Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Jim Gaffigan Returns

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Comedian Jim Gaffigan feels ecstatic about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Jim returns to the show to sit down once again with Conan to discuss very American opinions, Conan’s worst guest ever, holiday traditions, and his new special Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster. Later, Conan comes to grips with his terrible taste in Christmas decorations. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

That's what makes this podcast unique is that we open with every guest as their name. Oh, yeah. This was something I insisted on. Hi. My name is Slim Shady. Has everyone done that one? They've done that, right? Slim Shady's probably been done, but go for it.

Hi. My name is Jim Gaffigan. I feel ecstatic about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking blues, 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.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend podcast that aims to please. It's a nice slogan. And pleases to aim. Sometimes you can reverse things and it's clever. That was one I gave no thought to beforehand and it means nothing to say it pleases to aim. What would be our slogan if we had a slogan? Still making these. Hope you're hearing them.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend. Conan O'Brien friends a need. Doesn't work. You didn't think about it ahead of time either. It's a current to me now that very few of those actually work and that you have to be clever and think of them. You can't just say, well, you know, time to take out the trash and trash out the take. You have to actually think ahead of time and map it out and make sure that it lines up. But I can't help it.

I'm in the mood to keep trying those without even thinking about it and hoping that one magically works out. And you know what? One will. One will and eventually will. One? Damn it. No, that one. I mean, almost.

You're almost there. No, it doesn't. Don't get mad at me. In second one, I'm trying to be encouraging. Yeah, but when you encourage someone who just failed, you're being condescending. I just tried to take my first step and fell down a flight of stairs. When you encourage someone who's condescending, you're being a failure. You condescend and encourage.

Wait, hold on a second. What? I'm trying my best to come up with one of these. We've got to come up with a legitimate one before this introduction is over. Okay. But remember, let's just put our best foot forward. Yeah. And remember, forward your best foot.

That doesn't work either. That's not good. These are awful. Those are bad. These are bad. Yeah. And you know what? If you try and don't succeed, eventually you'll succeed in trying.

Nope. Not good. Well, I mean, that one's true, but it's just not poetic. It makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. What does it sense? Make.

Oh, now you're just turning into Yoda. And I'm getting angry. Why am I getting angry? You realize Yoda probably said many of these and just other Jedi's were around going, oh, Jesus. You know? Yeah. Yoda was probably around just disappointing people with his lousy, fake aphorisms.

You know? Are you comparing yourself to Yoda? No, I just can picture him like saying, remember when, you know, when you add cream to coffee, sometimes coffee, you cream. See, that one's pretty good. And you're like, what? Yoda. And he's like, why is I am and am I wise?

And you're like, no. It's working as Yoda, though. Yeah, because people give Yoda so much slack because Yoda talks that way. And because he's like just tiny little creature, wrinkly creature, and he's 8,000 years old. People give him Yoda beef here. No, no, no. I'm just saying he gets a lot of slack. You know that Yoda shows up at a party and everyone's like, oh my God, it's Yoda.

Hey, Yoda, thanks for being here. Good to be here. Here it is. And is good to be is now here. And people are like, wow. That blew my mind, Yoda. Your mind blew. Blue are you.

Yoda, what? I'll blow you. No, Yoda. Jesus. Don't do that to Yoda. Yoda, that's disgusting. No, sorry. Didn't mean oral sex I give.

Tried to be clever with backwards talk. Made mistake. Not you I blow. Blow are you. What? Yoda, you got to go right now. There are kids here. Mistake I made.

Sorry, BI. BI, what are you a pirate now, Yoda? I go now, but now I go. What? You have to use the bathroom? No, leave me do. No, I leave. You do.

Oh, fuck. Yoda. Yoda. Yoda, what is your problem? Tried to be clever, I do. But backwards say hard to make. What? Yoda having stroke?

No one know because of Yoda speak. He's right. This MRI shows he's having a major occlusion in his brain. He's had a terrible stroke that's affected his speech center and no one knew it because they just thought he was being 2,000 years old clever. Hospital take me to hospital now I do. What? He's just like Dr. Seuss Yoda.

Yeah. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish I be. Yeah, I think Yoda got a ton of slack. And I think there were many times when Yoda had a few too many drinks and he was hanging around. Yeah. And everyone was like, wow, Yoda's saying such cool shit. But if you think about it the next day, if anyone taped it, you know, on their phone.

Yeah. They'd be listening to him, oh my God, this is terrible. He's not well. Yeah. That's false. She went home with him and this is what he said. She went home with him? Yeah. Well, I mean, he's like picking up ladies left and right.

He is? He is? Yeah. Sexy you are. Sexy you do. No. Oh, wow. That's so clever.

I can't do this. Yeah. They pick him up and go home with him. No. Don't do that to Yoda. Yoda was a swinger. What you're talking about. He is.

Yeah. Come on, guys. You kidding? Women would go crazy for him. They would for Yoda. Oh, Yoda, what's up? Good to meet you. Why is that my woman voice?

You know, there is a woman Yoda in the Phantom Metis called Yaddle. There is not. I swear. I swear. Okay. Did they do it? Like, is it a thing? I don't know that they're like connected romantically.

Hold on. I'll show you a picture of her. She's hideous looking. Well, no. I'm sorry. I'm not saying that. Probably beautiful, but probably beautiful to Yoda. I don't know.

Tell me what you think when you see this. Okay. Let's see. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Is that Yaddle? That's Yaddle. Oh, Yaddle's same species as me.

Supposed to be attractive she is. But horrible finding her I am. Maybe they had baby Yoda. Grow good. No, no, no. Anyway. When Yoda goes home with girls, are they human women? Yes.

This is human women. They're not Yaddles. No, he goes to the clubs. No, they aren't Yaddles. He's not going home with the... Oh, my God. Oh, gee. Go back to that other one.

Look at that hair right there. Post that. That is me in 21 years. You're a Yaddle. Look at that hair. I'm a Yaddle. I didn't want to say anything, but she has your hair. She has my hair.

Yeah. So someone at Lucasfilm tried to think of what's the most hideous look we could go for. Yeah. And when they got to the hair, they just, they took Conan hair. They did. She's got the pompadour and everything. She really, the same color, the same type of hair, it's all identical. Sexy you are, Yaddle, because Conan hair you grew.

He likes you. He's a fan of yours. He's turned on by my hair. Face hideous it is, but hair makes me horny. It is. Yaddle, wear that wig to look like Conan. One request Yaddle, I have. Conan wig you wear.

Then we do. Okay. I'm sorry. Yota gets so much slack. He's such an asshole. All right. We got to go. We got lots to say.

We have to stop this. We have to get going. My guest today is back. He's back on the show, which I'm very happy about. He's a hilarious comedian who's ninth comedy special, Jim Gaffigan. Comedy monster is available on Netflix tomorrow. Jim Gaffigan, welcome. A lot of people don't know that we're, you know, we really don't get along.

Right. We are like Dean Martin and Joey Bishop. Right. We look like we're having fun together on stage. Can you make yourself look older? I can. We're like, you know, Dean Martin, these kids these days don't know about Joey Bishop. God bless America.

That was back when comedy was real. Now, I love to frustrate any listener. No, when we were references, they don't understand. When I walked in, you, I noticed that you shamed me. You called me. Oh, here he is. He's waxed and waxed. Like why are you so anti-vaxxed?

It's just something that you don't believe in, right? Well, yeah. The thing is I was listening to Joe Rogan and he was making a lot of sense. And so I immediately started working out and I had been vaccinated, but I actually went to the doctor and got unvaccinated. You know what I think? I think it was hard to do. I mean, by the way, I just want to get that out there. I'm the first celebrity to go and have my vaccine undone.

Yeah. No, I mean, the thing about Joe Rogan is like, I do feel like a lot of what he said has been taken out of context. But there is, and we all have friends that are like, hey, I'm not anti-vaxx, but I'm about to tell you that I'm anti-vaxx. Yeah. I mean, hey, I got it. I'm just saying, I think Fauci's the devil. Yes. I don't know why an 80-year-old man would wait 50 years into his career in an administration to then try and take over the country. It's called the long con.

It's the long con. I remember when Fauci got into medicine, he said, I'm going to destroy America and bring it to its knees when I'm in my 80s. That's what he said. And he's true to his word. But yeah, I guess, look, I don't want to spread misinformation. And my dad is a scientist. Yeah, he is. He's a doctor. He's a doctor. He's a microbiologist.

And so this has caused a real rift in the family. Right, because you don't believe in science. I don't believe in evolution. I don't believe in oxygen. There's no proof. I can't see it. I can't see oxygen. And if I can't see it, how do I know it's there? Right.

It's interesting. And I feel as though creative people have like people, particularly people that are into comedy have such a unique point of view. They have a tendency towards conspiracy. Do you know what I mean? Like they're more likely to embrace unusual thinking. And it's fine in a podcast situation. But like when it ends up, Are you seeing, you think this is prevalent in the comedy community? I think it's very prevalent.

I think there's a downright suspicion of, you know, I think there's an untrusting kind of approach to comedians. Is that how you pronounce it? Comedians. It's so strange that you've been in the profession. Comedians. Let me just point out also, you're quite well known and renowned for being a great comedian. Comedian. But you've never taken the time to pronounce it correctly.

Well, you know where I'm from, we say comedy. I love the great thing is to say I've heard it both ways. That's the great when you're caught mispronouncing something. Always say, I've heard it both ways. I've heard it both ways. Yeah, I've heard com-edian. Com-edian. And comedian.

But I didn't realize that, now that you think about it, comedians love to almost define themselves as, I don't think the way everybody else does. So I could see that leading to, I mean, it's not like I'm keeping a list or anything, but are there, do you have a lot of comedian friends that are saying, I don't know about this vaccine or I don't know about this mask wearing, not naming names, but is that something that you've heard about? Well, with the exception of you, I mean, I walked in and you were like anti-vax, but no, I would say there is a suspicion. A suspicion because comedians go along this path that they're rejecting generally, you know, a path that you're supposed to take, which is like you go to college, you get a job and then you play golf for five years. I think most comedians, if you're going to approach life that way, you're probably more likely to not trust what the government is telling.

It's weird because there's also, you know, if you also love history, which I know you do, there has been incredible lies, you know, it's like, you know, remember the main, that was just a con to get us in a war, right? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, are we being naive? You know what I mean? So I do find that my friends that are highly suspicious, there is part of me that's like, I don't know. I mean, there were no weapons of mass destruction.

You know what I mean? We'll be right back. Right, this got so heavy so fast, but I will say, I just don't see when it comes to our desire to have a war in Cuba, you know, in the late 19th century, there was a real benefit to us, to the United States, when I say us, the United States to get into that war. And so sometimes they get stuck on when people have a, so yes. And there was for the Bush administration a real interest in going into Iraq for other reasons. So I could see the reasoning behind it.

And I don't necessarily believe this, again, I didn't think we'd be going down this path, but I don't necessarily believe that people willfully or intentionally lied, but they really wanted to believe something. That's how I feel about it. With COVID, I don't see the upside for the government to have to, when people say like, oh, it's just the government, I think, what's the upside to shutting down the economy, having to really cripple the economy and put the country through two years of hell and in order to manufacture a serum that goes into our body for what reason?

And they say, well, there's a chip and I think they know where you are. If anybody really wants to know where you are, they've got a cell phone. So none of that makes any sense to me. I don't understand how you can get to the conspiracy, and I know I've just alienated most of my listeners because my listeners are very, very conservative. Well, they also, they come to you for, that's also an everything. We live in this day and age where there's stay in your lane. Don't have an opinion on certain things when the reality is that what we enjoy about people

that are in comedy is that they do have opinions. So it is odd that we're, you know, because I understand the hesitation of like, well, you know, I don't want one person to feel uncomfortable, but you're like, it is absurd. Yeah, but here's the other thing you just mentioned, which goes to you, and I think we share this. Most of your comedy, and I think the vast, vast majority of the comedy that I've enjoyed doing is we'll have opinions, but they're about the plight of humanity more than ripped from today's headlines. Right.

Which I admire people that do that well, but it was never fueled for me. I never read the newspaper and went, wow, this, this has really got my brain going, and this is going to give me something to talk about tonight. So I was almost the antithesis of, say, a mortsall. There's another, he just passed away. So that's a name I feel like from the 1960s that I can bring up in good conscience. Sorry, listeners, but Mortsall, extremely influential comedian and beloved in the early 60s, and through the 60s.

That was his kind of comedy, and then, of course, that's become a huge part of American comedy. But whenever I've listened to you, you're talking about cottage cheese. Yes. And so, yes, I love hearing your opinion, but it is not about Fauci or it is not about, you know, I want to talk about this Theranos trial. You're talking about, hey. Yeah, no. Well, you know, some of it is cottage cheese.

I selfishly don't want to do timely things that aren't, wouldn't be relevant later on. Right. You know what I mean? That's annoying. But also, I think some of it is people don't want to hear certain things from certain people, like big dorky white guys. And obviously, I don't include you, but like, you know,

Everyone knows I'm very, very small and olive skin. But there is something about context. Context is a big thing. And so there is, but here's the other thing I've been thinking of, which I think is so weird. It's like, this is more politics, is that we look at these people that are like, JFK Jr. is going to come back. He's going to be vice president, all this stuff. And we're like, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Or like when people are like, Hillary Clinton is going to be arrested. Right. Right. For drinking the blood of babies in the basement of a pizza parlor. And we were like, ha, ha, ha, ha. And there was a certain, you felt sad. You're like, oh my gosh, that's so sad. But on the other side, there were all these people like once,

once Biden's elected, Trump's going to jail, all these people are going to jail, all this. And we look just as foolish. Well, no, I think there's a, I think there might have been, you know, you're referring to this thing that happened a couple of weeks ago where everybody, not everybody, but literally a lot of people, I want to say 2,000, 3,000 people gathered. Yeah. In Dealey Plaza because there was an internet rumor, QAnon rumor, or fact that JFK Jr. was going to show up.

Right. In Dealey Plaza on this date to announce that he was running with Donald Trump. Right. Switching parties. Switching parties. And then I kept thinking, why is he, if he's alive, why is he choosing to show up in Dealey Plaza where his father was killed? I know.

I mean, none of, I mean, first of all, so that's why I went right to, well, he picked the wrong location, you know, and how are you going to cater that? That's a very hard area to cater. But I, but I, but I'm also oddly comforted by the fact that. I guess the only worst place to pick would be like Trap Equitik. Like if he was like, I'm coming back. Right. And I'm going to be in the water and Trap Equitik to make my announcement.

Yeah. You know, so, so yeah, there's, you know, but I'm comforted somewhat by the fact that this is, this is what humans do. It's what humans have always done. And uniquely Americans, there's always been the know nothings. Right. There's always, I mean, that's something that, I mean, I like history. I don't know as much as you, but I find it fascinating that America is made up of

all these kinds of people that were kicked out of every other country. They come over here, they get shit on for a generation. And then the second generation, the first thing they do is they find someone else to shit on. Yes. It's like my ancestors literally moved to Iowa because they were killing Catholics in Maine. Right.

And so it's like. No. My grand, my, you know, not my, when I grew up, I lived in the house with my grandmother who at the time was in her nineties and she was born in the late 19th century. She had a very clear memory of New Year's Day in New York City 1900 when the century changed and she described it perfectly. She had a crystal clear memory of that day and she remembered being taunted and teased for being Catholic.

And I just thought, what are you talking about? You know, no one has the idea that anyone would tease me because I was Irish Catholic. Yeah. I don't know if you heard, but you go back a couple of generations and that's exactly what happens is you get the Irish get here and everybody shits on the Irish for a while. And then the Irish are like, what are these Italians doing here? And then both the Irish and the Italians are like, what are those Polish doing here? You know, and.

Yeah. When I was growing up, all the jokes were Polish jokes, all of them. Because I didn't grow up in a racist city like you. There's no evidence that Boston was ever racist. Really? Yeah. Ever. There's none.

There's none. We can't find any. Well, by the way, it's like, even when people bring that up, I'm like, compared to where? Exactly. Do you know what I mean? Compared to what? Chicago? Milwaukee?

Atlanta? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Anyway. I mean, very, and this is not the Jim Gaffigan I thought I'd see today. And I love this Jim Gaffigan, but you came in all hot and bothered. You wanted to talk, you wanted to go deep. You wanted to talk about real things.

And I remembered my slogan used to be Jim Gaffigan taught us to laugh again. That was your slogan. Yeah. That was my slogan for years and years. You were coming on The Late Night Show 50 years ago. I've known you forever. You've always refused to go deep or get real. And you came in today and you are on fire to talk about real things.

I think comedians are very sincere people. Right? I mean, we horse around. Why did you make space quotes when you said sincere people? No, because I think that we are, because we're the sad clown that has to, instead of sitting in the reality, we have to, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It's just stress.

Maybe, you know, we're dealing with this. It's a very weird world we're living in. I do tell my kids, yeah, you're living. This is, by any stretch of the imagination, this is strange. You've just, you know, you had to go on Zoom for a year to be educated. You're wearing masks now wherever you go, despite my telling them there never was a virus over and over again. There isn't, you know what I mean?

It's a plan. There's just something. There's part of me that wants to leap 10 years ahead just to see where we were off. I doubt in 10 years we're going to be like, yeah, Fauci went to jail. He did the whole thing. The point that I like that you made is that, yes, the right, there are people on the right who take these crazy flights of fancy and believe these insane things. But they also do it on the left as well.

Yeah. And it came out recently. And again, I can't believe we're talking about so much that's in the news, because that's what neither of us does. But recently, remember when Trump was first elected, there was the Steele dossier. Yeah. And it was all about how there's a tape of Trump being urinated on by prostitutes in Russia, and that's why he is the puppet of the Russian regime.

And now, here we are five years later, and I'm reading this article the other day that's in the New York Times or something that said, yeah, that's all been discredited. None of that ever existed. And I remember for a long time, there were so many people on the left that were wanting to make jokes about, I mean, I remembered my own writers pitching, oh, let's do a whole thing on the late night show about how prostitutes urinated on Trump. And I remember thinking at the time, well, no, we can't do it, because we don't even know if that's true.

Right. And they acted like I was a prude. And I was like, well, no, I mean, we just don't have any proof that that's true. And also, it just seems he's a germaphobe. I don't think he let prostitutes urinate on him. And I was just very, because I've been urinated on by prostitutes, I was very, well, not at my request, by the way, it was an accident. Right, by the way, these men, they were, the men that urinated were.

Yes. They were vaxxed. I made sure that the men who urinated on me, and I love very nice switcheroo, the men who urinated, and it wasn't an accident, but they were vaxxed. But you came in in a tizzy. And because you were. I would say a tizzy. You were in a tizzy, and we don't use that word much anymore in our culture, but you were

in a real tizzy. I was in a tizzy. And you were late. And I wasn't, I didn't even notice that you were late. You were six minutes late. Yeah. And I'm very chill about the podcast. This is not some, well, I am.

No, I'm very chill about what time we start. And so you come strolling in and you were very upset because you said I had to use a rental car. I was in tears. What's the problem with using a rental car? Why did that put you into a tizzy? Well, you know, I live in New York and I, most people in the entertainment industry that want to succeed eventually move to LA.

And I never made that move. And I've lived out here. And it's hurt you. It's hurt you. Well, I've lived out here at times, but there's certain things that I, you know, I'm not smart enough to like, I'm in a rental car and it's like, I, I didn't know how to, like I sat there or the guy pulled it up and I sat there for like a couple of minutes trying to figure out, you know, most people know how to work cars and I was like, I didn't know where.

But specifically, didn't you know how to work because you know the steering wheel and you know, I know the steering wheel. I didn't know how to shift it into gear. Like it was like, there was this, um, it was on the, the, uh, behind the steering wheel. Yeah. But it was a small one. So I was like, that can't be it.

And it's, it's, I don't know, I'm just not that, uh, not that bright. Yeah. I'm just not ready. And you know, my brother Mitch would love, you know, because it's a, it's a fancy kind of fancy car. But if I throw up right now, you rented a fancy car, they rented, I'm doing this project. I'm working on a film. Okay.

So they got you a fancy. Are you embarrassed when someone arranges for you to have a fancy car? Yeah. Well, that's, I get a little embarrassed sometimes if that happens, you know, well, it's not a super fancy car, but, um, my manager's assistant was like, Hey, we got you this car. And I'm like, I, you know, I saw you pull up. It's kind of in a 1967 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce. Yes.

And, uh, no, but it's kind of wasted on me, you know, like fancy cars are kind of wasted on me. Like I'm not, I don't have that level of appreciation for cars. I don't know. I don't have anything against people that do appreciate cars. I am quite content. I mean, I think that's, I think your lowest level car drives really well. Yeah.

So I don't even know what that is. I need air conditioning. That's what I need. Yeah. What is your, you know, do you collect, uh, besides, uh, collecting, um, you know, you know, you being part of pizza gate, you select baby, what just for their blood, um, but do you collect, do you collect guitars or something like that? Yeah, but I, I, I do have guitars, but I, um, this is going to sound terrible.

I just get give, are given to me by people, people, um, because, uh, um, and it just, it started years and years ago when people knew that I hacked around on the guitar. And so, uh, I have purchased shockingly few guitars. And most of my guitars are ones that have been handed to me by people like, no, he did never give me a guitar and he was sitting in the same chair you're sitting in not five weeks ago and I kept waiting for him to give me a guitar. Who was the most, who was the person you were most excited to meet besides me? Wait, of all people or, you know, uh, let's, let's keep it in the entertainment industry.

You know, yeah. Where you're like, I can't believe I'm kind of nervous. Well, that would be, uh, Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney, and I got to briefly meet George Harrison years ago, but I think, uh, Paul McCartney, uh, I think, uh, easily just because I, you know, he's Paul McCartney, he's a Beatle, but also because I have such a depth of knowledge that I was, uh, I knew too much about him. I've never known that much about someone I haven't, that I've never really met before. So, uh, on a few occasions I've gotten to hang out with him, uh, and it's, it was an

act of will not to be staring at like his hand and thinking, so that's the hand that, and I know you do that with me. You stare at my hands. Well, I mean, it's weird because you, you have like claw-like features, you know, I never noticed that on the show that one hand is very claw-like, but it's, it's attractive in kind of like a claw-like feature. We did a smart thing, which was we, because it's my right hand that's basically, uh, a chicken's claw, we, we turned, we turned me, we turned me so that my, uh, on the talk show,

it was always my left side that you were seeing. And that hid this, um, sort of very small chicken's claw that I have for right hand. And so no one ever saw it. And there's little things you learn on the podcast. That's, that's known as the chicken claw, within the industry it was known as the chicken claw. Yeah. Uh, just the positioning.

I mean, rarely, I mean, occasionally we had to edit out, I think it was, uh, Christina Aguilera was on the show. I came out to greet her after she sang a song and this is in the late nineties. And she said, I went to thank her and she had not been briefed. Right. Cause I was briefed. Yeah. And she said, what the fuck?

You have a chicken claw. And that's kind of rude. Yeah. And, and, and, and really was freaked out. And so we edited that out of the show. Yeah. And we got Andy to dub over, thank you for having me on the show, Conan. And it was clear that that was not her voice.

That his voice was too high. His voice was way too high. The, um, the, the, this interview is either incredibly good or maybe one of the worst. But I can't tell. It's fantastic. I think it's great. I'm loving it. I'm kind of jealous of, I'm jealous of people that, uh, that do podcasts because I feel

as though you, it's kind of like, it's essentially a play date, right? Yeah. It's a play date set up by our mommies. And, um, but like otherwise, but you get to do them with different people. Who's the person that is the worst guest besides me? Who was the worst guest that you will just ruin their day? On the podcast. Yeah.

On the podcast. Not going to say that would be a terrible breach. That would be a breach of confidence. Uh, a name popped into my head, but I'll never say, uh, who it was never ever, you know what? That's not what you're made of. And also it's rude. It's mean.

They, uh, they, this person, uh, came on my show and can you just tell us their last name? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I can. Yeah. It happens to be Jonas, but it does it.

You don't know which one it is. Well, first of all, uh, I've had, I've talked to all three of the Jonas brothers separately. Yeah. The two of them were the worst ever and one of them was the best. Right. So, um, that's the answer. I'm just glad that they finally got us. They have a special on Netflix.

Finally. You know what I mean? I was like, when are they going to get a special? And I was like, um, now it sounds like I'm anti Jonas. I want to clarify quickly. We've never had the Jonas brothers on. It's not the Jonas brothers, but the person I'm thinking of their name rhymes with Jonas. So let's just leave it at that.

Bonus. Yes. So Jonas was a terrible guess. Jack bonus. Writer producer. All right. So, so as we head into the holidays, what holiday traditions happen, happen at your household?

Like, do you open the presents in the morning? Do you do it at night? Um, does your wife do, uh, does she have certain things that you? Yeah. Yeah. My wife is, uh, do you pretend to go to church or what do you do? Well, just getting started out just very nice. I'm going to ask a lot of questions.

Got super personal. Yeah. First of all, I will not celebrate. I live in Los Angeles and have for over a decade, I will not celebrate Christmas in Los Angeles. I will not do it. You'll leave. So we always, uh, try and go East.

Uh, she, her family's, uh, in Seattle, we were just there for Thanksgiving. That's North. Yes. Uh, no, no, I'm saying we go to, we go to Seattle, uh, or we go East, which is we go to Boston, uh, or we go someplace like to a top of a mountain. It must be snowy and cold for me on Christmas. I insist on that. I insist on it.

And there has to be some kind of weather system. There has to be some kind of feeling that it is in fact Christmas. And so I refuse to put on a 45, you know, SPF sunblock and celebrate Christmas in the yard and then take a swim. That's never going to happen. Is it true that you will force your family to hear you sing Christmas songs for like an hour? Oh, well, first of all, an hour.

It's a lot longer than an hour. It's a lot longer. Yeah. Yeah. Listen to this. Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace. Yeah, this is kind of a real question. You're somebody who loves music.

I find music a mystery, a mystery. But like, if you could be a moderately successful musician, would you change your incredibly successful comedic career? Yes. You would do that in a heartbeat. I would give it all up if I could be in a moderately successful rockabilly band where I got to grow my sideburn super long and play a lot of Gene Vincent and just tons of like super fast time rockabilly with Jimmy Vivino and a couple of other of my guys and just

travel around and do that and ruin my marriage, ruin my relationship with my kids. You would do that. I think I would. Yeah. You're being facetious, but I think you will. No, no. To be honest, there is part of me that over the years, I mean, Jesus, almost 30 years of doing the late night show.

That's too long to do anything, by the way. Trust me. It's too long to breathe. And you will testify to this, Sona, because you were there for the 11 years that you were watching me go to rehearsal. All I wanted to do was play music with the band. And it was through sheer force of will that they got me to work on the comedy. But all I really wanted to do was.

And is that something all your life, or did that differ all the way around? Well, I was always interested in it, and it was sort of, I knocked around on other instruments, but I didn't pick up a guitar until I was 22, and I came out to LA. And I've always told people the secret to learning an instrument is to have no relationship. I was single. I didn't have a girlfriend. That's not a surprise. No, but it's what's amazing about this story.

You know what? What's amazing about this story is you literally, you're telling a story as if then at the end you're standing on stage holding a Grammy. But you essentially. I know. And none of that happened. Well, the whole time I was working on my comedy career, but this was my hobby. But I had a lot of time for my hobby because you watch TV in your $380 a month apartment

in the flats in Hollywood near the La Brea Tarpits. And you're wearing gym shorts, and you sit there, and you play those goddamn fucking chords over and over and over again while you're watching Saved by the Bell. And then you're suddenly a creep. Am I a creep, really? Yeah. Because I was in my early 20s watching a children's show because the girls were so pretty. I think it's really creepy.

Well, it wasn't creepy until you just said that last part. I know. The girls are creepy. That's the weird calculation, right? Is all men end up being creepy? I watched for Zach, yeah. Like, there's no one that doesn't end up being creepy. Well, also as time.

The Dalai Lama is probably creepy. Oh, he's super creepy. Right. Has he been on the, was he on the show? He did it last week, and he's doing it again next week. And he's the worst guest ever. Really? A lot of people.

Because everything with him was, well, in the next life, we'll find out. He was insufferable. What a cop out. Yeah. Yeah. I'd ask him anything, and he'd say, well, we must be present in the moment and in the next life. And then as he left, he said, I'm getting paid for this, right?

Yeah. And I said, we don't pay our guests. And he said, this is a quote, fuck you, I want $100,000 in a suitcase, and I want it now. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that, like, he, when I was on a show, another show, he took all the drinks and chips from the green room.

I was like, I was like, Dalai, and he was like, call me Lama. Yeah. Kind of. And remember, the reason he wears that robe is he has massive, massive, massive, huge massive pockets on the inside that are lined with tinfoil. By the way. So he's pouring dips, chips. I mean, most of the time, if you go up and give Dalai Lama a big hug, I tell you 65 pounds

of snacks is going to be crunching and oozing out of him. And old cheese plates, too, which is just like. Now, speaking of great religious figures, I know that you have performed for the pope. Did you get to meet him or just perform for him? I mean, I spent a weekend with him. No. Was this at his golf course? I introduced my mother-in-law to the pope.

Yeah. That was a while ago. I know, but I'm allowed to bring up. No, you're not. You asked me about learning the guitar in, you know, 1985. So why can't I ask you about meeting the pope? But it's like, you described 1985 like you weren't working on this, weren't you working on the Simpsons at that point?

No, there were no Simpsons yet. And so many nerds right now are dialing in to a pre-recorded show, which so it's a waste of everyone's time. No, I was working, it was my first show that I worked on was called Not Necessarily the News, which was on HBO. Back when HBO was only available in motels. And so you had just graduated from college? Just graduated from college.

Yeah. So you're 85. So you graduated in 84? No, I graduated in 85. 85. Wow. Which makes me. I'm so much more younger than you.

Well, I'll be honest. I'm 58 years old. 58. You don't look a day over 57. How old are you? That's kind of personal. Okay. I see what you did.

You got me to reveal my age. I'm 55. Okay. But we're both creepy. You know what I mean? We're both kind of on the creepy end, but we're great so we don't have to worry about it. We're only creepy in certain contexts.

I think we're, I think it's really creepy that you and I like to hang around. Strip clubs. Strip clubs. But not even go outside. We hang around up front and we try and tell people to go into the strip club. We tailgate. We call it tailgating. Yeah.

We tailgate in front of strip clubs. You know what we do? This is the thing Gaffigan and I do. Can I call you Gaffigan? You can call me that. Because you taught us to laugh again. We love to, and this is the thing we trade off, but we started doing this. I want to say we started doing this in like 1998, but Jim Gaffigan and I started, I don't

know how we started doing it, but we started tailgating and barbecuing out in front of strip clubs. And it's fantastic. We were the first people to do it and still the only people to do it. And most of the guys going in, we're like, come on over and they're like, no, I'd rather not be identified. And we're like, don't worry. There's cameras everywhere.

And they're like, what do you mean cameras? And sometimes they'd leave. Yeah. You know what I mean? But the other thing too is we found out that a lot of guys going into strip clubs didn't want to hang out with us and pound beer and eat ribs. They wanted to go in and look at almost naked or naked women dancing. They were not interested in hanging out with us and having.

It's weird because like, I know they serve food. Sometimes there's a buffet in strip clubs because, you know, it's very good, the food there. The people are like, oh, I'm just going for the food. There happens to be naked women, you know, I didn't even notice that I'm mostly going for the wings. And I'm like, you don't have to go in. We'd say, you don't have to go in.

We have food here. It's free. And they're like, no, you know what? I prefer it. You know, they have better chafing dishes inside, you know, that's a lot of people there. They have sterno-warmed food inside. So why do you think, Conan, why do you keep doing all of this? Why do you keep doing all of this?

Why do I keep doing all of this? I mean, some of it is dance. I love dance. No, but why? You're a very good dancer. I, you know. It's your question. Why, for example, right now I'm not doing any kind of TV show, you know, I've, I'm just

doing this and I really love it, uh, it is kind of, and I shouldn't say the highlight of my day because I have a family that could come out wrong, but it makes me very happy. It's not logical to do this for a living or aspire to it. It's a very strange thing. And I think the same thing about music, it's just a compulsion. It has to be. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it is this strange. Did you decide at one point I am going to be a comedian or? And when you did, didn't it seem ridiculous? Oh, absolutely ridiculous. It's much more normalized now, but like, I feel that when it was kind of brought up to my family, I'm thinking of being a comedian, they're like, you're joking, right? You know, like that's not a real occupation. You know what I mean?

So going beyond that, like even doing these comedy specials, it is really, uh, an amazing sense of accomplishment that you feel. I mean, just coming up with a new joke or doing a good podcast, it is, it's amazing the, the buzz you get from it. And it's, it's so strange how it's, it's something that it's not as if people, uh, uh, you know, you think that you're like, well, I did that, I'm done. Like there's this mythology of like Johnny Carson retiring and you never see him again. And it's like everyone like Letterman retired and then he started doing the Netflix show.

I'm like, yeah, of course. It's like you can't not get the buzz. You know, the other thing too is that show business changed. So it used to be that there were very few slots in show business. And I feel, I got into this in 93, the late night show and the old order still existed. There were very few networks and there were hardly any late night shows, you know, a slot has opened and it was like this millennial, once in a thousand years, a slot opens and who will get it.

And I got it. And there was this feeling of you have now been welcomed into the order of those who are in broadcasting. And now we live in a completely different world where there's literally 150,000 hours of entertainment available to everybody all the time. So no one's saying I've got to rush home because my favorite late night show is starting. It's, you know, it's amazing. It's, you know, it's also going to come a time where because we've seen the numbers

go down on these late shows where eventually there will be these late night shows to no one's fault. They'll be like, they have five people watching them, Bob, Phil, Sally, you know, it's literally they're going to be able to identify these people. But what happens too is that no one's, all the clips are online. And I have people coming up to me all the time. I just went up to Seattle for Thanksgiving and people come up to me in the airport and they'd be like, oh, I just saw that thing you did.

And they're talking about something. First of all, I usually don't know what they're talking about. But often it's something that they just saw online from nine years ago, but they just saw it. And so I'm starting to get the feeling that I can probably never do, I mean, I want to keep making stuff and I intend to. But if I never did anything again, I think I'm like 110 and just a brain in a jar, people might be coming in and going, that thing you did last night, I just checked it out.

Were you, you know, you and Tony Bennett getting those go-karts and smashed into that thing made of custard. And I'm like, oh, right. Someone looks it up. That was 1994, but someone just experienced it and had a chuckle. So it is very different. It used to be, you know, when Johnny Carson left the Tonight Show, it was like he, the sky parted.

There was a portal and he ascended up into it and then he was disappeared. Whereas now there's really no reason if you're interested in making stuff, which is I reduce it to that. I know you're the same way. We like to make stuff. It beats not making stuff. It's really fun. And it's a compulsion.

There's a reward that people don't realize. And it's not about, it's not a monetary thing. It's literally a sense of accomplishment, which seems odd. I don't know. We figured it all out. I think we figured out so many things. And yet I'm stupider than when this started. Yes, that all happened.

How did that happen? Let me talk about this really quickly. So like when you, so you were in the airport flying to Seattle, I find this really fascinating. People always come up and they say the same thing, which is they're being polite. They're like, I don't want to interrupt, but they're interrupted. I don't want to interrupt, but, and I'll be like at dinner with my family. I don't want to interrupt, but can I get a photo and you're like, but I'm eating with my family.

Yeah. And then you famously, you're kind of well known as a guy that sort of flips out on people when they come up to you, you know, no, I mean, you know, you're not, you're okay with me saying that. I'm like, you're, I'm always, you know, there's, I'm always, it's, there are a lot of gaffigan stories about. A lot of like throwing phones. Yeah.

And a lot of like, oh, a vet in a wheelchair came up to you and you and said, I really hate to interrupt you. Oh, it was a veterinarian. It wasn't a war veteran. Oh, I know. That's what I meant. Veterinarian in a wheelchair. And who also didn't need the wheelchair.

Just a lazy veterinarian. Just a lazy vet. Like they were like, oh my gosh. Oh my God. I insist on getting one of these. But it also complained about too many females becoming veterinarians. Yes. I know.

It was a bad veterinarian. It was emasculating the occupation. My point is, you really lost it on that lazy veterinarian. That lazy vet. And started screaming at them and saying, do you know who I am? I'm Jim Gaffigan. I'm the one that taught America to laugh again, which by the way, you've got to stop saying that.

It's such bullshit. It's, I, it's, it's a tragic end. It's a tragic end. I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, we talk about compulsion and why we do these things. I want to talk about this. You have another special, a comedy monster. It's going to be on Netflix.

Yes. It's December 21st, which I believe is tomorrow. I don't look at my calendar often. Yeah. And, but I believe that's coming out tomorrow, the 21st. And this is your ninth comedy special. Talk about compulsion. I want to pay you a compliment.

I have had a front row seat to just about every really great comedian of, of my era. I think you might be the most prolific or one of the most prolific of, I'm going to, I'm not going to say the most. I'm going to say one of 600,000 others. No, no, no, no. Just like any other human, all, I mean, none of it's good, but you just pump out the shit. Like a soft serve machine that's just, that makes diarrhea. Right.

Yeah. Round the clock. No, I am going to get this compliment out in, in clean form. I am stunned. Every time you would come on the show, you would have a completely new set that was completely different from your last set. Always great material. And then I felt like I could probably get you to come back two days later and you would

have another set. You are crazily prolific and it's all good stuff. And I've always been really in awe and to the point where after you'd be on the show, I'd say, I don't understand how he does that. Oh, thanks. Jim, I adore talking to you. This is your second time on the podcast. I know, I feel honored.

And we don't, you know, we haven't been doing repeat guests. Really? Oh. No. And I just, I love talking to you and I'd be happy to talk to you in an hour from now. There you go. I'm really looking forward to the special Jim Gaffigan comedy monster on Netflix and

I get my Netflix warmed up. Yeah. Yeah. It takes my TV 45 minutes to warm up. Right. To Netflix. And thanks so much for stopping by. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it. You're not a great man, but you're a very good man. Interesting. I'm interesting for like an hour. You're... 50 minutes. 50 minutes. You're interesting for 50.

53. Around 54, you're like, ugh. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Guys, it's our last episode before Christmas, the Yuletide season. Happy holidays, everybody. Happy holidays. I know, Sony, you celebrate Armenian Christmas, which is later, right?

I celebrate both, but to give myself more time to get gifts, I say I celebrate Armenian Christmas. Every year, when Christmas comes, and this is, I've known Sonya a long time, Christmas comes and I give her her gift, and it's always, you know, as you can imagine, I'm almost like surprised. And she's like, oh my God. And I go and hear the keys, and a locker. A keys.

I get her. A diary. I get her a gym locker from 1968. No, I get her a nice... You always are very generous with gifts. Yeah, I give you a nice gift, and then I'm kind of, there's a part of me that's waiting, we're like, oh, what am I going to get from Sonya? And it's nothing.

What? I don't get any Christmas gift, but then it's because I forget that Sonya is very happy to get a Christmas gift. But what she really likes to do then is only give gifts on Armenian Christmas, which is a couple of weeks later. It's January 6th. Yes. It's the Orthodox Christmas.

It's the Orthodox Christmas. And to give a shout out, the Armenians or the original, it's the oldest sect of Christianity, isn't it? It's the first country to accept Christianity as the national religion. They did it in 301. The Greeks will say they did it, but they didn't. The Greeks say a lot of shit. Yeah.

The Greeks. Can we all agree on the Greeks? Good man. Don't get me started on the Greeks. But if that's the one distinguishing characteristic of our podcast is, man, there's a lot of Greek hate going around on Conan's podcast. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. No Greekies.

But no Greeks. No Greekies? Yeah. Conan O'Brien has banned Zach Galifianakis from his podcast. He said, come and guest, he's on, hey, Zach, you're on my shit list. You and all those other Greeks, Aristotle, Aristotle's on your shit. Oh yeah. Man, when I see that guy coming, he can't come on this podcast.

He can't. I don't want to listen to his sort of weird pseudo wisdom holidays are a little loaded for me. I want to preface this by saying I love my wife very much. And whenever someone says that, whenever someone in entertainment says that a lot, you know that their marriage is in trouble. No, my wife, Liza, is terrific. But I'm realizing that we have very different philosophies about Christmas decorations.

I'm realizing that my wife is very tasteful. She comes from a more waspish culture. And they're very tasteful people and good people. And of course, I come from horrible Irish pirates and I'm realizing that whenever Christmas comes around, I'm always trying to put up, my wife always just wants there to be kind of white lights, just pure white lights and not too many of them, but just an appropriate amount. Very elegant.

Very sophisticated. And simple. And I realize that I'm always, whenever she's doing that, I'm always in the corner trying to order a plastic Santa on a toilet that spins, that goes on your front yard. I have that in me. I like multi-colored lights at Christmas. And I know that I am a full-grown adult and there's no excuse for it, but I like multi-colored lights.

I don't think you need to explain yourself for that. I do too. No, no. My wife says that's cool on the tree, but I swear to God, if I was let free, there would be angels and Santas and snowmen, rocketing around, just shit and tinsel all over the place. I can't help it. I have, and I realize that when I was a kid, my brother, Neil, really led the charge.

He got from my grandparents, he got this light-up Santa Claus that was really over the top tacky and the light-up snowman, and he hung them without my parents' permission, he hung them out the front door out of his window, which is the side of the, that's facing the street. And just, he put up as much of that stuff as possible. And this Santa looked like a drunk. It looked like a big, fat drunk man. Oh no. And it was one of those ones that was made in like the late 40s or early 50s.

Yeah. And he had like a, he was a leering drunk Santa, and then a big frosty, the snowman. And my brother, Neil, would just, with no sense of decorum, would just throw these things out the window and they would hang there off an extension cord. And my mother, of course, was horrified. But I think I grew up with that, thinking that's, that's what it should be. I want all that stuff. And so I've noticed that whenever I start to pitch a Christmas decoration to my wife,

her whole body tenses, I can just see her whole body tense. Like she's like the second before an automobile accident, the way someone tenses up and puts their arms up. Yeah. And, and, and she knows anything I say is going to be a, well, well, let's think about that. Yeah. Let's think about a leprechaun that's wearing a Santa hat that shoots M&M's out its ass.

Let's just think about that. That sounds cool. And I'm like, there's, it's only $44 and they can deliver it tomorrow. Oh, you can play human centipede with that. I did order a bunch of human centipede Santas once a couple of years ago. And she didn't want it out there? No. Oh, why Liza?

That's unreasonable. Yeah. I know Liza. Come on. Liza, why are you harshing my mellow? Yeah. You know, this is my, don't yuck my yum. This is my joy.

Don't yuck his yum. You know. You know what though? It's elegant and sophisticated, so it would be weird if you had like a drunken leprechaun in the corner. I know, but there's part of me that, that, you know, your true nature, which is, it's not just my DNA, but it's also how I was raised and the influence of my oldest brother, Neil. There's part of me that just wants to go hog wild.

Yeah. And, and, and be insane. It's a time to be insane. Could you do your office that way? Like couldn't you have a little allocated room just for your Christmas fun? A little Conan corner. Yeah. A little playtime.

No, I want to impose it on people, on other people, you know. Oh. I want, you know, I want other people to be forced to see it. You should take an apartment in the city that's not for a lover, but just to decorate. A peat and a tear. Just for decoration. I love that. I love that.

I'll be the only celebrity that got a secret apartment on the side. Not to meet my mistress, but to just decorate with tacky Christmas crap. And then I go there and I drink overly sweet instant cocoa and watch Frost see the snowman backwards in my, in my feety pajamas. And, and then occasionally walk outside and, and look at my tacky little, uh, pietta tear. Yeah. And then, uh, never in the neighborhoods like Conan must have a mistress in there. And I'm like, huh, mistress, er, yes, yes, yes, I lie.

Mistress Claus. What's that? National Enquirer? Yes. Mistress in there. Just so I, I look like less of a loser because no one would rent this just to decorate it with tacky Christmas shit. Yeah.

No, no. Mistress. Um, mistress in there. Yes. Her name's Santina Claus. What? You seem like a bad liar, Conan. If you were allowed to do whatever you wanted, would it be like the house and Christmas vacation?

Yeah. It would be terrible. Oh yeah. It would be terrible. But it would be bad. My wife is right. I do think my wife is right. Right.

But, um, as she is in most things, except in choice of husband, she missed it there. She could have done better, but, uh, I think she's right. But there's this impulse I have, which is, oh my God, you know, I could, uh, there's no reason why that piece of furniture can't have multicolored lights wrapped around it. I get it though. There's a, there's a, like, tough tug of war between the elegance, but also Christmas is a season of, like, childhood joy and kind of unbridled fun. Yes.

And excess. Excess. And, uh, and I think it's come to represent, uh, you know, America's, uh, expression of its dominance in the world, um, and, uh, capitalism and its, uh, its defeat of other forms of organizing society. Okay. Well, anyway. My God.

What did you do to Christmas? That's when I think Christmas is all about, um, you heard it here first on Conan O'Brien. Can't stand the Greeks. 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. And music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples, engineering by Will Beckton, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Brick 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.

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