Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Rachel Dratch
Episode Date: November 8, 2021Actress, comedian, and writer Rachel Dratch feels overly excited about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Rachel sits down with Conan to discuss the Debbie Downers that live inside us all, embarrassin...g odd jobs, and spoofing the Hallmark Christmas genre with Rachel’s new film A Clüsterfünke Christmas. Later, Conan responds to a listener voicemail asking what musical instrument he would like to be. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (323) 451-2821. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.
Transcript
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Hi, my name is Rachel Dratch, and I feel overly excited about being Conan O'Brien's friend.
But wait, why overly excited?
Why not appropriately excited?
Well, because I also feel a little nervous when I'm doing these things, I get a little
like heart racing a little bit.
So I threw in the overly to make it different.
It's just the cocaine talking.
Exactly.
I know.
You know me too well.
You are a known cokehead.
If I sing it, it's not as offensive.
Hello and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.
We have a fantastic podcast for you today.
I actually don't know if that's true.
That's just a show business thing.
You sort of come in with bravado and confidence.
I do think it's going to be good.
Yeah.
It's going to be quite good.
What do you mean you think?
You did the interview already.
Okay.
Well, that's nice to give away the magic that the interview has been done already.
The interview is, I like the interview a lot.
Yeah.
I really do like the interview, but this part, you don't know what I'm going to talk about.
No.
This could go right in the toilet.
This could.
And so for me to say fantastic or this is fabulous or an amazing episode is a falsehood.
Right.
Because I think the interview is wonderful, but I have no faith in what I'm about to
say.
Okay.
I have given it.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
I don't know what we're going to talk about.
All right.
Cool.
You know?
Yeah.
So this is just totally going to wing it and see what happens.
So what are we talking about?
Well, this occurred to me.
Oh.
I don't like, I don't like whatever's happening right now.
I have been experiencing and people are fascinated in our culture with, let's, I want to know
behind the scenes what's really going on with, with our biggest stars.
What's it really like to be them?
Well, let me open up a window for you and tell you, because I think it's fair to say
that I'm a big deal.
Oh.
Yeah.
I'm up there with the, I'm the Timophage chalamet of comedy, if you will.
Wow.
I think that's fair.
Yeah.
He's so young and new.
So what's that about?
I didn't say anything about my age or, or how.
I know.
I feel really bad.
The second young came out.
Yeah.
I felt really bad about it.
That's not, that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm saying I am.
I think most people right now listening to the podcast are nodding.
If you said to them, what's Conan?
I think a lot of people would say he's the Timothage chalamet of comedy.
But what is it, what is it that you guys have in common?
Just this.
We're omnipresent.
We're everywhere.
You know, try and avoid Conan Robyn in the culture and try and avoid Timothage chalamet.
Not going to happen.
Right.
Any time you turn up a volume dial, you're going to hear me.
I'm everywhere.
Do you think that your podcast right now is like as talked about as the movie Dune?
Yes.
Oh, you do?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
I think it's probably up there with, I bet I'm, I'm not even checked to see if I'm trending
and I don't encourage anyone to check.
I think just please don't check.
Yeah.
Dune's trending, Chalamet is trending, and that Conan guy is trending.
Am I Zendaya?
No.
That's ridiculous.
Did I pronounce that right?
I hear she's hardly in the movie.
Yeah.
She's in like 10 minutes.
I haven't seen it yet, but she's in, she's everywhere and I thought, oh, this is the story
of Timothy Chalamet and Zendaya, you know, on a sand planet.
And no, apparently, I think she enters briefly, looks at the camera says Zendaya present and
then walks out.
Oh.
I think she's like, I'm not going to see her.
I think it's her full line.
She might be happy to be here.
Anyway, I'm going to let you in on what it's like to be me, which is I've had a lot of
mouth discomfort lately.
Oh, this is how your Timothy Chalamet.
He talks about his mouth discomfort all the time.
No, he doesn't.
No, of course he doesn't.
Oh, I'm going to say, oh, that's sarcasm.
I just believe anything Stone ever tells me.
Yeah.
That was, oh, I see it's sarcasm.
Well, guess what?
Yeah.
If he wants to stay relevant, he should let people in on what's going on with him.
That's himself medically.
I would tell Timothy Chalamet that he should tell people, by the way, little known fact,
you remember this, Sona?
Yeah.
A couple of years ago, we did a shows at Comic Con and a good friend of mine brought his
nephew to our after party.
Yeah.
It was Timothy Chalamet about, I want to say a year before he blew up or a year and a half,
maybe two years.
Yeah, I think I know what you're saying.
And he hung out at our after party and I have a picture of me with Timothy and I'm like,
yeah, he seems like a nice kid.
I'll give him a little picture.
He's going to treasure this his whole life.
This picture with Conan O'Brien.
Get in here, kid.
Here's something you can hang on to for the rest of your life.
This is your biggest moment right now.
Your picture with Conan O'Brien.
Click.
He's the biggest star in the universe.
Oscar nominee.
Yeah.
And, you know, what am I over here?
Chopped liver?
Yes, I am.
But anyway, that's not my point.
My point is to get across that I knew Timothy Chalamet just before he blew up and some
would say I'm responsible.
Others would say there's no connection and he owes me nothing.
That's probably the more logical explanation.
What's happening with your health?
My health.
I've had this and I'm letting you in on a big star's pain and agony.
I have had this discomfort in my mouth that really I swore to God was a tooth, a bad tooth.
So I went to the dentist.
They took x-rays.
Nothing wrong.
A couple of weeks later, it's still really bothering me.
I go back.
More x-rays.
They look.
They go, no, nothing's wrong.
And then one of them said, you know what, your sinus cavity is very close to the tooth
nerve.
Have you had a cold lately?
Yes, I have.
So then I look up online, nasal swelling, tooth pain, and it comes back with the exit.
A hot Google search.
I know.
That's what people want to hear about.
Conan's Google searches.
That's some sexy Google.
Hey, you want to hear about my sexy Google search?
Check this out.
Nasal inflammation, mouth pain, milk.
I put milk.
I put milk in at the end.
Milk?
No.
No.
And man was I off to the race.
Oh.
Anyway, just if you're out there, it's a real thing.
And then it suggested take a decongestant and see what happens.
I took a decongestant, tooth pain went away completely.
And so I'm going to get it checked out.
I'm going to see an ENT.
I don't get this sinus thing worked out, but I just want you to know, well, I just let
you in.
I made myself vulnerable.
And I think that's pretty brave of me.
And if you're out there and you're suffering from a toothache and you're going to the dentist
and they're saying there's nothing wrong, it could be a sinus thing.
Right.
You're saving lives.
Saving lives.
Okay.
All right.
I get it.
I get it.
The joke is on me.
Sexy Googling about sinus infections.
You know what?
Do you just add milk to every Google search?
I just add milk to everything.
I really do.
Oh.
Yeah.
I do.
So you add milk to the ninety-five, you have white-carded, 1775 milk and you will see very
attractive women in their forties naked fighting it out with the British.
Naked?
Yeah.
Oh.
Do you think of milk search?
They're not, they're wearing what, you think they're wearing beekeepers outfits?
What are you talking about?
I don't know.
You have to also put naked.
Oh, you've got to put naked.
So you add milk naked?
Yeah.
at the naked and I do just Lexington Concord Battle 1775
naked and it's a naked male recreation of that battle.
And that's not, I have to say, it's just not fun.
It doesn't do it for you.
It doesn't do it for me.
But let's review what we've learned
in this incredible opening
to show that it was completely unscripted.
One, if you have mouth pain, it could be your sinus.
Just check into that.
And if you want temporary relief, use a decongestant.
Got it.
To, to Mothay Chalamet,
the biggest thing that may ever have happened to him
is his picture with me, which I'm sure he treasures.
I've seen some photographs of him
because there's photographs of him everywhere
and he's wearing a locket.
I bet it's the photo of me and him in the locket.
I'm pretty sure that's true.
Do the Kira members taking that picture with you?
I think no.
I bet he does. I'm quite certain.
I'm quite certain he has no memory
of anything that happened to him.
When he's got the kind of fame
where everything that happened to you
before that fame started is completely obliterated.
It's like men in black.
His, when you get that kind of fame,
all memory prior to that is wiped clean.
Yeah, okay, I get that.
I know that I'm not that famous
because I remember everything really well.
I was just gonna ask if you remember anything
from before you were 29.
No, a super, very detailed granular memories of fifth grade
and all the humiliations and struggles with acne,
all still there in brilliant technicolor.
So yes, I never quite made it.
But I've talked to people like Tom Hanks
and I've said so before Splash and he's like nothing.
Wow, no memory.
And then Steve Martin, no memory.
Betty White's real fame came later in life.
She has no memory of anything that happened to her
before she was 85.
So he won't remember having ice cream with me at Ghirardelli.
Who, Timothy?
Timothy Shallowman.
Imagine if he remembered Sona but didn't remember you.
Can we have him on the podcast?
Are you guys, do you have his number?
Are you close?
No, I don't have his number.
I could probably get it,
but no, I don't have his number.
I'm sure, you know what?
I'm gonna say Sona, sure, I'm gonna be nice to you.
Yes, I'm sure he remembers having ice cream with you.
He probably remembers exactly what he ordered,
peppermint fudge ripple crunch.
You remember?
Shallowman.
That's the sound of when he kisses someone, shallowman.
It's in the air.
It's in the air, shallowman.
My guest today.
My guest today is a hilarious actress and comedian
who was a cast member on Sona Life for seven years,
creating the iconic character Debbie Downer.
Now she has a new film which she co-wrote and stars in
a clusterfunk Christmas.
I'm very happy to talk to her again
because we have some memories of sharing 30 rock together.
Me at late night, she at SNL, and some of our misadventures.
I'm thrilled she's with us today.
Rachel Dratch, welcome.
Rachel, I'm very happy to talk to you
because you're hilariously funny and beloved,
but also in addition to that, you and I, we go back ways.
We have some, we've got a few war stories I think
that we could talk about.
We do, we do.
And I don't know if you're thinking what I'm thinking,
but I have a very clear memory once and I'll set it up.
I knew it was coming right out.
I knew it was gonna be first.
Is this where you sexually harassed me on an elevator?
Cause that's what I was thinking about.
I blocked that part out.
Yeah, you were trashed.
Mine starts with a W.
With a W?
Yeah.
Is it Wendy's?
Yes, Wendy's.
Yes, this is so exciting.
Okay, let me roll this out for people and then.
Roll it.
I'll start it, which is,
I believe it was around Thanksgiving time.
And this is back in the day.
I'm the host of the late night show.
And I'm on the sixth floor.
You're at Serenade Live.
You guys are taping that on the eighth floor
and in this famous studio, 8-H.
And so we're always running into each other.
And I think we ran into each other
and we're both from Massachusetts.
I'm from Brooklyn, Mass.
You're from, where are you from again?
Lexington.
Lexington.
Yeah.
That's right.
Lexington.
And I knew that about you and we'll talk about that
cause I have a story about that too.
Okay.
But we bump into each other and we're talking about,
it's the holiday, we're both gonna,
I'm gonna head up like on Wednesday
for Thursday Thanksgiving or something like that.
I think something like this.
And then we're chatting and you said,
ask me how he's getting up there.
And I said, I'm just gonna drive.
Is this right so far?
Yeah.
Except I thought I was actually a guest on your show
where you were chatting and was saying the little thing.
Yeah.
But in any case, yes.
Either way.
It's not correct.
You know, I had no life outside of the show.
Where did I?
Yeah.
So it makes sense that it happened during the show
because you were a guest and in the commercial break,
so the band's playing.
Ba dee ba dee dee ba dee.
And you said, hey Conan, you headed back to Massachusetts
and I said, yeah.
And you said, how are you going?
And I said, I'm gonna drive.
And I think you said, you were mentioned
that you had to go up too.
Yeah.
And I think either you asked or I offered,
why don't we drive together?
Exactly.
And there we were.
Cut to us.
Setting off, cut to us in your car,
pulling over in Connecticut.
We're driving along.
Walking into a Wendy's somewhere in Connecticut.
So we're driving along and I'm hungry and you're hungry
and I see the Wendy's girl who always looks like me.
You like her, you're an affinity.
Yeah, I have an affinity for the Wendy's girl
because that's what I looked like when I was 14.
And I'm chugging along.
And I was like, let's stop and get a bite to eat.
I think, if I remember correctly, you were like,
this is a little weird
that we're both gonna walk into a Wendy's together.
Oh, I thought it was just kind of funny
because it's like, here we are.
The stars of NBC television.
We carry NBC on our shoulders and here we are walking.
There's also a funny height differential
to add to the comedy of it.
And we did walk into a Wendy's.
We did walk into a Wendy's.
Like common folk.
Oh, yes.
And this is the amazing thing.
And you know what?
I have not been out in public since.
This is, that was the last time.
I don't know about you,
but I, that was my last taste of the real world.
Yeah, I just said, well, there can be no more of this.
No, we walked into this Wendy's and it was funny
because they knew who we were
and we just walked in like it was a sketch.
It was like, and then we got our Wendy's and sat down
and ate and we had a lovely time.
I feel like we weren't,
I don't remember being recognized,
but maybe you were recognized by a bunch of people.
I think I made sure that I was recognized.
Okay.
I usually, Sony, isn't that true?
When I walk into a restaurant and I say,
well Conan O'Brien here to eat.
I'm here.
TV's Conan O'Brien.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But then the other thing is that you,
you gave me door to door service.
You dropped me off at my house.
Yes.
The cute thing is my mom,
who probably hadn't baked anything since like,
I don't know, I was like in high school,
had made cookies, which is so cute.
Cause she knew Conan was dropping me off.
It's just so cute.
She came out and she gave me cookies.
And I think I came into your house for a little bit.
I think you did.
You did.
And I think I probably stayed for a little bit longer
than I should have.
And I'm guessing like I could just see you and your mom
being like so long drive to Brookline.
You better get going.
No, that didn't happen.
But I remember.
I knew we would be talking about,
well, if your memory is like mine,
I was like, oh, we're going to go Wendy's first off the bat.
And I'll tell another story that unites us,
which is, I want to say it was,
I think it was 2000, way back in the year 2000,
which I can't believe it's that long ago,
but I'm hosting Serenade Live.
And so you used to write these great sketches
about all the Boston characters,
like Ben Affleck would be in it.
And it would, and you do a great Boston accent.
And it's all just people with these really thick Boston accents.
And you thought, oh, this is a home run.
I'm going to write one of these Boston accent pieces
for Conan, because he's from Boston.
And you write it.
And I remembered you came up to me just before
read through, which is on Wednesdays.
And you're like, oh, Conan,
I wrote one of those Boston pieces.
So I just do the Boston accent.
And I do it at rehearsal.
And it's a funny sketch and people laugh.
My Boston accent, you know, I had moved away.
And I don't think I ever had a really strong Boston accent.
And I didn't have the ear for it.
And I had lived a lot of places since.
I remember you came up to me afterwards and you went,
yeah, well, the Boston accent was kind of off.
We could get it better.
No.
Oh my God.
No, no, no, you weren't being wrong.
I'm sorry.
You weren't being mean.
No, no, no.
Rachel, you weren't being mean, but I was,
and so you wrote this sketch, you were right.
You've got, you know, it's got to be right.
So for the rest of the week, you'd come up to me
and go like, all right, now just say this thing
where you're like, yeah, I got to go over
to Dr. Yes and the Yad.
And I go, yeah, you got it.
And you'd be like, no, no, no, no.
No, no, like in Boston.
And I'd say, I honestly, I'm sorry, Rachel, I'll do it.
I promise.
And I never quite got it.
And you, I remembered up to the minute we did it
and it aired up to the minute we did it,
I never could quite get it right.
And you were horrified.
Like, who the fuck is this guy?
Oh.
He grew up in Boston.
No.
Yes, this happened.
Oh my gosh, I apologize.
Don't apologize, you were right.
But like, you're hosting, you're nervous
about like a million sketches.
And I'm like, nattering in your ear about-
Well, you were right.
You just got to be right.
And it was-
Like a dialect coach.
But you know what was so crazy, Rachel,
is that I've seen my parents have super eight films of us
from like, when we were kids.
Oh yeah?
And I'll see those.
And we all, including me, have full on Boston accents.
Really?
Yeah.
And you know, I'm full on talking that way.
And then something happened.
I don't know if it was self loathing.
You got smacked.
You got smacked is what happened.
I got smacked, yeah.
I got smacked, it happened.
It went away.
It went away.
But I remember this, I never forget
when I've let someone down.
Like that sticks with me.
And I swear-
You did not let me down.
I swear to God, I was like,
I could see it in your eyes like,
is idiot, he's not getting it.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
I don't remember feeling that way.
But I-
Now I encourage people to go out,
look for the Conan O'Brien hosting Cernolive in 2000.
No, I remember,
because we were like outside a parking lot,
at a convenience store, something like that.
And I remember-
Did Ben Affleck come on too?
Yeah, but he didn't do it at dress on air
and no one told me.
So on air, we're doing it.
And all of a sudden at the end,
Ben Affleck runs out and he's like,
yeah, Sully, be a friend, yeah.
And the band kicks in and I was like,
first I just thought someone from the audience had run out.
And I realized it's Ben Affleck.
Oh my God.
And I didn't even know he was gonna be in the sketch.
So no, I mean, no one was telling me anything.
They were just like, you know, you know.
And Lauren-
I apologize.
No, I don't want you-
For my, for my stick,
I was being a stickler, I guess.
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
Okay, well, I don't remember feeling that,
but I remembered you were worried about it.
So I remember I was trying to like help you.
Oh, so that's how you remember it.
Anyway, that's how I remember that you were worried about it.
Yeah, and I needed you and you were trying to help me.
No, you were doing the right thing,
which is like me, I'd be doing the same thing.
I take comedy really seriously.
And if something is three degrees to the right or the left,
I'm like, we gotta get that fixed.
And so it just really stuck out with me.
You know what this is?
It's water under the bridge.
Water under the bridge.
Dirty water.
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh.
Do you ever-
I go back all the time to visit my family.
And when I go back there,
I do have this weird feeling of noticing all this stuff
about Boston that really cracks me up,
like the fact that I'll walk around
and everyone's wearing a Red Sox cap.
And when you're in, like it's,
you're standing up for your team when you're in Cleveland
and you're wearing a Boston Red Sox cap,
or you're in New York.
But when you're on Newberry Street,
and everyone, including dogs walking up and down the street,
have little Red Sox caps on,
and you're wearing your Red Sox cap,
it's like, we all know, we're all good, it's okay.
I thought everyone did that in every city.
No, it is not like that.
It is not like that.
It's peculiar to Boston, but God bless them.
God bless them, wall.
God love ya.
Yeah.
Did you go back a lot?
I do, yeah, because all my high school friends are there,
so I go see them a lot, yeah.
Now I have to ask you, because both of us,
you're Lexington, I'm Brooklyn, both from Massachusetts,
and I think like me, I was interested in comedy,
but nobody I knew was in show business.
Show business felt like, why even talk about it?
It's an impossibility.
I was not one of those, I mean, this is pre-TikTok, pre,
I'm gonna make stuff on the internet
and get some likes and some good comments
and then maybe I'll be a celebrity.
That seemed completely impossible to me.
What was your experience?
Yeah, exactly the same.
Like I liked doing school plays
and I was really into watching SNL when I was little
and I sort of became like this class clown type,
but I never thought of like putting that all into like,
I'm gonna be an actor, like the same,
like what you said, I had no idea.
It was just something like for fun sort of,
but I was definitely a comedy fan.
Right, I was huge into comedy
and you could make your friends laugh.
Like to me, comedy was not something
that I thought I would ever get paid for,
it was something I did for my friends, they knew it,
but other people in high school like didn't know it.
Yeah, well, so I had this little group of friends
that they're all really funny.
So I didn't, I wasn't like, I'm the funny one
because like I had a whole bunch of funny pals around,
but then I was the one that was like doing the school plays
so I think that, I don't know,
that I would see movies and be like,
oh, how do people get into movies?
Like how do they do that, you know?
But it was more just for fun, I guess.
I really thought, I remember there was a time
when I was a kid where I thought the way to get into movies
was to go where they're making money
and walk into the movie.
Oh yeah, I still feel like that.
When I see a set and I don't have a job,
and I see like, oh, they're filming across the street.
I'm like walking my dog like,
you guys need an extra lady in on this movie.
Like it still crosses my mind.
My sister, Kate, and a shout out to my sister, Kate,
she's hilarious, but she lives in Boston
and I swear to God for years,
she always had a knack for showing up on the local news.
So she's just like, if anything happened,
she somehow was nearby and then they'd say like,
we talked to this resident.
Oh man, you should have seen it.
It's just crazy what happened.
Kate again, how did Kate get into the local news?
Yeah, she was on more local news stories, I think,
than anybody, I was, yeah.
She just had that knack.
She was always a great witness to something,
whether she had seen it or not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's funny, because you got this,
you only look back on it later,
now you have this pedigree, which is incredibly cool,
because you get out of college,
you get involved in Second City
and you're working with like Adam McKay and Tina Fey.
And when you look back on it now,
it looks like you knew exactly what you were doing.
Do you know what I mean?
Well, so yeah, so I started doing improv in college
and then we had gone out to,
one of the guys in that group was from Chicago,
so we had gone to check it out.
So my take was, and I don't know what you thought
when you were starting out,
but I was just like, okay, I'm just gonna try this
so I don't go through my whole life thinking like,
oh, I should have at least given it a shot.
So I was like, I'll just try this Chicago thing.
It probably won't work.
And then I'll move back to Boston and become a therapist.
That's because that was my other career interest.
But yeah, I was really into psychology.
I mean, I still am, but so anyway,
then I would like, you know,
made very, very slow progress in Chicago.
Like, you know, I didn't get into second city classes
right away and then I didn't get like,
I, you know, like we all have our little rejections,
whatever, but then I just kept going.
And yeah, I mean, like right away,
I met Adam McKay and yeah,
he was one of the first people I met there
at Improv Olympic.
Then like eventually got into second city
and like Tina Fey and Scott Adzett and,
oh my gosh, a whole, a whole lot.
John Glazer, I think was in with you.
John Glazer was in my, yeah.
Yeah, who was a writer performer on my show for years
and years, hilarious guy.
And Brian McCann, I used to watch him all the time
in this Improv, he was like the group ahead of me.
So he was like the house team.
So like you kind of learned through osmosis
of watching these guys perform at the weekend.
That's a weird thing.
It's like, if you want to be a minor,
go to where all the mines are and go down into the mines.
Like that's what, that's Chicago and LA.
It's probably still that way,
but I remember very much in the Improv world,
cause I was interested in the same thing.
Coming to that same fork in the road
and thinking there's Chicago, second city,
where there's LA groundlings.
And I got a job in LA so that I made it the groundlings.
But, and then later on went back to Chicago
and did some stuff there and met a bunch of people.
But it's crazy how if you go and you hang out
with those people and you find your group,
it will happen one way or the other.
Yeah.
I mean, so many people that we started out with are working.
Like, cause this is always strike,
whenever people ask me for, you know, college,
this college kids asking for showbiz advice.
Like the thing I always say is that
pretty much everyone we start out with,
if you stick with it, you know,
they're working and writing or acting or something.
So it's not as hard as, you know,
I mean, it takes a lot of time,
but it's not like impossible, you know, so.
We're two in a, you were in a show,
you and Tina were in a two-person show together, I think.
Yeah, that was, so after we both had done
the main stage for a couple of years,
then she was at SNL as a writer
and I had left second city and nothing was kind of happening.
So we did a two-person show in Dratcham Fay in Chicago
and then we did it here and it was just,
yeah, both of us doing sketch, yeah.
And it just felt like,
oh, we're speaking the same language here.
We can.
Oh yeah, but I mean,
we already performed together at second city and everything,
but then actually after that,
like she got moved to be the anchor on Weekend Update.
So, you know, it's good for her to be seen by Lauren
probably is the performer that she is, you know.
Right, and I'm curious about, obviously,
you did a lot of iconic stuff, Debbie Downer.
I know Sona is a massive, I am too, but Sona.
I love Debbie Downer.
And as a fan, Sona, tell us,
what was it that really hit you about Debbie Downer?
How real it is, how everybody has that one friend
who's just shitty to be around.
Yeah, that's definitely the thing people come up to me
about the most and they always say that,
like, that's my boss, that's my mom,
that's my whoever it is, yeah.
But like, there's a Debbie Downer that lives inside of me.
Now, is that really you?
Is that really you?
Well, it's not, but like, what it is, is I edit out
like the thing I want to say,
because like, you know, I read all these bad news stories
all the time, and so someone says to me like,
I want to be like, oh, actually,
that's because of climate change.
Like, someone's like, oh, it's really nice.
Isn't this nice?
It's 70 degrees in December.
Like, there's a part of me that's one,
that's due to climate change.
But I like hold myself back.
And I'm picturing the camera pushing in too.
Exactly.
Which is crucial.
Mom.
You know, it's funny,
because maybe you can diagnose yourself,
but you say, this isn't you, but it's a part of you,
and you were very interested in psychology
and studying the human mind and behavior.
What does this say about you, that this is part of you?
Oh, geez, I don't know.
Because it might be a Massachusetts thing.
You know, there's a little bit of a Massachusetts thing,
like where, you know, we grew up expecting.
Oh, right, take you down a nut.
Yeah, exactly.
We always, whenever someone says,
hey, congrats Conan on good thing happening to you,
I go, well, remember, you know,
let's just chop that down to size,
and tomorrow I could easily be dead,
and they go, what was that all about?
I don't know, I mean, the way that I would write sketches,
I don't know what it was like for you,
because you were a writer on the show.
You had to come up with stuff every week.
But for me, like, I mean, the actors have to write too,
as you know.
But I definitely couldn't just sit at a computer
and be like, I'm gonna write something funny now.
Like, I had to be sort of hit by the muses,
which would happen a couple of times a year,
like for something really good that would last.
Like, you know, I could crank out a scene,
but it wasn't always gonna be like, oh my God,
this is gonna be great.
Like, that was maybe once a year.
And it came from like something in life that you would see,
and then pocket that for a scene.
Like, it has to be something I observed,
rather than like, I'm gonna write a scene
about the current political situation.
Like, that was not me, so.
Well, I was a writer and not a performer on the show.
And what I remember is my best stuff was stuff
where I was clowning around,
because I always performed for the other writers.
And I would clown around for the other writers
and get them laughing.
And one of them would invariably say,
that would be a funny sketch.
And I'd go, oh yeah, right.
I forgot I was supposed to be doing that.
Yeah.
You know, a couple of us would sit down and write it out.
And sometimes I would even forget,
what was it I was doing again?
No, no, no, it's really funny when you came in the room
and you did that thing.
And so some of my favorite sketches were bits
that I was doing for people around the conference table
and I started out live.
And I just, it was making me laugh
and it was making the other writers laugh.
And then it turned into a sketch.
So I'm the same way.
I couldn't just put some paper in a typewriter
and go, hmm, and I just really dated myself.
I know, I was gonna say.
I'm sorry.
There were no, when I was at SNL,
not only did we not use typewriters, we used,
we wrote stuff out in long hands
and then we took it to this.
For real?
Yeah, that we took it to this little steno pool
of all these different, I remember it was like five.
It was like a 1950s.
It really was, Matt.
It was Matt, Matt.
Steno pool.
They were five, they were like five women
and you'd hand them the stuff
and they would clap, clap, clap away.
And then they would come find you and go
because we were writing in longhand
and we were writing, sometimes upside down,
lying on the floor, we had fallen asleep
and they go, I'm sorry, what's this say right here?
Oh my gosh.
And I say, that's, oh, it's a dilapidated homework.
This is the word or that's an A, not an E.
So yeah, it was the same way it had been done in 1975
when the show started.
And I think within probably two years of me leaving,
it was all computers.
Ah, okay.
But I was the same way, I couldn't just sit down
and well, it's time to write a sketch.
Clickety clackety, clickety clackety.
I couldn't do that.
It had to be something that came out of,
I think, my behavior half the time.
Yeah, the worst is when it's writing night
and I had no ideas
and then you hear all these gales of laughter
coming from other homes.
Oh my God, that's the worst.
And you're just sitting there like,
oh, it's three in the morning.
I got nothing, you know.
Oh, it's the worst.
It's the worst when, and everybody felt it, you know.
So many people have just gone on to be a big deal
or it doesn't matter.
Everybody had that feeling.
I don't care who you were.
Chris Rock had the feeling several times
of walking past closed doors
and hearing laughter inside and thinking shit,
I don't have anything right now or David Spade
or whoever, name anybody.
Everybody had that feeling we all did
and it's such a lonely feeling
because it's three in the morning,
you know that your term papers do in a couple of hours.
But I mean, at least because you're a performer,
you knew that even if you didn't write something,
someone's gonna cast you.
Yeah, someone might cast you,
but you couldn't count on someone to write you this.
Amazing character,
because that usually came from the actors.
And then every so often,
you'd get sort of like handed this amazing idea
from somebody or you'd get cast in a regular sketch.
Right, where'd you come up with the idea
for a girl with no gaydar?
Okay, yeah, that was from an actual.
Like I was at a party of a gay friend of mine
and there were like 80 men and five women there.
And I was joking around like,
oh, the odds are really good here.
You're gonna meet someone tonight.
And so like that's how that sketch came about.
Or like, there's this one sketch.
I mean, it was like, not that this is like a classic
or anything, but I once wrote this sketch
with Emily Spivey where we were playing
that game Celebrity, you know, when you put all the names.
And like, because I was at an actual Celebrity game
where one guy was getting really, really mad
and it was creating tension.
So then I was, oh, this would be a funny sketch.
So we did the sketch where like,
I was just getting super pissed.
And then I ran through a wall like Looney Tunes style,
but that kind of thing like something happens in life.
And then you're like, oh, this would be a sketch, you know?
But like I said, you couldn't control
when that was gonna happen.
You can't control it.
And also it's amazing how other people in the world
who don't do it for a living will watch something happen
that's pretty mundane.
Like, you know, Rachel, you'll just be,
you'll be in a Wendy's and you'll bite into your burger
and part of it will fall on the ground
and they'll say to you, Rachel, this is a sketch for SNL.
And you're thinking, no, how is that a sketch?
A piece of the burger just fell.
And they're like, I'm telling you, that's a fucking sketch.
And I've always loved that part where I went, really,
tell me how that sketch works.
The burger falls.
I was just saying this, like,
like you're paying in a cash register or something
and they're like, don't put this in a sketch.
And I'm like, what?
Like if there was anything here, I put it in a sketch.
Right, your loved one passes away
and you're there, you know, kneeling at the casket
and they're like, don't put this in a sketch.
What?
You know, this is a sketch.
No, it's not.
I lost a loved one.
They're dead now and I'm praying over their corpse
and they'll never see them again.
Hey, this is gonna be a sketch.
I know it is.
Where are you right now?
We're not in the studio together.
You're a...
Well, I'm in New York.
Okay, tell me about your life.
That's where I live.
Cause I thought, I was told that you're one block away
but you just refused to be in the room with me.
Yeah.
Wait, you're in LA, right?
I'm in LA right now.
Okay, okay, just making sure.
No, I'm in New York and well, I have a kid.
Oh yeah, how old's your kid?
I have a young kid.
He's 11.
He's 11, so is he funny?
Oh yeah, he's very funny.
Not that I've been like, okay, we're gonna do,
he just is like naturally funny.
Yeah, I don't think you can train people to be...
Yeah.
Kids funny or they're not.
You can't say, all right, get up.
Now remember, here's double take.
Now triple take.
You know, now looks sad.
Now looks suddenly happy for no reason.
Now fall down.
I suppose you could.
Are your kids funny?
Yeah, they are.
My kids are really funny
and totally unimpressed with anything I'm doing.
Like totally, yeah.
In a good way.
They're just like, uh-huh.
So that's works for you.
Okay, keep trying old man.
I haven't done that much like for his age range.
So I haven't really had a, you know,
a big moment where I've scored big with him.
But yeah, so I'm here in New York
and I'm like a mom.
And then I do comedy when things come along my way.
Or I write something, you know, how that goes.
Sure, yeah.
But that's funny to say, I'm a mom who does comedy.
Well, I guess, cause when you said, what's my life like that?
Like that's my main thing is like school pickup
and stuff like that.
So, and then, yeah, but like I was off doing a movie
this summer with Anna Gastair actually.
So I was away for a bit doing that.
I bet you had fun, you and Anna.
Oh yeah, it was so fun.
Yeah, it was really fun.
Do you find that you, there are the ones who are funny
when it's time to be funny and then kind of quiet
and introspective the rest of the time.
I do not fall into that category.
Would you say that's fair, Sona?
Very fair, yes.
Yeah, I'm trying stuff out all the time.
On anybody I meet, I'm just trying to get laughs
out there in the world with anybody I come across.
Where are you on that, on that spectrum?
I'm not.
You're not that way?
No, like, I think sometimes people meet me
and they're like, you're not funny.
But with my friends, I feel like I'm funny.
Oh, this is funny, when someone came up to,
I was walking with my son, he was like seven,
and someone's like, what's it like to have a funny mom?
And he's like, I make her laugh more than she makes me laugh.
Like, oh, death pan.
But it's true, like it's totally true.
No, I'm definitely not like, well, let me try out this bit.
I don't know.
But then like, when I get around.
So you're healthy is what you're saying.
What you're describing, Rachel, is a healthy person.
But when I'm around, my friends, like my funny friends,
then we get, we really get going, Conan.
No, but you know, I like with those SNL ladies
or my regular friends.
I mean, I have friends that aren't actors
that are also very funny, so.
It used to be in the olden days
that there were people that were really funny
and most of them didn't go into show business, you know?
Most of them were like, they'd go and become a dentist
and then you'd get to know them as,
oh, he's that dentist who's really funny, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's that guy that operates the jackhammer
at the construction site and he's really funny.
Right, right.
And then I think we're in this era now
where if you're a funny person,
it's almost incumbent upon you
to be making comedic content all the time.
You know what I mean?
For the internet or whatever, you know?
It's like, why aren't you doing this for a living?
Well, we do need some dentists.
We do need some people repairing the roads.
We have plenty of funny people.
Well, I think that's kind of,
but I think that's good that you're always,
you're always thinking of comedy.
Cause I think I used to be more like,
especially on the show, you know, when you're on SNL,
you're like, I gotta come up with something.
So I was always like, eyes out to find funny things.
But now that I don't have to think of sketches anymore,
I'm not going through life like,
doesn't make a good sketch, you know?
Right, right.
That was my cashier voice of the person
that's telling me to check.
I think you blew it.
Cause I think this cashier thing is fantastic.
I actually think the cashier was right.
I'm gonna write it.
I'm gonna write it.
I'm gonna write it up.
You're gonna write a sketch that just happens
to have a cashier in the back.
It's just a transaction.
Yeah, just a transaction.
A cash credit transaction.
That's it.
What's it like?
I'm curious about this because you've had this experience
and I know some other SNL people have had this experience.
I have not, but you were on SNL
and then you leave and you do these other things,
but then you were called back a couple of years ago
to play Amy Klobuchar and I'm thinking,
what's it like to go back into that world?
I'm fascinated by that.
Well, for me, it was super fun just cause, you know,
I don't know, I didn't feel like, you know,
I'm the big star of SNL ever.
You know, like some people are really,
it's known that they're like the thing.
I never really felt like that.
So to even get the call to come back,
I was really like, oh, okay.
Like, you know, I don't know.
Right now you're just looking at me.
Well, I'm looking at you
because you made your mark.
You made your mark on SNL.
I don't know, like you know how that place is.
Like, oh boy.
You definitely didn't feel like,
I knew you'd come crawling back.
You should have had that attitude with Lorne
when he called you back to be on SNL.
Oh, Lorne.
I knew you'd be calling me.
Yeah.
So I was very flattered.
I was touched to be called back, you know?
I mean, but we got called back every so often
to do like the Betty White show.
And like, so it was really,
it's really fun to go back there.
But they called me to do that.
Klobuchar, like, you know how it goes,
like they call like Thursday night,
we've got a sketch, you know,
can you come tomorrow kind of thing?
So it was definitely out of the blue.
And then like, you know, it kept,
I kept getting to go back the whole year.
So it was really fun.
Well, I would think,
tell me a fun right about this,
but I think it would be nice
when you're there for the first time
and it's you're new, especially starting out live.
And I've always been honest with people
that that was the most intense environment
I've ever been in for all the different
comedy work I've done.
It just felt like huge stakes, very competitive.
You're deprived of sleep.
You really feel like you got to make it
or your career is done.
I mean, it all felt very do or die
when I was at SNL.
And I think I've talked to a lot of people
and I'm still friends with a lot of SNL people
who say, yep, that's how they felt too.
I think it would be nice to go back
because you're in a different place now
and you can just appreciate,
oh, they want me to play Amy Klobuchar.
Yeah, I'll come back
and my whole life doesn't depend on it.
Do you know what I mean?
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not like, oh my gosh,
everything could come crashing down today or whatever.
I mean, because you're just there for the fun part.
You really are a Debbie Downer.
You really, you really.
What I mean is, well, you know the pressure for me
was trying to write and create stuff.
And then the performing part was always really fun,
at least in how I remember it.
So when you go back to do something,
you're not worried about is my sketch gonna do well
or not in front of the audience.
You're just there to perform.
So all that's gone and you're just there for the fun.
Yeah, in the cocaine, the cocaine.
I'm glad we got back to the cocaine.
They applied me with cocaine to do Klobuchar.
That's the only reason any of us go back.
So I know you worked on a gas tire on this Christmas movie.
Yes.
Tell me about that.
Okay, so we wrote a movie together.
It's a parody of one of those Hallmark Christmas movies.
And it's called A Cluster Funk Christmas
and it's coming out December 4th on Comedy Central.
And we actually wrote it last year
and then of course the pandemic happened.
So then we shot it this summer.
But the cool thing was we hooked in with this guy,
Michael Murray, who's written a whole bunch
of these real Hallmark movies.
Oh, great.
So you get that authentic feel.
Yeah, like he totally helped us with,
you know, okay, in Act 3 this has to happen
and then this has to happen.
And like he gave us sort of this,
he was like our Yoda guru, whatever you want to call it,
and helped us with the structure.
And then we went off and wrote this.
Because a Hallmark Christmas movie
is a very specific format.
Very specific.
It is, yes.
They almost kiss here,
but then they don't touch here
and they go on a date here.
Like that kind of thing.
They have a fight here.
Yeah, exactly.
They're perfect for each other,
but they keep finding,
Yeah, exactly.
They keep finding ways.
An emergency happens here.
Right.
She leaves town and comes back and da, da, da, da, da.
So anyway, yeah.
Oh, and then Anna and I play,
we play the spinster aunts who own the inn
that, where the clusterfunk sisters
and we own the clusterfunk inn
and this bitchy executive from the city
comes to buy up the inn,
but finds the spirit of Christmas.
Yes.
Sorry if I ruined the movie,
but anyway, that's what that is.
I would just love it
if she didn't find the spirit of Christmas.
Exactly.
If she's still bitchy at the end
and it's like, you know what?
I'm sorry, I'm not Christian.
It's not my, this is really not what I'm into.
I think Christ was a philosopher,
but you know, not the son of God.
And I got to go.
They never run that way.
Luckily that doesn't happen.
They don't, you know.
Was it fun to make?
Oh yeah, it was super fun.
It was, we shot up in Vancouver
and-
Where everything is shot.
Exactly.
Well, also that's where all these Christmas movies are shot.
So that's kind of why we went there.
And they put fake snow on the ground.
Fake snow, lots of fake snow.
Some places where there's no fake snow.
And, but, you know, like accidental Canadian flags
and shots and stuff like that.
Lots of moose in the background
eating a big stack of pancakes.
Yeah, shout out to the fact
that it's supposed to be New York,
but it's actually in Canada.
We tried to do all that stuff.
I think 98% of what all of us see on television now
was shot in Vancouver.
I think, you know, they'll be doing a thing
about how there's the Great Wall of China.
It'll be a movie about the Great Wall of China being built
and it's shot in Vancouver.
Exactly.
It just doesn't matter.
Yes.
We did have to quarantine for two weeks
and not leave our hotel room too.
I don't know if you had to do any serious quarantining lately,
but-
No, I don't.
My work, fortunately,
when I was doing the show, we were doing it on Zoom.
And the podcast, the only person I can really
infect right now is Sona.
Oh.
And, you know, we've insured for that
and we have another Sona lined up.
Should anything happen to this?
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, we found her.
Oh, cool.
She looks a lot like you.
Okay.
Her name's Rona.
Rona Rove-Sessian.
That's so similar to my name.
Yeah, very similar.
And your parents really love her.
I think she's fantastic.
She's got my parents?
Yeah, well, that was part of it.
We had to train her how to be like you.
And immediately they were like,
she's so much better than the real Sona.
Wow.
Yeah.
That accent.
That's how they talk.
Trust me, I've done that.
Is your son, you said he's 11?
Yeah.
Is he familiar like with your SNL stuff?
Does he know it?
He must.
Not really.
No, I haven't.
Like I know Amy Polar.
I don't want a name job.
Amy Polar makes her children watch her sketches.
Very good friend of mine.
No, I know like she's shown her kids
a bunch of sketches and stuff.
And I don't know why I just haven't really thought to do that.
One time, like a couple of years ago,
I showed him the Debbie Downer,
like the one at Disney World.
And he kind of like checked out halfway through.
So I didn't really,
I should try again now that he's older than that.
And he can appreciate it.
That's a nice thing when you're showing your child.
He was probably too young to be truly it.
That was when he was into Muppets and stuff.
But no, I haven't really,
I haven't shown him that.
But he takes a little improv class and that kind of thing.
He's definitely into comedy.
I'll sometimes see something pop up from SNL
that's something that I wrote.
Though like back when they showed reruns all the time
of old SNLs from the 90s.
And I would watch and I would see a sketch and I go,
oh right, I wrote this, but I don't remember what it was.
Let's, and I would start watching it.
And then I sometimes it'd be like halfway through.
And I go, this isn't good.
Oh.
Cause I could see it with fresh eyes, you know?
I remember people high fiving me backstage
as we were watching it, like Conan it's on
and it's getting laughs.
And so my memory is that all the sketches were amazing,
but then enough time went by for me to be able to look at it
and go and see it the way people saw it at home
while it was airing.
And they're like, I could have written better than that.
I know.
But also maybe it was really funny in the 90s.
Maybe it was a function of the time.
There was so much that was funny in the 90s.
Crippling debt was funny in the 90s.
Lapels were funny in the 90s.
Shoulder pads.
Yeah, there was a lot that was funny in the 90s.
So was your first job The Simpsons?
No, no, no, no, no.
I started out on a show called Not Necessarily the News,
which was a comedy show that was on,
this was, it was on HBO back when if you wanted to watch HBO
you had to check into a motel.
And you had to have an illicit affair.
Anyone who was watching HBO was cheating on their spouse.
And then did that, then went to Cernot Live.
And did that for a couple of years,
then went to The Simpsons.
Okay, I flipped The Simpsons in my mind.
Yeah, well, what'd you do that for?
I don't know.
Didn't you get my list of accomplishments?
I did.
I sent it to you, I emailed it to you.
Everyone's supposed to know the order
that I did things in. Order of your successes.
Shoot, I'm sorry.
I don't include Wilson's House of Suede and Leather,
where I worked for a while when I came out to LA.
Did you ever have any crazy, not crazy,
but just embarrassing odd jobs?
Well, two things.
One is, well, I did work in a psychiatric hospital
when I was thinking of still doing that.
When I moved to Chicago.
That must be very intense to be in a psychiatric hospital.
It was, but see, I was like in charge of activities.
I mean, not for the whole hospital,
but I mean, I was just running
a little activity groups with people.
So I was probably unqualified,
but just doing crafts and stuff like that.
So, and then.
Did you ever feel endangered in any way?
Did anyone ever? No, I didn't.
I mean, it was like, I don't even remember.
Anyways, no, I didn't feel endangered, sorry.
Keep it light, Dratch. No, I really,
I didn't really, I didn't feel endangered.
I just don't want to be too boring about it.
But then. Well, just say that you were attacked
several times with a blade, but you fended it off.
You don't have to tell the truth
just as long as it's entertaining.
Now it's exciting. Yeah.
Now it's comedy.
Wait, no. Yeah, there you go.
Now that's a sketch.
The guy on lithium attacked me with an X-Acto knife.
Now that's a sketch.
One other job I had, an odd job
that was only a couple of days was
they were opening like a, you know, a Warner Brothers,
whatever it is, Looney Tunes, something like that,
like a store in the mall outside Chicago.
And I dressed up as a Tweety Bird.
You were a Tweety Bird.
You know, as a promotional, you know,
to bring people into the store.
And did it work?
Do you think you entice people to go in?
Well, I'll tell you the first day, I did it for two days.
The first day I was Sylvester.
That was way too hot.
It was way too hot in the Sylvester.
Yeah, he's a putty cat with a list.
The next day I graduated to Tweety Bird,
which is a large fiberglass,
large fiberglass Tweety Bird
that like takes up your whole body, right?
But then like teenagers would come by
and like, whap the back of the bird, you know?
Oh, that's so...
I mean, I didn't fall over anything,
but I was just standing there.
Like a few times I was like jarred
by the sound of a teenager hitting the fiberglass bird.
What kind of person knows that a human being
is inside a Tweety Bird costume
and goes by and thwacks it?
How dehumanizing?
What does that say about humanity?
I know, no, but that was like a weirder job that I had.
But, and then I tried, I wasn't a good waitress,
so I mainly just tempt and answered phones.
You weren't a good waitress?
I couldn't stack the plates on my arm.
You know, people do that.
Yeah.
You know, who was a waitress and who waited on me.
Who?
She told me years later,
but in the Chestnut Hill Mall, you know, on Route 9,
there was a ye olde kind of restaurant where you'd go
and people serving you had to wear
that little bonany thing on their heads.
I know what you got.
That people wore in like the 17 and 1600s.
It wasn't called Pewter Pot, was it?
Yes, it was Pewter Pot.
Oh my God. It was Pewter Pot
and it was a ye olde restaurant.
We had a Pewter Pot in Lexington Center
when I was growing up.
Well, guess what?
That's why I thought of that.
I heard this later on when she was doing,
when she was performing on my show,
playing Andy Rector's sister in this recurring sketch we did.
Amy Poehler said, oh, you know,
I waited on you once at Chestnut Hill Mall.
And I said, really?
And she said, yeah, I was a waitress at the Pewter Pot.
Oh my God.
So I think she had to come up to me and say like,
pretty sir, you know, have ye some cocoa?
Oh my, okay.
So Poehler and I actually did work at the same restaurant.
We've told this a million times.
We worked at the same ice cream restaurant in Lexington
at different times.
And we had to wear, speaking of time connected headgear,
we had to wear like 1920s,
like Styrofoam Barbershop Cortez at this point.
You had to wear like a fud rockers kind of outfit?
Yes, it was called Chadwix.
And it was like 1920, they played like, you know,
player piano music, and then you'd walk in.
We had like flouncy blouses and Barbershop Quartet hats.
And we worked at the same, but not at the same time,
but we both worked there.
I always find it weird that people get like,
we've recreated 1915.
Come on in and have some, you know,
a time when racism was acceptable.
Medicine was still in its infancy.
Children died at 11, you know, just like, this is,
what a wonderful thing to do.
We're roaring 20.
Women can't vote.
Have some ice cream.
Like, why is this a time we want to go back to?
This automobile will probably kill you.
Yeah.
Because of that piano music.
That's why we wanted to go back.
Yeah, anyway, I'd have to bust her out for the pewter pot.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
You gotta get her for that, man.
Yeah.
She'll probably deny it now.
She's probably, she has a whole,
I'm sure she has a whole PR team that's cleansing her past
of the pewter pot, you know, but I'm bringing it back.
Okay.
Rachel, I love talking to you.
And I think we should celebrate.
Yes.
We can chronicle it.
We can record the whole thing on a podcast.
Okay.
We can put it online.
We'll make hundreds of dollars.
We won't stop at a Wendy's this time.
We'll get a fast food place on route 95 or whatever
to subsidize the trip.
And we'll stop there.
And if it's Wendy's, if Wendy's puts up the most money,
we'll stop at Wendy's.
Right.
If Wendy's is up for the task, sure.
Okay.
Yeah, please.
If Wendy's is up to the task.
I hear her.
So many times here.
We should get some.
I hope I should get a gift card in the mail.
Yeah.
Or at the very least, I want to be the new Wendy's girl.
That's what.
Okay.
That's a better, that's a better, that's a better goal.
All right.
I'm looking forward to a clusterfunk Christmas.
This sounds really funny.
You and Anagastair doing your take on a Hallmark movie,
which sounds really funny.
I would check that out.
I hope so.
Yeah.
Yes, please do.
I hope so.
I mean, I hope, I hope people like it.
So many things aren't as good as you hope they are.
Rachel, really fun talking to you.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
Okay.
Let's take a listen to one of our voicemails from one of our listeners.
Brett, let's listen.
Hi, Conan.
My name is Marie.
I'm calling from Saskatchewan, Canada.
My question for you, kind of a two-part question,
because there's, I saw there was, or heard there was no rules about that,
but I haven't listened to all your podcasts.
I'm not sure maybe if you've talked on the subject before,
but I was wondering your favorite type of genre from music as well.
My true question is, if you were an instrument,
what would you choose to be?
Bearing in mind extremities that the other,
the person playing you would be using,
whether or not it's fingers, toes, or mouth.
Yeah.
Anyways, I really interested in knowing if you were to choose to be an instrument,
what that might be.
Enjoy your day.
I love it when someone leaves what's clearly a very erotic and suggestive message,
and then says, enjoy your day.
You know?
That's my favorite part.
Yeah, yeah.
If you could be ice cream and someone was licking you,
what would it feel like and which part of your body would be the ice cream?
Well, anyway, enjoy your day.
If you need me, you can reach me at extension 3254.
Oh, man.
Wow.
Marie, this is quite the message.
Well, first of all, I'll start with the genre of music.
I would say the genre of music that just grabs me by my nether region
and electrifies me has always been hardcore rockabilly music.
Yes.
You know that about me.
I do.
I used to, in college, I discovered the Elvis Sun Session recordings.
You know, when he's just getting started out and he's recording,
that's all right, Mama and Blue Moon in Kentucky and these different Baby Let's Playhouse.
And then that spilled over into all this other rockabilly music that I loved
and it got me interested in combing my hair up so that it looked insane.
And I grew out my sideburns and I learned to play the electric guitar.
And I love that kind of yodely singing.
Yeah.
You're good at it, too.
Well, thank you.
Yeah.
I think I have the feeling, I don't know why, but I almost become some Tennessee, you know,
rockabilly cat sometimes.
Yeah.
And I really love that stuff.
So that's my jam instrument.
I had an obvious answer for that one.
For you or for Conan?
I felt like she was obviously suggesting the cello.
I mean, you're in someone's crotch, right?
No.
No, that's...
Isn't that what she said?
If you could be an instrument, you wouldn't want to be a cello, so you could be in someone's crotch.
Well, that's where you went.
Oh.
I think she, there's also an oral way that you can go.
There are instruments that people blow into.
Clarinet.
Wait, excuse me.
What did you say, David?
I said like a flute.
What's wrong with you, you sick?
What is wrong with you?
That's gross, David.
We don't need to get into that.
David.
What?
So...
You started it.
I did not.
Yeah, you did.
I did.
I just...
Yeah.
Everybody was thinking it.
The flute is on the side.
No, the flute is on the side.
You're blowing on the side and you're making these...
That's not...
I want to de-sex this as much as I can.
Why?
That's the best part of this question.
Well, this is what she wanted out of this.
So you're thinking it'd be fun to be the cello because you're down in someone's crotch.
Yes.
Oh my God.
You're the mother of two.
I don't know.
You're the mother of twins, Sona.
You've got to clean up your act now.
I...
You could still be a cello and be someone's mom.
No one's ever said that before.
That's one of those sentences I've never heard before.
No, but what are you thinking?
Like a...
Like a...
Like a sex?
Well, help me out here, David.
There's another way to go, which I think she was sort of suggest...
Am I wrong?
Was she not suggesting something sexual when she said, remember, toes, parts of your body,
your extremities?
Extremities, you think?
A woodwind instrument, something where mouth is on tube, there's some blowing.
That's what she's implying.
Am I crazy to think that?
No, that's what she was implying.
Right, which is why my answer is a 1971 Moog synthesizer.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the answer that she doesn't expect, that is not sexy.
This is one of those times where if Goorley was here, he'd be like, oh, good answer.
Yeah, and Goorley were here and not out having his fez blocked at the local niche hipsteratorium.
He would say, like, oh, yeah, that right, the 1972 Moog synthesizer, that was the one,
the who, used on Baba O'Reilly, you know?
Okay.
Yeah.
How is that a sexy instrument?
You know?
But isn't that...
Remember that cool sound from...
Yeah.
Another one is Won't Get Fooled Again.
That's it.
That's it.
Wow.
Um, um.
Oh, how.
Um, um.
Uh-huh.
Um.
Apologies to everyone.
Uh, I don't know what happened there, but that was the beginning of Won't Get Fooled Again,
and I know the Moog synthesizer parts by heart.
Anyway, shout out to the who.
I hope you guys are well.
That's what I'm going for listening right now.
I think you, and I'm quite certain that Townsend is listening.
And he's a big fan, and so is Daltry.
Oh, I don't know about that.
Well...
That's my son impression.
That's a good one.
This is my Conan impression.
The laugh at me.
He's my son impression.
The impressions are awful.
That's my impression.
Please, please pay attention to me.
I have too many siblings, and nobody paid attention.
I'm sony.
Neither of these sound like each other.
Conan, I had twins, and my husband knows karate.
I'm Conan.
I can't be more Irish.
Literally, I can't even try to be more Irish.
That's actually a very good question.
You nailed me there.
Yes, Marie, I give your answers.
Rockabilly music, and I want to be a 1972 Moog synthesizer.
Right.
That plays the introduction to Won't Get Fooled Again.
And no, there's nothing sexy there.
So, I win that one.
I just mentioned in my impression that your husband does karate.
I swore to you when you had twins.
Twins.
Yeah.
That your husband's karate lessons would come to an end,
because no new dad with twins has the time to take karate.
The other day, I call you, and you're like,
yeah, tech's not here right now.
He's at karate.
Yeah.
How can he still be taking karate?
Well, okay.
First of all, your life doesn't end...
It does.
My wife...
We had two kids.
We had one at a time, and everything stopped.
Everything.
You went to work like the next day.
Yeah, but I didn't get to take karate.
Well, no.
It was my dream to take karate, and I couldn't.
Oh, you can't do karate.
Why?
I don't know.
You don't have it in you.
Do you?
Can you do karate?
No.
Do you think you can do martial arts for reals?
No.
I don't.
But why?
I want to hear why you think you can't.
You're a tall, foolish fellow.
I was going to say, I don't think you can do it
because I think you do bits too much.
And then your karate...
Right, I would do a bit about breaking the boards
rather than break the board, and then my hand would smash.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It would be insufferable.
They would tell you to leave.
They would kick me out of that dojo.
Yeah, no.
But tech has a very supportive wife,
and he's very lucky, I guess.
I don't know.
Oh, wow.
I'd like to see the supportive sona someday.
Oh.
I guess I missed the boat.
Oh, wow.
Work for you for a long time.
Marie, sorry to drag you into our family argument.
Hours.
Yes.
Rockabilly music, MOOC synthesizer,
my unrealized passion, karate.
Conan O'Brien needs a friend.
With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely.
Produced by me, Matt Gorely.
Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solotarov,
and Jeff Ross at Team Coco,
and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Yearwolf.
Theme song by the White Stripes.
Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.
Take it away, Jimmy.
Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair,
and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.
Engineering by Will Beckton.
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