Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Mike Myers

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Actor Mike Myers feels prehensile about being Conan O’Brien’s friend Mike sits down with Conan to talk about treating the audience as the boss, sharing his iconic comedic filmography with his kids, and the “cinema bleak” of Canada. Later, Conan gets frantic with a one-off segment titled “Maybe I’m As Big a Nerd As Gourley”. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hi, my name is Mike Myers, and I feel prehensile about being Conan O'Brien's friend. I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Hello and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, which continues through quarantine and this global pandemic because we're all speaking to each other in our separate, is my favorite word, chambers. I love the word chambers, so I try to work it in whenever I can. Sona is in her own chamber in Altadena, California, and gorelly you are, of course, sequestered in your chamber, which is in Pasadena, I believe.

That's right, in the Dinas. And I live on the island of Catalina in a geodesic dome. No, I'm an eccentric. I take a seaplane to Los Angeles every day and come back. Sona, you just laughed like Beavis or Butthead. I did. That's my, I feel like he wants me to chuckle, but I don't really want to right now kind of laugh. Oh my God, that's awful.

Was that rude? I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. No, no, you have such a great natural laugh, and I never want you to laugh unless you really want to laugh. For you to go, uh, just because I said geodesic dome and you didn't even care and think it was that funny, and then you go, uh, just to fill the space is awful. I'm sorry, I made it worse. That's like made it worse, so it was bad. No, it was, I, I didn't want to not do anything. So I thought, all right, let's just force a laugh here.

And then that was a mistake because it didn't come out sincere. And now I feel like I should have just been quiet as opposed to just like, huh. That's not even to laugh what you just did right there. That's like a bug gut in your throat and you're trying to get it out, but you're at the opera, so you don't want to make too much noise. I realized over the years, the thing you hate the most is when no one even laughs at all and just goes, huh, that's funny. No, no, no, it doesn't upset me. What I hate is that's cute.

Oh, okay. I hate that about comedy. And of course, my penis. Um, that's cute. Yeah. Get that a lot. Oh, look at it. It looks like it's sleeping.

Okay. Oh my God. Well, I'm sorry. Someone got us down this road and I don't know who, but we'll play back the tape later on. It was you, 100%. Always is. How does a penis look like it's sleeping? Careful, we're on video chat.

It's wearing a little nightcap. And the book it was reading is off to the side. So it's pages down open. A little book it was reading. Is your penis on Ambien? No, it doesn't need Ambien. It just needs to read for a while before it goes out. And it reads a little book to scale.

So. What's it reading right now? I don't really want to get into it. It's sort of one of those Fabio's on the cover. Eating a romance novel. It's reading a romance novel because it dreams of a love that it can never know. Is there a little glass of warm milk nearby? Just a little bit of red wine.

Oh my God. It's got a little nightcap on. It's going. Oh, I so badly want to ask for fan art of this. No, no, no, no. Fan art, please. Fan art. I'll just tag it little sleeping guy.

L-I-L. Little sleeping guy. He doesn't mean anybody any harm. He's just trying to catch 40 winks. I have the only penis in the world that goes, Time for my beauty sleep. What is happening? You know what?

I've never been happier that my parents don't know how to listen to a podcast. But yeah. You know, listen, we're on our separate chambers, as I said. And I do love that word. I wish I lived that a judge goes into his chambers. I wish I had chambers that I went into, you know, to think about important matters. But when I'm talking about chambers too much, it can sort of start to sound like I'm killing time. And man, we do not need to kill time today.

Would you say that's true, Mr. Gurley? Absolutely. Let's get to it. This thing is going to be good. Okay. That's a lot of pressure. I mean, this is the best episode we've ever done. I'm going to say this.

I'm going to say I'm very much looking forward to our guest today because I've known this gentleman a long time. He's got a tremendous body of work. I really admire what he's accomplished. And he's very, very, very smart about comedy. And I've thought, okay, I'd love to have this guy on the podcast because I think this is an amazing way to open up his skull and find out what's going on in there. And that's what we're going to do.

My guest today is, of course, a legendary comedian who was a cast member on Cernot Live and starred in such movies as Wayne's World, the Austin Powers films, and Shrek. I am honored. He is with us today. Mike Myers. Welcome, sir. I think more than almost any performer I've met in my life, you come from this very old school, almost vaudeville tradition.

And remember you telling me once that your mom would tell you how to smile when you were a kid? And there was almost a slogan that she had. I picture you being about three years old and your mother telling you how to smile. Do you remember what that was? Yeah. She said eyes and teeth. She liked certain types of performers that stayed with me like Ken Berry.

Remember Ken Berry? Of course. He's fantastic at Ken Berry. And I was like, well, I like Ken Berry. Ken Berry was on F Troop. Part of the ensemble of Carol Burnett Show. Exactly. And he was also, and this leads to a much bigger discussion, but why this is important is that

I could see your mom, your mom and dad both came from Liverpool. Yeah. And then they came to Canada, but you, I almost feel like we all adopt sort of our parents' ethos. It's just how it is. So you almost picked up an English musical sensibility. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, most definitely.

But you're like marinated in. And so, like I could see your mom liking at Ken Berry because I remember he was a song and dance man with a big smile. And I always knew that you're the kind of performer who almost felt like you could have existed in 1850 and you would have done the circuit and you would have had a steamer trunk and you would have done just great because you have that. Wake him up at two o'clock in the morning and tell him he's got to do 45 minutes and you'll do it.

It's 100% true. It's, you know, there's a performer that is almost impossible to explain, a guy named George Formby, who is this Northern English ukulele guy. And I remember my dad said, oh, you've got to check out this George Formby. He's great, this one. And me just going, wow, dude, I'm ethnic. You know, you never think of yourself as ethnic in English. You know, I just happened to know for no reason, George Harrison was a huge George

Formby fan. Was he not? Yeah. Yeah. It's the simplicity. He played the ukulele and evidently George Harrison used to write a lot of his songs on the ukulele. It's a happy instrument and it's a portable instrument.

And the thing about growing up in a Liverpool house is that my dad would, if you come into the house, you've got to have a good song, a good joke, or a good story. And it was like more important than if they were like good people, was that they had a good story, a good joke. So if Charles Manson showed up with a ukulele and a good story, they'd be like, he's alright, you know? He's alright that, Chuck. He's great that.

But what, sir, what about the murdering later in the night? He started murdering all of you. He did. It's so funny because I found all this stuff out about you later on. I met you. I was at Sarnet Live as a writer and I remember the day you came in. They said, oh, there's a new kid coming in, a performer, Mike Myers. And I remember before I even met you saying, Mike Myers, eh?

We'll knock him down to size. We'll make short work of this, Mike Myers. You'll never hear from him again. No, I remember you walking into the conference room. You were very nice, very polite, kind of quiet, and you were wearing a leather jacket that I believe had, did it have the Canadian flag on the back? It was the Toronto Maple Leafs, I think. Yeah, okay, alright.

You came in and you were a success at the show instantly. And a lot of people come in and it takes them a while to figure out what they're doing. And you came in and you said, well, I've got this idea for something called Wayne's World. And I was like, we'll see about this Wayne's World. You'll not hear that again. And you did it, I think, almost instantly on the show and instantly it became an iconic thing. And we were like, you were off and running. I remember at the read through table, really, first of all, you were so generous to me.

I just, I couldn't believe it. I thought it was so fantastic. And I remember when I was writing a deeter and I said to you, Germany's number one show. And you just sat and went, who are you to accuse me? I went, okay, that's good. And I said, Germany's number one pop song. And you said, irritant number nine. I was like, it goes right in.

You gave me, always gave me, and one time I wrote a sketch and it made no sense whatsoever. And you just went, go for a walk, go for a walk. And I came back like 90 minutes later and you'd literally rewritten it and put it in the right order where it now made sense and it sang and all the jokes popped off the page. And I always remember that. That was so lovely, you know. Do you feel like you were able to relax at Senate Live ever? No.

When you were such a success? I wish I had. I look back now and go, I did well on that show. But at the time, it's just such a, it's just some monster that eats your material insatiably, you know, that you're just feed the bear, feed the bear, you know. That you don't enjoy it that much. And I sometimes forget I was on the show only because I'm so in the world of my kids now that it's sort of, there's life before the kids and then there's life after the kids,

you know what I mean? Right. Because it's such a profound, great, happiest time of my life experience. But it's, it's, that is a regret. I wish I'd enjoyed it more. But I also, I also go, I knew it was special though at the time. I knew that I was so honored to be part of that institution. You know what I mean?

I felt like I was playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs, you know. So I, I love to wear the jersey then of SNL that, that much I did enjoy. It's the thinking you're getting fired the whole time is a little bit of a buzzkill, but that's more about me. And well, I will say this, I can corroborate. Yeah. If it helps, maybe it doesn't help, but I exactly agree that I always knew it was special while I was there.

And I always knew I need, I need to honor this. This is special. And it really launched me in so many ways. And I've always been eternally grateful to learn. Me too. Me too. Me too. So, and really felt, feel that in my bones.

But I will say it's very hard to explain to people that I've never been as scared and low in my life as I was on those Tuesday nights when we had to stay up all night and write. You've got nothing. And you've got nothing. And you're wandering the hallways and all the other doors are shut and you hear people laughing. Yeah. Cause two other or three other people would be behind a door and they'd be laughing

because they're writing what, in your mind, is the greatest sketch in the world. And you're wandering those halls at 30 Rock and it is a kind of quiet, painful, insecurity and depth and a kind of a depth of despair that I don't know that I've known since. And then the next day, if people are laughing at your sketch and it's in, it's an elation. And I just found, I did it for a couple of years and then I was like, I can't do this anymore because it was when you freeze a glass and then you pour hot tea into it, it explodes and shatters. Yeah.

I found the deep, deep despair Tuesday at three in the morning existential, I don't deserve to live. Yes. I'm a fraud. I'm a fraud. Yeah. People think I'm funny, but I'm really not. Yeah.

And now I'm going to the bathroom for the ninth time and I don't even have to, but I'm just trying to have a do something. Yes. And then elation 10 hours later, I couldn't handle it. Yeah. I just couldn't do it. Well, when I did the Wayne's World with Aerosmith and Tom Hanks and it was like nine minutes and 22 seconds long, I thought I'd blown it.

I just, I went into the change booth afterwards and I just started to cry and Dennis Miller came over and it was like, Mikey, you blew the doors off the roof, you know, whatever mixed metaphor. But you know what I mean? And I was like, yeah, let's blame Dennis for that. Yeah. Yeah. And the guy who like the dresser guy, you know, Malcolm said, Mr. Myers is very upset

right now. And he went, Oh, Mikey, one of those people that can't enjoy it. He goes, I've been on the show for like six years. I've never heard cheers, stomps and whistles like that, babe. He goes, too bad. And he walked away. And I thought, yeah, it was too bad. It was too bad.

Yeah. Yeah. I wish I'd enjoyed it. I wish I'd known it had done well. I remember and I'm, and, you know, I've seen it a couple of times since, you know, I was like, that was, that was a pretty good sketch, you know. Yeah. Is that the one where you gave the bass player for Aerosmith?

Yes. This great speech and he completely nails it. Yes. He's striking on his name. He's a terrific guy, but he just, you gave him this incredibly dense, like he's quiet the whole time. Yeah. And then suddenly he cuts in and he has this amazing speech.

There's never been a blueprint for the proletarian dictatorship or yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he just said it like, yeah. Well, of course. And, and I thought, that's beautiful. That was, but I remember one time, and this is a great Conan story.

I've told many, many people. I forget who the host was. I actually don't even, I don't like saying the names of hosts that were not terribly nice. I think it's boring. Yeah. But one of the hosts was torturing you all week and you even had pre-tapes and stuff like that.

And you came in and your sketch was cut. We all looked over to you, right? You know, the, between the dress and air show, you go in and there's three by five cards of the entire running order of the show and you go in to see if your sketch has made it. And if it's being cut, it's put to the left and it's really painful and horrible. But if it's in and it's to the right, you know, you kind of go, Oh, is it before update? Is it after update? You're just relieved that it's in really, you know what I mean?

And you came in and you saw, and I saw it, I saw that it had been cut and I knew he'd been tortured by this host and you came in and went, perfect. It's all going perfectly to plan. You got a standing ovation and I was like, is that bullshit or is that for real? And I was like, no, it's for real. And I was like, dude, that is, it's exactly the right attitude. You know what I mean? Perfect.

It's all going perfectly to plan. Yeah. To me, in my mind's eye, you came in sort of like you, you knew exactly what you were doing because you had been performing your entire life. You had been performing since you were a kid and you would develop characters. Is that correct? Like you walked into SNL like, yeah, I think I'm ready for this. No.

I was being fired every week and I came in and I had not really seen the show because I worked at Second City, sorry, in Toronto and before that I was living in England and I hadn't seen Dana Carvey or John Lovitz or Phil Hartman or Jan Hooks, anybody. And I didn't know who Jack Handy was. So I'd lived in England and I came back and I remember, do you remember the taxi dispatchers? They had great taxi dispatchers in Toronto who were super funny. There's one taxi guy that kind of called Baloney Sandwich because he'd always be like, we need a car at Jarvis and Dundas and then you wouldn't hear their side of it and you'd go, give

the man a Baloney Sandwich. For no reason. For no reason. So Eastern Taxi Cab in Toronto. But anyways, then he started to say, isn't that special? And I'd be like, what is he saying? What is this? Isn't he special?

I really, truly had not seen it because it wasn't on in England. I lived in England from 83 to 86. So while Dana's blowing up with Church Lady going, isn't that special? You don't know anything about it. No, but everybody's saying isn't that special. And I was like, wow, dude, that is so weird. And so then I got on the show and I saw Dana and I saw Phil and I saw Kevin Nealon and I was just like, I've never been talented.

I'm going to get fired. I was scared shitless. I thought they were so great and so accomplished. And it's funny because my mom was very like, and she watched the show. She wasn't terribly, I don't think she was a fan, really, my mom of my work that much. But she would say, oh, that Dana Covey is very good, isn't he? He's just got it. He's just got that whatever Americans have that slickness they've just got at night,

haven't they? And I was like, yeah. So I had like a near nervous breakdown the first three weeks I was on the show. That's not how it came across, obviously, to me. It's interesting. So was your mom someone who would also tell you, oh, you're great. You're fantastic. Or was it more of that inspiring you by reserving?

I think it's probably more of that. That's the English way, you know, that's sort of, you know, for the longest time I would say to my mom, oh, I love you. My mom would go, I know you do, and I'd be like, wow, dude, these English people, they're mothers of Sparta, you know. Yeah. You know, it's like, you didn't get caught for stealing. You got caught, you got punished for being caught for stealing, not for stealing.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And my dad, of course, I could do no wrong in my dad's eyes, but my mom was very, very withholdy, and she would say, you know, oh, pressure makes diamonds, which my older brother P would say, it also makes rubble, and cream rises to the top. And my brother would say, yeah, so does scum. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad your brother was there to point these things out. My mom also was like, the most noble thing would be to be an actor, and I literally would say, you know, I'm thinking of being an architect, and she'd go, oh, you don't want to do that, mate. You want to be an actor.

Yeah. It was the exact opposite of what most people get. Right. Right. Yeah. I'm thinking of becoming a doctor. You know. Oh, no, no.

Don't waste your time. The world doesn't need more doctors, you know. It needs more sketch comedians, you know. It's funny because I have, you know, my dad's thing was he would encourage me to be worried. It, you know, it sharpens the senses, and it makes you work harder. And I was like, yeah, okay. Yeah, but what about my happiness within my own skull? Doesn't that come for anything?

Oh, well, there's things to be done and accomplished. As much as a lot of time later for happiness without sex. And it's funny because even now, as a, now that I'm a father, and I have a 16-year-old daughter, I'll be talking to my father, and I'll say, yeah, I know she's doing great, you know, she had a little bit of, sometimes she gets very anxious about her school work, and my father will cut me off and go, like, that's good, that's good, no, it's not, it's not good. And I think I'm yelling at him on my behalf, not on her behalf.

But I always thought what sets you apart from so many of these people is that you clearly had come from this older tradition, and it was, I was thinking about what is it about this guy, because this guy's just, you had so many moves that I felt were almost like implanted into your skull from this old world sensibility, if you've got to keep him laughing, you got to keep, you know, asses and seats, you got to get him in there, and you got to, and I would think, yeah, this guy, it was later on that I found out, you were a child performer, and also you had spent so much time in the UK, and then I found out about the Liverpool connection, and I thought, it's fascinating, because even the Beatles, who

are musical geniuses, you could always see that they had this sense of, you got to give them a good show. Well, you're kind of, you know, I feel like we're in the service industry, you know what I mean? Being an entertainer, it's more ego, it's not quite ego death, but it's, my gene pool is people that serve people, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You know, people always have past life regressions, and they're like, you know, I was a king in

another life, and I'm like, no, I'm pretty certain I was a surf, you know, I'm pretty certain I made Clay Bricks and stuff, you know, and, you know, that's how I feel about show business itself. I never, studio heads, I didn't really think we're my boss, but I did think the audience was my boss, you know what I mean? I just had a lot of bosses, you know, if they showed up, and if they're there and they're willing to listen and stuff, you better put on a pretty good show, you know? It's funny because I can relate to that because later on in comedy, I encountered, if comedy

got very conceptual and people started to say, yeah, it didn't get a laugh, but they are almost disdainful of the laugh, or I'm making a point here. And so the laugh isn't important. And I remembered always thinking, wait a minute, if we're getting into a kind of comedy where a laughter isn't necessary. I think I'm out, I think I'm, that's all I know is, did people enjoy it? And I had this nice experience of getting to rediscover the Austin Powers films recently because my kids were the right age, and I thought, oh my God, you got to see this.

And they didn't know, you know, they were like, they hadn't seen them yet, they had heard of it, but they hadn't watched it. And so I said, okay, we're doing this, and so we screened all the Austin Powers movies, and they're just howling, they're howling, and they're really good, they're really good comedy fans, and they're really smart about what's funny. It was something I was noticing because I was watching with them, which is this kind of relentless pace you set for yourself to keep, yes, there's character development, and there are moments that have to happen as you're unfolding a story and caring about people.

But man, you keep the comedy coming all the time, just all the time. Yeah, I think, you know, what was it? You know, I've suffered for my art, and now it's your turn. You know, I've never really heard that one. I haven't heard that one. I attribute it to the Bonzo dog band, but it's a lot to ask of people to sit in the dark and not talk about themselves, you know, you might as well be entertaining. And I always like movies where I didn't want to leave the world, I always felt that way

about a hard day's night, I wanted to just hang with those guys, and I was always sad when the movie was over. I felt that way about the Pink Panther movies, felt that way about Ghostbusters, I was like, I like living in that world, you know what I mean? To me, I like to, any kind of comedy world you live in is a bit brighter than our world, you know? When I think of being in a happy comedy world, I think of it being Coca-Cola Red and AT&T Blue and Kodak Yellow.

One of the things that I'm really happy about, and I have a lot of to owe to Jay Roach and Michael McCullers about Austin Powers is we became clip art of political art. We weren't ourselves political, like a Dr. Evil, if anybody's despotic and not really good at their job of being a despot, they're Dr. Evil, which is kind of awesome, you know? And that's more my comfort level, you know what I mean? Given a choice between mutual assured destruction, doing a movie like Failsafe, which is a melodrama or Strange Love, which is a farce, we liked Failsafe, we admired it, but we remember the farce more, you know?

It was a spoonful of sugar, you know? Yeah. It was... Well, it's Flintstone vitamins. If you follow that vitamins are good for you, when you're a kid, you're eating Barney and Dino, you know what I mean? You don't need to know the molecular construction of something, you know what I mean? The delivery system is, you know, entertainment.

I also love, it's the comedy of, and this is what Peter Silver says all the time, and then you would do this so well as Dr. Evil, which is refuse to be humiliated. I just, I don't know. It's always been my favorite comedy is the pompous, arrogant fool. Well, you know, I think, you know, people always talk about, I mean, it's such a tired trope a little bit like the crying clown, but there is one aspect of that that I think is kind of true, which is that most people want to be the architects of their own embarrassment. And I am more Dr. Evil than I'm not, and to the extent of, you know, we all kind of have

embarrassment issues, you know, and it's, you know, I will drop my pants, but only to my knees, you know, as if you have any control in your embarrassment, you know. And I was watching, you only live twice with my eight-year-old son last night and the scene with Blofeld, you know, with the cat and the chair and my son who has seen Austin Powers turn to me and said, you think you'd do a little bit different than Blofeld when you did Dr. Evil? Wait, he's eight? He's eight.

And I said, well, you know, it's kind of like a tribute movie. He goes, so you just completely like ripped off that movie. I said, well, no, it's more of a, a satire, it's a satire. He goes, I know, but like the scar is the same scar and you could have put some hair on the side of his head. And I was like, there you go. What's that experience like of having kids now who see your work, mine are very good at either pretending to not care or just really not caring.

But I'll show them, oh, look, that's your dad in 1995 doing a sketch that they just posted online that people really thought was pretty funny. And they'll look at it and go like, hmm, a lot younger. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what that experience is like for you. Well, it's cool. I mean, first of all, I saw him instantly.

The other thing he said to me about, I don't know, about eight minutes in, he turned to me and he went, oh my God, George Lucas must have loved these movies, which I thought was kind of great because he saw, he thought that James Bond was kind of like Luke Skywalker. You know what I mean? He's very, very like knowledgeable about Star Wars. And I said, yeah, I said, you know, the James Bond bad guys and all that are sort of pre-marvel Star Wars. And so at eight, he got that lineage was kind of cool.

But you know, we were sitting out on the deck, I'd say about a year ago and he had seen pretty much all the movies, not all of them, but, and he sort of said to me, hey, can I tell you a secret? And I said, sure, what? He goes, I'm your number one fan. And I was like, oh, that's really sweet. He's just, because I love your movies and he's very, you know, like, you know, somebody came over to the table at a restaurant and, and I said, are you good with that?

And he was like, yeah, dude, they love your movies. So do I. And I was like, oh, I can't handle it. Can't handle it. It's very sweet. Same with my, my middle kid. She's really super proud and stuff. It's cool.

So it's been a really, really positive experience and just funny because even talk, you talking about it, I can tell what a struggle it is for you to just let that happen and take that in. Do you know what I mean? It's not, it doesn't, because of the way you were raised, it doesn't, and, and not just the way you were raised. It's in your, so it's funny just listening to you trying to overcome a couple of hundred years of, of wiring, of genetics and wiring to hear that from your kids.

Yeah, it's sweet. The hardest and weirdest thing is I have American kids. This is the other thing too, which is, and they're New Yorkers and they are New Yorkers through and through, you know, the, the joy that my son hails a cab and he's just super, super savvy in ways that I never was and savvy about entertainment. They have so much entertainment to watch now. We had, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS, CBC and CTV and global and that's it. You know, constantly telling my people, shouldn't we just stop making stuff?

Yeah. We've made a lot of stuff. Yeah. We've made a lot of stuff. Plus, lots of other people are making tons of really good stuff and I think we have now more good stuff than you can see in a lifetime. You know, there's still, you know, so many classic films I haven't seen. Maybe we should stop making things and all of us, they don't like this line of reasoning

because they get paid. No. Because we need stuff to be made. And also, yeah, they get paid so no one's going to pay them to watch, you know, The Seventh Seal. Yeah. So, so there's that. Yeah.

But, but yeah, I know there was so much out there. You know, something I also wanted to ask you about is, I know, because we've talked a lot about Liverpool, English comedy, but it's interesting that Canada is such a huge deal for you. How old were you when you moved to Canada? No, I was born in Canada. Oh, you were born there? Yeah.

My parents moved in 56. I was born in 63. Got it. Got it. Okay. You were born there, but then you moved back to England. I did. Yeah.

And I mean, I have three citizenships now. I have Canada, United Kingdom and America. But yeah, I'm very Canadian. I wrote a book about Canada and I said, and people accused me of enjoying being Canadian and I would say I do. I do enjoy being Canadian. It's an odd country to be from. It's a country that was born without a mission statement.

There's no real mandate for it to exist. It's sort of an anomaly of geography and politics that it exists. It's not England. It's not France and it's not the United States. It's this other thing, but it is a collection of ideals. And I think in the last 25 years of my life, if I wasn't born in Canada, I would want to be from Canada. It's so funny because there's, and this is, it's a cliche and it's an often asked question.

I've never really quite gotten to the bottom of it, which is so many of my comedy heroes when I was coming of age. I'm the same age as you. I was born in 63 and I think we have the same reference points, but Monty Python was a huge, huge thing for me. But then when I'm about, I don't know, 12, 13, 14, somewhere around there, I start to get glimpses of SCTV. There are so many funny people that have come out of Canada and so much amazing comedy.

So clearly something's going on up there and it's completely from entire cast of Star Net Live many times over to SCTV. To kids in the hall. To kids in the hall. Yeah. I mean, it just like, it just- Jim Carrey from Toronto, John Candy. Yes. And it's just absolutely ridiculous.

If you had any clue at all as to, oh no, they put something in the water in 1941 and ever since then people have been funny. Well they did put fluoride in the water. I don't know. But that'll do it. The science hasn't come back on that yet, but I don't know why. I have a team of people working on it. I don't know why.

I think a lot of it has to do with it seemed possible. For me, it seemed possible. Walking on the moon as a Canadian didn't seem terribly possible. And I often say, you know, with America, you guys put a man on the moon, but we've been awfully nice to men on earth, you know what I mean? But a little passive aggressive also. Well this is Canada. Canada has two things that are kind of secrets.

We're secretly passive aggressive. Maybe that's not such a secret, but we're also secretly morbid, which is another thing. Really? Oh yeah. It's always, every story from my friends are, do you hear about that guy? He died in front of his kids, eh? Sad. Yeah.

He died in front of his kids. Almost like, I know at least 25 stories of, yeah, my friend, he died in front of his kids, eh? Sad. And then his kids saw it and they died too, eh? There's a place in Alberta that's just this hole in the ground where people and kids just come to see other kids die. It's very, very morbid.

If you look at it, Canadian movies are all like, you know, they feel good, hit of the summer. And it's like, it's a busload of children going to a lake and they all die, eh? It's really, really true. It's a real knee slapper. Yeah. It's really important that they're making movies like that though, eh? My very good friend, Davy McKenzie, has said it's called, it's Cinema Bleak, you know?

You know, Scandinavia of North America. We're an observer nation. Martin Short has the great quote, you know, when Americans are watching TV, they're watching TV, and when Canadians are watching TV, they're watching American TV. There's just a little bit of a distance that we have, you know? We don't have a way of life that we export. I have a t-shirt that said, Canada living the American dream since 1867 without the violence. There's, which again, is passive aggressive, you know?

Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. There's a little sting in there. And also, I think you guys work out a lot of your issues through hockey. I do think there's, you know what I mean? You have a sport where you're allowed to throw down your stick and tear someone's jaw off, and then you're really proud of the fact that there's no violence.

And I think, you know, that's, my hat's off to you. The thing that I love about that specifically is that in the game of hockey, you know, one of the tactics is to pull the jersey over the other guy in a fight, in a hockey fight. So he's immobilized, yeah. So he's immobilized and he can't see where the punches are coming from. But they've built into the rules that you have to have what's called a fighting strap on your jersey that attaches to your pants. So it's kind of your fault if you allow someone to do that to you.

Really? I love that they put that in there so that, ah, he didn't put his strap on. Yeah. It's true. Well, you know, we didn't have his fighting strap on, so, you know, had it coming. With me. So they punished the guy that got the crap beaten out of him for not having the fighting strap on his jersey attached to his hockey pants.

I will tell you a story that you will enjoy and I think most other people won't understand what I'm talking about. But so we went to Toronto and we did a week of shows. So one of the ideas was Conan plays with the Toronto Maple Leafs. And I said, okay, I'm in. And then I get there and I'm working out with the Maple Leafs who could not have been nicer and great guys. And there's one of them I just chose at random.

I said, hey, it'd be really good if we had a shot of me getting taken out. So I just chose a guy at random. And his name was Ty Domey. Oh, wow, dude. That's the wrong one to pick. Yes. He'll take your heart and I don't mean on no date. Well, I didn't know, I didn't know, but he was, he was built like a bank safe.

Yes. And he actually had a little dial and there was money inside him. But I think he was used as a bank safe. But I said to him, hey, your name, and he says, oh, I'm Ty, and I went, okay, Ty, just take me out. It'd be really funny. We're going to put the camera here. And of course, I'm talking comedy.

So I'm thinking he's going to come in and kind of gently slide into me. But because the cameras behind the cameras angled a certain way, it'll look like I got hit much harder than I really did. But really, it'll just be this soft contact because I think I'm talking to a sketch performer. But I'm talking to this guy named Ty Domey and anyone who knows hockey and anyone who's listening to this knows that I picked the worst guy in the history of hockey quite possibly. So he said, okay. So I go, all right, start rolling and anytime now, Ty, and he came in and the next thing

I know, I don't even remember feeling pain, but I did go back in time to go back. I think I saw, I saw, I was at Lincoln's deathbed. Right. You were a crofter. I just had so many out of body experiences and then a bunch of people were around me. And then I remembered one guy just saying, I was saying, what the fuck? And the guy said, what happened? And I said, well, I just asked, all I did was tell Ty Domey to take me out.

And the guy cut me off and went, what? But lovely guy. Not his fault. Yeah. I don't know if he gets, if he can hear this podcast in prison, but I hope not. Now Ty Domey, he's, he's super funny. He said to me, he started to score goals. You know?

Yeah. And I said, Ty, that's great. That's really great. And he went, when a crusher becomes a rusher, he becomes an usher, which means if you're like a guy who's known to be like an enforcer, don't try and score goals. When a crusher becomes a rusher, a guy who scores goals, he becomes an usher, which means they no longer want him on his team. Exactly.

Yeah. He's got to go back to being, yeah. Well, and Rhymed, all three of those Rhymed, I don't know if it was there. Yeah, I could see that Rhymed. There was Rhymes, yes. But I'm not getting that. I'm not putting that on my wedding ring. No, I wouldn't.

I wouldn't again. I wouldn't again. No. You know, it's funny because you brought up Marty Short. Yeah. And this is something, and I've become friendly with him over the years. But you and Martin Short, you both are very similar in your access to old world bits, like whatever it takes, say a song, pull a face, go into a character, stories, raconteurs,

it's all right there. And then I found, and I was thinking, I've thought about this before, but Martin Short, Mike Myers, there's this similarity in this old world idea of how to entertain people. And then I find out that his father grew up, and the shorts are, he's like first generation. Right. They're from Ireland. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And he'll talk about his father, and he'll become his father. And immediately it's the Irish accent, and he'll tell all these amazing stories, and you think, yeah, this is coming from that world. And I always think of weirdly, I always think of the Beatles as kind of being as Irish, because Liverpool is just across the way, and they really are. They call it the capital of Ireland, Liverpool. Yeah, yeah. And so I do think of it as sort of an Irish quality, but you guys both have that in your,

I mean, I think you could see it if I took saliva from you, well, I have Marty's fluids, but if I got some fluid from you, they're on their way, which I thought was an odd request for this podcast, that because I'm Canadian, I went, I guess I have to, which I guess is why I said prehensile, because I think that might be a little bit of passive aggression at the end of the day. Yeah, I think so. Because I didn't want to have to put an emotion. No, no, no one wants that.

No, I'm going to say I'm in a mode of no, we are, we're definitely, you know, at Second City in Toronto, when you do like, you know, sketches from, from previous casts, and they'll throw those into the show, I always got the Martin Short parts, you know what I mean? Yep. Yep. And they're sort of, you know, they always have like a small guy with a lot of energy, a big guy, you know, there's always, and then a tall, skinny guy who's smart ass, you know, there's always, there's a little bit of a formula and I'm definitely, it's like me,

Tim Kazarinski, Martin Short, you know what I mean? It's really funny because I, you know, we're all in quarantine, but we're allowed to take walks, you know, if we're wearing masks. Yeah. So the other day I took a walk with Martin Short and we're walking along and this, this is literally like four days ago and this kid goes, some kids are riding by on their bikes. This kid's about eight years old and suddenly his bike hits something and it flips forward and the kid goes, ass over tea kettle like two times and lands on the ground and it's

like stunning. Like the kid just went, whoa, flying through the air, ass over tea kettle, lands on the ground and before anyone could say anything, Marty Short just said, and hold for applause. And I was like, let's see if the kid's, let's see if the kid's dead or not first, Marty. The kid was fine, the kid's popped up and he's like, and hold for your applause. And it's just like, that's him going through life, like narrating. That's Liverpool too. I mean, in Liverpool, like if we were at a restaurant with my dad and, and somebody

dropped something, my dad would say, fire the juggler, fire the juggler, just, if we, you know, when you, you pull into a, a driveway to turn around, my dad would say, all right, everyone out, don't give you a right name, I don't even know what that means. And so much of everything was, everything fell off a truck, you know, which is like, if you could find a way to save 25 cents, you know, my dad, how much you pay for that? Oh, they sold your coming mate. It's a funny thing too, because you're talking about being like, there's six faces in Liverpool and I have one of them, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And it's, it's really, really funny. I, I did the premiere of Wayne's World two in Liverpool and was like, I think the first Hollywood, all right, whatever you want to call it, you know, kind of American movie to do its premiere there. And the mayor came and was like, oh, right, I'd like to have a few words with, and I was like, that's my face. Holy crap.

And then we got a police escort and the guy in the motorcade was like, all right, this way, Mr. Myers, my face, you know, we're past a fish and chip place and it's like a guy, you know, with my face, it's so crazy. And I see like, I think we're from the same gene pool, Martin Shorts from the same gene pool. George Harrison's definitely, you looked exactly like my dad, George Harrison. I think there is, but mostly what I think it is in Liverpool is it's my, my film company's called No Money Fun Films.

It's sort of when you kind of don't own anything except your own body, you do tend to have to make your own entertainment. That's kind of what it is more than anything is you just have to make your own entertainment. Yeah. I think you could say you've done that. I think you could say you've done that in spades. I get to talk to a lot of different people, but you're one that I'm hoping, I'll say this, I'm hoping we get to do this again sometime because I feel like, I feel like I could talk

to you about comedy for about 35 hours and, you know, it'd be two hours in the other that we're just dead. Right, right. And, because we'd need to sleep, but, but I've really, this, this is, you know, I've known you, I met you so long ago, I've seen your, I've seen it all happen from a nice vantage point. And I've always had, I've always thought, that's a guy I would love to just sit and talk to about all of these things.

And I feel like, yeah, we've been talking for, I think an hour or something and I have not scratched the surface. So I know you, I know you've got better things to do, but anytime you don't, if you'd like to hop on again, this is, Yeah, I'd love to. That'd be great. It's really been, it's been special for me, you know. Yeah, me too, dude.

I have to say, like when I first got to Saturday Night Live, you know, it's very intimidating and I was really, really intimidated and I, I got, I didn't get an office for the first year. My office was being cross-legged on my coat by the elevator bank and I got my first desk and you had put a note in there. I don't know if you remember this, which was, dear Mike, right, I will destroy you. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I will destroy you. And the greatest part of it is that no one will know I had anything to do with it.

Love Conan. I thought the good joke and also super, super, like, you know, yeah, I've always loved the, I always loved the idea of, there'll be no proof tying me to this crime, sincerely yours, Conan O'Brien, June 5th, 1991. Yeah, exactly. That was a really funny joke. Well, you know, I will destroy you, Mike. Yes, I know that.

I know that. I know I've been, I know I've been tardy. Yes. I know I've allowed your, you'd have way too many successes, but I'm going to get around to it. Yeah. I'm just, you know, I'm a procrastinator. Yeah.

All right. Well, I'm going to let you return to the wild, but I want to say this has been really special for me and you're one of those people that we pass occasionally here and there, but I've always thought, damn, I'd like to sit and talk to that guy and, you know, you've made, you've made, I hope you're doing better on your journey to being happy yourself. And I hope that you can take in, if, you know, take in the fact or soak it in, let it penetrate a little bit that you've made so many people so happy. Wow, that's so nice.

Thank you, dude. You know, so, so hang on to that. I'm, yeah, I'm, I couldn't be happier. I don't know how to be happier. No. That's, there you go. Yeah, yeah. There you go.

That's what I wanted. Yeah, yeah. I'm at a very low level of happiness and I don't know how to raise the bar, so I couldn't be happier. There's a governor on my happiness. All right, Mike, thank you very, very much. Take care. And I hope to see you when all this craziness is over.

Yes, please. See you after the war. Yes, after the war. Bye-bye, no. Bye. I'm just making this up on the spur of the moment, but I'd like to introduce a segment that will probably only air once and it's called, Maybe I'm As Big A Nerd As Gourly. That's the name of this segment.

What? Yeah. This is just my, I don't know, when is your birthday? Because this should be your birthday gift. Oh, it's coming up May 23rd. Okay. All right. This is your birthday gift from me to you.

You doing this or I get what you're about to show me? Oh, no, no. You don't, you don't get this. You don't get to have this, but you get to have this experience of me showing you a side of myself that if you revealed this to me, I would shit on you endlessly for it. But now I'm going to reveal it to you as an absolute gift. Okay. Oh my God.

Okay. All right. So we're all in this pandemic and everyone's thinking, what do we do? And of course we've kept pretty busy. We've been doing the TV show and we've been doing the podcast and we keep muddling through, but that still leaves chunks of time. And I've been doing different things, you know, learning different songs on the guitar and messing about.

And then I found, I forgot that I had bought years and years ago a balsa wood kit for a model airplane that's quite complicated. And I found an X-Acto blade and I found some wood glue and the instructions are incredibly complicated. And I started hacking away at this thing weeks ago and I am building a 1917 SOP with camel. Isn't that what Snoopy flies in the peanuts? Yes. It's what Snoopy flies.

And here it is. Oh my God. And it is, this is just one part of it. I have the other wing, the top wing on the, I'm showing it now. We are all in our separate places, but we have Zoom. So I'm showing it to you. It's incredibly complex. And as you can see, like, it's very frustrating to try and put this thing together, but I've

become kind of obsessed with it. And then I had this flash moment last night when I was up late sanding an Arolon for, for the rear tail section when I thought, oh my God, not only am I no better than Goorley, I am worse. I'm, if you had done, if you had done this, is this something, admit Goorley, is this something you would ever do, or is it too much even for you? No, it would be maybe something I'd do. And I just want to say for you sharing this to me, for you to take that leap and take

that risk, I would love to tell you, you are a huge fucking nerd. Look at the, look at the intricate, little flat cap wearing knickers, little Argyle socks. But what do you wear when you make that thing? You know what I love? You're not as good at it as me. No, I'm not. It's not in my heart.

It's not in my heart. I don't support it. You don't have a black, black heart, and that's your problem. I'm actually very excited that you're doing that. Yeah, I've been working on this thing and then realizing, you know what, I've got to show this to, and when I'm done, I'm going to suspend it from my ceiling the way a little boy would in 1935. In your bedroom?

No, I'm not going to have it in my bedroom. I think that's just a boner killer. Yeah, that's a boner killer. Oh, excuse me? I'm so sorry. Wait, what did you mean? I didn't mean to jump in. But what did you mean?

When you guys were showing it and then Gordly was getting excited, I was like, these two fuck. I was just like, wow, wow, it's a dork off. It's not a dork off. First of all, we've established. It is a dork. No, no, we've established, I think, on a previous episode that I have big dick energy. Oh, God.

I cleared this up. You are a big dick. You don't have big dick energy. No, no, no. I have to admit, when I was showing you on Zoom, the intricacies of my balsa wood 1917 Sop with Camel, I think I exuded big D energy. When you finish with that, do you wrap it in like a canvas like they normally are? That's the part I have to go on.

And so now I know you're into this. I have to go on the internet. No, no, I am going to wrap it. I'm going to, it comes with a tissue, but you, it's very complicated, a tissue, it comes with a tissue. Oh, listen to yourself. No, no, no. That you apply as the skin.

And then you have to, it's this complicated process, but I have to go online. So I've actually entered a phase now where if you're up late and your wife finds you in your study watching the internet in a clandestine way, the assumption would be it's porn. Yeah. But what she's going to see is me looking up how to properly dope and apply the tissue for a 1917 balsa wood Sop with Camel. Yeah, porn.

Oh, my God. My wife will be in that moment when she sees that that's what I'm looking at. I'm going to wish I had been looking at porn. Oh my God. My wife walked in on me and I had to shut the computer down because I was looking up how to build her a cutting board for her birthday. And she thought I was hiding some kind of porn from her. Right.

And then you realize the guy who was showing how to build it on the video was you. It was, that was the weird twist and you had forgotten that you had made this video because every day you do 600 things like that. A couple jocks. Excuse me. A couple jocks you two are. My God. You know what?

Look, I'm not, I don't want to disparage people who like this stuff. I feel bad, but it's, you make it so easy to just, I mean, a wood plane? No, it's cool. It's cool. Excuse me, not just wood, balsa wood, the softest and lightest of the woods. And here we are again, Conan, you and I united and Sonia's coming down on us like some alpha. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm sorry. How did this happen that this podcast became Gorley and I are now to 16 year old Southern debutants and you are, and you are Dwayne the Rock Johnson. How did this happen? I'll take it. I'll take it. Well, I think it was. So a lot.

It started when Gorley showed us his Eisenhower phone and you like basically came in your pants. I'm glad that you said basically came in my pants. I have, like Lewinsky, I saved the clothing. Yeah. I just. I have proof. I couldn't.

I loved it. I love presidential stuff. I love Americana. I love. And so an Eisenhower summer residence phone just blew my mind. Yes. I'll admit that. Yeah.

I think that's when I was like, okay, you two share interests I do not have. And you know, are those interests something someone who would traditionally be considered cool? Have? Probably not. But, you know, let me. You guys are. Let's do a little thought experiment.

Okay. We don't know each other. Okay. Yeah. And pretend you're not married to TAC. You're single. You're at like a, a cool bar or something. Okay.

And I'm not like Conan O'Brien, the famous person. I'm just who I am, you know, okay. You're at the club. You're with your, your, your gal pals, right? You know, Vero and Piss, those are your friends. Yes. And then suddenly I walk in and I'm wearing a suede jacket and I'm well dressed. I'm pretty confident and I'm holding a 1917 Balsu would stop with camel.

Okay. There isn't. Now hold on a second. Be completely honest. There's not some part you and your friends aren't like, fuck, fuck that guy. No, because I burst through the crowd behind them and run to you. Gorley cock blocks you because he wants a piece of that. You have to admit.

The other guy has come into the club that night holding now. Look, some guys, there's a reason for that. Hold it. Hold it. Some guys have come in holding a Balsu would de Havilland. Some people have come in holding a Balsu would Fokker. Some people have come in holding a Balsu would Messerschmitt because they're more into World War II, Balsu Woods.

But I'm holding the sock with camel. There's not some part of you, maybe not you, but one of your friends was like, fuck, fuck that guy. Fuck, oh my God, that guy goes all night. Oh my God. Oh no. I think the thing that is so. All night long, holding that plane.

No. That would not go to a club. That guy would be home with his parents watching like, I don't know. You would not be at a club is the, that's where the disk. If a bouncer saw me and again, let's say we got to do the caveat. I'm not going to know Brian who gets into every club of media. Oh yeah, you get into every club because you love clubbing. I love duck clubs and I put a Z at the end.

But you think a bouncer, if he saw a guy like me in line holding, and let's reiterate, this is the plane that arguably helped Britain win the air war in World War I, the sock with camel. Oh, that's that one. Yeah. You know. Also listeners, you should know it's like at least a foot or a foot and a half wide. Yeah, it's really big.

It's a tiny thing. I'm talking about the plane. Yeah, that's big dick energy, man. That's what I'm talking about. Well, I'm starting to be on board. No, I think that the bouncer and everyone in line would mercilessly just beat you up. I think they would just destroy you. As long as they don't harm the model, then I'm fine with it.

I think they would shove the model up your anus. I really think that's what's going to happen. They'll sodomize you with your model airplane. You know what? I don't want to be sodomized if it's a 1917 sock with camel and really done carefully, like really put together well. I'll take it. It's the most tender of all the biplanes.

The amount of time that you... What happened? No. What happened? This is completely... The amount of time you took showing us every inch of the plane to the air... I wanted you to see that each aero lawn was handcrafted. Yeah.

It's good work. No, it's good work. Thank you. Goorley cares. I don't care. But it's got to hang from my ceiling. I'm very excited. Oh, my God.

I hate it here. That's my gift to you. Thank you very much. It's also my gift to you. Oh, you want to leave. You're in your house. Someone's calling me and I think... No one's calling you.

We would hear that. And any meeting you would have would be with me on Zoom. I have to do this meeting. It's very important. I hope so. Yeah, okay. Someone's... Huh?

What? What? Terrible actress. The worst. What's that? You need me? Okay. I have to go.

All right. Well, anyway, a few modeling enthusiasts out there, contact me and we'll swap our modeling tails together. Yeah, a big, big dick party. Let's do it, guys. Just a bunch of big dicks. All these big dicks swimming around with their model. You've lost control, Sona.

Just so many dicks. Son of your... Big dicks. Son of your fire. Oh, my God, really? Oh, okay. Gotta go. Conan O'Brien needs a friend, with Sonamov Sessian and Conan O'Brien as himself, produced

by me, Matt Gorely, 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 in association with Earwolf.