Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Matt Gourley Needs A Fan

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Conan talks to Sid in Budapest about innovation in the world of cheese development. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: teamcoco.com/apply Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit team cocoa.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hey, guys. Hi, Sid. Welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Hello, thank you so much.

Hey, Sid, how are you? Hey, Matt. Hey, David. Hi. Yes. You can leave. What the hell was that? You got Conan O'Brien in the room.

You got the queen of you. of England in the room and you're talking to the footman. What are you doing? Here's what it is. Okay. This is the inaugural episode of Matt Goreley needs a fan. Nice. Look at you. You've got a James Bond poster and a cat back there. You are.

You're goddamn right. Wow. This is great. Listen, I am very secure in my fame and I will allow Matt Gurley to have one fan and that can be you, Sid, as long as you remain in Budapest and never leave. Boy, I can never meet him. You can never meet him. That I will not allow.

You meeting a fan, I won't have it. No, well, this is... I'll come to Pasadena and I'll find you. How about that? Oh, my God. Sounds like you already know where he lives. Sounds ominous. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself.

We already know that you... Do you listen to this podcast at all? Or you only listen to Matt Goreley products. Well, here's the thing. First of all, I listen to this podcast religiously. There you go. I'm like Trump. I'm like Trump.

You really need to blow a lot of hot air my way and then I come around. All right. You're like him in a lot of ways. I'm a lot like him. It's true. I bloviate. I have insane hair. I spent a lot of time in Florida.

But anyway, so go ahead. Tell us the story. You listen to this. I like how this is starting. You listen to the Conan O'Brien podcast all the time. Go ahead. Yeah. And I re-listen to episodes as well.

I find certain ones that that sort of comfort me a lot So I'm a big fan of the podcast But I have to be honest, Conan It was your podcast that made me a fan of you You mean it was Matt's podcast It was Oh wait a minute, I'm sorry

This is episode one We'll see how it goes Yeah, yeah But what I'm saying is It was You didn't know about me at all And then you started listening to my podcast Well I knew your name

I knew your face I saw your little Walk on Camio in the office and stuff. You saw no reason to pursue. I heard your name and I saw your face and I was out. I love that he knows me from my cameo on the office.

That's fantastic. Listen, here's my attitude about all of the same. You want to know the fucked up thing about that? I thought you were Craig Kilbord. Yeah. Wow. There's a name I haven't heard in a while. Listen, I said, this is good for me.

You're like a lufa for my ego. You're scrubbing away at it, all the dead layers. So I welcome this. Yes. You know, I have too many people on the street saying, I want to do you, do me now. Oh, we walk around with you. Yeah.

Have you ever heard? No, I've never heard that. This is in my mind. I've heard you say that last of times, yeah. I say it to myself. No, but Sid, watch around with earbuds. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just a recording of me on a loop. Sid, I am fine. I like that you, here's my, here's how I feel. I'm kind of like a drug dealer in that as long as I get you on heroin, I don't care how you came to like it. So if, when people say to me, oh, I only knew you from your failed line of designer jeans in 1996, I'm like, I don't care as long as I got you in the door. But now I feel like I have to apologize because I'm responsible for getting you hooked on this heroin.

You know what I mean? Yeah, because you were a Gourley fan, right? you listen to Gorley's podcast which one yeah okay so Matt um genuinely i am a bit starstruck talking to you oh you come on no i'm liking this this is good this makes me so uncomfortable you're so sweet i i understand that but i do have to say it uh but uh you you and you and i had a brief interaction on twitter actually back when it was twitter uh a few years ago where i where i said that you were um more like instrumental in forming my comedic voice than anyone else.

And that's through me listening to the James Bonding podcast. Oh, my God. From day one over and over, actually. I've re-listened to the entire run, I think maybe six or seven times. Wow. And it was when you were talking to Mad Myra about working with Conan that I was like, oh shit, Gordle, he's got another podcast. Let me check the Conan.

Oh, yeah. He's got another podcast with ugly face from the office cameo. I believe I said, Craig Kilbourne. Yeah, weird name. ugly face from the cameo uh well i'm gonna sid you are uh i honor your love of gorley he's very talented very funny and this is all uh a great day in my life occurred when i met this this gentleman and so no no seriously i i'm i'm this is all not going to irritate me it's not going to irritate me at all yeah you seem fine i'm i'm going to get over this

Speaking of heroin, I'd like just a little taste right now. I want to disassociate from my emotions at the moment. No, but that's great. I'm glad, but let's, we'll go back to Gorley, but I want to find out a little bit about you, okay? Because part of the whole reason for this podcast where I talk to people around the world is to find out what they're up to,

and then we can return to the great Matt Gorley. Tell us about yourself. What do you do? Are you native to Budapest? Tell us about yourself. Matt, is that okay if I answer that question? Yes. I will allow it, but you've got 20 seconds and then we get back to me.

Well, okay, so I'm not native to Budapest. Good pronunciation, by the way, Conan. Thank you. It's the one thing I... You know, I have such an ugly face. I have a lot of time to get pronunciations right because no one invites me out. Go ahead. I don't want it to be on the record that I find you ugly because I don't.

I find it to be a very attractive man. So let's just get that out there. Yeah, so I'm originally Indian. I left there when I was very young when I was eight. And I was basically raised in Central Eastern Europe. I lived in Prague for a couple of years. And for the last 25 years, I've been here in Budapest. So I'm essentially a local here, but I don't present as such, obviously.

Do people in Budapest think that you are a tourist often? you know um when i was when i was a teenager they thought i was a member of the roma population and uh so they would kind of get a little bit nervous that i was going to you know uh steal something from them or oh did you live in the states did you live in america because are you are you asking because the accent yeah yeah so i there's there's an american school here and that's where i went to school wow but i mean the fact that i do that accent oh so you've been in in the United States. You spent a lot of time here?

No, you went to an American school. There's like an American international school here in Budapest. That's where I went to school. Wow. That's very impressive that you would, I mean, honestly, I feel like if I was just talking to you on the phone, I'd feel like you were from Ryan, New York. Yeah. Or, you know, it's just, it's incredible that you, a school can provide that, give you. Yeah, did movies and James Bond movies?

have anything to do that? I know they're English but well the it's weird it was more cartoons actually because when when when I left India was you know a lot of cartoons but you know the bugs bunnies and the cartoon networks of the world but you know obviously I still I I still when I speak to my family I still speak with an Indian accent so I like code switch but that happens I go back to Boston I haven't lived in Boston since 1981, but, I mean, I haven't, I haven't really been, that's not true, 1985, but, but when I drift back to Boston, I find certain things coming out. I'm much more abrasive, intolerant. The Bill Burr and you comes out. Yeah, suddenly, yeah, little short quips and short breaths.

I'm an insane driver suddenly. So that can happen. What do you do for a profession? What is your what's bread of my table yeah um so i'm the head of marketing for a cheese company which is uh run by my childhood friend um so he's the CEO it's like a family run company so i'm there ahead of marketing um on the side i also dabble in in stand-up uh but yeah what obviously that doesn't pay anything well i don't know i mean it it might is there a thriving stand-up scene in budapest you know it's not bad it's pretty good um But I guess the market for it is kind of limited because you have a couple of filters. You have number one people who are interested in comedy, which in a former Soviet country is also questionable.

There's people interested in comedy. People who are interested in comedy who speak English. People interested in comedy who speak English who actually want to go to a basement bar on a weekday. So there's a few levels. But, you know, we draw a crowd. there's a few very talented people that I admire a lot and yeah it's pretty good

it's an up-and-coming scene it's been active for I guess at most maybe 15 years so it's still a little baby scene it would be a nice thing to give a shout out to some of your favorite comedians that you that you see in the Budapest scene

and your favorite cheese we want a pairing of best comic with best cheese but seriously just quickly name a few people so that maybe some of our listeners Someone out there might hear about this and then we might discover somebody. Oh, trust me. I'm going to tell them about it.

All right. So shout out to. Sid, your full name too, so people can come see you. Yeah, what's your full name? Hey, Sid Murthy. Thank you very much. Okay. There was no applause.

It's very easy to spell, obviously. Please, please, settle down. Please. I'll edit some in. Yeah. Thanks, Carly. All right. So shout out to Rom, obviously, who's a big Conan fan.

Kitty. Hey, let's put the light on. Ron. No, we don't have time for that. But what is Rom's wrong name? What's Rom's full name? He would prefer to remain anonymous. Oh, he'll go far.

No, he's... He hires a publicist. All right, here's what we're going to do. I'd like to be anonymous. What? What are you talking about? What's your name? This unimportant.

Can we have a photograph of your face? No. They want you in a film. I won't do it. I might be seen. It's actually a little bit relevant because he's an outspoken, Iranian, not in Iran.

So if he, if he's seen as talking shit about the government, then he can be called back and, you know, dangerous things may happen. Does he wear a disguise when he performs, like the unknown comic? No, the disguise that he wears is remaining in relative anonymity in a pretty small comedy scene. It's so funny, I asked for a shout out. And by the way, we hear from fans in Tehran. We hear, we have fans in Tehran and a shout out to them because I know they've been going through a, you know, a difficult time. And I'm talking about the people of Tehran.

There's a lot of young people out there and some of them are listening to this podcast. And I think it's relevant to say that we've been hearing from them. And it's so funny that you're saying. So this, there are people in Iran who are listening to this podcast. and I say, let's give a big shout out. Let's put the spotlight on one of your friends who you think is really talented. And you mention a guy who's in hiding.

Am I right? So he has to fight a certain amount of success. He can't be too good because if he becomes known, then he's in danger. So he has to be like a mediocre comic to stay alive. Trust me. I'm familiar with this process. That explains a lot.

There aren't a lot of people out to get me, but there are some. That's why I've kept it at kind of B, B, B minus celebrity status. Okay. It's very comforting to me. He's been giving the tonight show, but don't worry, he'll be off very soon. You know what? It's been a long enough time that I can really laugh at it,

and no, I can't. Sit, now I'm coming after you. Bring it on, then. Yeah. Oh, wow, okay. I can't I can't wait to jump out of a mail box in Budapest

and attack you it'll just be with like a wet stuffed animal that I hit you with So the cheese business you're doing that I'm going to take a wild stab

and say I don't think you take that business very seriously I don't think it's your passion How can you? How can you? take cheese seriously? Who does take cheese seriously? Like, apart from Jordan Slantzky? My father-in-law. Does he really? And Jordan Slansky. Oh, yeah. They would take cheese very seriously, yes.

But there are people out there. I'm not saying I approve of them, nor do I approve of my father-in-law. But, Jake, if you're listening, I'm after you, too. But there are people that take cheese very seriously. I mean, you can pick any object, and there's someone in the world who takes it very seriously. So there are people. Is it a profitable cheese concern? Is it doing well? It is. It's doing very well as thriving. We sell a lot of cheese in the Middle East, actually. So the company is owned by a Lebanese family here in Hungary. What a melting pot this is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In course, an Irish guy sweeps up afterwards. You've got everyone working for you. So, yeah. And the cheese is good. You're backing the cheese. How many kinds of cheese do you make? Tons. And we also

invent new kinds of cheese as well. Really? What's a new kind of cheese? I thought there were just the cheeses that exist that are always on a plate when you go to a nice party and they put out the cheese course and there they are. There's the blue cheese. There's the soft cheeses, the breeze. But there's the cheddar. But are there really that many kinds of cheese? are countless types of cheese. I mean, like, if an accident happens with, like, your milk and acid levels, then, boom, that's a new type of cheese. So, like, you just sort of improvise. But it's, you know, different, like, consumption methods or whatever, you know, so we can have...

Theoretically invent, like, a Conan cheese? Yeah, could you make a cheese? Or he's going to want to make it about you. It's going to be a Matt Gorley cheese. But I think cheese is much more appropriate for you. Okay. That's good. That's good. do you make rods up the ass like a stiff rod up the ass because then we could name that after Matt new ass stiff rod we call it the goarly

but its signature it's signature mom I'll take it and it's made of a fine ass okay all right their quality is superb I worked with the designer and I approved this stiff rod at the ass It's you looking slightly uncomfortable, but also you're a little pleased.

You're having a low level of erotic high. Yeah, maybe you can make a cone and cheese, and we could maybe profit together from this venture. Well, okay, good, because this is kind of what I do. So every year, so here in Hungary, our most popular, profitable, whatever you want to call it, type of cheese is Hulumi. which is like a Mediterranean type of cheese, which is really popular in the Middle East as well. And every year we introduce two new flavored Hulumi products. This year we did a tunduri one and tomato and basil,

kind of basic ones. But we like to go for more and more, I guess, shocking, surprising flavor combinations. Well, I am shocking and surprising. well that's that that's really true and um i don't know i'm getting a lot of like citrus citrus energy from you oh yeah i'm very acidic uh i also um have me with any medication and the medication will be less effective uh there you go and i mean that's just part of my personality when people are what's that well orange orange hair orange hair vitamin c c for conan yeah this is very good matt and there's a reason you love matt

I don't get it yet, but I'm going to listen to this podcast. He's got... Please don't. I'm going to. Please do not. I think an orange flavored cheese, and maybe we add some other things that are very cononyy. If it could look like it has some kind of spotting or freckling, that would my arms are just riddled with... That would be maybe like rose pedal.

Rose pedal, that would be pretty good. Yeah, some kind of bacteria. Just add a little salmonella in there. Some lucky charms? Could you put some lucky charms in there? Oh, the marshmallows from Lucky Charms. I mean, we can think. How about fruit pebbles, right?

That's your go-to? I like a fruity pebbles. I wouldn't say it's my go-to. It is what they're going to find coming out of my mouth when I'm found dead in a hotel room. You have to have it removed from your house. Yeah, exactly. I did. We had a whole box of it.

A crate. And I said, get this away from me. And then I accidentally bought you more. and you would have thought I, like, brought him a gun? Yeah. Get that away from me? Depressed guy with a gun. Well, I think that's a possibility.

Maybe we could get into business together. Yeah, let's do that. You can have whatever cut you want because I'm on, I'm, I'm salaried, so I don't get a cut of anything. Whoa. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'd like you to see a little something. And also, I think, to be fair, we should cut Matt Gourlian as well.

Oh, seriously. Great. I'm in. Okay, let's do this. You brought me Sid. you were the entryway drug to the much harsher and, of course, much sought after Conan drug. So, yeah, I think that Matt should also participate in the profits. Yeah, okay.

So we'll do this. We'll do the Coden cheese, which is with orange and salmonella. Done. Very good. Can't wait for the ads for this? There'll be no return customers. A wave of strange salmonella down. In the cheese-loving

Experimental cheese-loving community. All right, well, Sid, you've been terrific. It's been really nice to get to know you. You've been really terrific. Yeah, I've been really terrific. And you've reawakened my love of Matt Gorley, which has been dormant for a very long time. Has it ever even?

Well, I'm saying it goes back to before I even met you. It's like Hallie's comment once every 80 years or whatever. Exactly. But, Sid, very cool to meet you and best of luck to you. And maybe we'll cross paths someday. That would be really fun. Hey, I'd love to have you here in Hungary. You know what? It gets a bad rap in the media. All you hear about is how horrible the government is, which it is. And it's relevant that we're recording this now in June, which is Pride Month where the rights of queer people are being stamped on every day. But you know what? There are good, solid people that. don't get spoken about, and they're lumped in with all the horrible people. And I think that Hungary deserves a shot. Hungary deserves your presence in it. And I think that you'll find a lot to love over here. Well, I think that's true of so many countries where the leadership sends you one signal, but there are lots of good people there. Lots of good people there. And that's a good point that you make. And so my shout out to Hungary and to all the people there. And very, I just love

getting to talk to people, sensitive, funny, smart, creative people from all over the world who represent what's possible. So thanks for reaching out to us. Thank you for doing what you do, Conan. I think you've added more positivity in the world than you really realize. Your episode in Haiti in particular and in Ghana as well were very moving for me and I think that you shed a light on the goodness of humanity in ways that will only become clear

in a few decades so it's your impact is felt but I'll still be alive yeah because the rot up your ass you owe me for that you know what saved you the rod up your ass your left ventricle collapsed but the circulation kept moving

All right, hey, Sid, thanks for those kind words. Yeah, and maybe we'll see you soon. Take care, man. Absolutely. Hey, would it be all right if I took a picture? Is that okay? Yeah, let's do it. So let's just do a screenshot.

Fuck it. Hey. Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Sid. I love you. And say hi to your friend who's a comedian, but not too loudly. All right, take care. Kind of whisper it.

Thank you for everything, Matt. Conan O'Brien needs a fan. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Lea. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer Aaron Blaird. Associate talent producer Jennifer Samples. Associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash Conan. Please rate, review, and subscribe

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