Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Jim Downey

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Comedy writer Jim Downey feels entirely unapologetic about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Jim sits down with Conan to discuss his favorite sketches from the early days of SNL, acting opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, and fine tuning Weekend Update with Norm Macdonald. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone].  This episode was recorded on 9/11/2023. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, I'm sorry. All right, we got this. Here we go. Because I use my name constantly. Hi, my name is Jim Downey. And I feel entirely unapologetic about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking Climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are going to be friends.

Yes, I can tell that we are going to be friends. Hello, and welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a friend, joined as always by Sona Mub Sessian. Hello, Sona. Hi, you said my name so nicely. I did. With a lot of respect, HR told me to do that. And Matt Goreley, how are you? That seemed a little indifferent, that one.

A little dismissive is what I was going for. Well, well done. Mission accomplished. How are you guys? You know, I'm okay. Yeah, good. That's all I need to know. Oh, okay.

And I didn't even answer, so let's get going. I just plow right ahead. All right. Do you even listen to us when you ask? No. Oh, okay. No, I just plow right. Okay.

I can barely see you guys. You're just blobs. When I really care about someone, they come into sharp focus. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. And then when not, it's just like sort of gray clouds. You can't see this at all? Wait, when are you?

No, not a thing. Okay. I'm just assuming you're waving at me. Yeah. Yeah. God forbid you were giving me two middle fingers, but I'm going to know that that couldn't happen. Yeah. As your employer.

I'm just curious. Have either of you been to the dermatologist recently? Oh, yeah. Good. I have. I'm doing a public service announcement very quickly. Sono, you went? Just like two weeks ago.

Oh, I didn't even know that. I'm just throwing this out there. And everything good? Everything's good. I have a clogged oil duct on my eye. I don't know if you guys have noticed there's like a little. Oh. You know, it's so funny.

behind your back, we've been calling you old oily eye. Yeah. Seriously. We were like, where's old oily eye? And then everyone knows what we're talking about. What do you mean?

There's like a little, do you see that? I see it. Yeah, it looks like a pimple, but it's just been there for over a month. Yeah, it's just a duck that's filled with oil. Yeah. Why, did they say why it's filling with oil? I don't know.

No, they don't. I think I'm just like that kind of. I have to put a warm compress on my eye, so I put a tea bag on there every morning. Can't they drink? It's grain it somehow? I don't think it works that way. It'll just refill with more oil.

They said I could take an antibiotic, but I don't do antibiotics. No, why would you? By the way, my dad is a microbiologist. His whole life has been devoted to antibiotics in their use. There you go. But antibiotic resistance. Yes, he would say don't overuse them. I'm not sure he'd agree with anything you're saying.

He would agree with me. I'd talk to him. Oh, good. Well, how is he? I haven't spoken to him in years. Oh, yeah. We had a falling out. He called me to apologize about you.

And Matt, how are you? I'm good. I go every six months. Me too. I have more moles than a three-acre farm. You know what I mean? You mean the farm that has a lot of moles digging underneath? That's what I mean.

So not the other mole. So, yeah. Well, I showed you my back here once in studio. Yeah, yeah. It was hideous. It was a constellation. And every time I go in, they take something. Oh, Conan, I know you go.

I go every six months. Yeah. But the assistant. who took over for you because you're so busy writing books where you sell me out and babbling away on the podcast. You wrote the forward and this is your podcast. That's true. Okay. Wow.

He took me down immediately. But he took over and he let it go to like nine months without having David. David. And I said, David, I could die. I've got to go in twice a year because I'm just, you know, I was genetically engineered to live in a bog in Northern Ireland. Yeah, you shouldn't be here. And now I'm living near the Mexican border and I'm not supposed to be here. And so I just went and fascinating.

It's always fascinating because I'm covered in freckles. And I would think every freckle would be a potential, you know, something that would need to be looked at and cut off. And this woman can just tell the difference instantly. She's like, no, freckle, frackle, frackle, this one looks suspicious. And I look at them and they just look like all the other freckles. So I don't know if she's just randomly. I'm like, well, he's here. It's an extra $45 if I take so.

Oh, that one looks like a troublemaker. She's selling them. How long does it take for her to do the full-body scam? Scan, because that's what I'm worried about with my doctors. You called it scam. Was that a Freudian slip? The old full-body scam? I'm worried my doctor does it so quickly.

He's got to be missing some things. Yeah, you get worried about that. When they're real quick and breezy about it, I think. But they're so good. They've seen it all. They've seen it all like Bogie and Bacall. So they know. They know when they see it.

So anyway, she said, well, I'm going to do this, do this. And then she saw something. She said, I'm going to have to. cut this one out and give you a couple of stitches. I saw that on your neck. I did too. You've got a clock oil duck. You've got a missing.

We're falling apart. So it's in the back of my neck and I've got these two stitches there. And then she put a big bandage on it. And she said just to keep it in case it seeps a little. This is, and I know this is why people tune into the podcast to hear about my seepage. But come on. Come on. What's it seeping?

You know, oh, oily eye over here is going to ask me about. It's suddenly you're the head of the. foreign seepage committee of the Senate so I don't think you have an oily leg to stand on anyway she cut something off and then she put a big advantage on it

and I was going right from there to a meeting and I thought this looks like I've had a facelift do you know what I mean? Well it just looks like you know what I mean? People in our business. Yeah.

I don't mean your business. Podcasting? Not podcasting but someone But your face doesn't look like you had facelift. No, I just thought whenever someone in Hollywood has like a lot of bandages around their neck, people might immediately think, oh, he got the old throat job. It's just on one side on the back of your neck. I know, but that's a very specific. One-sided face stretch. Trust me, I can see who's had it out there. Emma Stone.

She had worked on one quarter of an inch of the back right side of her neck. Did you get a facelift? No. I'm the only person who's encouraged by fans to get face work. They say get something done. Fix that melon is what people shout to me on the street. Fix that melon. Yeah. I think you look good. Thanks a lot, pal.

That's nice. Yeah. I mean, you still have a really good jawline. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'd take that jawline. Well, I thought you were going to say, I'd do you. That's what it sounded like.

And you know what? That's a given. That's where you were. That's a given. Oh, okay. And you know what? That shouldn't be something that's like, oh, what? You should be, we're all.

What? Sexuality, as we know, is a spectrum. Oh, and we've reported this to HR. You should know Conan and I are sex partners. Yeah. Look, sexuality is just a swirling, twirling spectrum, and I'm all over it, baby. We're sex friends. When I think about people who are real adventurous with sex, I think about McCormorley and Conan O'Brien.

Well, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, we're sexual pirates on the high seas. Yeah. On the high seas of jizz. They call me Indiana Bones. Oh, God. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you too, just fuck.

All you do is fuck. Well, it's not just, I mean, there's some roaming. It's not just pure. No, we get to it pretty much right away. For me, I'm kind of invested. Well, I'm always in a hurry. I got things to do. I'm like, hey, Indiana Bones, get over here.

We got to get to work on this. Get to work on this. Yep, I know the sex lingo that everyone's using. Hey, we got to get to work on this, see? There's work to be done in this sexual region. Yeah. By sex, do you guys mean just like building a model airplane? Do you think that's what sex is? Yeah. Of the Wright Brothers first flyer. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

We did a whole diorama of Kitty Hawk. Isn't that what sex is? Yeah, you guys, sex it real good. Oh, boy, you should see these dioramically filled. Yeah. So anyway, moving on. All right. When you brought up dermatology today, did you just assume it would go to sexual?

Did you ever think you would say high seas of jizz? Yeah. I didn't. what you said. I didn't think I would say that. Okay. But let's admit it. I got the Riz. Isn't that the new word? There's a new word now. Is it the new word?

Riz. We're going to play. Correct. Is it Riz? Riz. Riz. Yes. Riz. Yes. Thank you. For charisma. Would you say I've got the Riz. You've got some Riz. Yeah. You've got Cajisma. We've been, I tried to get us off of that, Matt. Oh, well. I worked hard to steer the boat away from those. You got us there, though. And then my job was to get us out. And then this boob over here brought us right back.

in again. So Riz, I'm shocked do you know this? This is a word that's out there and they talk about different young people in Hollywood or influencers who've got Riz. And it's short for charisma. And wouldn't you say Sona that I have some Riz? I would actually

say you have Rizzo. You're Riz'd up. Yeah. Yeah, you're really Rizding. What if I opened a hotel called the Riz? And I greeted people in the lobby. No, people with Riz don't do that. You're right. That sounds, that's desperate. What about the Riz Carlton? Yeah.

You just punned it. Cool people don't do puns. No, that's actually wrong. Oh. Puns are back. No, they're not. No, no, puns are the worst. No, puns are back.

Lowest form of hell. No, puns are back. Lowest form of hell is a pun. Yeah. Hitler in hell right now is like, I'm glad I never made the pun. He's like looking down a couple of levels. At least I never did that. He's being molested with a flaming pitchfork 24-7.

And still he's like, at least I didn't make a pun. My guest today is undoubtedly one of the greatest comedy writers of all time. He worked at Saturday Night Live for over 30 years, making him the longest tenured writer

in that show's history. He also, on a personal note, championed me very early in my career. I owe him everything. He's a genius. I'm delighted that he's with us today. Jim Downey, welcome.

Entirely unapologetic. Let me explain. Let me explain. There are many, many figures in our society contribute an enormous amount to our culture and people who have unconventional personal lives. And yet, they seem exempt from criticism. You know, Jeffrey Epstein. Well, wait a minute.

Wait a minute. No, let me finish. I see it. I see it. No one, no one, you know, uh, uh, criticizes him. And yet, wait a minute, wait a minute. I have to apologize for the fact that I know Conan O'Brien. No, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Is a double standard. Jim. Jim, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Much has been said. Much has been said about Jeffrey Epstein. Terrible things.

No, Jeff, I'm talking about Jeff Epstein, the New York financier. Yes. We're talking about the same. Jeff Epstein. No. Yes. No. Yes.

I, what? I never, I never heard. Oh, it was a big story in the news, huge. No. Yes. For you to say, no one ever said. Jeff Epstein. Yes.

Jeff Epstein. Yes, the financier. With the island. Yes. He had an island that I've never been to. Yeah. I'm pretty sure, with respect, if there was some news about Jeff Epstein, I would have heard. No, I don't know where you, what rock you've been under.

It was a huge story, and I have to, Jeff, Epstein is, I have to tell you, he's gone. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. Sorry, nice try. If Jeff, if Jeff Epstein, if Jeff Epstein were deceased, I'm pretty sure I would know about it. Now, I admit I've not, probably since the pandemic, I have not talked to him. That would make sense. That would make sense. He's been dead for a number of years. I'll tell you, there's one easy way. Let's call Jelaine Maxwell. No, we're not calling Jelaine Maxwell. One?

She's in prison. She's imprisoned for crimes she committed with Jeff Epstein. Jelaine's in prison. Yes. Stop calling her Jell-L-A-L-How do you know these people? Jim. All right. Jim, listen.

Okay. I'm just saying I don't, I'm your friend. You, you know what? Whatever your, it doesn't matter what you're doing, your private. I don't do anything in my private life. Okay. But anyway, I'm your friend. All right.

Well, thank you. For the worst... And I make no apology. For the worst... Worst introduction to this podcast I've ever heard. Now, I'm going to put the focus on you, sir, because I'm going to tell you something. All right. There are some listeners, this may shock you, who may say, I don't know of this Jim Downey,

because we're listened to by billions of people around the world. A lot of people in Asia, Pacific Grimm countries, and they may not be familiar with Jim Downey. And I want to explain to them right now that you are... considered the greatest comedy writer, possibly of the mid to late 20th century, petering out very rapidly in the early 2000s when you just hit a wall. You launched so many careers. You are intimidatingly funny, and you are referred to by many comedians as the great comedy writer, the great comedy writer that we all revere.

and you're just going to have to accept that right now. What do you think of that? Well, that's very kind of you. The only thing I would say, I mean, they're funnier comedy, they're better comedy writers than me. But, you know, I'm good enough that I could, you know, play with them. I just felt like I got to. Who do you think was better than you?

Well, I mean, there's, I mean, Robert Smigel is a fucking brilliant guy. Robert Smigel is shit. And I'm saying this, listen, I'm going to say this. I'm a good friend of Roberts. Robert was the original head writer on my late night show, and Robert and I are good friends. I tell him this almost every day, he's a piece of shit. He couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag.

Jack Handy? I didn't even know he was a comedy writer. You know? I thought he had an ice cream concern. You've turned me around on Jack. No. Conan, you could have been the greatest ever if you weren't so fucking lazy. I mean, some weeks it was all I could do to get you to.

show up to work. I'm sorry. You know, it's like Conan, it's Wednesday. The others have been here since Monday. I'm tired. I did a show. Everyone did a show last week. That is a spot-on impression. And Jim, I had other interests. You know I got into glass blowing. And it was something that I enjoyed. And I made you a beautiful, beautiful glass beaker. This was something that I pursued in my spare time. I have that beaker. It's a treasured. Because I, I will tell you that, yes, Robert Smigel, also one of the greats of all time, Jack Handy. We could play this game forever, but I just want to walk people through your pedigree. You come to Saturn Night Live at almost the beginning, 1976.

You're there for that formative four of those five seasons that begin that show, really the nuclear bomb blast with the classic cast. You're there. You were very young when you were hired. You were right out of college from a little. 22. 22. And your first day of work was also Bill Murray's first day of work. Is that true?

That's right. We shared an office for four years. And I came, the Chevy's last two weeks were like my first two weeks. So we kind of overlapped. I wish that it hadn't been my first two years of adulthood because it was a very strange way to enter adulthood. You know, I didn't appreciate all the stuff that was going on around me at the time. Right. I would love to get to, you know, reconfigure those early years.

I mean, you're there. John Belushi's on the cast. I remember you telling me once, he started coming by with records and playing us all these old, you know, Stacks records and his blues records, and he'd sing them. And you acted annoyed when it became, the Blues Brothers became this massive title wave. but you had this different perspective, which is... I thought, I mean, the Blues Brothers,

Aykroyd always, he understood that it was, it was kind of a joke. Right. It was a goofy kind of thing to do. The first time I saw it, I saw it as, I mean, it was really a sketch to me. Danny was a great, because John became, he got very, very serious,

and he thought of himself as a musician. And Danny was actually really good, harmonica player and dancer. And so, Danny, that began as a warm-up act. Yes. for the show. It was definitely like a comedy thing. We were having fun with it. And the audience fucking loved it because we had our house band, as I know you know, incredible house band. It's some of the most incredible, like, you had to know a fair bit about music to write,

but it would be like, wait a minute, the Howard Johnson, is your tuber player, the Lou Marini, the Al Rubin, the, you know, yeah, the David Sandborn, that was our fucking house band. See, this is an important part of my life because you get started 76. I come long in 1988 and I have a very clear memory of you brought me on. I remember walking the hallways at night when I was trying to think of an idea and seeing these iconic photos of the original cast, the 1975 to 1980 cast, you know, Chevy Chase, Ackeroid, Belushi, Lorraine Newman, Jane Curtin. And at the time, I'm 24 years old, something like that. And I'm looking at these photos thinking, wow, that was like a thousand years ago. They looked like so. And,

Civil War photos. And this is in 1988. And I had a very clear memory of, well, I wish I had been around for that because this thing is probably at the end. I had a very clear. I'm not being a jackass or being a wise guy. I just thought, well, this probably has a few more years and I'm lucky to be a small part of it. But it's just, it's amazing that you were there at the beginning and the show now is about to celebrate its 50th. Yeah.

I was wondering how they were going to do that. but it is, I confirm that it is going to be, as it should be, February of 2025, because you were around when we did the 15th anniversary, but we did it in 1989. And I was one of the producers. I'm going, Lauren, the show came on the air in 1975. Shouldn't this be next year, the 15th anniversary? I mean, and he told, no, because if you count from, this is the 15th, you see, you know. Yeah, but people don't think of it that way.

I think it's because Prince said he would do it then. I literally think it was, I remembered Prince being there for that. I remembered it being, and again, I thought, wow, I'm here for the 15th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. It'll never make 20. I'll be long gone by then. Probably dead. My lifestyle at the time. But it was just incredible to me.

And you wrote so many classic sketches. What are a few of your favorites from that era, say 76 to 80, a. couple that just resonated with people, but they also were personal favorites of yours. Things that I wrote entirely by myself that I began to develop a specialty that, of foreign language pieces. I wrote a game show called Ken S. Musumacho. Yes, I remember that. It started with a friend of mine who grew up in Columbia and who speaks just six languages fluently, but he used to tell me just the hilarious stories about American television shows from the 50s that he grew up watching and there's Spanish titles. I love the

Spanish language. It's actually a majestic sounding language. Beautiful, gorgeous musical language. I know. It's a much grander language in English, but there's something about like American 50s stuff. So like there was a show. Now, maybe you've heard about it. I'm sure no one in this room is old enough to have actually seen it. Now, I'm barely old enough, but Sea Hunt, starring Lloyd Bridges, who was the father of Jeff Bridges. And it was about a guy who was a scuba diver in the different things. He had adventures.

This is in 1950s. And the Spanish title was, Investigator Submarino. And then there was the fugitive, there was the fugitive with David Hansen and my friend would go, El Fugitivo with David Yance. And so, and that started this thing where we started getting into

bancha. So the idea was, it was a game show. The questions, you one or lost by guessing correctly who was more macho of two different celebrities. Yeah. And the whole point was just to do a sketch

entirely in Spanish. Yes. So that Billy, Bill Murray, played the host, and Gilda was one of the contestants, and Ricky Nelson, who was the host. But my favorite part of that piece, it was the part of the show where now let's meet the contestants. So we've done a round of like, it was like, it was like, Kenes mas macho, Fernando Lamas, oh, Ricardo Mantalaba. Gennas mas macho, Lama. Montelban.

And it's like Ricky Nelson, you know, Fernando Lamas? Oh, Ricardo Mantelban is a little much, much, much. And so,

so then it was like, now let's meet the contestants. So he goes up, and this is the thing that made me laugh, is Gilda, and it's like, and she's fucking so brilliant.

She was like, that giggly kind of excited, and he's calming her down I'm in Spanish, you know, and he goes, you know, and I forget the Spanish of it, but he says, you know, what do you do? I'm a housewife. And he goes, what profession is your husband do? My esposo exterminator, you know, an exterminator. You know, an exterminator. Oh, verdad. Exterminador is profession very macho. And she goes, it's like, kei type of insectos exterminate. What kind of insects does he exterminate?

Oh, cucarachas, mosquitoes, todos los insects. You have such a musical year. You wrote a sketch, you know, there was those classic Hercules movies. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're dubbed. They're badly dubbed.

And you can tell they're dubbed, and the lips don't quite match up. I remembered, I'm pretty sure it was Bill Murray in it. And you were the voice of the dubbing. Yes, it was Hercules. It was called The Return of Hercules. And I always wanted to do a dubbing piece, like based on the old, again, for someone born when I was in the 50s, these Hercules movies were constantly on because they were on like Saturday afternoon. And it was just the hilariously bad dubbing.

It was Dana played like the evil king, Dana Carvey. Nora Dunn was the beautiful girl who is Hercules, you know, love interest, and then it's Billy as Hercules. And then the sound booth was me, Tom Davis, and Jan Hooks. And I'm doing Billy's voice and Davis is doing the evil king, his day, Danish part. And then Jan was doing Nora's voice. And so we were doing it live, and they were like, flapping their lips to sort of.

The actors are just moving their mouths. Yeah. Yeah, but sort of trying to, you know, it had to sort of look like we wanted to be 60% on it, you know. But it was just the whole premise was that Hercules was out of shape. So I don't remember too many of the details, but it was like, this is Tom doing, the evil king is going, I will make you this offer.

you know, if, um, if you could, um, uh, if you could pass a test of Frank, I was there, and it's like, and it's like, and so, and so then Hercules's going, what kind of test did you, did you propose? What kind of test do you propose? It's like, do you see that boulder? No one, it is that giant boulder? No one has ever lifted it. If you can lift that boulder, I will spare the girl's life.

And then, and then I go, and then I go. That boulder is too large. I can lift a smaller one. Such a non-Hercule's thing to say. That boulder is too large. I could lift a smaller one. So he pulls a muscle and try to lift the boulder. And then, so they, I can't remember.

But it was just, it was just like goofy stuff like, it's Hercules disgusting. It's like, oh my God, the mighty Hercules. I don't mean to be cruel, but you have really let yourself go. And Hercules's like, I learned to my son. lathies, that if you don't keep up your exercise regimen, the muscle turns to fat. Now, I later, I later, I basically was doing Lee Van Cleef. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

But basically, I later used Mike Myers asked me to do that voice for Wain's World. So I was the voice of her father. Yeah. Of the girl's father, who was played by the actor James Hong. Anyway, that was my voice. Well, it, yes. Oh. So, so the, now we're encroaching on your era, Sona.

No. When you were doing the voice, I was like, that sounds like the part in Wayne's world where he's like trying to, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a piece that you did that I think of as a quintessential Jim Downey Peach. And this is when I was there. So this is in the late 80s, early 90s. But you did a piece, a commercial parody. It was for a bank that would just make change. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Change bank. And it occurred to me. there was something that just delighted me so much. And it's very popular online. And you can, you should go and check it out because you're, you star in the piece because no one could do it as well as you. And you are the spokesperson for change bank. It is you over explaining what we do at change bank.

If you know, if you give us a five, we'll give you four ones and four quarters. We'll also give you. And, and, and breaking it down into all the denominations. And I remember talking to Jack Handy about this. And he was like, nobody loves to over. No one loves the comedy of over-explaining more than Jim Downey, telling you much more than you need to know. And it's a very specific way.

And there's a music to it. You have a musical ear for that kind of comedy. But it is something that always made me laugh just deliberately wasting someone else's time. Yes, yes, yes. Explaining something to them that needs, no explanation to begin with. We got it. We got it. We got it. And so, and I've done

a number of pieces where that is like a thread. And I was, I remember, I remember one that I'm even sure if it got on, but it was when the Padres, I think it was like, I was a big Cubs fan and when the Padres eliminated the Cubs in 1984,

it was 1984? I don't know, and I don't care. Anyway, okay, but anyway, the Padres and the Padres, and the Padres were owned by Joan Crock, the widow of Ray Kroc, who started McDonald's. It was Joan Kroc, and the joke was that she didn't know anything about baseball, so she asked to address the team for the game. And to the players, I can't stress this enough.

When you're at that, hit a home run. Hit a home run. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why I say that. I'll tell you why. Because when you hit a home run, you get to run around all of the bases. All of them. get to run. You don't know. You don't have to stop at all. And so enough. And the players are like,

Mrs. Crock, I mean, we like to get started here, you know. And then so Change Bank was just, was, and I wrote that for Kevin Neeland. Yeah. And I am afraid, like, it was a case of like, I mean, you know me. I'm not, I'm not like a bully kind of director guy. But I was giving Kevin a lot of notes and Kevin is like, you know, he was the most beloved. Yes. It remains. I just saw him yesterday. Everyone, you know, love the guy and I even, and I got even on Kevin's nerves a little bit. And none, it wasn't like a beloved me because Jim, maybe, maybe why don't you do it? I mean, you, I mean, I'll be in it, you know, and I actually, and that was one of the very few times where I went like, you know, actually, I mean, I actually would be good for that just because you need,

doesn't hurt to be played by a person with no camera presence. You look like someone working at a bank. Yeah, I just, and I hand on the, and it was like really talking a little too fast and too excited about something. And so that was, I have this theory that virtually anyone can act in the right part. Yes. And there's a genius in recognizing what someone would do really well and putting them in that right position. And a great, you know, there's a continuum that ends, say, at, you know, Daniel Day Lewis, say, you know, who can do pretty much anything, you know.

And then I'm down more the other end of that. But here and there, there are things that I can do where I use my lack of camera presence. Well, I'm going to just because you brought it up, I'm going to skip way ahead of what I wanted to talk about next and just say, quickly remind people that in 2005, you're in. in There Will Be Blood, which remains one of my all-time favorite movies. I love There Will Be Blood. Of course, Paul Thomas. You probably think of it as a Daniel Day-Lewis movie. Yes.

But I'd be wrong. Some might even give it to the child. Who goes to death? It's a movie. And I remember going and seeing that movie and absolutely loving it. It's so in my wheelhouse. And you have these scenes with Daniel Day Lewis. And I completely believe that your job was selling land in California in 19,

know, three, and it was a real thing because I was like, that's Jim Downey, that's my friend. He gave me my start. Oh, my God, I lost myself in the scene. I forgot it was you. It was great. Well, I had known Paul Thomas Anderson, weirdly met him when he was 10 years old when his father, Ernie Anderson, I arranged to be booked at Letterman when I was the head writer at Letterman in 1983. Ernie Anderson used to be the back in the 80s was the voice of ABC. If you remember those, It's a, the love boat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Vegas, Dan, it's the mob.

It's the love boat. And so he brings Paul as a 10-year-old kid, and because he's, why am I my son? This is my son. And I remember meeting him, and then I saw him again. That was 1983. I saw him again. No, he wouldn't have been 10.

Whatever, 1983 to 1983, 1988, 58, 15. Yeah. No, it was something like that. And he might have been younger then. It doesn't matter. No, it does. I need to know his exact age, or this story doesn't make it to the final cut. I don't know, Paul Dobis Anderson.

The whole thing falls apart. And you weren't even in, there will be blood. Give me that. Give me that. You never wrote for Saturday Night Live. But it says here, a close friend of Epstein. That is true. That is true.

But can I say something? I'm going to, because I need to get you to, I got to corral you a little bit here. Can they do it fast? I don't think you can. I mean him again when he's doing boogie nights. Pugy nights, yeah. And going out with my Rudolph, he decides I have some kind of look that he simply has to have in his movie. So years later, he's casting There Will Be Blood.

And he basically is holding up the entire production trying to find me. And it had been a year, kind of a drinky year for me and I kind of disappeared. Sure. And he tracked me down. And that's what sort of pulled me out of my situation. Oh, good. I flew me out to El Paso, and then I drive seven hours to Marfa, Texas, and that night was in a fitting room with Daniel Day Lewis. Can I just say that's the craziest intervention I've ever heard of in my life?

I know. I'm really worried about Jim. He's really hit the bottle. Go get him and put him in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Put him with Daniel Day. And it scenes with Daniel DeLuis, the greatest living actor. Yes. That'll snap it out of it.

And I remembered saying to him like, Paul, this is, this is fucking madness. It's fucking Daniel Day-Lewis. And I go, I don't want to just ruin your movie. And he goes like, no, no, he won't let you. He won't let you be bad. And I go, well, okay, I mean, well, I'm going to see how good he is. The only time I ever heard him use his actual speaking voice,

which is incredibly soft and gentle, it's like he should, it's so, it's very whispery and it's very, it's very delicate. I can't do his accent as well, but it's incredible. incredibly cultured and upper-class, was when he introduced himself, the first time we met, which is literally in the dressing room, and he's pulling on his pants and stuff,

and I'm getting fitted. And then when he introduced me to his wife, a couple weeks later when she visited the set, and all of the times he stayed resolutely in character. Wow. Which was like he was doing John Houston, kind of a, you know. And so I remember we had to,

every morning that it was shot on the set where they filmed Giant outside of Marfa, as a ranch that had been, it's been like a 50-year drought there. And so they had all these rules, like you couldn't drive more than like 10 miles an hour. And that's an excruciatingly slow pace to be in a car. And you had to, it took like 40 minutes to drive to the set from our home base. And so every morning I would be driving with Anthony Lewis. And he's in character talking about what he did over the weekend.

So it's just like, I got to tell you, we went to the Rihanna. That was the best damn hamburger I've ever had. But it's just coming out of that face. It was really... That's hilarious. And he's talking about current-day things. Never, absolutely. Yeah.

Do you follow soccer? And he arranged the World Cup happened that summer. And so he arranged to have the World Cup finals pumped into the right to the little theater my clear memory of that movie is my my head writer Mike Sweeney saw it first and he came out and he loved it and he called me up and he said I just saw a movie and it's about you and I said what so I went and saw there will be blood and it's of course plain view is just this maniac and and I said what do you talk he beats a guy to death at the end with a I said that's how am I like that and he went no no no no not that

specifically just the like, you're the kind of guy that would drag yourself through the desert with a broken leg. You know what I mean? It was something about the will. You have this like crazy iron will. But he's got more intensity. I mean, man, he, you know, the, here's the thing. I have the original script.

I can prove this if you need me to. The original script ended with me. Me, I'm working with him, supposedly. He's brought me along when he moved to L.A. Yeah. And I come upon the crumpled body. of Paul Dano. Not the waiter.

Yeah. Not the butler. I'm the butler. I'm not a butler exactly. But I come in and I carry Daniel, who's like six, seven or something. I mean, he's, you know, big guy. And I carry him out.

And I, you know, I feel, okay, I think I can handle it if he helps me a little bit. Right. The movie ended on my reaction to the horror. Yeah. That was supposed to be the shooting draft and we started to go, are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah, yeah. That's fantastic. That's great. And so I, and then they decided, because I was, they, at one point, Paul said, you know what, we're not going to, we're not going to need you for the L.A. shoot in the Doheny Mansion, which is where they shot it. And I said, I, I, I always thought it was a Loneck idea to fucking end the movie on me. Right. And, and he said, but he said, like, he's so abusive to you in the earlier in the movie that it just didn't track that he would forgive you and then bring you along. Yes. Yes. Yes. In his later career. Yeah. One other thing I'll say about that is, Robert Smigel actually knocked on my apartment door, bang, bang, bang.

Because he knows Paul Thomas Anderson, yeah. He knows him from Punch Drunk Glove. Yeah. He says, Jimmy, that Paul's been trying to get a hold of you. We're like, for what? Oh, Paul Thomas, Adam, what? And he goes, yeah, he really wants you to do this movie, and they're holding up the casting in the studio.

He's really angry because he won't cast the part, and they want to get started. And I go, what? What? This is insane. It's a joke. And he goes, you got to do it. You should do it.

You should do it. It's Daniel Lee Lewis. And so I said, okay, so, and then later that afternoon I have to get an early fitting at a studio in New York. And then I flew like the next day, Saturday to El Paso. But that night I get fitted and Monday at 6 a.m. we did our first scene on camera. My proudest boast is that I couldn't have ruined the movie because you'll notice he got the Oscar. All right. So I have to bring up. I can't go anywhere in this world about people stopping me and saying,

I'm sorry about Norm MacDonald. I always think in those moments because he had so many amazing appearances on my show and I think, well, the person who really needs to be hearing this is Jim Downey because you were the one that pretty much hold up with Norm. You identified Norm as a brilliant guy very quickly. You wanted him to do update.

And then you and Norm really crafted that update, which has become, I think, the iconic performance recognized today. today is the iconic performance on Update of all time. There's a quote here. I just want to read back to you. What I did like about the way we approached update was that it was akin to the punk movement, what the pump movement was for music, just stripped down. We did what we wanted. There was nothing there that was considered to be a form of cheating. We weren't cuddly. We weren't adorable. We weren't warm. We weren't going to do easy political jokes that played for Clappter and let the audience know we were all on the same side. We were going to be mean and to an extent anarchists. And I think that's a perfect distillation of what you and Norm did.

It's basically the thing with Norm, there were so many, first of all, he was really, really smart. He was very intelligent. He could land things. He was clipped and precise. You know, his older brother Neil is a CDC newscaster. Yeah. And so Norm had the perfect, what we call the perfect straight line going for in terms of his look. And he just had a great sensibility. Also, he hated easy laughs and what my colleague, Seth Myers, coined the term Clappter. I think he did. I always give him credit. He was either him or Tina Faye, I can't remember.

I'd hear different people. Or Oppenheimer. One of them came up with it. But Clappter is a perfect thing for that kind of like lazy, sucking up to the audience. Trump sucks. Yeah, yeah. And then you get applause. We just, we might even agree with that politically, but, you know, come on.

They deserve more than that kind of shit. So just challenge them with stuff, even if it's going to maybe make them uncomfortable, like, I don't like laughing at that, but that's fucking funny, so I'm going to have to laugh, you know? And, of course, the OJ jokes. Well, here's the thing.

We're a huge part of that. So the OJ trial happens, and you and Norm are writing these jokes that are so fucking fantastic. They're just razor blades. Norm is the perfect person to deliver them. There's one you wrote, which I could try.

and do, but you might remember it exactly, but it's a picture came up of Johnny Cochran testifying. I think I know what the way you're talking about. And OJ. sitting next to him and Cochran's standing there and he's holding the knit cap. The knit cap that was found at the scene. And Norm, in his norm-esque way, says, well, you know, the vents had a bit of a, had a bit of a bad day today. The defense trial when Johnny Cochran testified and held up the knit cap that was found at the scene of the murder. He was going on about the knit cap when suddenly was interrupted by O.J. who said,

hey, easy with that. That's my lucky stabbing cap. Yeah. And I remembered that being an ice bullet that went through my heart. It was so... That's my lucky stabbing hat. Yeah, it's my lucky stabbing hat.

And the thing is, and you know this too, he would say something like that and I don't know where my camera is. It's there, I guess. That's my lucky stabbing hat. And he would hold in this way that nobody does hold and hold and hold.

And he would do it for a joke that killed, as that one did. But he'd also do it for a joke that he liked or that you liked or that you guys liked. And if it got nothing... It was like... It wasn't. Some people said

you're punishing the audience for not liking the joke. No, we're giving them enough time to appreciate it. There was one that was like, was O.J. Simpson high on drugs the night of the murders? Absolutely not. It says a defiant O.J. And a simple test of any of his blood found that the crime scene will prove.

And then there was one like... Indignation. There was one... There was one when, like, O.J. Simpson had been criticized because the first... Mother's Day after the murders, he played golf in Scotland. Yeah. And it's like this weekend, O.J. Simpson playing golf in Scotland was heavily criticized and not spending the first Mother's Day since Nicole Brown Simpson's murder with his children.

And Angry Simpson responded, idiots, I didn't spend Mother's Day with my kids because I killed their mother. There were two more I wanted to bring up because I was very. Norm and I would spend like insane amounts of time obsessing over the precise wording of a joke. And I remember there was one that I thought actually benefited from our kind of neurotic attention to tail. But it started off as a joke about Penthouse magazine had this cover story, which even if you didn't read Penthouse, you would see the cover on newsstands. And it was, you know, this week, shocking photos, alien. autopsy. This is Penn House

magazine. So they claim to be actual photos of an alien autopsy. So the joke we started out with, which I think would have been good enough, was this week, Penthouse Magazine released its much awaited photos of an alien

autopsy. According to those have seen the issue, the photos were sharp, clear, and easy to masturbate to. So anyway, then I thought like, you know what, that can be better. There's a better rhythm to that.

So I suggest, I first suggested that it should be, and, well, Tony is on, end quote, easy to masturbate, too. Because I just liked it for rhythm. And then I came up with one of my greatest contributions of the season, which was I added the word surprisingly. So that, the joke became kind of different. So it was like, according to those who have seen these. advanced copies, the photos are sharp, clear, and quote, surprisingly easy to masturbate, too. You got this image of a guy going, you know, at first, I didn't think this would work, but God damn it, this is fucking hot.

I think the work that you and Norm did on update is proof that you guys worked really hard. You got fired for it. One of the people at the top at NBC was a good friend of OJ's. He was his closest friend. Was his closest friend. And you got fired for that. But you've always thought that was a kind of a proud moment for you because a lot of people reached out. when that happened and identified that that was the wrong move.

I have to say, Norm, I know, took it much harder than I did. I sort of looked at it philosophically and said, you know what, it's like, you know, the A.E. Housman poem to an athlete dying young before fame outran the man, the kind of thing. And maybe I have that backwards too. But anyway, we were yanked off. And maybe that's better than risking that where you, peak and then it's downhill.

You stick around too long. Yeah. And we didn't get that, we weren't put in that position of having to, you know, to make that decision, it was made for us. But I know that, Norm, the story about that, I know you know this story, but I think people who are fans of Norm deserve to know this about him. The network went to Norm and said, we want to get rid of Jim Downey. And we just want you to know, you're cool with that right. He said, no, no, you can't fire him. If you fire him, I quit. And they go, that's crazy. I mean, you know, he's, he's not helping you, you know, the segments too mean or whatever. And he said, well, no, I'm not doing it without him. And he never told me that. And I didn't hear that for years. I heard it from some network executives. And I, I, and part of

everything else, if that had been me, that would have been, you bet Norm would have heard. You would have talked about it. Yeah. Of course. I mean, come on. Norm didn't. I mean, he was a very stoic, old world. He came from. a different century. Oh, yeah. I mean, I remembered when he, when he died, you called me and you said, you were mad at me initially. You said, I can't believe you didn't tell me, Conan. And I said, I didn't know. None of us, none of us knew. Laurie Joe knew. And his, Mark Gervitz, his manager, knew. His mother. His mother and his son knew. Yeah. And his brother. So outside of family, he was like three people. And he didn't, and I know why he didn't, I mean, I've been told and it

and made perfect sense, so I believe it. He just didn't want it to ever be about anything but being funny. He didn't want to be brave or fighting the good fight or, you know, he didn't want to do heartwarming stuff. I was a little hurt that he didn't tell me, but I mean, I talked to him, I guess, I know you may have talked to him more recently than I'd had, but I'd talked to him certainly the summer of 2021, August. We were trying to get him on my last late night show.

It was not long before he passed, and we were trying really hard to get. him to be because I wanted nothing more than to him to be one of the last guests. And he was considering it, but then wouldn't do it. And then, and I think he didn't, he knew that he didn't, he also didn't, he knew that his appearance was kind of changing and he didn't want to, but, you know, if I, I know this is shifting from one kind of bravery to another, but he, one of our, my proudest moments was a joke we did. And I think it was a Frank joke, Frank Sebastiano. It was a joke where we took the world's most innocuous kind of C-section news story, and we would clip a real news story and show it on the monitor so that the audience knew.

This is a real thing. We didn't make it up. And we did that for most of our things. So the story was like, you know, Denver City Council approves traffic light for Martin Avenue. And so it's, we go to, and it goes enormous, like, this week, the Denver City Council finally, on its third attempt, voted funds for a new traffic light on. Martin Avenue. Then he turns dramatically to another camera goes, maybe they would have voted the funding earlier if instead of a traffic light, it was for rich white men. And then we bring up a lower

third. Applaud now. But that's the kind of stuff that there's not really a great place to laugh in that show. That's a thing that like Norm, we would do our run-through. like we would work on the jokes a bit during the week, but mainly Friday night. And we would, that's when especially, I would do a lot of rewriting and refining. And then I'd run through stuff with Norm. And then Saturday, we'd do a run through. And they were always screaming. We were always kind of late, getting in the studio really late because they were,

come on, guys, we're losing time. So we'd come down to a run through. And we'd make a few kind of changes, maybe think of some things for Norm to add. Then we'd have a dress. And then my attitude with Lauren Michaels, the producer, the big guy was always like, tell us how long you want the segment to be. We're like, because we're the most easily bologna-slice segment. And at my attitude, and Norm kind of agreed, it's like,

Norm wanted a certain, you didn't want to feel that like, we had to have a, we were entitled to a certain amount of the show. But I always argued like anything, if we're cutting lean, we're in good shape, you know? So, I mean, sure, we'll always cut the fat that you, everyone should do that. But if we're also have to give up something we don't want to give up, it's probably a good indication. No, no, it's a lot of our, stuff can be done next week.

You know, we used to, we would do six minute updates. We, I think we did a five minute. They do like 12 minute updates now, you know, and they did them before us. And Norm, I will say this, Norm was not crazy about features. Yeah. He wasn't crazy about having other people on the segment, you know, always any, and sometimes I had to like get him to be more involved with the guests. Yeah.

Yeah. But, um, Seth Myers was the best ever and interacting with, I mean, he was great at that. I wish Norm had been a little more playful like that. Be a good straight. Man. But what I always took away from you, and you're in my head a lot over the years that I've been writing and all the years that I've been doing things. And you're surprisingly easy to masturbate too. But you're also in my head for another reason. No, you're in my head because there's an ethic that I got from you. And I also got from Robert Smigel. And I try to pick from the best, which is if I can lose it, yes, trim the fat, but also. so sometimes cut into the muscle. Norm would totally throw out something

if he came to suspect it was not the kind of laugh we wanted. And by the way, he doesn't, that doesn't mean it was dirty or something if it was like cheap or easy or whatever. And the thing is you could give Norm a choice like, okay, this is absolutely guaranteed to kill. It'll get a mini standing ovation,

but it's tacky and we both know it. This is guaranteed to die. I promise you we'll get, you know, death camp silence. but it's fucking brilliant. Norm would unhesitatingly go for the silence. But I would go, yeah, I would too, but I'm not the guy out there. He is.

And I always fucking love that about him. He would never reject something because it's funny, but they're not going to get, they're going to laugh, you know. And I had fights with even with people that you and I both respect, who just, oh, man, it killed, it killed. You go, yeah, but come on, man. Right. And a lot of that is these days especially anything political. It's just so the temptation, because this is coming up with stuff is hard.

You know, you have to fill time. It doesn't feel good. You're out there in front of people and you tell a joke and everyone applauds. It's a terrible feeling. It doesn't feel good. You want to just really catch them by surprise and make them laugh. It's very Soviet to go with the applause. I know.

And Stalin was funny, which is sad. Stalin? Occasionally. Yeah. He could be funny. Don't kid yourself. He was. Joe.

Joe. Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe. Ask your husband. He's a funny guy. Oh, my God. Cousbands. He grew up in the Soviet Union.

He was 11. Yeah. Oh, but he's highly active in the Soviet Union. Oh, yeah. I'll ask him about Stalin. Was he funny? Was he a funny guy? Yeah.

Lauren Michaels. This is a quote from Lauren Michaels. He called you, Jim Downey, the best political humorist alive. Um, well, that was before the birth three years ago of a hilarious child. Oglevy Johnson. Well, let's just, yeah. But I've seen the kid stuff. Yeah, you're so principled and you're right.

Now, um, so much political comedy now, which is wailing one way or the other. And I find that it's just a, I don't know, it doesn't feel to me like a satisfying time to be a comedy writer if you're trying to do politics because there's there's so much that's just attitude there's a temptation to enrage the audience i mean you know i mean i mean i don't i mean personally i you know i'm i just fucking loath trump as a human being and and but it doesn't mean that every just just attacking him is funny there are interesting ways to attack him you know i always like john milanis thing about there's a horse loose in the hospital that's I mean, just as sort of an interesting.

Malini had a great run about Trump and this president was like there's a horse loose in a hospital. And just how odd that was. It was such a great metaphor. It was a great metaphor for Trump being president. And what I loved about it was it captured the absurdity of it all, but it did it in this way that there was no bile. It was and it's very hard. You need to sometimes, it was purely comedic, which I loved. So let's just end.

this by saying that John Malaney is better than anyone we know. Is that the point you were trying to make? He's very good. Very funny man. When Malaney first came to the show as a writer, you were talking about like my, you know, I like to sort of identify people. And I didn't, I didn't find him or hire him, but I was walking through, and this is really about Malaney and not me, but I was walking through the studio. And by the end of my career, I was, you know, I was like, you know, 60 years old and I, you know, I was aware of the age gap between me and the, and having once been the very youngest writer, I was now massively the oldest writer. And so I didn't, I didn't hang out. I didn't do the late 90 things. I wrote from home. Like, you know, I live in upstate New York

near Cooperstown. And so I, I would be at home Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. And then I'd write my piece and I dictate it, I always dictate my pieces because they're, you know, they have to be spoken and they have to be speakable and they have to be, they're going to be heard and not read. And so you need to, in, when I'm dictating them, I'm changing them. I go, wait a minute. Hang on, I'm changing, you know. And anyway, they have it to read through and then I'm told if it's in or not. If it's in, I drive down to New York. Anyway, so I was in the studio on Saturday. And I don't even, I don't even sure I'd met Malaney. It was like the second show. and I'm walking through the studio,

and they're rehearsing one of his, he had a piece on, I think it was like his second show. And he had this hilarious piece on. And this is a great sort of, the host was Tim McGraw, who's a really good actor, a very funny guy, and it was like a country kind of a show where he does like practical jokes. But he's such a soft-hearted sweet guy.

He keeps, like, apologizing for it. It's hard to explain you. Yeah, yeah. the thing's. But, and I heard it, and I know this makes me sound like an arrogant asshole, but it reminded me of that there was a story about Ted Williams when Hank Aaron was a rookie. Ted Williams is playing. He was somehow involved in the game. I didn't know they had interleague games or anything, but, but Hank Aaron is is warming up. And Ted Williams is sitting in the dugout. And here's from the way the ball is coming off Hank Aaron's bat that he's never heard that before.

And he storms out to go, who was just taking batting practice? And it was Hank Aaron and Ted Williams like, and I sort of had that, it was akin to that. I'm not comparing myself to Ted Williams. No. I am comparing John Mullaney to Hank Aaron, though. He's a lot like Hank Aaron. But I'm saying that I walking through the studio and I hear this and I go, that's a new writer. That's a new, we don't, that's not a writer I know.

Yeah. Yeah. That's we have a new writer or a guest writer because that wasn't, that's not. And I'm listening to the piece. And he goes, that was not written by a writer whose work. And I was right. I was right. It turned out it was, it was John.

And he went on to write a lot of great stuff. Yeah. And then he's trying stand up, but whatever. He's young. He's young. He'll get it. He'll get it. He will get it.

Hang in there, sir. Jim, I will, the highest compliment I can pay you is that I wasn't joking. You're in my head a lot. And I think that's true of every comedy writer of my generation and for generations before and after me. I think what would Jim think about this? Would this meet Jim standard? And that's a real gift you've given to all of us, an incredible gift. Seriously, you've given us a, you are uncompromising and proud to know you.

Thanks for giving me a shot way back in 1988. It would have been a crime not to. Well, I'm glad you feel that way. Crime against comedy. Okay. But seriously, I'm just, I'm thrilled when you agreed to do this. I thought this is a... We've been talking about my doing this for quite a few years.

Yeah. So I'm glad. And this doesn't have to be the last time I do it. No, this is the last time. Yeah. Yeah, it really, it's been a nightmare. I never want to see you again. Oh, man.

Yeah, sorry. That's really... I'm duly harsh. Next time you're on, I want you dubbed with your own voice the whole time. Coton, it is a pleasure to be here. I must say, the last time, these microphones. These microphones are too long. Jim, thank you so much for doing this.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Sona. Thanks, everybody. I get a special. Thank you. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Goreley,

Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Nick Liao, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.

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