Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Tom Hanks

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

Actor Tom Hanks feels grand about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Tom sits down with Conan to talk about recovering from COVID-19 in Australia, writing the screenplay for his new WWII-era film Greyhound, and the first thing he ever saw on YouTube. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hello, my name is Tom Hanks And I feel grand about being Conan O'Brien's friend Fall is here, hear the yell Back to school, ring the bell Brand new shoes, walking blues Climb the fence, books and pens I can tell that we are gonna be friends I can tell that we are gonna be friends Hello, Conan O'Brien here Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend

Or as we've been calling it this summer Summer s'mores and the chill chums People seem to be enjoying this complete nonsense You guys have been having a good time with this, aren't you? Gourly, Sona, you having a good time with... Man, I'm loving it Yeah, and it's summer s'mores with Conan in the chill chums Because you're not a chill chum

Yeah, you're the opposite of a chill chum You're neither chill nor a chum You're an anxious neurotic chum Yeah, I'm an anxious neurotic type A freak Who you two coast behind That must be nice You're using, you get to be chill chums Because I'm so not a chill chum

No, no, it should be summer s'mores with Sona, Matt And the uptight enemy Yes Okay, doesn't really roll off the tongue It doesn't No But you know, I'm excited Because this is a very special addition

In fact, I would say this is an interruption Of summer s'mores in the chill chums, wouldn't you? Yes Well-deserved A well-deserved interruption You know, many of you probably think Conor O'Brien, he won't be talking to any famous people This summer

Just Sona and Matt Oh, God Well, I hear that a lot on the street A lot of people on the street, I hear the muttering Oh, no famous people, huh? Well, guess what? Does that also include you? I know

Yeah No famous people No, I am, I'm delighted Because we're gonna have a little break From Conan and the chill chums Because today we have, I think One of the biggest and best stars in the world Joining us on the podcast

Pause Yes, wait It probably just comes up Doesn't it come up anyway who it is? It's no surprise Yes, it does So what a big crock of shit That I'm gonna act like this is a big surprise

Because I just realized that it says It says Tom Hanks is on the show In fact, it's never a surprise Because when I do the TV show It says before I even walk out Who the guest is So I've never been able to unveil a surprise In my entire fucking life

I know, and don't we start the episode With Tom Hanks going Hello, my name is Tom Hanks Oh, that's right We always act like Oh my god You always act like Oh, now you've figured out who it is

In my intro, it's like Yeah, they listen to the beginning of the episode They've been notified at least three times Yeah This is humiliating It is It also is an interesting window Into honestly how little

I understand about podcasts Which I think everyone knows But also, you may not know this I don't listen to the podcast I love making them But I don't like the sound of my voice And I don't listen to the podcast If I heard the podcast

I would probably run from the room That's just my thing So I don't listen to them So I don't know I thought I was being all coy Ooh, guess who we have Well, it starts with a T And it ends with an H

No It's not Todd Hansen Of the Hansen brothers Is there a Hansen brother named Todd? No Okay, why not? There isn't How do you know?

I'm pretty sure I know Yeah, there's Taylor, there's Zach And then there's Shit That's a terrible name for a Hansen brother Shit Hansen? Yeah No wonder shit Hansen never

Hi, I'm Taylor Hey, I'm Zach I'm shit In his defense though, he was the cute one Yeah He was Shit Hansen My apologies to the Hansen brothers

Who are wonderful guys And my special apology to shit Hansen Anyway, the point I'm trying to make Is that here I am trying to unveil Who are, it's Tom Hanks What? Yes Tom Hanks is here

I'm delighted to have Tom Hanks here What a fantastic guest Isaac What? Isaac Isaac Hansen? Yeah Isaac, Taylor and Zach

Yeah He was a fourth Hansen brother, shit Hansen They let him break down the equipment After the gig Anyway Shout out to the Hansen brothers Very nice guys They run, they join me on stage

Ten years ago, a lot of fun In Tulsa In Tulsa, that's right You were there Mm-hmm Feeling no pain if you know what I mean No, what do you mean? Heavy drinker

Anyway Okay, keep it Edibles drinker Edibles The Hansen saw you drunk Anyway Even shit Hansen was disgusted Shit Hansen pointed to Sonan

Said I feel bad for her When shit Hansen is judging you When shit Hansen is judging you You know things are bad I'm thrilled he's here My guest today Shit Hansen? No

That's our guest next week My guest today Is one of the biggest actors of our time I'm gonna say anytime, all time He's a two-time Academy Award winner And you know him from such films as Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan Philadelphia, League of the Roan

And Toy Story And a million other great films Now you can see him in the new movie Greyhound Which I saw last night And I shit you not Hansen It is fantastic I can't wait for this

It is really good It was right up my alley My son and I watched it And our hearts were in our throats The whole time it's great Now you can see him in the new movie Greyhound Which will be available on Apple TV Plus

This Friday And you have to see it I am thrilled he is with us today Consummit gentlemen And fantastic person Tom Hanks I have been taking some Elocution lessons

Because I'm trying to have Somebody finally respect me And I find nothing Nothing makes that happen faster than An effective speech pattern So anything I can't wait for the end Of this podcast

So that I can go have lunch It's a little It's some Catherine Hepburn And some Franklin D. Roosevelt I'm going for that What accent did Carrie Grant speak with I don't want to throw this back into Turner Classic Movies podcast here

But you know People don't really talk like that now Unless they go to school in England For a semester They come back talking I think Madonna spoke that way For about eight years And then it disappeared

For reasons we don't understand But I don't know I think it was a completely Invented accent Carrie Grant had, right? When they call it mid-Atlantic Yes, mid-Atlantic I think

But a totally hokey accent I don't think I've heard anyone else speak That way And also, who spoke like John F. Kennedy Before or after John F. Kennedy And I grew up Born in the same town as John F. Kennedy And I grew up Irish Catholic

Yeah, you don't sound that way I have never heard anybody talk that way And it's insane And I think people just accepted it But I don't believe anybody else spoke that way In his generation I do not believe anyone spoke with Vega This is the melody

Not melody, melody We need to speak with more Vega Yeah, and there's a certain cadence to it That is rising and falling And then it's punctuated at moments And we will do it Which I will admit to you right now, Conan That I myself, at times, at podiums

Have fallen into myself Speaking on issues as cheesy as The great Chevy dealerships of San Antonio Who have bestowed upon me this great honor You can't help it It's just like what you're used to in a lot of ways It's what you do over the years Many times during a monologue

If the crowd's really good I'll just go into And we can do better Of course, the 25-year-olds I'm talking to Don't know what I'm battling that way No, no, they don't And again, not to get too turner-classic movie on this But that speech pattern was

The reason von Mieter had the greatest year of his life If you don't know who von Mieter is I don't want to go into it Well, I'll quickly explain He was an impressionist who did, I think, one impression Which was an amazing John F. Kennedy impression Which was really funny And probably one of the biggest hits in the country

On record and radio Right up until John F. Kennedy was killed And then suddenly his, you know, no one wanted to hear that Is this not a tale of a cautionary tale For anybody in show business? Because I remember listening to that record With my dad, you know The only other record he ever bought in his life

Was Burl Live's greatest hits, you know And suddenly we're listening to a comedy record You know, at my aunt's house Before the Beatles are on TV And this... Actually, we've sort of like experimented Possibly with trying to do a story on that And make a movie out of it

Because he had a year at the absolute top Of show business Couldn't have been bigger Couldn't have been more in demand And maybe your crack team of show business researchers Can answer this question for me Because I always heard this story John F. Kennedy is assassinated

The weekend that it happens There is a huge snowstorm Freak snowstorm in New York City But Lenny Bruce is going to be performing at Carnegie Hall The weekend of John F. Kennedy's assassination And there isn't a human being That first of all doesn't stay home The day that Kennedy is assassinated

And then doesn't go out the next night Because they're just dealing with An impossible amount of grief And everybody in New York City Particularly with tickets to the Carnegie Hall That night is wondering What in the world is Lenny Bruce going to say About the assassination of John F. Kennedy?

And the story is he came out And every... You know, ladies and gentlemen The comedy stylings of Lenny Bruce Vigorous applause, long pause And then Lenny Bruce says Phew Von Meter is screwed

Now, the question I have for Adam and Johanna And Aaron and Team Coco and Jim Samples The entire peanut gallery here is Did he say screwed? Or was there an F-bomb that was dropped there? It's coming up as Von Meter is fucked Oh, there you go Boy, is Von Meter fucked?

Now, that's on Wikipedia Well, you gotta trust that, don't you? I don't know He said fucked in Carnegie Hall in 1963 I'm finding that very hard to believe I know it's Lenny Bruce But also on the... Right on the heels of Kennedy's killing

But I'm also seeing screwed here too on... I can't believe the internet is arguing with itself This might be the first example Of the internet having a squabble with itself You know, there's a couple things I have to ask Tom Which is, first of all, how are you? How's your health? Because I have not spoken to you

Since you and your lovely wife contracted coronavirus The whole country knew that you guys were ill And I followed like everyone else Your progress and that you're doing better But how do you feel? Well, it was interesting to find ourselves These celebrity canaries in a coal mine That was...

You know, at one point I was saying, honey Why didn't we parlay this into some reality show That we could have really made some good e-channel money off of We could have... We got an iPhone We could have followed each other around the apartment there For a while, slapped on some commercials Cut to it and get a nice check

We were in Australia You know, Australia is the size of the United States And it has the population in California So it's actually a long necklace of a lot of people Living on the two coastlines And it's an island nation So they know exactly who comes in Who comes out, what plane they were on

What ship they were on So they were really on top of everything about COVID Actually, they had told us about COVID down there in February And we were tested on May 11th So they were really on top of it So they put us in the hospital And literally like Andromeda strain version of the hospital They had everything but those robotic arms

That would unscrew caps for us and stuff on the other side of glass They were doing that to keep an eye on us For our own health In case our fever spiked Our hearts went kablooey Our lungs filled up Which did not happen We had varying degrees of discomfort

But really they also put us in isolation So that we would not give the COVID to anybody else That was the other side of it And after the two weeks that we were down there I got over my crippling body aches That hurt Incredible fatigue And inability to concentrate on anything for more than 90 minutes

Which was tricky because that is my natural state As a matter of fact, I'm going to top out here In about another half hour guys And Rita had some much more physiologic She had bad nausea And she lost her sense of taste and smell You're kind of like complimenting each other in those And then we were okay

Then we eventually came back to the lockdown And everything that was going on And social distancing would have you And we had since been... I don't mean to be a harbinger As so many people in diocese at podiums now say Well now I'm not a scientist I'm not a doctor of course

But here's what I think We were tested positive for the antibodies Meaning we have good stuff in our plasma Because of our different travel histories I was able to go and give my plasma My plasma chock-a-block with antibodies I was able to do it twice And they can take that plasma

And my understanding is And again, I'm not a doctor or a scientist They were able to give those to as many as four people Who were suffering the more serious aspects of the corona 19 So possibly helping them out Evidence shows that it's possible to be a great add Now but since then I've heard from the very same doctor who took those tests

You really want this text from a doctor At a world-renowned medical facility That says to you, hey Tom Looking forward to seeing you again Listen, if you want to know about the new research Against your antibodies I can fill you in, parentheses Hint, it's not good news

Close parentheses So I'm waiting to find out if, you know The more, as the journey continues on With all of this stuff What's the latest scoop? What is the implying you could have a backlog? Yeah, the implicated And I've read this in some other circumstances

Again, I just, hey I just watched the same TV shows you do On Tiger King They said that the COVID-19 It's possible There was a scene in Ozark Where they made mention that Maybe the antibodies don't linger as long

To the point of complete immunity from it So we... Yeah, I've been watching Exclusively the Monsters and the Love Boat And there's no mention of COVID Which meets me thinking Al, Grandpa Lewis didn't have anything to say About sucking blood

And what might be inside Inside the blood I know you're an old TV fan I know that you go back and watch those shows I do not, sir I must say You must I've given up on that

I realized, okay I'll be 64 about another week or so Conan, I'm on the back nine I don't need to go I'm not going to take a mulligan On the third hole now I've done it Got it

And you know quite frankly After the opening title sequences Of any of those old shows I'm not really that much involved In the drama All I have to say is you're a fool The later lost in spaces Where Jonathan Harris

As Dr. Zachary Smith Decides to take the series In a completely different direction Is some of the best TV viewing to this day And will cure you of any disease I promise you Okay, first of all This might be why your career

Is cratering down to the level of Podcast now, Conan The other aspect of it When it comes Okay, this is a sum total Of my nostalgia TV If by happenstance I come across an old

Cartward Adam West Batman episode The only reason I will watch it To his conclusion is If it's a villain that I had somehow missed In its first incarnation I've seen Mr. Freeze I've seen False Face I've seen the Mad Hatter

I've seen of course the Joker And the Penguin And the Riddler And the Catwoman I've seen the Beatles On the big four But unless it's somebody I didn't see The Siren

You know who the Siren was? Yes, it was Joan Collins Joan Collins, that's right Who could sing a note That would make men lose their memories Or something like that Yeah, and it didn't work on Batgirl It didn't work on, yeah, that's right

Yvonne Craig, she survived So I've seen it And that's the end of it I don't need Time Tunnel I don't need Andy and Mayberry Every now and again Give me 10 seconds of Buddy and Sally On the Alan Brady show

There in the writer's room With a piano But other than that I got other fish too There's a season of alone I want to keep up with On the History Channel That's good

That's fantastic No, well, let's talk about that Because first of all I got a link to your film Greyhound last night And I was told nothing And I knew nothing I knew nothing about what to expect

I didn't know what it was about It could have been about Off-track bedding I had no idea I sat down They gave me a series of codes To execute That was like

Accessing a nuclear missile And it worked Well, I had my son with me Who's 14 And very tech savvy And he helped me And we got this thing up and running And we pulled our

We closed the shades And closed the door And we started the movie And I love it I absolutely love Greyhound It is a fascinating story It's a great World War II story It's wonderfully told

And I loved you in it And what I didn't know Until I saw the credits When it said Written by Tom Hanks Oh, yeah We slapped that on the end Just not to scare the children

I didn't realize you wrote this And I've also As I think I've mentioned to you before I'm a fan of your writing I really like your collection Of short stories I think you're a terrific writer Was this your first screenplay

That I'm aware of? I wrote the screenplay For that thing you do Yes, that's right That's right I wrote the screenplay For Larry Crown Hold your applause, please

Please, hold your applause We don't allow We don't allow applause Thank goodness Because the absence of it For Larry Crown Really would have hurt my feelings Although I must say

I love it every moment And I've written on the episodic Some of the episodic stuff That we have done Which is a different beast But I bought the book Based on C.S. Forester's The Good Shepherd is what it's called

Which we could not call it Because it's like nine movies Called The Good Shepherd That is out And I bought it because of the cover It was a used book I bought from a bookstore That is now out of business

In New York City And it had a picture on the cover That sort of broke my heart It was a drawing Of this aged grey-haired Beaten-up guy Who, if I was going to pull him From a modern-day parlance

He looked like He had the physical demeanor Of Donald Trump walking From that helicopter after Tulsa Into the White House I undone the Ligard Depressed, down, exhausted And yet he was on the railing of a ship

And there's a ship on the horizon That's burning And there's a guy in a helmet Right behind him That's sending a signal And I thought, wait, what's that? What's that guy's story? And the book is that

It's literally, actually It's more than 72 I think it's 72.40 And it's like four days in the life Of this aged guy Who should be retired But instead, Pearl Harbor comes along And so he's not going to get out of the Navy

He's given the command of a destroyer That is, because of a seniority He's given command of getting a convoy Across the Atlantic And he spends five days of his life Without sleeping, down in coffee And fighting off wolf packs and Nazi subs And in reading through it

It was a procedural I mean, you know, it was little like Start, continue, finish, that's it And I had, I ended up learning So many things that I had no knowledge of You look, we've all seen the movies, right? Most of our naval, most of our understanding Of Navy and ships and combat

Is actually because of the Starship Enterprise Helmsman, Mr. Sulu, navigator Instant check off, communicator, talker Lieutenant Uhuru, confidant, Spock Mr. Uhuru, you have a con, that kind of stuff That's how we know most of our naval battle terminology And geography and strategy Which actually helped in the course of reading this book

But then I found out all kinds of other stuff And as is, you know, sometimes artistic want I just started adapting it as a In a fever dream of wanting to see a movie like this I worked on it about six years or so And just kept going back and adding Little I filled it up, it was like a deck of cards That had 260 aces in it

I had to take cards out of it In order to make it actually a landable kind of project That could work with a director And Aaron Schneider came on and he just He wanted to shoot and he wanted to test the material And lo and behold, much to my surprise We were able to make, are you ready for this? We were able to make a low budget movie

About World War II for a mere $42 million How's that? How's that? That's a pretty low budget movie now And you took $35 off the top Well, let me tell you now, I worked for my I worked for my straight fee of $300 a week I did get free haircuts and sandwiches

Anytime I wanted to in the course of And that's my perk package as a whole I love anything that depicts World War II Because I think people forget And they think that it was a foregone conclusion That we would win that war And they think it's a foregone conclusion That, well, yeah, we kicked those Nazi asses

And we won I love any movie, it's Saving Private Ryan I think did it really brilliantly too But this movie shows you What a hard fought thing it was How the technology wasn't that good How difficult it was I think this film takes place right after Pearl Harbor

Which there's a whole year there Where there's no good news Coming out of the Atlantic or Pacific Theater World War II really isn't going that well for us And it's a very dicey proposition And that's when this movie takes place And so I love my son watching that Yeah, the book landed on this thing

That I keep coming back to again and again And I use the word stasis to describe it This kind of like, it's this moment In which nobody has any idea When this is going to end Cut to COVID-19 reference here, please 1942, the Nazis have kicked ass everywhere they went The Japanese Empire has done the same

America has yet to win a battle anywhere And there were sayings amongst anybody Who was in the service of jokes About when they were going, when it was going to be done Golden Gate in 1948 Meaning maybe the war would be over by 1948 There was even a saying Get it done in 51

Meaning the war would last 10 years There is a great writer I'm having a cranial play to, Alan First Who only writes novels of espionage In World War II prior to the Nazi defeat In Stalingrad Because it was not until then That the enemy had proven to be beatable

And as of Stalingrad Which was not until 1942 It wasn't until the Nazis retreated From Stalingrad that there was any clue That the war was going to be winnable By anybody other than them And the same thing happened to a degree In the Pacific

So Forrester captured this month Because not only is it right in the middle Of the beginning of the war In which there's no clue as to when it's going to end Or how long it's going to take Who's going to die, who's going to live But Ernie Krauss, who is the captain of the Greyhound He is in the middle of a thing called the Black Pit

Which is that part of the North Atlantic In which safety is unreachable on both sides If he turns around to head back to where he came from He still has three days of being vulnerable You can't get air cover You're on your own You're on your own for about four or five days And you just hope that you're smart enough

And lucky enough that you survive And that equipoise, if I'm using the equilibrium Is constantly at play there The status between survival and death Is literally a decision away from you And that's what I loved about the book Because it captured in the same details Of how good a cup of coffee can feel

At three o'clock in the morning Or what a few moments of heavy REM sleep On your feet can do for your body And the sun comes up And absolutely nothing's different You're not really that much closer to safety You have nothing but a whole game of life Before you and every turn is a roll of the dice

I cannot recommend this movie enough It's fantastic and it's the first My son turned to me at one point And I think we were only 20 minutes in And he said it's only been 20 minutes And there's been so much action And the race starts right away It's absolutely amazing

We decided to pack as much as we could Into 88 minutes as possible I'm glad you liked it I didn't just like it I liked it a lot The thing we always come around to Is the danger of all of this stuff Is we're just making a museum piece here

Is it just going to be a thing Where you kind of dig the uniforms And the nomenclature And the goofy old telephones Are we really going to see that bloop Bloop of the radar stuff again But if you do it from a position Of no one really knows what's going on

And none of this stuff is guaranteed I always like it to see a movie Where everybody says, Jesus I wonder what I would have done If I had to have that job The other thing about the Starship Enterprise Is it's always the same people on the bridge There's never a dog watch

There's never a morning watch It's always the same people So we went through this thing I was fighting this battle As the cranky actor who just said We have to have four completely different watches Meaning a completely different cast For the four watches every day

Because they rotate So it's three groups of four guys You're on four, four hours You're off for eight hours You're on for four hours You're off for eight hours So I kept saying We need that many watches

And just as producers would come along And actually I'm supposedly one of the producers Because it's out of the company They said, do you know what that's going to do To our scheduling You don't have many actors We have to have on hold in order to do So I just kept fighting, you know

All right, can we just have one group That's during battle stations And then two other groups that come in Just to mix it up So we get some more faces in there You end up fighting that kind of like the All right, it's just a fake movie for crying out loud We can't be nearly as real as we want to

Dang it, rats There was one more If you watch the movie There's a moment It was one of our first days of shooting On the bridge And it was a new set And it looks real

It looks like it's made out of steel plate It's not, it's made out of plywood It looks like, and there is a leak That comes in through the roof Of the pilot house, the bridge And it dribbles down on my little helmet Right next to me It's like, our boat is leaking

Is this how fake this movie is? We, we, we literally We have a blemish in our hull That water can get in through this And it's in the movie I said, can you take that We don't have the special effects budget To remove the leak optically

So, a leak comes in on my head As I'm trying to chase down Do you ever think that in your dotage That began four years ago, yes Yes, yes Do you think in your, in your late, late life When, when the mind's really starting to go That you're going to believe

That you fought in World War II Oh, absolutely, oh, absolutely Yeah, yeah I really do think you're going to Insist on full military honors At your funeral Things that you think that you're entitled to Because you've been in so many of these movies

The kids will wheel me off To point to hoke in Normandy And I'll say, yeah, we, I came up The cliffs right there That's right, and I'll never forget I squatted here and opened a can Of sea rations Nothing ever tasted better

Because I'll tell you, my, you have no bigger Fan in this world Than my father who adores All of your films and he is He is, he is an elderly gentleman He's still, I think, quite vain about his age But he fought bravely in the Civil War For the right side

I want to get that out there Took a mini-ball in the wilderness Yeah, he did Shattered his femur He has watched many of you I think almost every project you've done That's in any way involved World War II, he's watched them all

And he is now, as he gets older My brothers and I talk about this We're pretty sure he thinks he fought in the war And he didn't He was just a little, he was too young So, well, sometimes he'll say That was my war, that was my war And I'll say this to him sometimes

You didn't fight in that war You were in Milbury, Massachusetts And your job was to ride a bicycle Every now and then to the power plant To make sure that it was okay at night Because he was the, he and his father Used to drive around Milbury To make sure everyone's lights were out

Milbury, Massachusetts Conan, there are times when I'm on a commuter flight Because I have to go from a press junket in London And I have to fly to Paris To talk about the Da Vinci Code to the press And on the flight over I'm looking out the window of the plane Sure, I'm seeing flock wolves and measure smiths come at me

Yes, yes I hope, jeez, this is my 24th mission I sure hope we make it And get back Are we at the aiming point yet? I mean, we gotta take out that bridge, right? We gotta hit that rolling stockyard there In Bremen or wherever it is

No, my father says that he was convinced as a child That Hitler, throughout the war, my dad was, I don't know He's like, you know, at the time, I think he was 12 or 13 He was convinced that Hitler thought of little else Than the power station in Milbury, Mass And how to get it I consume massive amounts of war movies And I do think that when I'm completely senile

I'm gonna be insisting that I be buried in Arlington You're gonna say That's right You're not allowed That's right I'll say I insist I want the flag, I want the gun I want the taps, I want taps played

I want my kids there to be beside me saying, you know He's still a hero to us He fought very bravely on film And we recognize That's right You don't understand the import of this question How many shots before lunch? I ask that question many a time

I know that you don't like to watch yourself Which is so strange because You're one of the few people I can think of that I think Just about everybody likes to see show up in a film Or universally really loved when you show up in a film And you seem to know what to do when you're up there I'm just one fuck you away from blowing that image Right off the screen

I'm always aware of that Always just why don't you just leave me the fuck alone For three minutes While I finish buying shoes How about you do that, pal You're always just one step away from I'm hard pressed to think of what you would have to do I think you'd have to pistol whip somebody

You know, for like 40 minutes It's just really beating on them Just to whip a guy who was too slow At a Dunkin' Donuts and You don't like watching yourself And one thing I can relate to is you don't You didn't used to like your voice You really didn't like your voice

No, I still don't I mean I have this kind of like squeaky thing I can't relate, yeah Exactly I was going to make that joke on this podcast Welcome to Squeaky Voice of Go-Go With Conan O'Brien Kip from Boozing Buddies

Here we are Wow, it's so great to have you Oh my God, let's get back to Annie's room everybody You know, the thing is When parents are excited to meet me With their kids in elevators They all say to the kids, this is Woody This is Woody, say hello to Woody

And the kid is looking at this, you know, me And I'm not Woody, Woody is a thing And I say, close your eyes, kid Close your eyes And okay, imagine Woody And then I speak in my normal voice And they assume Woody is in the elevator with him Come on guys, we got to get back to

Annie's room with their eyes It is Woody, you know what I'm saying The thing is, first of all I don't know how much you look at yourself On your shows or something like that I do not, I do not I've seen me, you know, I've seen it There's no surprises there

I don't rush in order to Go back, go back, I think that was me on Cinemax Oh look, it's me and Hooch You know, I don't Can't say I go back Can't say I do that I do remember once Being invited to the

To have, it was a great dinner I was invited, Regis Philbin organized A dinner between with Regis Myself and Jack Parr Oh my god And I was in heaven, Jack Parr The Tonight Show host For Johnny Carson

And a really brilliant guy And so I got to Regis' house because I was going to Ride with him to go meet Jack Parr at this restaurant And I was so excited and I got there And this is when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Was really huge

Three nights a week and I went in And I think Joy said he'll be right out He's watching tonight's episode Of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire And I was like I hate it already Oh, that's dedication You're watching yourself say

Is that your final answer And I couldn't I was stunned But I guess, you know, he's a perfectionist He's the man working hard He wanted to make sure that That the guy got his money, you know Conan, there's been times I've done your show

And I know when it's on And I make sure I'm in transit From one place to another I can accidentally tune in the TV And see whether or not We've killed together or not Whether or not the bit worked Yeah

I'll leave it up to the side, guys Somebody else can tell me Well, it's a different era now, too This is an absolute true story I'm not kidding you This is not podcast hyperbole The very first thing I ever saw on YouTube

This was maybe It was, but it's Let's say it's in its infancy We're sitting around the dinner table And I got the kids there And my kids love nothing better Than to point out what an absolute idiot And doofus their father is

Despite everything And the conversation My older kids Made a reference to a video That Danny Acroyd and I made To accompany The release of Dragonet The movie that we made

To a song called City of Crime That was back when In order to promote a movie You do a video and it would be on Friday night Videos or something like that And so we made a video called City of Crime And it was Choreographed by Paula Abdul

And we shot it over two days And it's me and Danny Acroyd Dancing around like our characters It's one of the worst things That has ever been committed to video It's just It's It's expert in a number of ways

Because all the dancers The choreography is great The dancers were real professional In the meantime here's essentially Skinny voice and bug man That are trying to pretend we know what we're doing And we were talking about it And my son

The younger son Oh dad I gotta see this I gotta see it, where is it Probably on a VHS cassette Somewhere buried down in the basement Because I had a copy of it And lo and behold my oldest son pulls out His however

The laptop or whatever it was using at the time And pulled it up on Facebook Excuse me, YouTube So the first time I see anything on YouTube It's one of the most painful It's show business experiences You know Next to that episode of the Love Boat

There's nothing I would love to disappear Guys, more than And it's what I see on YouTube So I've been against that damn thing ever since I don't No No crime is forgotten No crime is forgotten

And it's seconds away and anyone can watch it Never goes away My awkward interview with Eartha Kitt in 1993 Is right there if you want to see it And We'll live forever in aliens Right now we're viewing it At a time where they were taking extras

From the movies that you did And they would put it on the DVDs In order to say, oh it's included extras So you want to get it and I always think Why in the world would you want anybody to see that Footage of me stumbling To the set with a cup of coffee I don't, please let's burn this

Let's bury it in a vault somewhere No, it's everywhere, can't escape Every sin we've committed is right there For all to see Very few for me Some would say a career without a hitch That's right Not a bump in the road

As I like when I do your show I love that every Seat has a little placard that says Conan O'Brien finishes every Performance with a standing ovation So I love that That is guaranteed into every taping Of team Coco there, I think that's a great thing

Oh my god, yeah, yeah The biggest waste of time on television Is the undeserved standing ovation That everybody gets Honestly, is there such a thing As the biggest waste of time On television, I think That's deep there, man

You're right, you're right You're right, I apologize I went too far I wanted to briefly mention to people This is an observation I've had I met you, I think in 1988 when I was a punk writer You were part of the boiler room boys

I called you You had a room with Smigel Greg Daniels, Bob Odin Kirk Bob Odin Kirk and you, yeah You killed guys There were some, I think a couple of shows I did, you guys got like three pieces on the air Yeah, we did

It was a good time And I remembered always being really Excited when you showed up But you've proven a theory that I had I noticed it, I think you were One of the first people That was my first big gig in television And I remembered

Every time that you would host You would stay up practically All night with the writers I remembered one point walking Through the conference room At night, like three in the morning And you were lying down On the conference table

Trying to compose a sketch Now everybody else Everybody else would dip in And dip out and try and hear what everyone was up to And then they'd go off to dinner with Lorne We did come back for a little bit You were alone In your dedication

To making it a great show More so than any host While I was there And I Have since told people That you're an example I think Bruce Springsteen's an example There's certain people I think of where

It's not an accident But man, I just I couldn't believe how hard you worked Well, it's a great hang I was just trying to get the hang You laugh your head off When you're there There is some awfully good ideas

But part of it is I couldn't believe I was there I'm in the world-famous 17th floor With the conference room and the whole bit I wanted to soak that up That was Hey, Lorne's a fascinating guy But after a while

I don't need more Bob Hope stories at dinner You know I'd love to compare Notes with him as much as anybody else But eventually, you know The same Jack Benny anecdote Plays itself My favorite game with Lorne

Is which Paul is he talking about Is it Simon and McCartney And so I'd literally play this game Myself where I'd be with him and he'd go Paul called and I'd go, okay That could go the other way And he's gonna come by and he might bring his guitar That doesn't help

And he's still Kind of angry at his partner And I'm like, doesn't help You haven't had The qualifier yet Yeah, yeah It doesn't really want to talk that much About the 60s although he'll play that stuff

But he wants to do the later stuff Still can't do it I'm gonna see him at the Hampton Still won't do it I think I've been through 45 Box, it's like opening that box In the Da Vinci Code where it's like, no This doesn't get me there, I still don't know

How much do you sort of like Relive in the same way Like Ernie Banks relives Ball games at Wrigley Field Regarding SNL I mean, you were there for A substantial amount of time, every era Of SNL is historic in its own way

I was there at a very Fortuitous time because I was there with The, you know, Love It Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon Jan Hooks Nora Dunn Nora Dunn, just great Great cast, but then Mike Meyer

Showed up while I was there Chris Rock showed up while I was there Adam Sandler showed up while I was there So it really was this golden Time to be on Cernot Live But I have to tell you, great memories But also almost PTSD Well, yeah, a lot of nervous breakdowns

A lot of Machiavellian stabs in the back A lot of disappointments A lot of, how did this happen? I used to wander down To 6A, which unbeknownst To me would later become my studio At the time it was Dave's studio And I would sit behind

There was a cloth that they draped over Dave's desk Which ended up being right where my desk was For 16 years, and I would sit behind That desk and try And write sometimes behind his desk On the late night, you know, on the late night With David Letterman studio

And also two of my moments of absolute fear Were on camera, and they were with you One was One of the first big things I did on TV Was a sketch where you did a monologue About how people say I'm the nicest guy in the world, but I'm really not It's just, you know, it's

Ridiculous, it's not true And I'm tired of this, Tom Hanks is the nicest guy In the world, it's just not true Now, if you'll excuse me a minute, and then you walk off And the camera follows you live And you, do you remember this, you perform All these miracles You're Christlike

Stay away from this horse, Mr. Hanks He bites, and I pet him No, he's just a misunderstood Creature So I am waiting And this is live, and you Have no idea what it's like I mean, you do, but I'm talking to

People listening to this podcast The fear of You're a punk kid At some point, Tom Hanks is going to come by At the opening of the show, which at the time Is watched by, you know, a million Eight billion people, yeah And Tom Hanks is going to come by

And my job Was to stand there holding the horse And then my line was You go, ah, look at that guy, and I go Oh, don't touch him, Mr. Hanks That horse bites everyone And you go, nonsense He's just a misunderstood creature

And you pet him, and I go, wow So you're coming And I just keep repeating my line Don't, and of course I'm doing the thing We all do when we're in our heads too much Don't bite that horse, Hanks No, don't Tom the Hanks Wait, don't bite them

And while I'm trying to do it Do you know who the musical guest was that week? Of course you don't It was a newly Solo Keith Richards Oh my god, with the expensive winos Yeah, that's right He was at the

Crafts Food Service table next to me We're in pixie boots And he chooses that time While you're walking towards me You have about four interactions that you have to have Before you get to me And he goes, horses, right?

Horses, and I'm just going like What? And of course I'd love to talk to Keith Richards, but not now And he went, horses When you think about it They're the ones that really Brought us through civilization Without horses

It was everything like He was explaining how man did it Literally on the backs of horses And he thought that I was the guy who owned the horse And I almost said to him Shut the fuck up Keith Richards And your idea is bullshit

Tom Hanks is on his way And I've got shit to do So I set my line and the other one was The first five-timers club sketch Oh, that was a biggie, yeah I'm Sean and you come in the door And I'm supposed to put a robe on you And I'll never forget you come in the door

And all I have to do You go, hello Sean And I go, Mr. Hanks Is take a silk robe and put it on you First, silk robe Catches on And you can see it a little bit You can see it

It's just a millisecond But for me, I saw my entire life Flash before my eyes Because I thought if I can't get this Jacket off, I'm dead I'm dead forever But I get it off and then I go to put it on you And one of the sleeves catches

Sleeves was inside out, yeah You remember this You've probably been angry about it ever since No, I never saw it after it aired So I would never I'd never see your father look at it Describing something That everybody goes through

I have worked with I've worked with the greatest actors and actresses In ever and everybody Starts mumbling to themselves Their lines over and over again And paces around back and forth Meryl, Paul, Newman They all, everybody

Who is great You see them at some point just pace it around In the corner of the sound stage going We're going to have to get out of here right now We're going to have to get out of here Right now We have to get out of here Right

We have to get out They all When we're making the post And by the way Everybody is pinching themselves because Of Lady Meryl Who couldn't be cooler in the groovyest way possible

And we have this I know we got some big Herang that we have to go at too And it's just me and her And I was looking around for her Anybody seen Meryl around She's in the living room Of the set

We weren't using so it had all this equipment and stuff And she's sitting on the couch With her Cheap three ring Binder like from CVS drugs With the script in it And I see her she's doing that thing And I go over and I find I said

Hey Meryl Yeah You want to just run the scene Run the dialogue Can we please run this dialogue So It's Everybody thinks that there's some high level of

No at the end of the day man You just got to Figure out how to do it somehow And tell the truth Everybody goes Everybody does it The other thing about backstage All the scenes backstage

This is one of the miracles that why Lauren is a genius Anytime there's a scene backstage It started then there's always Some anal A Vegas show girl And an Elvis lookalike They're not part of the sketch

They're just populating what backstage At a big show What sketch has an Elvis lookalike in it You start waiting for it For the rest of the show It's just for that one little bit I always wanted to be in that Show business

I always wanted to be in the show business Where there's someone dressed as an alien backstage Someone dresses as a show girl And I love it when someone's in a costume And they lose their temper backstage Because I've seen it happen many times Where someone's dressed as a bear And they lose it

About at someone else backstage And they're yelling at them Wearing a costume that completely Invalidates their dignity When Peter Scalari and I Were doing Buzzing Buddies We were the only two guys on the show And we were on stage 25 at Paramount Studios

The women were all on the other side They had new dressing rooms We had the old dressing rooms That were closest to the makeup Hair and makeup room And so we would be leaning in each other's little door And I would have high heels Pantyhose

A wig on Lip gloss Not the dress, we'd just be there And Peter would be at his desk with a robon And he's got his puffy slippers And he's got his girdle and all that And we'd be talking about how hard it is Look, I'm just trying to raise a family

The woman in my life We have these discussions About where we think we are It couldn't have been a more In-congruous conversation Yes, yes, yes You know, Kierkegaard once said About the artistic condition

Let me adjust my hose For a second Well, I want to make sure I feel guilty about keeping you so long You're Tom Hanks You know what, quick Let's hurry up and in so we can go meet somewhere And do this for another two hours

I heard that you go for walks With some of our good friends Yes, I do When I found out from one of my good friends I want to say, can you not give me a call Can I not join this walk Around the neighborhood? I don't feel, and this is me being completely honest

I don't have the status To contact Tom Hanks and say we're going For a walk Sona, back me up Don't I perpetually feel... No, he doesn't have it You and I were once talking about The latest book

Shipmates by Sarah Valk We share a lot of the stuff You were telling me I was sitting at the coffee place Which I know And you were sitting there Reading Sarah Valk's new book And I can only think, I'll meet you there

We'll just sit there and read it together And we'll have coffee and say Have you read this thing on page 77? This is amazing You shouldn't put that out there I would love to take a walk with you Who take a walk A socially distanced walk

By the way, how little is being asked Of us, honestly That's the least you can do Literally, wear a mask And wash your hands, that is in fact The least you can do Just that little bit Don't infringe on my right

To not do that That's my god damn right To not do that I believe it is the 19th article The constitution That allows me not to do stuff I do not have to have an FM band On my radio, I do not

You know what, this has been A pure delight I want to say, you've been I think I said this to you once And you laughed and I don't know why But I said, I don't know why you're so nice to me But you've been incredibly kind to me And you are

A great man And a great human being I really mean that I loved talking to you today I heard this story about you That made me laugh even though you weren't there Because somebody else told it about me You were growing up and you were essentially

Lace, Curtin, Irish, Boston Red-haired, small house Big family, big Catholic family A lot of kids And at some point Somebody threw, it was in the kitchen They threw a potato My mother, we'll see that

My mother, Marty Short loves this story The reason this The story works because My mom, her lifelong mission Is that we would not be cheap Irish We would be Lace, Curtin, respectable Irish And so she would always say We're not, you know, the O'Leary's are cheap Irish

And the O'Malley's are cheap Irish But the O'Brien's We, and she would speak like She spoke like Margaret Dumont From the Marx Brothers movies She would say, we are Lace, Curtin, Irish And she's also She's got a real job

She's working as a lawyer and she's on the phone And she's talking to a client When all hell breaks loose And all six kids are fighting And making noise in the kitchen And she wants us to be quiet But she can't yell at us Because that would betray to this client

That we're not Lace, Curtin, Irish That we're cheap Irish And she's talking to get our attention And she picks up a potato Which is on the counter And she goes to toss it lightly Into the middle of the room But because she's upset and angry

She throws it too hard We duck, it smashes through the kitchen window Sails out and the neighbors Are here yelling And then a potato goes smashing Through the window And we were mud, it was over In our neighborhood

And she did us again She couldn't throw a shalely I know, she might as well Have thrown a leprechaun It couldn't be a pint glass of stout It had to be a See, because when I heard that story I just thought, okay

If there is a God of comedy timing I have a written down address Of this guy I want to go talk to Named Conan O'Brien I'm in a section of Boston I'm not familiar with I can't really see the numbers I know he's Irish

He comes from a big Catholic family O'Brien's, this looks like an Irish neighbor I wonder which house Is Conan's I think it's the one with the potato That just came I think that's it Hey Conan, I'm Tom

You want to read some servile together? I would, but this is 1977 And you're never going to amount To anything, Tom Hanks Let me make sure That I mention again, Greyhound Is fantastic And we give all the information up top

On how you can watch it But it is just a Delightful harrowing tale You know what's funny is that People just describe this Because people don't know this But when you're in show business And they want you to see a movie

They burn your name in giant editions Did it say Conan O'Brien on it? Now I'm okay with that Because I have a big ego But at the end you do this very nice tribute To the people that Just a text about the people The number of ships that were lost

And it's underneath My giant name This tribute To true heroes in World War II I promise you And then I turned to my son and I said Wouldn't it be kind of funny if When they sent this movie out for streaming

On the Conan O'Brien version So I had my name on it and my son said No dad, that wouldn't be funny It's a really good movie Well hey, this has been great to talk to You'll do it anytime and let's see each other As soon as possible. That goes to everybody Adam and Aaron and Joanna

And Sona and Jen Whitney Tankred is one of my crack team Of show business professionals Invaluable of service in every way, shape and form It's a credit to your star power that I've never seen most of these people before I swear to God We don't have that many people

I think we have many interlopers I am Butterpuppet and they are my masters All right, hey Tom My best to you And my absolute best to To the lovely Rita And I hope I come across you again

But God bless you for doing this And I also do want to mention Your book of short stories I pick through that often And I really Impressed, I'm very impressed with that book Uncommon Type I'm just putting a plug out there

For Uncommon Type because It was very well reviewed, it did well And it's out there and get it and they're just Really terrific short stories I will confess that there were times I would go into Bookstores specifically To find that my disc

The copies of my book severely discounted On the lower shelves And I would take however many copies they had And move some best seller Down to the lower shelf and put Mine back up You know it was like number three Something like that and if I could

Rip off that discount sticker I would do that Without having any damage done Well thanks very much, thanks so much All right, well sir I salute you Peace and love Peace and love says Ringo Peace and love Peace and love

No, one was the one Thanks guys, see you soon Hey thank you Tom, bye bye Music Okay Conan O'Brien here And Conan and the Chill Chums Is that a Z in it? Oh man, it doesn't so far

But now it's feeling like it should Does it though? Why not go all the way Go all the way with, you know what I like it that this is a summer version Of the show, I want you to picture me now In sort of board shorts And like a tank top A lot of white skin

What? When I picture it, it's very long Very white limbs Yeah you're wearing a wife beater but that's White yet somehow darker than the rest of the body So now in my defense I think you're forgetting my blotchy freckles And

The weird red color I get Exposed either even to indirect sunlight For eight seconds Did you guys remember There was a G.I. Joe doll in the 80s That when you put it in the sun It would change colors really quickly Oh yeah, Zartan

Yeah, Zartan, yeah, he died of skin cancer He's the only G.I. Joe To die of melanoma That was his code name That's cool, did you have G.I. Joe's? I still do Okay, you said that like it was cool I was admitting a fault

Yeah, I had a G.I. Joe I love G.I. Joe and in the 70s This would be like 1973 Or 74, they had a G.I. Joe Who was African American and he had a beard And that's the G.I. Joe I wanted I thought he was the coolest G.I. Joe

And He had a real beard Meaning it wasn't painted on, it had little fuzz So I had this G.I. Joe Loved him and then I came up with a name for him Doven Doven? Yeah, I wanted a name that no one had ever heard of before

So I couldn't call him Greg or Steve Or Joe or Yes, that's him That was my G.I. Joe I'm putting him up on the Zoom Yeah, that's the G.I. Joe I got That's Doven That's Doven

That's what I got Here's where things get kind of bad I had Doven for a while and I really loved G.I. Joe and then After a while I was like I think I would have had him like a year Maybe I could lose the beard And because it was fuzz

I went up and I got I wasn't shaving yet but I got my dad's Shaving kit And I shaved off Doven's beard But Pieces of plastic came with it So It's all screwed up

It looked like he had a really bad Skin condition Oh Doven I know and I felt so bad I was like Doven what have I done to you Little chunks of his skin came out And it looked like was there a fire Is this smallpox

What happened Yeah, I felt bad about that We'll put a picture of Doven up on the Team Coco Social Those G.I. Joe's look them up though The beard was strange It would have been better if they had painted Because I don't know what they stuck

Into these G.I. Joe's faces But it was very strange And the G.I. Joe's themselves Don't look happy about it Yeah and they've all got Mighty thick beards Well these are real men These are the Sam Elliott's of action figures

Yeah Minus the penis Sorry There's no penis there It's weird Nothing I liked I loved my G.I. Joe I really liked my G.I. Joe and I was

He seemed pretty familiar with his anatomy You'd have to undress them at some point You do you have to Well you do to change their clothes Every night and bathe them What And then hold them close to your chest Oh Doven

It was a forbidden love A love between a man and his G.I. Joe Where's Doven today I could have survived once I messed up His face Which I feel bad about Doven You guys got any big summer plans

No Here's the problem There's COVID So that means there's no travel right now Then the other thing is I do like to go up the coast sometimes And go to the beach But guess what our beach has now

COVID So yeah There's great white sharks in the waters Up near Santa Barbara And if you go up there to go swimming Those are the really good beaches are Have you seen the sharks Yes I have the juveniles

I've been in the water When a fin has gone by Shut up It was a juvenile So I don't think they mean much harm So I saw the juvenile and I was just thrashing And I was also wearing a bathing suit Made of parma ham

Oh god It's weird he keeps saying juvenile Yeah it is weird But you're stressing it Like I'm a shark expert Well I hate to say this I hate to brag

But I did run into a shark expert Who was on the beach watching the sharks Cool brag And hold on I didn't get there yet I was moving in and he started explaining me The science of the sharks and he said These are juveniles

And I said ah young ones eh And he went we call them juveniles And so I thought I'm going to start calling them juveniles But then you had to shame me For calling them juveniles But you're not a shark expert Aren't I now because I talked to a shark expert Oh yeah that's how it works

So shark expertise is viral I'm just telling you I talked to him for six minutes He told me some stuff about sharks And they're in the waters I mean I don't fear for my own safety Most of my work is recorded I think I would get a nice bump You know in attention

Right to be attacked by a shark I think it would be a lot of people saying hey I hear before he got eaten He made some pretty good podcasts Let's check him out I think everyone here would profit It would be great for us Even just a shark bite

It would be great But a shark bite would be really cool That would totally Get your rep I'm going to try Just try to get bitten by a shark Here's the thing, I don't want to lose a limb If it's a juvenile

It's probably not going to take a limb It's a young shark That's so cool that you know that I think you do want to lose a limb First of all my limbs are very long So if a shark tried to eat one of my limbs It would be like someone trying to eat a whole Bowl of fusilli pasta with one

Slurp The shark would be like eating the leg And there would be like oh I got to keep going I got to keep going and then he would look around nervously Like you do in an Italian restaurant You can't cut the pasta, you got to just keep going Yeah it's lady without the tramp Exactly, yeah and the shark would keep

Slurping and slurping and slurping And there would be more long white leg And more and more and more And a waiter would come over and say Can I help you sir? Shake and fern Slurp Okay

Just a shark bite Okay well no one needs to hear me Describe at length a juvenile shark Eating up one of my legs like fusilli pasta That's an image that we've all heard Way too often That's it, bye, we'll see you next week This has been a Team Cocoa Production

An association withany You might find your review featured on a future episode Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Cocoa 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 Cocoa Production Cocoa Production, in association with Ear World.