Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - John Oliver

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

Comedian and host of Last Week Tonight John Oliver feels cautiously optimistic about being Conan O’Brien’s friend.John and Conan sit down to chat about being nominated for an OBE, the silliest ways they’ve spent their show budgets, why the U.S. got the best of British comedy, performing with the Cambridge Footlights, and why John can never watch The Great British Baking Show. Plus, Conan gets a lesson in printer etiquette from his staff.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone].

Hello, my name is John Oliver and I feel cautiously optimistic about being Conan O'Brien's friend. I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Behold! Another Conan O'Brien needs a friend. I thought I'd go with something like that. I like it. We're unveiling something very beautiful and wondrous. It's weird. Why? Because all the, hey, how are you Conan here? No!

Behold! It's like you're doing a live from the Ren Fair. Yeah, it's another Conan O'Brien needs a friend, the Shampochus. Where I use my inner emptiness of soul to try and wangle conversations with people I really love and admire. And joined as always by Sonam of Sessian. Hi, Sonam. Hi, hello. Very good. Good.

You did that perfectly. Thank you. All right. Very perfunctory. Hi. You're giving the absolute minimum today. And then... And Mr. Matt Gorley.

Hi. Faithful producer. That's creepy. Can you do that? I see you and you can't see me. I just said hi. Yeah. Sure.

You did. Hi. Why not just hello? Good to see you. Hello. Good to see you. Okay. This is...

Can't it win? Wow. If we could bottle this chemistry, we would have a nerve agent. It killed everybody. Yeah. One gets with the active ingredient there. Okay. Okay.

Nicely done, Gorley. You'll get your cookie when we're done. Very excited about our guest today. My guest today was a correspondent on The Daily Show and now hosts the Emmy award-winning show Last Week Tonight on HBO. He's also won two Peabody Awards for his work on the series. I'm very excited because this guy is so funny, so popular and somehow I've never really had a chance to sit down and talk with him.

Again, this podcast is the gift that keeps on giving for me personally because I've been looking forward to getting to know this guy. I really do admire him a lot. John Oliver is with us. Mr. Oliver. I want to be very open in this interview. I think of everyone I've spoken to, I know you the least well. I think we were backstage.

I know you've done the show, but I don't think I've ever really had like a long conversation with you. We were backstage at a benefit once. Yes. I think I tried to be friendly to you and I'll never forget what you said. You said, I have surpassed you in every way. This is a quote. I said, oh hey John, I'm a big admirer and you cut me off and you said I have surpassed

you in every way creatively and as a man and we will speak no further. That's right. We're on two escalators. Yours is going down and mine is going up. My voice is going to get softer and softer by its end. Yes. I'm going to the lingerie floor and I'm plunging down and my escalator is moving very quickly down and yours is regally rising.

That's right. Slowly, but surely. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'll never forget that. You were right, of course, but I didn't think it was right to say that. You're right. Sometimes things are better left just festering.

I do love that. I'm just going to point this out that whenever I have an exchange like this and we both just commit to it, there's going to be someone who's going to come up to me somewhere. Oh, really? You know, like when I go to the gun store to get my guns cleaned, there's someone who's going to come up to me and say, fucking John Oliver said that to you. I can't believe it. And then I'm going to have to double down and say, yes, he's an awful, awful man.

Oh, okay. Well, that's a deal then. Then when people come up to me and say, I can't believe you said that to Conan. I'll say, I can't believe I didn't say it louder. I can't believe I didn't shout it at him. That's my only regret. We all know it's true. We have something in common, which is when I met you for the first, you know, saw you

for the first time, you were much taller than I expected. And I don't know if this is your experience. I'm assuming it is. I must come across on TV as a little fellow because my entire life has been people in utter shock when they meet me that I am six, four, utter shock. And then they get into, I mean, on TV, you're such a little, little man. It seems so small and I'm rendering in real time. Is it that I just think so little of you as a person?

I know it's the same conversation every time. I think emotionally I feel five foot two, maybe that projects through a screen. Because you're always behind a desk. Yeah. And you have all these great comedy moves where you hunch over the desk. Your posture is terrible. My posture is so bad. This is true.

You have basically, we've been going for six years now and they've been trying to fix my suits for six years because they ride up at the back because I hunch. There is no way to make a suit lie elegantly upon my frame because I'm too kind of stabby with my arms. Yes. Well, first of all, that's why I'm here. I noticed it. I know your show does very well, but it could do so much better.

If I was just looser of shoulder. Well, I think, first of all, you need some kind of a truss, something with whale bone in it that pushes you into an erect position. Anything with whale bone in it. I'm already on board. You and I both have the same fetish. I just love the idea of whale suffering for something that I may need. I love the idea that as they're killing whales, they tell them what they're going to be used

for so that even though we don't have any evidence that the whale is sentient about, they're obviously sentient, but they don't understand our language. But as we're stabbing them in the sea off Japan, we're yelling at them, this is for a corset that will help comedian John Oliver sit upright as he does comedy. And that's the last thing the whale hears. I would love people to be whispering into their ear, this is not for medicine. This is a shoehorn that will be left at the bottom of a closet. This is a shoehorn that will be unappreciated.

Yeah, let's try and get that out there, that message out there. That when animals are killed, it should be explained to them that this is not for a good purpose. That's right. It's not even a luxury killing. This is literally pointless. Your body is about to become ephemera. Your marrow is going to be compressed and turned into the material that's used for a plastic coat hanger at a dry cleaner.

You're sponsored by PETA this week, right? Yes, of course. As always. Listen, if anyone can take a joke, it's those people. Lovely sense of humor at PETA. Shout out to PETA. No, but I'm delighted to get to meet you. You've had really an absurd amount of success.

I choked on that word success. It's Freudian because I bitterly resent you. You've now won how many Emmys a row and it's ridiculous. Yes, it's objectively ridiculous. It's indefensible, so I'm not going to try and defend it. Yeah, I think you've had like four Emmy or five or someone in the room hold up a hand. How many years in a row? Okay, four.

Let me tell you, after two, they're all sarcastic wins. Yes. Does it help to know that it definitely feels that way? Yes. Yeah, they're doing it to sort of mock you. In America, that's a tradition. After two, everything is just, oh yeah, and here's your Emmy. And there's another one.

I guess you think you deserve this too. Oh, you took it? Perfect. You should please just start being openly contemptuous as you accept them. Just leave them on the stage and then have the stage manager bring them to you and go like, no, no, no, you can just keep that. There were so many British people winning this year. And British people are not the best people to give awards to.

Why? Deep down, there's not consistent, solid happiness at the core of our souls. Is that true? I think it's pretty. I mean, that's a generalization, but also, yes, it's emphatically true. Just because you lost the empire? I think that's, I mean, there's the echo of that. Not all of it.

We still got Bermuda and Falkland Island has put up a fight, but we held on to them. Yes, you did. You slapped them around. They won't be. We wanted those sheep. We were willing to sink a ship going in the opposite direction for those sheep. So we must have wanted them. The rumor is you sank it accidentally.

That is the rumor. Hard to ship. Oh, yeah. Hard to sink a ship accidentally, but we did it. No, but is that true? I mean, don't tell me that Phoebe Waller. It just feels so silly. Phoebe Waller Bridge, who is, we're all deeply in love with her.

Yes, she's incredible. I think it feels silly. I mean, she feels badly about herself at her core. I would be profoundly disappointed if she didn't. Yeah. That occasion in particular, it's so quintessentially American for the Emmys. It's so silly and opulent that you kind of feel physically you have no business being there. Right.

Both in terms of where you come from and also literally your body. You look at these people kind of floating through the air and there is a troll-esque quality of, oh, is it my turn now, Mrs. Give me the shiny thing. And so it just feels, it feels really discombobulating being there at all. And then being on stage, I kind of just always want to get off as quickly as possible. Yeah. Well, that's the healthy response. Is it?

It doesn't feel healthy. No, it is healthy. It's healthy to deeply distrust any kind of show business gathering. And I'm actually being serious here. It's the healthy responses to find it. I find gatherings like that where people are giving out awards. I've realized I'm on my guard because I think, yeah, this is a setup for great unhappiness. Yeah, definitely.

Anyone who's in that room is in the 1% of the 1% of the 1% in terms of their comedy dream or their ridiculous. So just point out to the audience that listening right now that John has a tattoo on his hand that says four Emmys. I do. Now that's different. That's different. And clearly you've crossed out one Emmy, two Emmys, three Emmys. I had, actually weirdly, I had the strangest experience with an award just a few weeks ago. I got a call from the British consulate here in New York out of nowhere.

And the British consulate, they wished you to return the call immediately, which sounds like a wartime telegraph. Yeah. Please stop. Call. Stop. And they, this very, a guy so, so with such clipped Britishness to him, it was genuinely offensive. Yes. This is a parody.

You thought he was doing a parody. Exactly. It was like. I dare say. That's right. That's right. He said, like, would you like an OBE? Would you like to be like, you'd be on, which is the Queen's Honours lists.

Isn't that with the medal? The, oh, did they get an OBM? What did the Beatles got in 65? They got an OBE. Yeah. Yeah. And then it goes MBE, then there's Nighthood. Right.

And it was, there was a moment of thinking, well, I get to go to the Buckingham Palace. That would be, that would be an experience. And then what kicks in is, oh, no, I don't want that at all. I don't want something, I don't want an order of the British Empire. Why on earth would I want that? That feels like, and then, then I looked up all the people who'd rejected it. I think the Beatles, I think they gave it back in the end. Only John gave it back.

Sounds right. The others, the others are still wearing theirs everywhere they go. Ringo's wearing all the face. He's wearing all four. Ringo has his duct tape to his forehead. With the science they asked me about my OBEs. And, you know, it's got gravy on it and it's really been around the bend. Yeah.

There's awards for comedy are inherently silly. Yeah. That said, I just want to put it out there. I will go anywhere to pick up anything. Okay. Or let the record show. Just let the record show. Okay, sure.

If someone's, if I'm on the, if it's between me and John for anything, I will go anywhere and I will pay my own travel and I will put myself up. Okay. So, I think, I am delighted to speak with you because you are a brilliantly funny fellow. One of my obsessions is work ethic and people who put a great deal of work and effort into comedy, that is my religion, I believe in that and then I can always tell that you are meticulous about what you do and that you and your people put an enormous amount of work into crafting your show.

Oh, thanks. And I have just great admiration for you and for that, I think that's like a cult. There are people that understand that you just have to work your ass off to make something good and there's no magic to it. There's a little bit of magic. And obviously talent and, but nothing supplants hard work. No, I really, really appreciate that because I think like with all of these shows, right, they don't look like much.

It looks like this should be easier than it is, but it isn't. I feel the same way. I've always liked, I've always really admired people willing to sweat over making something 0.5% funnier. That's why I really liked working with Dan Harmon on Community because he put himself into absolute hell to make something barely perceptibly funnier, but it was worth it. But you have as a performer a really nice tone. You don't seem like you're full of yourself.

You have a genuine, I find this silly. I hope you find it silly too, but I never get a whiff of condescension. Is that something you're intending? I hope not. Like, because with almost any story that we're looking at, I didn't know anything about it five weeks previously anyway. This is not like, let me draw upon my well of knowledge and let's see what you're lucky enough to benefit from here.

We'll start looking at a topic five weeks before we do it on the show. At which point, all of us here are coming at it from some version of close to zero. Then a massive amount of work goes into trying to understand all the nuances of it and then working out how we can communicate that to people who are also coming at it from zero. So, yeah, it's like trying to sell to people why they should listen to it, why something that sounds particularly dry is genuinely interesting. Sometimes that's a little bit tricky. And then, yeah, we try and make sure that the tone is silly enough, often enough,

that it doesn't feel like you're being harangued. Well, you've said, we were chatting before the podcast that, and I know that I've read you say this, that you've always wanted this to come across as like a form of the Muppet show. Yes. You know, and I know you use a lot of puppets and this is your idea and I think there is, I think Childish Glee goes a long way. It's the best. It's the greatest.

Yeah. The happiest we are on the show is when we're about to do something monumentally silly, which is motivated by nothing, because that's almost the best kind. Yes. Yeah. Like the most proud I've been of people here is like one of the first things they did was they built a miniature Supreme Court for dogs that I couldn't believe. It's like with HBO resources.

So it was like Soprano set designers building this beautiful. It was such a catastrophic waste of everybody's time. Yeah. And then you look at the natural resources that went into building. Exactly. The redwoods didn't need to be redwoods, I insisted though. Yeah. And at one point you said, wouldn't a rainforest tree, I mean, make a nice trend for this, for

this poodles. Could it be from the outskirts of the rainforest? No, it needs to be near the undiscovered tribe. Yeah. We need to discover the tribe and infect them with our methodology and ruin their culture just so we can make this. Yes. And really, sometimes when we're really thinking about doing the most kind of flagrant misuse

of HBO's resources, the kind of reference point in our mind is actually your last week on The Tonight Show where you were kind of putting Mickey Mouse's ears on the Bugatti where you just think this is pure joy. In the midst of, I know, immense pain, but it was so great. You know. It was so profoundly, aggressively silly. You know, I was at war with NBC and we decided to, at those last couple of shows, we started saying, we're going to use all of NBC's money in a wasteful fashion.

Yeah. And it was a joke. But we actually said, I forget it was a Picasso or a Kandinsky, but we had this giant painting that we said was worth over $1.2 million and or 1.8 or 8.2. I forget what we said. And then we threw stuff on it in front of people and there would be great triumphant music afterwards. People were furious because they thought that it was real.

They thought that I was really taking and they were. And so we were getting all these, I mean, we were getting emails. It was still in the email era, but we were getting a lot of calls. We're getting a lot of people saying, you know, a lot of people out here working really hard and you're just spent $6 million and then you burned a Bugatti and you think that's funny. I was like, no, we didn't really do that. We didn't do that.

But for that point, I had, yeah, it was the spirit of that. That is kind of where I'm the happiest where you feel like you're on the edge of being in real trouble. Like just a few weeks ago, we were doing something about the leader of Turkmenistan and Guinness World Records and it ended with breaking a record. So it was a £6,000 cake and I knew what was behind the curtain. And even during rehearsal, I was like giggling to myself so much thinking, I can't wait to hear the noise from the audience when they realize what we've just done.

600 square foot cake. We should be instantly canceled for this. Yes. You should be arrested and beaten. That's right. Just go get out and stop it. What is this? It's the joy of, well, the other joy is when you put in the order, like when you call the

people in props and you say, we're making, you know, Bill Tall, come on in here. Yeah, what do you want, Conan? We need a Trojan horse that's actual size. So it needs to be about 30 feet tall. It needs to be made out of turkey jerky and it needs to be welded together and then it's got to be filled with rabbits or something, you know, and they just look at you like, uh-huh. How many rabbits do you think?

Yeah. And the rabbits have to be dressed as a little Roman soldiers. Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. So they want the helmets with the little brushes on it. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. And they don't laugh. They just sit down and then they leave and then they build it and it's a beautiful thing. It's the best, isn't it? Like having access to that kind of resources, that's where I find kind of the most grateful at being able to have those kind of conversations with other adults. Yes. But it basically makes you glad that you managed to live to this point that if I'd known as

a kid that that would be a kind of conversation I'd have as an adult, that would have really taken the edge off my anxiety as a kid. Here's what I think about a lot. I think that we managed to live at a time where there's an economy, an economy of scale that will support this level of bullshittering. Meaning had you and I been born 200 years ago, we'd be on, you know, I'd be, well, first of all, you'd be my English master. I'd have been taken by the wind.

Okay. Taken by the wind. So you'd be, I would be in a field somewhere. Yes. You definitely would. Thank you. I would be in a field and I would be, my job would be to help get rocks out of the field so that we could build a wall.

And I would be making all of these absurd comments and everyone else, the other Irish guys standing around would be resenting me for not moving as many stones and then eventually they would kill me with sticks, you know, that's what would happen. But we happened to live at this time where they're like, Hey, he's pretty good at wasting time and saying silly things, let's pour enormous amounts of rice into his foolishness. It does feel like this. It might be a tiny window in humanity, especially why things are going where this was possible. These idiots were actively empowered and they encouraged to kind of fulfill the worst instincts

that they have. And I think 60 years from now, if you and I will manage to still be alive, our jobs will primarily be to try and start a fire, you know, and they'll be like, it'd be Planet of the Apes. They'll be like a shattered Trump statue in the background and people just very post-apocalyptic old comedians that wasted money will be, will be hunted because people will hate us so much every now and then they'll find, they'll be like, we just spent a month chasing a rat trying to catch it so we could eat it.

But we just found an old recording of John Oliver with a 600 square foot cake smashing it with a baseball bat. Where is he? I think he's in that cave over there. He's very old now. Let's go kill him. Let's go kill him. That's right.

How's that fire coming along? He says that he's not getting the fire, but he's doing it in a funny way. And we're back. Did you enjoy the break? Yes, I loved it. Yeah. It was a lot better during the break. I love styles.

Let me ask you something about, I want to talk about England, if you don't mind. I grew up just adoring British comedy, especially when Monty Python hit when I was very young and it hit me later, of course, it hit in the States afterwards. And my friends and I, and anyone who was interested in comedy, we just thought these guys are light years ahead of anything we've managed to do in the United States, anything that existed on television. Then these shows kept coming, Blackadder, the young ones, just these shows kept hitting us and I kept thinking, yeah, Britain is just kicking our ass in comedy.

And that's how I felt in the 70s and 80s into the 90s. I just thought you're so far ahead of us. And then I would meet British people finally when I was getting a toehold in comedy here in America, and I would profess all of this admiration. And they'd be like, yeah, that stuff's okay. But you guys have, and then they would list these shows that I thought were very pedestrian and I didn't understand. I thought they're almost seems like, what is it about, I don't know if it's particular

to England, but if I say I love the Beatles, you guys say you got over it years ago and you find it all boring and if I say, you praise anything in England, I mean, I am a history fan and I idolize Winston Churchill, I've talked to so many British people and they're like, ah, fuck that guy, fuck the church, and I'm like, what are you talking about? He kicked, he stood up to Hitler and you guys are like, ah, but in the 30s he was anti-labor. What? Okay, maybe he was. Yeah.

And then afterwards he was a bit of a nightmare as well. He was a very good wartime Prime Minister. He was, you know, the idea of having him as Prime Minister in a time of peace was problematic. Yes. We can go into the weeds on this one if you want. I don't think we should because we just lost a ton of listeners who, the minute I brought up histories, but steering it to comedy, it does feel like people are always looking across the pond, either us at you or you at us and not appreciating what they have.

Does England understand how good your stuff is? Do they understand? I think, like, we have a good sense of how good our best stuff was, but, you know, you kind of had, it was all curated, like, that you got the cream. I see. Yeah. We also, we got Benny Hill. Actually, yeah, we'd never really got him very much.

He was very much an American phenomenon, wasn't that popular in England? But yeah, so you got the kind of the best. I think normally as a British person when you hear people say, oh, wow, British comedy is the best thing. You want to watch the other 90% of the shit that we're producing at the moment because it's very bad. Right. And then also there's just that sense of something that's unfamiliar becomes so much

more impressive to you. So, like, the Larry Sander show, around that same time you're saying, oh, well, Black Added is great. Larry Sander's show was kind of mind-blowing to me. I think this is, like, perfect. You can't imagine something done on this scale this well. Yeah. That was appreciated here.

I think something that's been really special and it plays into what you're doing now here in America. I think there's a tradition in England, I think, of faulty towers where you make as many as are good and then you stop. Now in the American system, if something catches at all, immediately you're told, make way too many of these for way too long until they're not good anymore and then do it for another nine years and we have to grind as much as we can out of it. And I think that is one of the things that always blew me away is there were very few

Monty Python. Yes. There were very few Black Adders. There were very few. I mean, I love Alan Partridge. I just, I think Steve Coogan's a genius. Yeah, that's incredible. And that character is kind of aging with him as well.

Yes. Yes. And when I, when he comes out with a new series of four or five Alan Partridges, I will treasure them. I'm like, I'm a man who's dying of hunger and I just have a few M&Ms and I will just treasure each one. And I think he's brilliant, obviously, but they're not, he's not cranking out 75 a year. And I think what happened in the United States because of cable, especially when you look

at your situation in HBO, is you don't need to do this every night and make 135 or 150 a year. And there's no getting around the fact that you can put the kind of, you have time to really craft these things and make something worthwhile as opposed to let's just squeeze as much of this out to flood the market with, you know. Yeah. Sorry. What was that?

That was, that was Matt Gorley's stomach growling. Matt Gorley, who, there's no way the microphone did not pick that up. That was so loud. Can I just say something? Your job is here is to assist. I know. You flew out from Los Angeles to help me. I know.

I'm here having what I think, and I hate to rate myself, but I think this is a David Frost level conversation. One of the best. A world-class conversation. World-class conversation between two, I'm going to add myself in here, two monumental figures in comedy. Two icons. You don't understand what I'm going for right now.

One older and more venerated and one on the way up and still proving himself. And then there's a hideous noise from your stomach. Hideous is well-used. Hideous is the perfect word there. Think of it as my stomach just applauding what's happening. No. Well, that's, I admire your attempt to shimmy out of that. Yeah.

Or being audibly hungry to an interruptive degree. He won't feed us. You know, it's money. It costs money, and that's money that comes out of my pocket. I understand. I understand. As you were, please. Horrifying.

Anyway, my train of thought is over. I think there are two things on that, and he's backing away from the microphone now. Yeah, please do. But I'll still hear it from across the room. I love that he's wearing a headset, but I want to see him stretch it out the door and then shut the door so that the cord is completely taut. It was also happening prior to that, and I'm like, are they hearing this? Because I'm feeling it shake my body right now.

I hadn't heard it prior to that. That one shook the table. Yeah. There was like Jurassic Park. I could see. Yeah. You could see. There were two cups, and we saw the little ripples in the coffee cup get bigger and bigger

and bigger, and then the T-Rex came out of your ass. That's right. Matt Gaulie must feed. I'm sorry. Very rude, John. Go ahead. I think in a way it's easier to make what can look like a principal decision of just doing less shows just because it's the economy of scale in Britain, so there's no gigantic

company saying, hey, flee back. How about we give you $20 million for another 10? Right. But it wouldn't even be another 10. It would be, there needs to be flee back. We're also going to spin off her sister. Her sister has a show called It's She-Bag, you know, and then. And then they.

Careful. Careful. That's just that pitch he could take on. Please, trust me. She just signed an Amazon deal. I guarantee you, someone say, I heard about this She-Bag. Yeah, exactly. I like that.

The least character is, you know, he's like, you know, holy moly, and that's a show. And she's, you know, they got to get together. They got to get together. They got to hook up. But then they got to fight and not get together, but then get together again. And can that Fox talk at the end? Yeah. Talk in sassy Fox.

Listen, I first of all, I find your American accent very insulting. I say, if we're both going to do, you know, I can do this too, you know. Well, well, well. We actually had, we were lucky. We had a little bit of an experience of this conversation with HBO because in our second season we were supposed to do 35 a year and we realized that the kind of show that we wanted to make, we couldn't make at 35 shows a year or we could and we could do five very bad shows in that.

So we'd had a slightly tricky conversation with HBO saying we need to do five less shows, but we have to work the same amount of time to make them all better. We want to get, we would like is to make fewer, but give us the same amount of money. Yes. So you can imagine how the start of that conversation went, but like to their credit, they came around. Like, I think we reasoned with them to say this, I promise this, the average is going to get better.

The average show will be more sustainable. You were talking to executives about the quality, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Poor, poor, poor. Am I going at this about this all the wrong way? Yes, you are. Well, first of all, let me point out to anyone who doesn't know, they said, oh yes, John would, John would be delighted to be on the podcast.

Those weren't the exact words, but I'm assuming you're delighted. They said, and then I get here and I find out you're cautiously optimistic. But they say, yes, he can do it. Meet him at his office at eight o'clock in the morning. I've flown in from LA. So your eight o'clock in the morning is my five o'clock in the morning. And I just was like, wait a minute, eight o'clock in the morning, he's in the office at eight o'clock in the morning?

Yeah. No. No, no, no. Listen, you're going about this all wrong. You're going about this all wrong. I cut my teeth at Sarnat Live where we were taught you're supposed to come in, roll in in the afternoon, don't even start writing till 11 o'clock at night. And then be deprived of sleep and write badly for two days.

And I don't know, it's worked so well for us. I don't know what you're doing here with your, let's roll up our sleeves and get in there at eight. This is the only way we know how to make this without getting into trouble. That's the problem. We're taking so many legal swings here, it feels like if we get one wrong, it's all over. Yeah.

It'll be a death by cop situation. So that's, satirist, step out of the car, satirist with a keen-eyed take on what's off-kilter in American culture, step out of the car and get on your knees. That's where I can see him. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a quip. He's got a quip.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

Bam. He had a reference. Yeah. I very much agree that you're able to do what you do because TV changed and it is now possible and you've proven this that by limiting the number of shows you do, you know, you've had a great impact on our culture and you've been a terrific, you know, addition and inspiration to a lot of people and you're not overdoing it. You're not making too many.

you're making as many as you can do really well. And that's the key. Yeah, we're at the maximum number that we can do whilst doing a show like this. We could do more shows, but they couldn't all be like this. And we kind of want them to be like this because they're all like miniature obsessions. Yeah.

Does it ever feel overwhelming or do you ever have these sort of moments of despair where you think, do I keep this going forever? What happens? I'm definitely aware of like, it's all consuming by choice. Right? So I'm aware of how lucky I am to be able to devote myself this completely to one thing

and obsess over it. Like how sustainable that is really long-term. I don't know. Like I watched John Stuart closely towards the end where he was getting tired to his bones. Right. And so I remember thinking, I don't want to be this tired at the end.

Yeah. So it's hard to say. It's like, how does this end probably is, it's a really luxury problem, isn't it? Like that sense of running downhill and thinking when it feels like there's momentum that is taking over from your own body. Terrible explanation, by the way.

Yes. It's really bad. Dreadful. I'm not even sure that kind of makes any sense. You're making a weird motion with your fingers like a rolling. Yes. You'll scratch that.

It's basically just. No, no, no. We're gonna run that on a loop. Yes. I don't know. It's probably the really honest answer there. Yeah. I don't think you're meant to know.

How, what about you? I came to the conclusion that I'm a different person as I get older. I'm not, I used to say, you could probably shoot me through the heart before a show and I will still go out and do that show. I had a crazed kind of, I was on some mission to do something

and I think I've mellowed, I don't know what the correct word is. I have more perspective now. I still like to make things, but I, for example, if someone had told me two years ago that one of the great joys of my career would be, in a sense,

doing a radio show on the side with people I admire, I'd have said, really? After the TV show? And I would say, even, yeah. You just do the work. And then later on, it gets sorted out by somebody

or it doesn't, none of it matters. Yeah. I think there's also for me, there'll be the moments of like intense joy. Like if they still feel like utterly joyous, that feels like their job still has its capacity to surprise and give me like intense pleasure. I think if I'm ever standing next

to a 600-square-foot cake and feel nothing, probably time to stop. Right. Or just switch to a different prop. That's true, that's true. A pie. That's different. Yeah.

That's a different joke. A massive eclair. I mean, what I'm saying is- You can escalate though. Oh, yeah. You switch up. A massive eclair is funny. Yeah.

There's a bunch of cream inside. You're right, you can modulate the joke. Yeah. There's, the point is, you know, it's funny because I know that you're a Python fanatic and you are a Cambridge Footlights person, which I've always thought was just a legendary.

Yeah. That's where they got started. Not all of them. Not all of them, but yeah, a few of them. And yeah, so I started at college. There's myself and a guy called Richard Iowardi. We were in the same year. He's now a writer and director and comedian.

And yeah, it was there that I kind of truly fell in love with comedy. I remember Richard and I doing our first, we did like a two-man show that we wrote and performed ourselves. And after coming off the first night, thinking this is definitely what I want to do with my life to whatever the outcome of that is.

Yes. Even if the outcome of this is really sad. And it's amazing how much focus that gives you with, well, it's a gift, right? This is it. This is definitely it. It's an amazing feeling though, isn't it? And it's a real gift to get that sense of purpose

and direction at that age, at that young age, because it kind of simplifies all the choices. Because you think, well, everything, I'm going to put everything towards doing this. Yes. I worked so much harder at comedy at university than I did at my degree. Because it was the thing,

I knew that this was everything to me. Yes. And to the real chagrin of my teachers there. I remember there was a Jonathan Miller, I think it was, who was in Beyond the Fringe. His, there was a tutor he'd had. He'd studied medicine at Oxford. And to his dying day,

this tutor was disgusted with Jonathan Miller, saying he could have been a great doctor. This is a total misuse of his time. And I couldn't have identified with that less. What are you talking about? He did Beyond the Fringe. There's lots of good doctors at Raft. He did Beyond the Fringe.

Right, right. We, good comics are always very, you know, rare supply. And I think, for my money, there are way too many doctors out there. Yes, there's plenty of them. You know, you know what I mean? And most things get better on their own

when you leave them alone. That's right. Just ignore them and they'll go away. Exactly. Most doctors are of little use. And if anyone takes anything from this conversation with John Oliver, it's that food should be wasted. Yes, right.

It's just high stakes guesswork. Yeah. Most British comedy is very bad. We just don't see it. That's right. We only get the 1% that's good. We've kept the chaff away from you. Yes.

You get the beautiful wheat. Right. You guys invented Love Island, didn't you? Didn't you invent Love Island? We did. That's like you created the herpes virus. It was our idea. Yeah, that was our idea.

And then you, and now it's come to America. Yeah. It's a bunch of people hooking up. Is it doing well in America? I don't think it's. I don't think it's. I'm told that in England, literally, your economy broke down because all anyone did all the time was watch Love Island.

Yeah, because I think there's a reason why it just won't work in the same way here. In Britain, there is a cultural understanding to you take a group of maniacs and then you send them to Spain. But British people don't have, there are not beach holidays in England. So you go somewhere else and you lose your mind. Yes, yes.

So there is something that doesn't quite work here, I think it's not the same thing. But they're having real sex. They're having real sex to a fault. Yes. Yes. I've done that. It's the only way I know how to have sex.

I'm sorry. So yes, so, I mean, that's the point is that you and I are on the wrong television. You and I are making the wrong kind of television. Why? You wouldn't thrive on a beach? No, no, no. I would be in a...

You don't want to be on a beach with strangers? First of all, there's nothing I would like to do less than appear on Love Island. You're messing the point, John. We're not on the show. I would be in a beekeeper's outfit, protected for the song. And I would be in a big tent in the beekeeper's outfit and I'd be peering through a slit and I would be a profit

participant as would you in the show. Profit participant as would you in this scenario. Yes. And people would be hooking up left and right. You and I would get to watch the rough edit as an ultimate form of perversion and we would be profit participants instead of whatever you're doing here. It still sounds less fun to me.

Occasionally, there'd be a giant cake. I think there's any, I've watched so little of Love Island because I think there's too much of it that I understand and it makes me sad. It's the same reason why I cannot watch the Great British Baking Show. It makes me so tense. Why?

My kids love that show. Yeah, I know. All Americans say, oh, it's just so relaxing. It's so calm. And to me, it's a white knuckle ride through British people's anxieties. It's not, you have to understand, Conan. They're so repressed.

They're all on the edge of breaking down. It's not about the cake. It's never about the cake. I want to point out John's crying. His tears running down his cheeks. I cannot watch it. It makes me so tense. Because you are picking up on all of the repression,

all of the false cheer. What's Mary Berry? She's always biting into it. She looks like a Muppet, by the way. She looks like a strange puppet. And she's always biting into a tart and going, ooh. So you've only made this three times before. Don't do it.

If you've only made it three times before, don't do it now. It's not going to work. Nothing works. You know that. You know what I love? Nothing ever works out. It's going to sink.

Oh, God. On the British Baking Show, they always come by and they ask the person what they're doing. That's the part that I think would probably make you crazy. Because even I pick up on the tension there. Yes. They come by and they'll say like, so what are you doing here? And it's like, well, I'm making it, but I'm making a cake.

But instead of flour, I'm going to use figs. And the person, they'll look at him and go like, don't use figs. Don't use figs. You've never used figs before. You're not a fig person. And they'll always say, oh, I just thought I'd try it. And they always give a little skepticism like, well, I mean, flour is really how most cakes are made.

And they'll be like, well, I think I'm going to go with figs. And then you know they're dead. You're reaching for a life you can't have. Yes. Just stick to what you know. The British class system is basically a rut that we can all just live in. Yeah, it's not about cakes.

That thing is just incredibly distressing for me to watch that. I've never made it through a whole episode. Have they ever tried to combine Love Island with the baking show? You know what I mean? So there's a tent, and people are cooking things, but they're in thongs. And then if you both make the best cake, you hook up. But you do it on a giant pastry.

What are you doing, Dave? I'm making an eclair, I think. I think I'm making a nice eclair. But I'm doing it with strawberry frosting. Well, I've wasted way too much of your time. This has been really fun. Thank you for doing this. And it's a pleasure.

I still swear to God, you're here at the office way too early. I don't deny that. I think your work ethic is destroying your show, and you've got it all wrong. So if I've done nothing else. Thank you, Sensei. I'm going to go office. Yeah, take it from me, the guy on the escalator rapidly headed

to the bottom, to the basement level. Conan was here. Oh, really? Is he still on TV? Well, it's sort of radio now. Anyway, he gave me advice. But John, you're doing really well. Well, Conan said, this is what you should do.

Then I saw Conan rush out and get into an Uber, and he was driving. Anyway, an absolute delight. Thank you for doing this. And Cheerio, I suppose. Cheerio to you, Conan. I just became Dick Mandike in Mary Poppins, and I apologize. Jim Chimney.

You know, we're already well into season two. We're on our way, and I realize we haven't checked in with one another to see what we've done. You know, we sort of went our separate ways. A lot going on in our lives. Sona, you're trying to buy a house with your husband. I am. And you got on my case because I lobald a house the other day.

You finally found a house that both you and your husband love, which is impossible, and you can afford it, and you listen to your brother who's like. A financial advisor. A financial advisor, and you so lobald that the person isn't returning your offer, and will not talk to you. I think your brother Danny didn't take that into consideration.

Why are you saying Danny's name like that? I'm trying to say it the way an Armenian would say it. Danny. Isn't that it? Isn't it Danny? No. Danny is a financial advisor. He owns properties throughout Los Angeles.

He knows what he's talking about. And you know, the house has been on the market for a month. A month, yeah. A month, Matt. So you decided to humiliate the owner. We didn't humiliate him. Yeah, you went in and offered. Yeah, the offer was three chickens and a box of oranges.

And I think that's just insulting. I think it's terrible what you do. We offered him money, and he, apparently, he's a very nice man, but he was very angry. Is that the agent said? Yeah, he's a nice man, and he's angry because you insulted him. He was very angry. And this is the house where you want to raise children.

I know, it's so cute. So what were you doing? What were you doing? Well, now we're in a tough spot. Like, do we go back? And we're like, oh, no, we meant this much. But then we lose all our leverage. No, you don't.

You just say we faxed it over, and the fax machine dropped one of the zeros. That's not how things work anymore. Oh, now you're going to tell me there aren't fax machines. I mean, there are, but no one uses them. Oh, right. OK, how do they communicate, wise guy? When was the last time you faxed anything?

Let's see. I was watching Silver Spoons, and I was upset with the quality of the episode, and I remembered faxing the head of the network. You know what? You, the other day, printed something from your laptop, and it was the first time in the 10 years that I've worked for you where you have printed something

from your computer to the printer. And then he went to the printer, picked up all the papers that were in it, and then threw away all the ones that were in his printout. Oh, my god. They didn't concern me. That is new to a T. They didn't concern me, so I threw them away,

and then I hear Sona saying, where's my? What was it you were missing? It doesn't matter. No, no, what was it? What was it that you were missing? Your Sudoku printout for that day? It was, yes. Ah!

I'm with you. I'm with you. Oh, my god. You flipped out. You act like I, where are the special papers we need for the functioning of this program? No, it was your Sudoku. That's why you were yelling?

That's not the point. It is the point. No, the point is you can't. The point is you do Sudoku at work all day, and so I threw away your Sudoku, print another one. You don't know proper printer etiquette, and it upsets me that you don't know that. Next time is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to go to the printer. I'm going to take out the thing that I printed out, and if there are any papers there, I'm going to open a can of Dinty Moore can stew, and pour it all over those papers and the printer. What did you print out? Glad you asked. Oh, no.

I printed out the lyrics to a really sad country song. So both of you are working hard, is what I'm getting from this. And then I printed out the lyrics so I could know them. You probably want me to sing it right now. I didn't ask for that, but it sounds like it's going to happen anyway. Couldn't be happy in the city at night.

You can't see the stars for the neon light. Sidewalks dirty in the river's worse. Underground trains all run in reverse. Sona, did you hear me playing it on the guitar? You've played it like 20 times in the last few days trying to learn it. And how does it sound? You know what?

It sounds really good. You're a really great guitar player. Thank you. That's a genuine compliment. And what about the singing? The singing is nice. I know. I know.

No, it's not. You know what? I think you have dreams of being a singer-songwriter. And I think if you went to a little bar and you took out your guitar and you sang, people would listen to it. Here's the problem. If I go to a bar and I open up a guitar case or something,

people are just going to start shitting themselves. Because you brought a disease in? No, because I showed up in a public space. You don't walk around with me, Gourly. Sona, you've been with me. When I go places, it's suddenly like a flash mob. I have. We went to the movies.

It's just, oh, that's right. We did go to the movies. There was nobody there. Actually, no, that's not true. There was Pete Holmes. It was a completely empty movie theater, except for comedian Pete Holmes. Hilarious.

And then we sat right next to him and his wife, even though nobody else was in the theater. Oh, and you also were texting and taking video during a movie, which is a big, that's another etiquette problem, big, bright, shining phone. You had the flash on. You were taking video of the movie in an arc light. No, what I did was, turns out, and I

thought this was kind of cool. I'm watching the movie, and I'm not going to name names here, but we're watching this very popular movie. And someone who's in the movie is calling me at that moment to try and see when we're going to get together to have dinner. And I thought it was really funny that that person was calling me while their scene was up in the movie.

So I quickly said, I'm busy, and then took a picture of their face on the screen. I thought that was kind of a cool thing. So I wasn't there taking video of the movie. I took one quick, discreet shot, and then I sold it in China for a couple $100,000. You're capable of terrible things, I'm sure. I'm an angel.

You are. Thank you. We don't know. We don't know about you. And you, did you do any of your crafts this summer? What are my crafts? I don't have any crafts. Yes, you're a woodworker.

You made wooden lamps, didn't you? I was not putting you down, I said. Well, it's hard to tell. You use the same tone for everything. I could probably deliver the Gettysburg Address like a prick. Yeah. Yeah, you could. Do it.

I made four score, and seven years ago, our father's brought forth on this continent, a nation conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition. Oh, men are created equal. You're right, it doesn't matter what it is. What an achievement. Well, I'm proud of myself. Really gorelly, I could replace you tomorrow

with a beanbag chair, and I could draw glasses on it, and say, gorelly, how are you? And I'd be fine. Me too. You'd be happy. Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Sonamov Sessian and Conan O'Brien As Himself, produced by me, Matt Gorelly, executive produced by Adam Sacks and Jeff Ross at Team Coco,

and Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Earwolf, theme song by the White Stripes, incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. The show is engineered by Will Bekton. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review featured on a future episode.

Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production,

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