Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Jeff Ross

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Comedian Jeff Ross feels tan about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Jeff sits down with Conan to talk about learning from the great Don Rickles, his reaction to “the slap,” great moments in roast comedy history, and memories of some of the great comics lost in recent years. Later, Conan and his crew reveal the surprising and controversial way they made national news headlines. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hi, my name is Jeff Ross, and I feel tan about being Conan O'Brien's friend. That's appropriate. Wait a minute, so do I. The kid from Powder feels tan when he's talking to me. You actually look like Desi Arnais right now to me. You have? You put the Aryan in Conan the Barbarian. Come on baby, what are we doing today?

Now we're doing, now we're talking. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking lose, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Hey there. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, and terrific program today. I'm feeling good. You feeling good, Gorley?

I never felt better. Oh, really? Well, I know. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. I know. This is you in peak form? No, I'm overcompensating. I'm going through a rough patch.

Oh, is everything okay? Everything's okay, but we have a cat baby war at home. What do you mean? Just the baby is crawling after the cat, and the cat is just taking it out with bodily fluids all over the house. Okay, paint the picture, please. Your daughter is now how old? She's nine months old. Okay.

Yeah. So she can crawl. Yeah, okay. And boy, can't she. She's crawling all over the place and describe the cat. The cat is a half-main-coon, gorgeous, plus-size model cat, and boy, does she know it. That's way too much information. I just have cats.

Yeah. And my wife, kids, and I have two cats, and I just know that we have two cats. Right. I don't know what kind they are. Is this a pure breed? What you call it? No, no. She's like a pound cat, but she's half-main-coon, and main-coons are notoriously big and vocal.

Okay. I didn't know any of this. Well, the more you know. I guess. Yeah. I didn't realize we were doing an NBC-PSA from 1997. Also. Are we about to watch Suddenly Susan?

Don't go in any abandoned refrigerators, either. Good message out there, kids. So the cat is a big, fat cat is what you're saying. Yeah, Margot, the fat guy. Okay. So you have this cat, and everything was fine until the baby showed up. Everything was even fine when the baby was here. But once she started crawling, territory started being seized, and it's like, it's hell right

now. Yeah. And we took Margot to the vet because she also got fleas, and they gave her an enema. Okay. And Margot's the cat, not the daughter. Margot's the cat. Okay. I just want to be sure, if you're listening, he did not give his nine-month-old an enema

because she got fleas. No. Have you thought about putting your daughter down? Oh, I'm sorry. The cat down. It's very confusing now. It is, and I understand that. I forget that.

Margot, the fat guy's the cat. Have you neutered your daughter? No. Okay. Margot, the fat guy's the cat. Glenn, who's also called the pee-pee queen of Pasadena, they're both... You're an idiot. You're an idiot.

And the Golden State pooper. Okay. You spent all your time coming up with these cute nicknames, and this is time when you could be solving the problem. That's the issue. The issue is, you could be solving the problem, but no, you're too busy going, there's giggles, the talk, and gaggler. Well, let me write that down.

What do you call your toaster? There's toasty the mosty. There's Mitch. There's toasty the mosty. Well, I've got to give you toasty the mosty, but first I've got to open Cooley the fridge-fridge to get the breadie-bread-bread-bread. You're living in Peewee's Playhouse. It's madness.

Yeah, I suppose. It just happens. So what's the plan here? I want to... I want this segment to end in a real solution. Okay, good. I could use your help. Margot is...

She did this to me. You can see this just railroad track of scrape down my forearm. That's the... those are the same scratches that the murderer always shows to the police afterwards and says, look at that, hold that up to the... that's the same... how did you get these? Oh, cat. I have a cat. Okay.

Oh, and also I murdered. I fell down a flight of murder. Yeah. So we brought Margot home from the vet and I guess she hadn't finished her enema process because she's... What do you mean? Well... Everything got out and by everything I mean there was a lot in there and so she started

scratching in the corner like she was going to go to the bathroom so I picked her up to take her to her litter box which she's been refusing lately and as I was holding her she's just spat out some kind of pressurized soft serve and it's just been all over the house and it's just been a nightmare. What is she spitting up? Sit... Not spitting up. Chat.

Oh. Oh, I see. Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go there but that's how bad this has been. Me being here right now is the first calm I've had in like two weeks. We're on the second floor in the podcast studio. It's a soundproof insulated area and I can hear your cat outside smashing the window

open with a iron bar. She's... Jack from the shining. Yeah. Yeah. He's dead. And she hasn't stopped and I don't know what to do. Well, you know that the child comes first.

It's the hierarchy of needs. Yes, of course. And so cat's got to go bye-bye. No, we can't get rid of the cat. This cat is special to us. The babies are life. I have to go I think is the thing. Okay.

Well... What I'm saying is I don't want the cat to be harmed in any way. No. But I think maybe the cat has to learn its lesson and go live somewhere else for well until it learns to tow the line if you will. You're volunteering. Oh, I'll come pick up your cat. Jesus.

I will come pick up your cat and go for a ride and when I come back the cat won't be with me and we won't have to discuss it. So... Absolutely not. Yeah. Absolutely not. I'm coming by at 3 a.m. Oh.

Quietly through the window. Oh, God. This is a bad idea to bring this up. Well, good luck with your cat. Thank you. What's your cat's name again? Margot, the fat guy. Incredible.

You live a very silly life. There's our daughter, Mrs. Squeaks, cheeks for weeks. And howdy-lip-so-powdy. Right. So, you're not a real adult person. And I'm saying this, which is really bad. All right. Yeah, that is bad.

I'm the stupidest cat. I think I've had my eyes open to some things about myself this afternoon. Well, listen, what better time to get into our first guest because he's resolved. Yeah. Well, your sense of humor and his are just so in line. My guest today is Mr. Gupti McLoopy. My guest today, no, he really is a hilarious comedian. He's best known as the Roast Master General.

Very excited to chat with him today. Jeff Ross, welcome. I congratulate you on, through talent and tenacity, just carving out this amazing thing for yourself. You are the Roast Master General in not just the United States of America, worldwide. Worldwide. And you know, it occurred to me, we should probably start where all things must start, which is with Don Rickles.

We lost Don a couple of years ago. You have picked up that mantle. I mean, you know, you are the guy that everyone thinks of now when you think of insult comic and you always have amazing jokes. Thank you. Do you write them all? Do you ever, do you have people that help you out? My cousin Ed and my other buddy Ed and sometimes for the big roast, you know, full on writing

staff will help everyone on the dais. But I mostly try to do my own and have, you know, a couple of friends who know me real well sit around with me and I don't really accept jokes, but I like to hone them with people. Yeah. I mean, what do you call it, recycled, they start to sound mean or predictable, but I really want it to be like a suit when I roast somebody, tailor made just for them. Also, I think people appreciate that if you're doing jokes about someone and telling them

they're so fat that when they, you know, they need to leave the house to, it's a standard joke. I'm going to work on that one, by the way. It's not a concern, Ed. Trust me. Oh, no, it's going places, that joke. And Jeff will tell you is that you start with that and then you work on it. But you...

Thank you for that nice compliment off the bat about Don. He really was the, what do they call it, the Sultan of Insulton and he did teach me a lot. So I appreciate that. There was a few years there where if you were a big shot having a 50th birthday or a 40th, you know, a big, a big birthday, you'd have to have me and Don, you know, and he would inevitably go on after me and make, I'd always write the jokes and I'd always have papers of jokes and like John Stamos asked me and Don Rickles to roast him for his 50th at this fancy hotel, tuxedos and the whole thing.

And I come in with pages of stuff, you know, John Stamos is so good looking, his birthday candles blew themselves and I'm really prepared and John asked me to prepare and then Rickles goes on after me and just makes fun of me for preparing. Yes. Well, this is what I wanted to bring up. The way in which you're different from Rickles. Now I'll start with the day I had an experience about 15 years ago. My wife and I are in a flight cross country.

We get on the plane, I'm putting my stuff in the overhead compartment and I start to hear someone say, Jesus Christ, let any guy on this plane. And I'm like, I'm sort of hearing it out of the, and I'm thinking, what? And he's like, God damn fucking Irish Irish on the plane this far up, you think the Irish should be further back. And I sort of start to get a little like, I'm tired and I'm frustrated. So I get irritated and I turn around. Don Rickles is sitting right behind Liza and I and he's sitting there and I swear the definition

of being happy as a pig and shit was my wife and I both we'd never, I don't think I strapped in the whole flight where both of our heads are peeking over behind us and the whole flight he's going after me. And then he's going after, you know, what are your plans? We told him he went after our plans. Then he starts going after Newhart, who he's best friends with, who he knew that I knew. And just on and on and on. And it was that flight felt like it was 20 seconds off, but here's what I've always thought

about. It's interesting because I, for lack of anything better to do, I think about comedy a lot. I think you prepare very, very, very well. I think you take these things really seriously and your jokes are very crafted. I'm going to say that, and I love Don, Don had a different technique. He would, he was a nerve comic in a lot of ways. He wouldn't, there are so many times I saw him, if you saw him like on a D. Martin roast, yes, he had material, but so often he would just go by the seat of his pants and it wasn't

so much crafted intricate insults, do you know what I mean? It was a full on, it was a full on bear attack in the moment and if you went back and looked at the transcript, you'd say, some of this doesn't make any sense. You know, he would come on my show and do stuff and every now and then, one of my favorite things that he used to say was you'd say something and be like, oh good, good for you smart guy, what do you want to cookie? And I just thought, and I think I just laughed because you said cookie, what do you want to cookie?

His timing, it was just the way he said it, and you know, he did chastise me and I did get embarrassed, you know, like, oh God, I'm the kid who did all the homework and he would go up after me and crush. It always kind of bothered me. Maybe it was, my skin wasn't thick enough to take it from him. And then, couple years after that, that Stamos thing, I was at Don's Memorial at a synagogue and you know, all the comics are sitting there, we're all invited and remember Judd Apatow is right in front of me and all the guys are there and Don's manager, Tony comes walking

over to me and he says, Jeff, can you speak? And this is something I would have prepared a month for had I known. And I look at Judd, I go, this is Don challenging me right now to talk. No papers, no papers, kid. And I did it, I just stood up and I took the mic and handled my business for five minutes and it was funny and it was sweet and I remember being like, freaking Don taught me something from the grave that I can do it. And somewhere in the beyond, he's like, what do you want to cookie?

And I do always want to cookie, so that did work out and so shot out. He would have been good around people with low blood sugar. Don, just visiting a diabetes ward, what do you want to cookie? Actually, I do. I need one very, very badly. The first time I ever saw Don Rickles was some event, you know, decades ago and my buddy Adam Farrar and I are in tuxedos and we see Don Rickles where earlier we beeline, you know, across the whole room and he can see two comics coming from a mile away.

And my buddy Adam goes, Mr. Rickles, I just went and he goes, all right kid, don't make a thing. His impatience was hilarious. Yes, his impatience was hilarious and also the intensity of his attack, you know, because he was a terrific actor and studied seriously as an actor. It was maybe even less about the material than it was about the sheer nerve. You know, I've always heard that early Jerry Lewis, like Martin and Lewis, 1950s, I mean late 40s, if you saw him in a club, people I talked to, like Herb Sargent, who saw that

said it was the funniest thing they ever saw because it was sheer nerve. They had no act, no act, which meant they would do anything in the moment. And Jerry was dressing up as a waiter. He was stepping on people's food. He was cutting off people's ties, big mafia guys, and it was the nerve of it. And I think there was something about Don that was just the intensity and nerve and he had an actor's ability to come at it. Like he was just out for blood, completely out for blood.

He was a verbal assault unit, he was fearless and at his brashness. I still get that, like people are like, I'm not sitting in the front row at your show and I'm like, no, no, no, don't worry, I only rose volunteers. You're not going to be a sitting duck at my shows. Is that true? When I do my shows, I'll do my proper act, whatever I'm working on, for 30 or 40 minutes. And then I'll say, all right, I need volunteers, who wants to come up here and get roasted? House lights go on, people stand up, and I'll say like, anybody pregnant or disabled, raise

your hand. And if people try to point to other people, I don't take that. That's bullying. I go, it's got to be volunteers and that way I don't get slapped at the Oscars. Which, by the way, is considered an honor now. Can you believe we lost Gilbert, Saget, and Will Smith in the same year? I mean, come but not forgotten. Okay, so here's, I want to get your take on this because I was in New York the week,

Malini was hosting SNL and he asked me to come by the commie seller and check out his, what he was going to do for his monologue. So I went by and Chris Rock was there, I talked to him for a bit and then Chris went up. This might have been a week and a half before the famous slap. But I saw him deal with a heckler in the audience and I thought, wow, that was interesting. I was there. I think it was a kind of a very PC person in the crowd. I went, I don't know about that.

And Chris was like, excuse me, you don't get to weigh in on what I'm doing. It was really fun to see, but then to see a week later, you'd think, well, that might happen at a comedy club in Manhattan, but now he's doing the Oscars, he's safe. And the idea that a week later he was on stage getting slapped by one of the biggest A-listers was absolutely stunning and something I still can't believe happened. I was in Atlanta. I just come off stage watching it on TV and I'm going to be sincere here. I welled up.

My eyes welled up. It was my hero, one of my heroes, Chris Rock, arguably my favorite comedian, getting slapped over a roast joke. So I saw my whole world. And a throwaway joke, nothing that in the- Well, the joke's on Jada because I have alopecia and I'm starring in G.I. Jane too. But it was something- It was something that I-

But do I slap you? No, I don't. Well, it really showed me and I've always been preaching like take a joke, have thick skin. That's been my mantra for years since I've been doing the roast and roast can be very healing and I get a lot of people with disabilities. I get a lot of- Roasting is normalizing things that aren't necessarily normal. Maybe not the celebrity roast but like the roasting I do in nightclubs and in theaters

and stuff. And I got alopecia like six or seven years ago and I did everything I could to cover it up. You know, my hair fell out in a course of a few weeks and I thought I was dying. I was seeing specialists. I didn't know what it was. It took a long time to figure out and you know, my eyebrows looked fucked up sometimes and this and that and I was embarrassed because I had this big Jew fro and I had jokes about

it and I said, you know, I'll pretend it's a summer look and I'm going on tour and all. And when I saw that woman not take that joke, when she could have easily normalized it for hundreds of thousands of kids all over the world watching this beautiful movie star on TV be a bad sport about something she could easily have laughed about. Even if it hurt inside she could have and to me it forced me to talk about it. I was talking about on stage, I talked about it on the internet the next day because it really, I knew that it was hurting other people who might have that. It's mostly kids like imagine me, my doctor, Brett King at Yale, he's a research doctor

and he told me about that he had read about a girl who was 12 years old who had to wear a wig to school and the kids bullied her and they pulled her wig off and she freaking killed herself. So to me anything you can do to normalize it and own it I guess and learn to live with it and channel your inner rock star, which for me is pit bull, if you got attacked by a pit bull is what we Jews call a mitzvah. Not that I'm trying to be, listen I'm sure no doubt for a woman it's very traumatizing but she, Jada had talked about it so much publicly that it made me think that it wasn't

the alopecia that was bothering her that maybe she had some history with Chris Rock. Yeah, to me not knowing anything it felt like there's something else happening here and also it's a weird pool shot because it's not her storming the stage, it's her signaling to her husband who then goes into, but looked to me like a character. Like he reset and became this person who I'm now going to go kick ass and you think, I don't know, I've met Will Smith a bunch of times, that's not who he is, that he went into character, it all felt very strange to me. Somebody told me that is who he is and we've been watching a character for 20 years.

So I don't know man, I don't know, I hope he's okay, I love Will Smith, I've always enjoyed his movies, the one time I met him he did scare the shit out of me, I was writing the MTV Awards with Chris Rock and we were standing at the stage, this is when he was doing Ali and he goes, you know, hey Jeff, he just sort of recognized me and he starts coming at me like Ali, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, throwing punches and I was like scared shitless, I was like this guy's like really got the character down. So he is an icon and it's sad to see someone's career plummet like that, I mean, who might have had a talk, his worst day is probably my best day in show business but it really

hurt me to see, I said to my girlfriend that night, basically through my emotions, I said if he gets away with this, I'm done in show business, who's gonna stick up for me at a comedy club if this guy's getting away with slapping Chris Rock on the Oscars and think about it, he slapped Chris, he won, he made a speech, he got a standing ovation, he went to the after party, went dancing and then they kicked him out of the academy. That's like going to your favorite restaurant for your birthday, they pick up the check, the waitress fucks all your friends and families, you have three desserts and the maid are these like sir, we're gonna have to ask you to leave, it's 5 a.m., my dick is wet, I'm leaving, I

did it, I had the best days I ever heard of. You gotta go there now. You bring up something that I wanted to talk about and I intend to talk about it a little later but I know this about you, I don't know that everybody does, you are a very talented comic and you're a very intelligent writer of what seemed to a lot of people to be vicious brutal jokes, you're a sensitive person, someone might think oh this guy has a thick skin, we have a thin skin and I think that's true of a lot of, actually probably all comedians, at the end of the day we want to make people happy, you're not someone that wants to hurt

people or wants to hurt their feelings and I think when you're doing your job right, you can really roast someone and they enjoy it, it's an honor for them, it's an honor to be roasted by you. Thank you, I think of myself as having a thick skin when it comes to jokes, like if someone makes a joke about me, that I have thick skin but as far as like when I find out if for some reason I've hurt someone's feelings or the few times I can remember that I over did it or piled on, yeah, I regret it, I've sent notes, I've apologized to people because it's…

It's a bad feeling, it's a terrible feeling. It's a terrible feeling, I'm sure you had it going on over your career with jokes and with guests but to me, I want everyone to leave the roast feeling like that was so much fun, I want to do that again or I want them to roast me some time or I can't wait to tell my kids what Jeff Ross said about me last night, tomorrow, you know, I want it to be a badge of honor, I want it to… And I waited years and years, you know, you'd always wait for celebrities to go, all right, let's do it, put on the tux, here we go, you know, big star celebrity roast and that's

when I was like, I can't wait anymore, that's when I started just saying to the fans at my shows like who wants to come up here and get roasted because I realized that it had this healing quality over it and made people feel good about themselves and feel sexy or feel validated or seen, I had a guy in I guess it was Salt Lake not too long ago, he's squealing out of his chair, he's with his friends, he wants to come up so bad and he's a severely deformed person, like his eyes were at two different levels, his ear was down like under his jawline, something happened to him, obviously a birth that was pretty intense and the audience is just like what the…

And you can feel them tighten up. So I saved him for last, so I lined up to 10 people and I worked my way down and I think in my head I'm trying to figure out how am I going to get out of this, what is this going to be, where is this going to land and then I got to the guy and he was so happy to be up there, it almost didn't matter what I said, I asked him if he modeled for Picasso but the point was he's the first guy afterwards, like wanting a picture, wanting to hug me and that is the part where you say am I sensitive, that's the part that gets me, like I get weepy trying to understand how it all works, what goes to this guy's head, what am I doing

for him, what is he doing for me, how is he, he's making my job harder but also more gratifying and the whole thing and I know usually analyze it because then I get you know how it is, it's like when you're a comic you go off I'm too happy, I won't be funny anymore, if I understand it too well, it won't be as daring, so it's just as one of those, I don't know, it feels like a superpower sometimes. A lot of it's about how the person reacts and as you know, again I grew up, maybe you saw it, watched it too but those Dean Martin roasts that they would show on television were, that's what I knew a roast was when I was a kid and I've seen some of them since because they

packaged them and you can watch them and it really is about seeing Dean Martin or you see these huge stars just laughing as they're being torn apart, to me that's the magic of it is seeing the person enjoy it. Now famously, I've never seen the tape but famously there was that Chevy Chase roast where I'm told he sat there with glasses the whole time and then apparently just pretty much told everyone to fuck off and went up to his room and locked the door and that's what I've always heard but stunning to me that he would go to a roast not knowing what the deal was, almost acted like I'm shocked, I thought I was getting a Nobel Prize in chemistry and you people were so cruel and so but I didn't know what it was but it was to me one of the

few times I've heard in history that it went completely off the rails. Have you seen that? Have you heard about that? I wasn't at that one but I did interrogate Greg Geraldo afterwards and just recently Al Franken brought it up to me over lunch we were laughing about how sticking the mud Chevy was but I remember saying to Greg he was telling me how awful the roast was there was a few people apparently Todd Barry killed and maybe Mark Mayer and a couple people were funny but I couldn't get through it because to me it was one of those things where it's just seemed like a movie where the plot never moved along it's like all right everybody's he's he's stonewalling everybody it's like and not showing vulnerability wearing sunglasses and a roast is

just odd but what the the linchpin for me is always the human connection when I do produce a roast and I'm producing one for for Tom Brady after the Super Bowl this coming up to me the the linchpin of it is everyone knowing each other or at least meeting so I said to Greg well what did you say to him when you met him early you know the night before the morning in that morning or he goes oh I didn't meet him till I walked out to the podium and I said well if I was producing that show you would have had a moment to shake his hand no hard feelings anything goes let's have some fun big fan agreementize it right whatever you know just have some human moment connection there and they didn't do that and I think you know not to give all the secrets away about baking up

cooking up a good roast but I do think everyone meeting at least for dinner the night before or having some kind of it's like it's like a wedding you want to have a little bonding time the night before the big day and they didn't do that and I think that was problematic for the younger comics they didn't feel made enough they didn't feel like they were belonged in his life and I think that he also felt that way it seemed but his daughter's very nice and she got married this weekend so shout out to Kaylee um I'm gonna have that she's the piano player at the comedy store she's lovely that'll never see air I'll take that out just out of spite no there I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure Chevy's over the roast by now well I'm not sure he is they have made the

beginning of a lung I always thank I always thank my my honorees for being a good sport after because it's not easy right you know have you ever been roasted I've never been roasted I get roasted every day every day that I think to your point when you're done with something like that you almost felt like you've been to a spa because you get the bile like the bile literally comes out of your pores and I find it to be um there's something really magical about it when it goes well when it goes really well and uh it's one of the things that why I brought up how the person reacts is so key because you're giving them a gift if they see it that way which is go ahead go ahead if you can laugh at your if you can laugh during that it's it's kind of joyous and when

you're done I always say to the honoree I said if you're having fun everyone's gonna have fun and to your point their laugh not all can also make the joke better my most famous joke when I was a young comedian was at the roast of jerry stiller fryer's roast I've heard about this this b arthur I want to hear this place you say this please say this so um this is like 1999 or something I'm just starting to get a little bit of a reputation around New York for doing the roast and I loved it because here I was doing shows with Milton burrow and buddy hacking and and and and you know of course my my hip friends in the alt comedy scene were making fun of me but I was like this is the ultimate alternative comedy like I'm up here with these you know mount roast more of

comedy well you guys are out there you know in these without a microphone in these like alt bars and I'm like I'm gonna come up here to get made fun of by Milton burrow and uh at this point now I'm like you know a comedy central I don't know what they would call a consultant like I would help if kevin james was going to roast jerry stiller I was going to write kevin set my set jerry set like I worked months 24 7 you know I did it all was like uh you know fresh baked daily jokes here's the latest and this is your speech and this is your speech everybody would have input and you know I'd work with everybody to make sure they owned it and felt it but I was all in on these shows and b arthur was one of my idols I just loved her and she the fryer's club would would have the

podium in the middle and then the dais would go 40 people each side like an airplane wing you know like and and you know freddy roman would get up and it would introduce everyone there for 20 minutes everyone would take a bow I did the same joke every year when freddy would introduce donald trump on the dais I would stand up and wave just as donald that is one moment of the night he was a good sport even then Howard and Robin they'd be up in the balcony and you know it was like a who's who of politics and boxers and all of it was it was always just as I love that I was that it was just all these new york um socialites and stuff and b arthur shows up because she's friends with you know and mirror and jerry stiller so she's a guest and she's on the dais

and of course I'm towards the end of the show and no one's other than her little bow in the beginning no one's mentioned b arthur and I'm like that is disrespectful I'll fix this I know what to do I have my script there's no teleprompters it's I have my script and and and I don't know what I was thinking or where it came from but in my nervous scroll um just somewhere in my margin I wrote b arthur's dick and I sat there another 30 minutes that note just sold at sotheby's for six hundred thousand dollars and one of my friends from the friars club one of the board members joe's apolla he was the ambassador to spain uh you know he's sitting next to me an older guy and I and I show him I just I point on the paper to him next to me it just says b arthur

and he looks like this perfectly nice evening no and then I look at him like man I should have asked a comic, not an ambassador. And I finally await my turn and I'm next. And Sandra Bernhard, who I love, is up there and she's doing a risque sort of lap dance thing to Jerry. And writhing around Jerry and he was very squeamish. He was very embarrassed and that was the joke is how he got uncomfortable.

Yeah his son is there, his daughter's there and his wife Ann Mear is there and the whole thing. And it's just delightful and hilarious and weird and totally Sandra. And then they introduced me and my opening joke was I couldn't help myself, Sandra Bernhard, holy shit I wouldn't fuck you with B Arthur's dick. To your back.

To your back. To your back. To your earlier point. To your earlier point. The joke's okay. To me, the joke's okay. But it's like you say about Rickles, it's the balls of it.

But it's the brazenness part of it. But it was her reaction that made it my triple into a grand slam. She just slow-burned me. And the camera held on her

and she just didn't, just evil-eyed, just she murdered me by just looking at me. Right. And that made everything okay. Like she gave a classic Golden Girls like slow-burned take. Perfect.

And she really made it perfect. And a year goes by, that year, time out in New York, jokes of the year, it makes the end of the year thing. Moments and I'm like, oh my god, I'm getting famous off this B. Arthur joke. I wonder if she's hearing about it. So now I'm like, oh my god,

I hope she's not upset. You know, I love B. Arthur to think that I would embarrass her or hurt her in any way. Like she was a good sport, but maybe on the inside, is she getting asked about this in interviews? The Rose were starting to take off to become this like cultural thing. And I see

that she's performing her one-person show in Los Angeles. It's a fundraiser for an animal charity. And I didn't have a lot of money back then. Tickets were expensive and I got one ticket. I went by myself and I brought flowers.

And somehow I weaseled my way backstage and she had a long line of well-wishers who wanted to congratulate her. And I waited to go last so that I could actually talk to her. And I gave her the flowers and I said, Miss Arthur, it's like a year later. I don't know if you remember me,

Jerry's roast and she said, you nailed me, you prick. Well, good for you, but good for you for going. Good for you for going. Oh, beautiful. And the best lay I ever had. She would sound like a horse. Roast in peace. Roast in peace, be Arthur.

I loved her. She was so cool. And did come back to another roast. She showed up at the Pam Anderson roast. So to her credit, she really did love what we were doing. I think you and I have something in common which is I adore endless fascination and idolization.

Well, seriously, people that came before me. The longevity is what is why I respect that older generation. My buddy is a professor of comedy and show business history at NYU and at Yale and he told me that you and I are both fans of Sid Caesar.

I used to go to Sid's house for, like, Jewish holidays and for his 90th birthday. He'd have a few, you know, Richard Lewis and me were like the comics that he would invite along with Mel and Carl and his sort of protégés,

you know, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. And I remember sitting there on Sid's 90th and Carl and Mel came in five minutes after me. So I'm sitting there with Sid and some other people and they come in and they regressed back into their 25-year-old

selves and Carl and Mel walk up around Sid's wheelchair and Sid was a little in and out of it at that point. You weren't always sure. Sometimes he thought he had a show to do that night. Sometimes he knew it was his birthday. It was so cute. Carl and Mel come all the way around to the

front so that Sid can see them, recognize them, and Mel goes, hey, look, Sid, it's Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks! And the Sid just blid up, you know. It was like, go to see your uncle or

something. It was beautiful. It probably took him right back to 1952 and they have a show in, you know, an hour and these are his wake me when it's funny. Yeah, I mean, there's a life. That's why I love a writer's room. I started out in a writer's room. I love

being in a room full of people and to me, sometimes people would think, well, you guys are wasting time. You're really going off in these crazy tangents that have nothing to do with the Simpsons script or the SNL script or whatever it is you're supposed to be working on or the Conan script. I think, I know this is necessary

to the process. I don't know why, but us doing a weird nonsensical, filthy 45 minute riff about a guy who's got a slim gym for a dick, you know, is somehow necessary to the process and you'll never convince

me that it's not. It's like what do you call it, when you're making a sculpture out of clay. I always say to writers and to myself, there's no such thing as wasted writing. Even if you write that whole slim

gym bit down and you trash it, it kind of got you to the next thing that you have to get to. That's funny for all of you because you've been through the ride together. So I do think there's no such thing as wasted writing. It gets you to the next place. Now, you referenced this a

little bit earlier. You made a joke, but you touched on the fact that we've lost Bob Saget, Gilbert Godfreyd, Norm McDonald, all in a relatively short period of time. It almost feels like a conspiracy. These really uniquely talented people

have been thinking about it lately because I knew Norm better. I think I knew Gilbert used to do tons of bits for us over the years. What I remember about Gilbert was he was the most, the difference between backstage Gilbert and on-air Gilbert

was the largest difference I think I've seen in a performer. He was so quiet. He just wanted to take food from the craft services table put it in his pocket and get it home to his rent-controlled apartment. That's what he mostly wanted to do. So odd.

But he was so, yeah. I love him. But he's so sweet. So sweet. And he was one of the first when I first got out of school and was in New York. I went to a comedy club and I barely knew who he was and the crowd was, they said, I went to Gilbert Godfreyd and he came on on stage and he went,

thank you, thank you, please, please no, thank you, please, it's too much, sit, thank you. And then he kept doing that for maybe 11 minutes. And people at my table were getting, I didn't know them, I was just sitting in, but people at my table were getting mad. They were getting mad and then there's silence

and he's going, I beg of you, please, please, it's too much, how can I reciprocate? And he kept going and I was dying. My job fell off. I was crying and then of course he got the crowd back again, but I thought

the ball's on that guy to do that. He was one of a kind, talk about fearless. I spoke at his funeral and he did this joke on my Netflix bumping mic special

about skull fucking his dead grandma. That old chestnut. Now I'm at his funeral and I'm looking at his wife and he has kids who are 13 year old and 15 year old and he had this whole other side to him. He was a great dad

and I love his kids. I took his son to see Billy Crystal's amazing new musical the other day. I know both sides of Gilbert. So here I am at his funeral and I'm talking about how Gilbert's comedy is fearless and subversive, but yet

he was so lovable, he could get us to laugh at a joke about skull fucking a dead person. Then I looked at his coffin and said not so funny now. How'd that come over? We buried him in a sound proof coffin. He was very loud.

And a wonderful, wonderful person. A unique person. He will be missed. The norm Gilbert, Saget thing. I don't know how to explain. I will say my sister has asked me to get my affairs in the legislature.

So she doesn't get stuck taking care of me figuring out what to do if I ever. I would love to tell a norm story since you really moved me at the memorial and I love norm. He was my when I was a very, very beginning

comedian, my first real legit road gig was emceeing his 7 or 8 shows at a major rising star in Princeton. This would have been about like 90, 91. Norm was not famous. He was this sort of like hot young comic coming out of

Canada. And he wasn't famous here. He hadn't done Letterman. He hadn't done really much here. It was a big gig for me. I'm hosting norm shows and this is when Andrew Dice Clay was the number one comic in the world. And norm was so different

than that. Yes. He was in the act every night. And norm had this weird accent and his jokes were long and they were often absurd and you know the crowd was 7 shows. He probably

bombed 3 of them and he killed the other 4. They either got him they either loved him or they hated him. And when he killed we'd go backstage and we would play poker until the next show. When he bombed inexplicably a person.

I think to entertain me I don't know if you just love the awkwardness of it or he was always one step ahead of me and one step ahead of his fans the industry. I wish he had been been you know he wanted to tell the most

honest, the most brutally funny joke no matter what the consequences. I would play poker with him later on when he was at SNL he would have the guys over on Mondays whenever it was Sundays whenever there was no one up there and we'd play poker and he liked to play

poker there because he had the long table and he could watch 5 TVs so he could gamble on football while playing poker and while holding court. It was so much fun for me and then he said come back Saturday come hang out at the show. This is an example of norm

just not giving a flying fuck about anybody like he just wanted to make people laugh no matter what the consequences. Rosie O'Donnell was the host of the show that week guest host and height of her fame with Penny Marshall they were like

this famous team and they'd done a big movie together and Penny by now is like a big movie director and I'm in that hallway where the pages are where the desk is and everybody congregates in that area it's crowded it's 10 minutes

to show time and I'm standing there with Norm and a bunch of writers and pages and whoever else and our guests and Penny comes in with a baseball hat and sunglasses head down just kind of big timing everybody just cutting through the crowd celebrity style and Norm starts going

starts pointing at her and screaming Laverne! Laverne! Laverne! Laverne! A month later I think he was fired for telling

OJ jokes it really shows that he just wanted to tell the best jokes I wish he was so brutally honest about his health we would have gotten to say goodbye to him I think that bothered a lot of us and I think a lot of us assumed everyone knew when it happened I thought oh Jesus

he didn't tell me but I guess I would assume you would know we all assumed everyone else knew and then it turned out that nobody knew you know his family knew and Lori Jo knew but that was he didn't want people to know that's what he wanted so I guess you have to honor that. I had

freaking a skin condition I didn't want anyone to know like anything that makes you think you the audience might feel sorry or sympathy or and not think you're just funny yeah anything that undercuts the comedy you don't want the audience to know so I get it. I've done very well with sympathy

in this. I think you again we disagree I think you get to audience to feel badly for you nobody rewards desperation yeah exactly you know you know I want to ask you about Bob Saget because

I knew Bob a bit I did not know him nearly as well as you guys but I spent this intense day with him in San Francisco about maybe 12 years ago we shot something towards the end of my late night show run we were in San Francisco and we

I was with him for an entire day and then into the evening and we had a great day and I feel like after that I felt like I get Bob I understand Bob he's neurotic he was but very funny and incredibly sweet and when he

passed which was very shocking I know that you and John Mayer made this a great video of you guys going to pick up his car at the airport and I started to think about what if that became like the new Harbinger of Death or a comic that

you know that you go and pick up their car and I was like and they you know if I'm in the hospital and I'm not feeling quite well and they tell me that Mr. Mayer and Mr. Ross are downstairs asking about your car do you have your keys yeah do you have your keys so I was like

I'm gonna put it in my that's why he's here today I know I'm gonna leave don't fucking go near my car it's not a stick it's a stick you're safe I'm getting a stick now I don't want you guys touching my car but um no that was I

thought what you guys did was very sweet and I was thank you Bob refused to have an assistant it was obviously his death was a surprise so nothing was and he would do that during COVID he would drive himself

his daughter's old car to the airport so he wouldn't be in a car with a driver he was really worried about getting COVID and uh you know I remember that first or second night at the house and his wife Kelly said Bob's car is at the airport you know and I said alright

we'll go get it and it was just a simple act of you know it's like just like I was back in New Jersey running an errand for a family friend you know it wasn't uh and John Mayer was just in the car in it which was odd I thought that was odd because I think

he was living there he did not agree to go he didn't even know what was up where's Bob just take it easy John I'll tell you later I miss that guy too I had this very strong feeling with norm which is there's no more norm

I don't get any more of that my favorite it sounds really crass but like this is my favorite soda and they don't make it anymore and you keep looking for it and saying I want more of that and they're like no there is no more that's it we discontinued it

yeah it's uh and you go back and you I replay his jokes more than anyone's you know it's like every six months daylight savings time rolls around I think of norm you know we say ah I give him six months hahahaha

hahahaha I blew the punchline he doesn't eat he has some jokes that only work if norm says them so he'd say like you know ah MMA kickboxing a sport that combines the grace and

you know athleticism of the sweet science with kicking and the way he would just stare afterwards you know and has that jack-o-lantern face that just just devastated me he had the most famous I told you earlier about

opening for him in New Jersey and catch a rising star what really bonded us was at the end of that run he was going to New York for the first time to do Letterman and that was kind of launched his career and I had a jeep that my sister bought me after she got hit

by a drunk driver to help me get my comedy career going so I norm says hey you want to drive me to New York you know you know he didn't invite me up or anything he just I dropped him off at his first letter and you know we really got to talk on that

ride and then that was that famous appearance where I'd never seen Letterman do this Norm did his whole bit about the devil tricking him into killing his family and cutting them up at the side of the road or the side of the

lake or something and the big reveal was it's not the devil it's me Bob you know and then Norm crushed he killed and then there's a commercial break Norm's gone and it comes back to Letterman who goes it's me Bob

and I was like wow I've never seen a callback and a late night show before so Norm was a one of a kind and like you say there'll be no more norm jokes we have to sort of play the greatest hits in our head well so Jim Downey mentioned this

to me Norm's co-writer on update he thought and I thought the idea the way people get together once a year and play roots music you know old Appalachian music or they and to preserve it people should gather once a year

and talk about Norm you know there should be some form for that because it will endure I love that idea I love that idea too I want to make sure that I mention you mentioned a project that's important to you just before we started the podcast just dropped

it's called Dirty Daddy a tribute to Bob Saget that I produced with John Stamos and Mike Binder it's like a punk rock wake that we did at the comedy store in honor of Bob and his family is there and Jim Carrey and Chris Rock and Love It

and Jackson Brown and John Mayer they're all on it and we just sort of decided for one night to mourn Bob with a comedy party and we just sort of improvised our way through an hour and it's

cathartic if anybody wants to watch that it just dropped on Netflix I'm glad you guys recorded that I didn't know you had I heard about it but I didn't know you had I didn't know either till Mike Binder said afterwards I had five cameras planted in the back and we were thrilled that he had it

it was Jim Carrey's first time on stage at the comedy store in decades it was actually a really special that is the odd thing that you know I never really thought what happened because I lost three friends in such a short amount of time

I've sort of been doing a lot of tributes they asked me to do one on The Hall which was like a Hall of Fame show as part of the Netflix is a joke comedy festival I had one joke that is hard to tell

but I want to tell this because I feel like this is a good room for it there's something that you and I talked about before the podcast but you asked me you know Bob was this global television star but he lived his life like a comedian he died on the road

after a show in a hotel room by himself like a comedian he slipped and hit his head which is kind of poetic for a guy who hosted America's funniest home movie I I

I I I I I I I I

I I I I come back, because I feel like we just scratched the surface, you know. I definitely would love that. I have a list of 75 things to talk to you about, and we got to two, so. And all the fans listening, come on out, see me on tour.

I'm having the best shows of my career. I don't ever talk like that. My fans who know me know I never talk like that, but there's something going on in comedy right now. I don't know if it comes from the slaps, the tackles that are happening. Post-COVID. I think there's a release, right? I think it's the COVID.

People missed comedy for a long time, and I think they're appreciating it in a new way. And for whatever reason, I'm feeling, I love it more than I've ever loved it, 32 years in the game for whatever reason. So go to roastmastergeneral.com. I promise you you will have a good time at one of my shows. For your money back. There's a lot to me. He didn't say, or your money back.

No money back. But guaranteed that you'll have a few good zingers you can think home with you for the next day. Conan, congrats on your, this next chapter for you. This studio is awesome. Oh, thank you. Your crew is awesome. I really had a, this was cathartic today.

So thank you. Great. I'm glad. This was a joy. Thank you so much. Sure thing, bud. And guys, we've made news and we've made fake news. Okay.

Help me out. I have no idea what you're talking about. Remember when we did the Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan episode with Smith Mulligan, the guy who's responsible for the shipping manifest of things that go up to space? Yes. And we joked, what could you send up? And Sona said, space porn and we got into a conversation about jizzing in space. And then I said that if one male astronaut jizzes in space, he could get up to three

female astronauts pregnant. Right. Well, now news outlets picked this up and started presenting it as news. And when I say news outlets, I mean real rags like bunch of other New York times and CNN. The best part about this is that Snopes had to do an entry on it. Now Snopes is the fact checking site that people go to to find out if something is real or not. I've been a donor to this site before.

I love this site and I'm so happy to be on there, but also bummed to be on there as one of the people blamed for fake news. You're saying that people reporting that this did happen, that three astronauts got pregnant? I'll clarify. Okay. Here's the Snopes article itself. Claim, a NASA scientist warned astronauts against masturbating in space because they

could accidentally impregnate multiple women at once. Rating. False. Fact check. In July, 2022, several news sites published articles claiming that a NASA scientist had recently issued a warning to astronauts against masturbating in space because it allegedly could impregnate multiple women. In New York Post, for example, published an article headlined, astronauts should not masturbate

in zero gravity, NASA scientist says. The Daily Star ran with astronauts warned not to masturbate in space as one session can impregnate three females. These headlines are absurd. NASA has issued no such warning to its astronauts. These articles were based on a joke that was told by a comedian during a recent episode of Conan O'Brien's podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. On July 21st, an episode of the podcast titled, Space Porn, was released on various podcast

platforms. The episode featured Conan, co-host Sonet, Movesessian, and Matt Gorely, and Gast Smith Mulliken, a mechanical engineer who works with a NASA contractor in Houston, Texas. During the episode, Conan asked Mulliken about what sort of items can be shipped up to the International Space Station. As the host mulled ideas about the strangest items that could be shipped to space, co-host Movesessian asked if he'd ever sent porn into space. Aw, man.

He specified it with me that brought up the porn. Yeah, but still. Let's hear more. Let's hear more. No, Mulliken replied, none of that. The curious hosts were not satisfied with this answer, however, and continued to joke about porn and masturbation in space. At one point, Gorely, who is a comedian, now they should factor that out.

No, okay. That's the fake news. Yes, I know. That is the, to me, that's the most, that's the part that has me enraged. Well, I get called a scientist later, too. I'm loving this. All right, at one point, Gorely, who's a comedian and not a NASA scientist, joked that three female astronauts could be impregnated at the same time if an astronaut were to masturbate

in space. Here's the exchange. Conan, were someone to be watching Spaceporn on the space station, how does that work? Gorely, three female astronauts can be impregnated by the same man from the same session. Conan, because the semen flies around, Gorely, uh-huh, and finds its way. Movesessian, and the women are all naked? Gorely, well, it's Spaceporn. The mullican who is not directly employed by NASA was not an active participant in this

portion of the conversation. This was a brief exchange. I'm glad that we cleared him. If we've done nothing else, we've cleared him of all charges. This was a brief exchange by three comedians. However- No, it was not an exchange by, there's one comedian here, then there's Sona, I don't know what, you're my assistant, and Gorely, I don't know what you are, you're just an

imp, you're a troublesome imp, but you are not a comedian. However, when this conversation was recounted in the pages of the New York Post, the site misquoted this section and claimed that the scientist had issued this warning about multiple women getting pregnant. The scientist in the concluding sentence was actually comedian Gorely. Okay, listen. You've got to start, are you guys there more to read? Just to sum up that NASA has not issued this guideline, and there is even, I believe, some

evidence that the Russians wanted astronauts to try that in space, but there might be some logistical problems to having sex with someone in space because of lack of gravity has an impact on blood flow, so that's just the fact of it all. Okay. Well, that's all neither here nor there, I think we should attack what's happened in the media. There are many instances of fake news, but I don't think this is that egregious, because I think we brought up a legitimate point, and I think that astronauts should be warned.

We don't know, science doesn't know what's going to happen if space porn somehow invades the International Space Station. Well, now isn't this reason for them to find out? Now we need to know. Well, I'm pretty sure the Russians have figured it out already. We just need them to share. Someone needs to guess. Yeah, okay.

Someone needs to guess. But can I say something? This is... We need to. What's clear to me is that we were talking about an interesting subject in an erudite way, then you mentioned, you take it to porn. This isn't just my fault. Sona, you brought it to porn, and then the imp over here starts...

Excuse me. No, you are either a comedian or a scientist. You bring it to semen, and it's all the low arts. It's the low hanging fruit. No, you're also quoted in that Snopes article as carrying this conversation forward. And Snopes is the final art. Wait, all I'm doing in that conversation is trying to get some clarity, but I did not introduce those topics.

I was trying to keep it more towards what are the fun, innocent things that could be brought to the space station or put into space. You were the guys that brought it, Sona, you with porn, and then you alley-ooped it over this creep who took it to Jizz Mountain, and then that's where we are. That's where we are. Did you just say Jizz Mountain? Yeah. You are not...

Can people get pregnant on Jizz Mountain? You can, but the man has to be at the top, and the women have to be at a slight grade below them so it could run down. Okay. Jesus. Now, news outlets, if you're listening, this is very important. This is a mountain. Yeah.

The higher the altitude, the thinner the jizz. Yeah. Okay, that's great. Well, this is what we have. This is what we have. And there's a capper to this. Okay. Which is that you're still employed.

That's the capper. I don't say that again. The thing is, the capper is that you're still employed, that you're still here, and you're going to... Are you kidding? You get a comedian and a scientist, and you're paying for one. Oh, my God. You act like you're above this.

You're not above all of this. I am above it all. You're not above all of this. I'm above it all. I sit. You are part of this. I am the great Pharaoh who stands atop the pyramid and watches you guys slinging Jizz down at the bottom of the pyramid.

We've got a capper for this. Okay. So you know that this is real news. Joe Rogan has put it on his Instagram. Oh, my God. The headline from one of the articles. That's fantastic. Yeah.

We don't know if it's fake news. We really don't. No, we do know that NASA has not issued that warning. Yeah, but maybe NASA should. That's my point. NASA get on it. Do you know what I mean? You know.

They're stargazing so much, they're not keeping their eye on things that could really happen. I think people need to release even in space. I don't think it's fair to tell them. Well, then come up with a device that keeps the material secreted and far from anyone who could be impregnated. They have that. It's called the International Space Station. It's a tube sock.

All right. Okay. Nice. Nicely done, Stona. Space porn. Space porn. Okay. Well, keep bringing us down and I'll keep trying to raise us up above to greater.

You were part of it. You were part of it. You were part of it. Not really. You were part of it. We learned it from watching you. Yeah. You said space porn.

I think that was what you said. No, I did not. That was you. Wait. Can I just... No, no. You're a great ender right there. Congratulations, new mother of two.

All right. Good night, everybody. Good night. Hope you enjoyed it. Space porn. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely.

Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solotarov, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Year Wolf. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Get away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Will Bekton.

Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt 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 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts,

Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Ear Wolf.