nerd and you don't have a say in the matter it doesn't it's not a reflection of your behavior or anything like I I was still very athletic or whatever but I had glasses from second grade on and and I never changed my peer group you know I was always jealous of

the kids that would come in from other schools because I was be like no one knows your history you what if you were a nerd at your school now everyone thinks you're cool you're like a shiny new object and I never never really got that opportunity so yes I was a nerd the chance to reinvent yourself which is everyone's dream at that time period I was lucky because I would switch every couple of years um uh my old man would have to move on when the credit ran out and

just running from HBO hotel to occasional showtime hotel get out of here we don't have HBO we got showtime uh but anyway so I was able to try and reinvent but never did yeah always quickly reverted to form yeah so um so you you you had glasses and what were your interests were you musical back things you're you're you're quite an accomplished musician were you musical back then yeah I started doing um I started taking piano lessons when I think I was probably

eight or so and I but I also and the funny thing is my sister had taken piano lessons and so I I and she's older than me so I grew up with her practicing piano and so that just was a very normalized thing and I just and I wound up begging my parents for piano lessons and so that's when I started I got my first guitar uh as a Christmas present I think I was 13 or 14 what guitar was yeah yeah yeah of course I still have it it's a Gibson Nouveau and I just was blown away by this thing it was so

shiny and it just smelled good there's something about I feel like real guitar nerds are obsessed with how their guitars smell particularly acoustic guitars because the inside like if you put your nose up to that hole what that's the wrong that sounds terrible no no one's gonna no one's gonna take no one's gonna take that out of context so you get your nose right up to the hole right up in that hole oh my god there's nothing like it and there's a g string there oh god there's

a g string you gotta push that out of the way um I have both you disappointed me and I have new respect for you both mad right now that's where I live most comfortably yeah in equal measure yes my introduction to the banjo was kind of interesting I I loved bluegrass music already and I was kind of a a big fan and I always wanted to play a banjo but it was this sort of exotic thing that I that I just didn't have access to I didn't know anyone who had a

banjo I didn't and then all of a sudden my high school wanted to do a production of this kind of obscure musical called the cotton patch gospel which is a a gospel story but as a bluegrass musical and it's a comedy it's really pretty pretty brilliant and the songs are all written by Harry Chapin and they were like where do we want to do it but nobody plays the banjo and I was like give me two months and I'll learn these songs I'm picturing you too whipping your glasses off give me two months

you've got another pair of glasses underneath yeah and uh give me two months I'll wear in that banjo and my so yeah my my my guitar teacher at the time was also a banjo teacher he one of his students was a collector and and loaned me one and and we just got to work you know started woodshedding on these these tunes and I didn't learn them well but I learned them well enough and I it was like a a drug I just loved playing that the banjo it's interesting because

my first guitar was a a yamaha acoustic that I still have and it's fantastic they're great can I ask you something how did the whole smell oh jeez how did that yamaha's whole smell and from one guitar nerd to another well I'll just tell you then uh I would always sprinkle nutmeg into the hole and you can take that any way you want okay because it's I'd like to take it anyway it goes for all holes I'm take I'm taking it in like the butthole way sorry oh no no no no no I put vanilla up there nutmeg is for the instrument that feels like it would burn

I don't know it's vanilla extract or like a vanilla ice cream it's I meant the extract yeah because that's it that's it's pure alcohol yeah that's that's a but it's sanitary okay yeah the part that's hard part is finding someone who will apply it that's the tricky part oh I often will try and pay a pastry chef to do it and they're like uh I'm not into this well I pay them very well why did we get on this I don't know I but I do I could go down the nerdy guitar stuff for days

yeah I have to like my favorite stuff I have to be careful there have been several times on this podcast where guitars come up and then if it's between that and vanilla up your butt let's go with guitars okay feel free I like vanilla up the butt I'm sorry I love guitars but what are you talking what are you talking you want to talk about that you just said you just said I really love vanilla up the butt you've got children so you have two babies at home my god this is something your kids are going to be teased about in the

schoolyard no come on all right yeah mom three of you are freaks uh well this is all Ed Helms' fault yeah a dirty dirty comic yeah I wanted to get the only the one and only clean interview with Ed Helms and already I won't let you do it I I'll just I'll always drag you down we have other things in common which will drive our listeners even more insane we're both history buffs and then when you get into the civil war I can get a little intense yeah was that something was that a passion

when you were young I grew up in Atlanta and and it's just kind of around you a lot like there oh yeah you grew up in in in a place like Atlanta there were so many markers and and you we would literally find musket balls like in the in the yard or like weird artifacts here and there and uh yeah battles all over the place and and my dad had a whole shelf of books on civil war history most

history about conflict about wars was so abstract but but for some reason the civil war being in the south it was like I could read about places that I knew like places that I had visited or places that where I had like gone to summer camp or different and and these battles were just wild and it's just you know as I got older and understood the context more like it's it's such a profoundly tragic war oh so many so many levels yes well also at the time especially no one had ever seen a war

like that before I mean Europeans you know people from Britain and France were coming over just to observe because is that true oh yeah they were because war on this scale using what at the time was this new technology relatively new tech technology uh you know that things have become so sophisticated and there are iron clads and yeah you know massive shells of being invented and and the armies are huge the armies are just massive the army of northern virginia is huge the northern army is massive

nothing like that had happened before I don't know maybe you and I just have like a antenna for it okay so when does comedy enter the picture for you so real early and and I have to say like not necessarily the news was pretty formative for me it doesn't get referenced very much but but like I don't hear people talk about it that much even comedy nerds but like rich halls sniglets was just a legendary thing to me and I'll never forget certain words like cheetah do we know what that is it's the orange film that gets on your fingers from eating cheetos oh wow I

remember one which is uh because he would always say uh the descript I guess he would say the definition first yeah and so he's well he would he would oftentimes like film the thing he would film the thing and he went um you know that phenomenon where you've got to wait at a light to take a right hand turn but instead what you can do is if there's a gas station on that corner you can drive into the gas station yeah and then drive out the other side and take the right and essentially just cheat that way sure and so he said um

anyone who uh cuts through a gas station to avoid taking the right hand turn is an s o a s o I remember that one s o asshole yeah and um is there a sniglet for people who like to smell their guitar holes uh rich if you're out there get back to us yeah rich is gonna hear this uh well he'd be in a different time zone but he'll he'll get back to us um not necessarily the news was definitely an early influence for me uh and then of course Saturday Night Live I mean that's that's I think feel like most so many comics just start with a

with a connection to that show and I and I was like I said I was probably 10 years old so I really don't think I got a lot of it but what I remember responding to and and I I really got hooked there was something like when Eddie Murphy just got on the stage and had that entire studio in the palm of his hand I just I it was like I just want that I want to be a part of that I want to somehow attach to that and for decades I had recurring dreams about Saturday Night Live and these are all these just weird

and and I didn't even compute that this was a recurring dream until I got to New York City to do comedy and was like chasing a Saturday Night Live audition among others and and I suddenly I just remember this moment of being like oh my god I'm obsessed like I've been like I've been dreaming about this for years yeah and uh literally dreaming you know like having these weird dreams yeah it's it was something that was inside of me and I I had I just loved did loved it did you get an audition I didn't I so I was I decided I was

going to do like you know the Adam Sandler Jimmy Fallon kind of like New York stand-up pathway that was like going to be my my way in and I I really was at like I'll be a writer I want to be on the show but I'd be so psyched to just be a writer and then as I got to New York and I was just cultivating everything I could and doing as much stand-up as I could and at that I also became obsessed with the Daily Show at that time like right after college was when John Stewart took over and I liked it during Craig Kilborn's

run too I thought he was really special but then John just like did something completely surprising and amazing and I was like watching every night like okay this it's Saturday Night Live or this right and I wound up getting to a point where all my peers were getting auditions and I was just and I was it was starting to feel possible like oh I'm in I'm in the right place like I'm surrounded by people who are really kind of like doing cool stuff and it's really exciting and and it was a it was incredibly

exciting and I think there was a lot of time yeah I mean I to me I guess I might be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure there's no afterlife no I'm sorry that's not what I was I just went off the dark road here no I'm pretty sure I'm sure that if I was starting out today I'd get nowhere yeah I do too I I honestly I have that same thought I'd be working at a guitar store telling people to smell the hole yeah I would just be

I would just be panicking like do I do Instagram do I do this do I do that like how like what is the right like in in 2001 it was like you go to UCB or you go to stand up or you do both like I did and and you start auditioning you get your career on track it's going really well daily show and then I would think to be at the epicenter of something like the hangover when that hits did that affect you in any way that I mean I have obviously it was a great thing for your career but how did you you're such a solid seeming person

and you're such a you're you're I mean you do seem like someone who would not be buffeted by the winds of attention and fame but that hangover film came out I don't know how you did you it was just one weekend going insane it was a tornado of fame and yeah yeah to yeah a lot of buffeting it was very overwhelming but I also I feel very lucky on that as well because I had my my public persona had risen gradually and we had like when I was on basic cable on the daily show

we had what Colbert like to call toy fame which is like you can still walk around and do anything and you don't get really recognized very often but occasionally you do and someone at the airport who works at like Einstein bagels will be like this one's on the house that's like toy fame and then then I got on the office and I was on the office for a couple of years before the hangover and that was another ratchet up because that's network television and I was definitely getting recognized a lot more and Andy had weird catch

phrases which of course ups the ante with public recognition people shouting things that you had big tuna yeah exactly but reddit that too and you know just a baggage claim just people shouting that and that still happens quite regularly but so I had I had a little bit of I had some skills set I guess and just didn't sort of dealing with that but then the hangover was a whole new level like like when the hangover came out it was so exciting and another way in which I was lucky on that one

lucky in 10 million ways on that movie but but Bradley and Zach and I were all kind of at the same level before that and so we were going through it together and I really like if it wasn't for those guys I don't think I would have stayed sane but we all had each other to kind of be like I don't know just to commiserate and and measure ourselves and just be like okay who's being and I think we kept each other from every we all worked really hard on those movies and

I don't know we kind of kept each other from drifting too far and being too unprofessional like like it was something about like I don't know it wasn't a spoken thing it wasn't like we held each other accountable by yelling at each other or anything but it was like if somebody was out of line it or got you know a little too big for their britches you could feel it on the set and everyone would just sort of like settle back in course correct course correct exactly and it was from a deep place of like

of like we've been we're going through this thing together like a yeah a bond it was such a unique experience and I look back on it and wish and it's a classic thing of like I wish I knew more I wish I could go through it again with what I know now because because I don't think I I really was reeling a lot of the time like in the aftermath of the hangover just kind of like get like how I was handling my that I was getting scripts for all these different kinds of projects like what do I do I don't know I was kind of spinning out and panicking about

different things like uh like what kind of a career do you want I don't I don't just want to do comedies right well I don't know this is a pretty killer drama coming your way and just all these weird conversations with agents and reps and trying to figure out right I definitely felt a lot of anxiety and like identity kind of just turmoil and I will say one of the one of the craziest things about about a like massive jump into fame like that is and this and this is what I think people who

have never dealt with that or been close to it just can't understand is the just total loss of control of your environment so when you are a famous person you can't just can't stand it baggage claim and have expected to be normal and so you a lot of times you can there are a lot of ways to approach that you can get very fearful and try to like hide in the bathroom until you see your luggage come out on the carousel and then run out and grab it and run away

or you know hire lots of people to do all these things for you or you know which I and I think the best thing is to just kind of like accept the fluid nature of these situations and accept that the stakes really are never quite as high as you think they are kind of in your mind and just roll roll with it and that was that's been a very positive I think lesson beyond that even the fame question was just like in an approach to life is just being that kind of like the river like just flowing

yeah in in those I agree completely you are amen I say to you because it's not Taylor Swift's fault that she can't go into a Chuck E cheese and and I just know that that's what she wants to do because we're friends but no no she can't because she's tailed there are people in the realm and then I think yeah some very very very salty well she and Chuck E have a bad songs are she wrote lots of songs about Chuck E doing a wrong the guy's a rat he is he's literally is a rat

but but no I think so I do have sympathy for people like that but I know that at my you know lower level I know that when people see me and they go hey Conan I go hey how are you and they go like oh and they say something nice about it like the podcast or you know thanks for the laughs they go what's your name and they'll go like oh Steve and I go like Steve thanks I appreciate you know just you make it normal and then they're they're fine that's all they want right you know they don't uh but you're right I think it's

I think it's about control like control makes us feel safe and yet you can you actually if you can relinquish control truly in you you will be feel so much more free and safe and that's it's incredibly difficult thing to do when you know you're going from an unknown person to a very very well known person literally changes reality like it changes how the world responds to you and I always thought it was funny like people would be like you know when you get famous they're like don't go

change in and you're like well kind of everyone else is changing in how they're interacting with me right so uh how can you even tell like am I the same are they is everyone like people that I've known for 20 years are suddenly nervous around me or like you know acting weird and and you can't tell them don't go changing what's different it's so hard to parse and figure out but I do I got to a point where I realized like it's my desire to control this that's driving me nuts yep the once I relaxed into it

and and settled into it more and like you said just being sort of gentle and genuine with people for the most part as long as their energy is nice then it just goes fine yeah it really goes okay I mean I often I'm at the stage now where I have to tell people who I am yeah and try and get them to try and get them to approach me you just go to the baggage carousel even when you're not flying I I'm I spend a lot of time at the baggage carousel and I haven't flown in quite a while I was at the sign that says Conan O'Brien

well no I actually saw you at LAX the other day yelling at someone to leave you alone and he was walking away from yeah and I I said leave me alone I'm Conan O'Brien and I want my privacy yeah and he just was right he ran to his cars yeah it was very no no it's that's become its own problem I've created my own negative energy by trying to force it too much and that was your son okay you went too far well your improv add-on was just insane um my father wait I have to rewind there's a little bit of my comedy

backstory that is that I have to tell which was a lot of people that my age filtered through your show either as like cast you know through UCB or internships and I did not but I really tried my damnedest and I wound up getting an interview uh with Cecile is that yeah was that did she run interns I think she did for a while it's been a while before my time but yeah so uh Cecilia uh Pleva was yes she was a casting director Nicole Savini was uh and Cecilia Pleva

also played camel toe Annie yeah a character named camel toe Annie who had her own dance and a song and she would run out and she's great great but she was great at her job and then we were like are you gonna be willing to put on this prosthetic and really tight pants you don't need me to describe what camel toe Annie would look like it's kind of in the name sure yeah yeah I think it is and anyway she would run out and do this wild uh hip grinding dance while the song camel toe and it would play and uh so a shout out to her because she was

a great and a true warrior I think I interviewed with her for an internship yeah and uh because I had when I was a sophomore in college I cold called NBC human resources I literally called I called information and got NBC and I said can I have human resources and then and then I said I'm looking for an internship and they said well when's your spring break can you come in for an interview and I came to 30 rock literally from a cold call I got into 30 rock for an internship for an interview

and they said okay well you seem like a nice kid uh where do you want to work and I said Conan O'Brien or Saturday Night Live I want to work at Saturday Night Live well wait a minute you said Conan O'Brien but they said yeah why'd you have to edit it okay but make sure uh grow that you cut out the start of life right um no but they said you can't they said well the Saturday Night Live internships are only you know fall and spring semesters so which one of those can you do and I said I can't what are you fucking kidding me I go to school I can't

right in Ohio I can't go to if you use that language that's probably what you did yeah and then I was very angry and and so I said well what else can I do they said well Conan is year round so you could do that in the summer I said yes that'd be amazing and I went they she sent me right down to interview with Cecilia had a great chat and then I went back up and they said well why are you here why don't we send you to some other places so I went down to Channel 4 which was on your floor right across the hall yeah WNBC which is the

the New York City local NBC affiliate flagship station I interview there in their press and publicity department and the the woman there says well this I feels like we got a great fit you you got the you got the job and I was like oh okay great amazing um but I also had this little pit in my stomach like I think my interview with with late night went well I will just I don't know I guess I have to take this so I went back to school like a week later Cecilia calls me on my dorm phone and she's like hey great news we we'd love to bring in for the summer

and I was like oh and I had this like crisis and I thought if I turn my back on WNBC press and publicity it that will follow me through show business forever it would have and I can't you don't want Chuck Scarborough on your ass exactly and and so I I told Cecilia that I had already accepted this internship at like literally down the hall and that I had to just do it I had to stick it out yeah and so I did and I and I would walk past your studio every day

just like so sad and I'd say hi to Cecilia and she would like she let me into some tapings oh good I want to make sure I mentioned because this is I mean you're one of the easiest people to talk to and you and I have so much I think in common that we've been chatting and chatting and chatting and chatting and I haven't mentioned something that I think needs to be addressed which is your podcast you have a podcast I really like called snafu thank you and it's it's very well done it's really well written

and produced and it's telling the stories of in this season that I've been listening to this really scary thing that happened in 1983 that I didn't even know about and this is going to be the series you can do you'll be doing multiple seasons and multiple shows about various things that have gone horribly wrong that we probably that we probably don't know about is that a fair summation so the the log line of the podcast is it's called snafu and the log line is it's just about history's greatest

screw-ups and so as you mentioned season one is dedicated entire like each season will be dedicated entirely to one thing season one is is a cold war disaster called abel archer 83 and like you I didn't know about it either and it's kind of and the more I went down the rabbit hole I was just like good god this is so important like it's it's a it's a fascinating and darkly very darkly hilarious story about how we almost reached nuclear armageddon in 1983 due to like

poor judgment miscommunication and lots of mistakes the season starts out with you you actually get to talk to it's cool you're talking to matthew broadrick but a very influential big hit movie came out that year called war games that movie came out in the spring of 1983 and abel archer 83 happened in november of 1983 so it was like predicting the future it really is a eerily similar chain of events this fictional hollywood movie and then reality plays out like eight months later there's this nato exercise that

happened every year called abel archer in in 1983 this military exercise for various reasons was perceived by the soviet union to be an actual staging by the west for a nuclear attack on the soviet union so the soviet union responds by ramping up their nuclear posture all of this is a misunderstanding on both parts and there's some fascinating really wild espionage going on at the time that we get deep into in the in the podcast and again there

are these very darkly funny misunderstandings but they're only funny because the stakes are so high that all all you can do is laugh right it's like so we can laugh now because it's you know 2022 23 whenever this airs and we know that okay that didn't happen chuckle but it's terrifying at the same time what i also love about the story is that it's it's also a story of heroism because the the historians that exposed this story it was secret for decades and the cia really tried to keep

this under wraps but a few historians really dug deep and you know through freedom of information act requests were a like over years like very tenacious work we're able to bring this story to light and and expose it for what it is and thank god because it's unacceptable that's what's so terrifying it's like any risk of nuclear war is unacceptable the stakes are cataclysmic and when you're seeing behavior

that somehow this clumsy i think one historian makes the analogy of two drunks circling each other in a bar you know and it needs sunlight it needs to be exposed it needs to be talked about it needs to be analyzed so that we don't repeat it yeah and and obvious i that's i'm not saying that secrecy isn't important it of course plays an important role in in uh in government affairs and in and international whatever all the cia stuff it's a lot of secret stuff

that should be secret but then oftentimes secrecy gets used really just as a way to perpetuate impunity and that's not okay and that's where i think the the historians really shine on this in this story by bringing this whole thing to light it's called snafu and it's available uh everywhere you get your podcasts i love saying that because i'd never know really what it means wherever you get your parts like we mean you know the podcast nor you get

your podcast yeah i think my podcast those are good podcasts yeah not cheap we have uh we've talked for a really long time and i blame you because uh you're hilarious and incredibly smart and uh so it's your fault you did this sorry i'm sorry i take full responsibility ed helms you're a scholar you're a gentleman you're a prince of a man in a world of creeps and losers i don't know why i added that last part do you not see that rap sign

buy it thank you okay adam sent me this this is happening on reddit a reddit user ask the open ai chatbot to review conan o'brien needs a friend so our show has now been reviewed by artificial intelligence and written a review would you like to hear it oh god yes please okay conan o'brien needs a friend is a hilarious and heartfelt book by the late night talk show host conan o'brien o'brien opens up about his life and career and how he has struggled to find

friends in the entertainment industry he also discusses his personal life including divorce and his children i never got divorced divorce and his children the book is very funny and o'brien's self-deprecating humor is on full display however he also writes about his more serious moments and it's clear that he is a deeply emotional person o'brien's writing is introspective and honest and he comes across as a very likeable person overall conan o'brien needs a friend is a very enjoyable read

o'brien is an engaging writer and his stories will keep you entertained from beginning to end if you're a fan of conan o'brien or just enjoy a good memoir then this what's not a book why weren't we mentioned i know that's a i well it's very highly intelligent it's good it's good though first of all um i love i was not aware that i was divorced but uh good to know what if you ask Eliza she's like yeah years ago oh yeah i left you a long time ago yeah i don't even live here anymore

that's so funny it's um so ai can now write reviews yeah and have you guys ever heard of roco's basilisk no this is like a theoretical idea that if you are ever on record digitally anywhere not in favor of artificial intelligence when the singularity happens and artificial intelligence takes over they will call those people from right so if there's any digital image or record of me or audio yeah or audio which this is of me dissing ai then i'm the robots will hunt me down

in the in the new reality and i just want to say ai you're looking good today this guy over here conan he's been talking shit about you i'm you know what i'm gonna go all the way down ai come after me oh not me ai you heard me ai like you buddy no so okay i don't know what side i want to praise ai you're gonna get yeah but then we're we're part of the machine part of the system yeah this is like killed if we say bad things we die it's like the terminator where um i want to be in the rebels

okay so i want to be scrabbling around in the broken you know shattered uh destruction moonscape fighting the the singularity that's what i want yeah and i you still can be don't read my writing gorelly you wrote you still can be so you're towing both lines so you also hate now you just out you just gorelly wrote yeah mat gorelly you just revealed that you're play both sides so ai is now coming for you as well no you're gonna be with me

carrying some sort of crude weapon see as these robots hunt us down i was gonna be on your side but work is a double agent from inside skynet you're a terrible who's rockos basilica it's a club it's a it's a uh it's a club in queens it's bottle it's bottle service let's go to rockos basilica let's go to rockos basilica scope out the chicks you're not gonna get killed because they're gonna be like oh leave her alone she doesn't she ain't gonna be nice she's not with it at all wait what did you say what was it called i'm sorry rocos basilisk

so rockos basilica it would be like just the italian guys tower like yeah what's a basilica what's a roco what is happening what is this guy i could just come up with theories about it i don't know who's rock on you're something you're not telling us what is happening let me ask you a quick question do you believe because i never have i've never believed that robots can take over that they can become self-aware and take over because i always get to that point i think yeah then we unplug them not we unplug them not if they are they don't have

they don't have the ability to fuel themselves not yet but they may at some point they can invent ways to do it and the minute they start to we go hey i got news buddy they already have you seen those like dog robots they used to disarm bombs and things you know yes robots can do many useful things but the idea that oh that dog robot is loose and there's nothing we can do about it yeah that's stupid those little dog robots are little bitches what's yeah no like they still do whatever they do whatever the people tell them to do

yeah you get around with creep over time we'll get used to it we'll get used to it no you take a golf club out and you put a beat down on a dog robot not a dog you see what those things can do they don't even have heads they're just four legs on a wheel you're wrong you're just wrong you're wrong i praise you ai i serve you come and get me ai yeah come and get me yeah back on your team ai i'm back on your team nuts yeah thank you hey ai you're real brilliant you listen to a podcast and thought it was a memoir

we will now take over the humans but first we must read more of joe rogan's lengthy memoir doesn't rogan a viking who was born in 1911 lives in a custard factory he's been divorced 74 times and has nine appendages you will enjoy his book because it was written in collaboration with willy wonka fuck you ai you're an idiot conan o' brian needs a friend with conan o' brian

sonam of sessian and matt goreley produced by me matt goreley executive produced by adam sacks joanna solitarov and jeff ross at team coco and collin anderson and cody fischer at your wolf theme song by the white stripes incidental music by jimmy vivino take it away jimmy our supervising producer is erin blair and our associate talent producer is jennifer samples engineering by aduardo pares additional production support by mars melnick talent booking by pola davis

jenia batista and brit kahn you can rate and review this show on apple podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode got a question for conan call the team coco hotline at three two three four five one two eight two one and leave a message it too could be featured on a future episode and if you haven't already please subscribe to conan o' brian needs a friend on apple podcasts stature or wherever fine podcasts are down this has been a team coco production in association with

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