Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - Alex Edelman

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

Comedian Alex Edelman stops by to talk with writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell about getting friendly heckled during his first Conan set, being Modern Orthodox, achieving a UK following after a successful solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, working on Saturday Night Seder, and why it’s important to have high standards for yourself. Plus, Mike and Jessie answer a listener’s question about what happens to great bits that don’t make it on the Conan show. Alex Edelman’s first Conan stand-up set: https://classic.teamcoco.com/node/102802 Got a question for Inside Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone] and e-mail us at [e-mail] For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com

And now, it's time for Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Welcome to Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. We are your hosts. I'm Jessi Gaskell, and with me as always, I'm Mike Sweeney. And with us always on our resume is that we're writers for The Conan Show. We are. Yeah. And this podcast where we go behind the scenes of The Conan Show and but it's a springboard. Yeah, it's kind of really a just a pretense to get to talk to people about comedy. But yeah, we talk a lot about comedy. And we love to talk to people who have a connection with the show. And we're excited to be back.

We had a little break. We were preempted by the MLB playoffs. And now it's the World Series. And the Dodgers are in the World Series. I'm so excited for them. Which is exciting if you're a Dodger fan. Or Tampa Bay. I'm assuming Tampa Bay has fans.

They might. Yeah, there's got to be a small number and some people in that bay that little island or peninsula or whatever yeah la is very excited we're back to um fireworks every night yes it's true that's the only downside if you're a dog in la you're not happy about this. Dog or maybe a human being. It's hard. I'm having trouble getting into baseball. Like just the lack of people in the stands. It all seems fake.

It makes me feel like I'm in a simulation more than almost anything else. Watching a video game. Yeah. It's almost like it was always fake. Exactly. Like it never meant anything. Well, it has made me question any game I've ever enjoyed or rooted for. In general, it just seems like a world of heartbreak being a sports fan.

You're most of the time going to be angry that your team isn't doing well. I've been a New York Jets fan for many, many, I don't want to say how long. You're angry a disproportionate amount of the time. Well, the anger dissipated like in the mid-70s. So now it's just resignation. We have a great comedian on the show today. We sure do. So funny.

He's been on the Conan show many times. He's very big in England. Yeah. Apparently, which I think would be difficult because they don't generally, they don't cotton to American comics. I was going to use the word cotton as well. Were you? Yes.

And he had a very popular show, live show at Edinburgh. Edinburgh. Comedy Festival. Edinburgh. Yeah. So it's Alex Edelman. Without further ado, here is Alex. For you.

We're here with Alex Edelman. Hey, Alex, thanks for being here. Hi, Alex. Oh my God. Hi, guys. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh. Thank you for doing this. It's so nice. I feel like transported back to like the set of conan yeah when we used to make television in a studio i'm seeing that signed chairs of carl reiner and mel brooks hang on the wall you know that's right those are backstage at the conan show because they both when carl reiner and mel Mel Brooks were on the show,

why did they sit on folding chairs? I don't even remember why. But anyway. We're so cheap. Yes. You're too old. You don't deserve a comfy chair. Sit in that one. And I guess they both signed these chairs and they went up on the wall. As a fan of Conan, the guy, having grown up in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is from, it was... Yeah, that's right. So did you, was, I mean, is he a local celebrity?

Well, he's an actual celebrity, but does Brookline like to claim their native son? Yes. The funny thing is, I could have one of the most successful careers I could possibly have, and I would still, behind Conan and John Hodgman be Brookline's, you know, Brookline's third most popular comedian. Yes. And if you want to expand it to, you know, people who aren't just comedians, I think JFK has kind of pipped us all to the post as British people like to say, yeah, Conan, for me growing up, Conan was kind of the guy. And it was because also, I grew up in a pretty religious household we didn't have a lot of television it was the tv was

for news and sports uh could you shoehorn in late night as news i mean that argument never had a work on my parents they just uh i was able to sneak out of bed and i would watch you know i'd watch late night stuff so So it's like, pretty cool. That's great. Well, so yeah, so we should back up a second. You've, you're a standup comic, you've been on the show twice now, which is so great. And you killed both times. So was that that first time you were on was it there must have been a lot wrapped up in that for you? Because it was like, I was terrified. and the other guests were anna paquin and joel mckale and i had just finished writing on a joel mckale cbs sitcom where he was my boss for a long time

oh how funny and so i showed up did he recognize you yes because it was a multi-care yeah he was like why are you here and i was... That sounds like something he'd say. And when I finished my spot and I came over to sort of like the couch area, Mikhail was like, where was the comedy where I try to get the show not cancelled? It was like... Oh, man.

But yeah, there was a lot wrapped up and JP was so nice and Conan was so nice. Conan was like... People say that meeting people that you admire doesn't always pan out. But between Conan and Bobby or the ice hockey player, I've done okay. You picked good heroes, I guess. I have good heroes. Although my walls when I was a kid did have posters of both Bill Cosby and Lance Armstrong.

So I'd say it's par for the course. But yeah, I really, there was a lot wrapped up in doing the show for the first time. Yeah, was that your first late night appearance? Yeah, it was. I had done some stand up on TV in countries that weren't the United States. And even maybe I had done a Comedy Central this or that. But yeah, doing late night, which obviously for comedians is such a big deal. I wanted to do Conan more than any one any, any ones because, you know,

maybe people listening to the podcast, I'm sure they'll know who JP Buck is, but he's the comedian booker. We've talked about JP. Yeah, but he books all the stand up acts. And out of all the stand up bookers, I don't think even any of the bookers for the other show would deny that JP is sort of the most respected and ingrained and beloved in sort of the comedy community. He is the keen eye and he's been doing it for a long time. So as much as it means to do a late night set, the stamp of approval from JP means a lot to comedians. So getting that from JP was really, really nice.

I was so nervous and I never get nervous before sets. And Gary Goldman, who's a comedian has been on Conan a bunch and a buddy of mine. Yeah. He's been on this podcast as well. Oh, really? Yeah.

I need to listen to that. He has a joke that he sometimes says before he goes on TV, he'll look at the guy who's about to pull back the curtain and he'll go, can you get me out of this? And which is so funny. And I was like, Oh, I i'm gonna do that yeah and i'll tell gary about it and i said to whoever's about to i said can you get me out of this and he scrambled for his like mic and i was like no no it's just he's like great great you're very funny

you're on it was like this guy's ripping off gary gold. He hasn't even done it yet. We talked to people before about that feeling right before they open the curtain. It just seems so scary. It's also, you know, this is not an original thing to say. I've heard a bunch of comics say this and a bunch of people are not comics say this, but the best moments of your life, a lot of them, butterflies happen right before that. Right. So sometimes when I get butterflies now, I'm like, oh man, something cool's about to happen. Or you're going to have diarrhea.

Or I have the flu. Yeah. Or this girl is about to say, no, I don't want to go out with her. Right. Yeah. You know. Well, that could change your life too.

Yeah. I mean, it was a really cool thing. Yeah. It was special. And there are a lot of great comics. You got to eat that green room food. You know what? You know what the thing is?

The popcorn. I love the popcorn. I'd be afraid to eat it right before going on the TV show. That comic was great, but why are his fingers a bright shade of orange? It's so funny because I was listening back to my first set for something a while ago. Just another human voice. Yeah. I was just like, man, it's something familiar, please.

Right. But in the first set, I mentioned that I'm a Jew who's never had bacon. And someone from the audience yells, kol ha'kavod, which means good for you in Hebrew. Oh, wow. And I didn't register it when I watched it back for the first time. Then I was like, wait, did somebody... Yeah, you thought you were just getting heckled. But I was.

I heard it and thought, do I address it? And looking back, I'm so glad I did it. It sort of derailed everything. But someone yelled, Kol HaKavod, and you can hear it so clearly on the tape. Really? So clearly. Oh, wow, that's wild. Do you can hear it so clearly on the tape. Really? So clearly. Oh, wow, that's wild.

Do you think that they were really giving you props or were they being sarcastic? I think they were being a bit sarcastic, but also, like, letting me know that there was someone there

who knew what that meant. And looking back, it's a wildly selfish thing to do to a comedian during their, like, first late night set. Oh, my God, yes. But I'm so glad I didn't do it.

It was Joel McHale, actually. I read that you studied at a yeshiva in Jerusalem. Yeah. And you were doing stand-up. Did you start doing comedy in Jerusalem or had you started in, I'm guessing, Boston and then continued your comedic studies in the Holy City as well.

I mean, I started in Boston. Yeah. Yeah. You were like 16, right? You were. Yeah. I was so terrible. I was, I would rollerblade to the open bikes and stuff, but I was so.

No. I was so bad. That's how you outrun the bullies. Outscape them. Yeah. They're on motorcycles and I'm just like, get out of it. I would rollerblade to these open mics, and there are a bunch of comics who weren't yet good, and I was the worst of them. I was truly bad. But when I was in Israel, yeah, I kind of fell into it because there were like six English-speaking comedians in the whole country.

And so all of a sudden I was like headlining with my material that would bomb at open mics. Oh, that's great. They're going to get a huge influx of comedians coming in now. It was so bad. I was so bad. How did you guys get started? Wait a second. That's not how this works.

Yeah, nice try. Turn the tables. I want to know. I want to know. I want to know. I mean, like, you've probably been writing for the show for, you know, I was probably watching your stuff when I was a kid. You might not have been born yet. The show, 89 years. I was a trial lawyer for three years, but I wanted to be doing stand-up the whole time, but I was living at home and then I moved out and then i started doing i was a lawyer during the day and did stand open mics at night and then i did stand up for nine years in new york city and then i got hired to do the warm-up during the day at conan and then i got hired to be a writer there

and that was in 95 oh my god yeah that's about a year before i started watching the show and honestly i was how old were you i a year before I started watching the show. And honestly, I was six or seven. Wait, how old were you? I was seven when I started watching the show. I love it. I swear, our biggest fan base is eight to 10-year-olds. It was great. Should I watch SpongeBob or Conan?

I could make an argument that the coolest people are those for whom that Venn diagram has overlap. Right, right, right. I wanted to be in sports when I was a kid. I got a job working for the Red Sox when I was pretty young. Oh, wow. I wrote their kid's newsletter. I was obsessed with it. What?

Yeah, it was so fun. Oh, that's adorable. Who runs it now? Do you ever drop into the office just to see how the teens are handling it these days? Or write in a letter. I don't know if the editorial directive of the kids' newsletter has changed now. Maybe they're just like wildly political

or something like that. But yeah, Israel was really cool. And I mean, I wanted to be a rabbi. I was like, I thought like, I'll go to Israel, I'll become a rabbi, and then I'll come home and I'll start sort of either divinity school or something like that.

I'll be like a smart rabbi. Like a cool rabbi that wears jeans. Yeah. I'll be a rabbi, but I won't have a beard, guys. Like I'll be a rabbi, but like my yarmulke will be small. Like ride a bike to work. Yeah. So Alex, because you grew up Orthodox.

Walk me through this. Because are you not still? Are you sort of a version? I say that I'm modern Orthodox, and I classify that. But I also, when I went on Conan and said I was modern Orthodox, I got emails and even a phone call from someone who said that I didn't have the right to call myself modern Orthodox because I didn't wear a yarmulke on Conan. And I thought a lot about wearing a yarmulke the second time I did Conan. And I think a lot about wearing yarmulkes whenever I do TV. And I'm always chickened out

because I'm not quite sure why. In my private life, sometimes I do wear a yarmulke. And this is maybe a little bit deep for the podcast. But I stopped wearing a yarmulke when I was 18 because I didn't want the first thing that people thought about me to be like, oh, that guy's the Jew. And I regret that a little bit sometimes, because, you know, maybe if I was being totally honest with myself and comfortable, I would wear the yarmulke all the time. But yeah, I'm modern Orthodox. I keep a kosher home. I, you know, I occasionally eat food that is not kosher, but I've never had like pork or shellfish. And so like, it's a really weird, distinctive part of my life. And so much of my identity is centered around like being a Jew and being a specific kind of Jew. And I make a

lot of stuff that is like, you know, for Jews and a lot of Jewish causes are like close, you know, close to my heart. And so like, it's a very, it's so, it's so earnest. I feel so earnest talking about like, just my identity. No, this is great. It was weird to go on TV and say that I'm a specific kind of Jew and then hear from some Jews going, it was cool to see this kind of, you know, someone who defines himself as modern Orthodox on TV. I'm modern Orthodox. Yeah, I would think that, yeah. Yeah, to talk about it right out of the gate. You know, I hate saying this,

but I never saw modern Orthodox people on TV growing up. If I saw a Jewish person on TV, they were always immediately identifiable as a Jew. There's an episode of The West Wing where Toby talks, Richard Schiff's character talks a lot about being Jewish. And I remember when I saw that just feeling like really seized up by that and sometimes Seinfeld

would allude to it. It wasn't a religious it was like more of a punchline. Yeah or just sort of like you know vaguely glossing over the mainstream holidays and stuff but nothing. Yeah there were never there were never

like jewish comedy was um it was weird like it was pretty much mel brooks and also like sticky old cat skilly type comedy doesn't really resonate with me like i'm much more like i was kind of raised on like conan and letterman and and albert brooks type. So like, you know, it wasn't really, it's a very, it's a very weird, um, narrow target. So I was psyched to do it, but it was also like, it made me sad when people were like, you're not a real Jew. You don't wear the yarmulke like me. And I was like, well, it's a long, complicated conversation. Well, there's always going to be a competition from people that are like, you gotta be more of whatever it is you are.

Right, right. Like, you're not enough until you do this. Yeah. You know, I have a quick question. There are so many stand-up comics who work at Conan, which is like really, really lovely. Is that, is it standard for, I feel like more than the average late night show and not just comics. Like, Laurie Kilmartin andrian kiley and you mike like you're all like good experienced comics it's not like comics who are like i used to i was on the

hbo young comedian special in 1983 and then i got tired of traveling my last credit yeah but like it's it's interesting now yeah most of the uh writers do still do stand-up, like Andre Dubichet and Dan Cronin. And Jose Arroyo does it, and Todd Levin does it sometimes. Pretty much everyone except me. Yeah. Jesse. Well, you have to tell us your story, Jesse. My true Hollywood story, which is ironic because that was my first job in showbiz.

Really? Was working at the E! True Hollywood Story. Yes. Was that a dream of yours? No. Someday. It was the only job I could get. I attempted to do stand-up for about a year, but that wasn't what got me the job at Conan. I would say I came, I guess, through the improv sketch route. I took classes and did shows at UCB and IO and also wrote and performed in a web series with some friends.

Oh, wow. And then I just started getting TV jobs. And I started as a PA on a TV show, The Eat Your Hollywood Story. And then I actually ended up working on The Soup with Joel McHale. Did you work at Brad and Boyd? I did, but not on that. Not on The Soup. I worked on a different show. There were two writers on the first show that I worked on, this Joel McHale show. It's called The Great Indoors. He had these two writers, and they were so funny that everything they pitched

would always get a laugh, to the extent that if they pitched a joke and it wound up in the script, I always had a million alts ready for it because they were so funny that they could make any joke work. And I was always like, everything they're pitching is so funny because they're so funny. So I don't even know that talented comedy actors can pull it off. But yeah, he's so great. Yeah, they're great. They show run a lot of, I don't know, pilots. I worked on one for VH1, I think, and one for E with them. And yeah, they do a lot of, I don't know, pilots. I worked on one for VH1, I think, and one for E with them. And yeah, they do a lot of stuff with Joel. They're really funny. Wait, don't you joke about having a twin brother, but he's not your twin. But he's not my twin. But he's not my twin.

And I was doing a joke. I looked that up on Snopes. Growing up, me and my brother AJ looked exactly alike. Exactly. And my parents oftentimes would just, you know, we walk in the room and they go, Alex, do this. And AJ would go, I'm AJ. You know, it's the other way around.

But people, I was doing a joke about how people would come up to me and say are you guys twins and i said no uh he's i'm two years older than him and they go but you guys look alike so you like identical twins like are you that kind of twin and i'm like yes that's you know my mom was the neighbor for two years. Like that was the, it was the bit and the bit wasn't really funny. It didn't really work. And I put it away. And then a couple of years later, AJ became a bodybuilder. And I thought of that whole joke. And I said, we, we used to look like twins.

Now we look like a before and after photo. And then one day I slipped up on, on twins and I said, we're twins. And then I day I slipped up on twins and I said, we're twins. And then I corrected myself. And that correction was so much funnier than the joke that I had had. And I told a friend and he was like, ah, screw it. Comedy is a pack of lies anyway. And so I lied, but I felt bad because after I said it on Conan, I got a bunch of people who reached out to be like, I'm a twin also.

Thank you for your twin representation. Oh, no. But you're not enough of a twin, Alex. No. How dare you go on there without your twin brother? It's so funny. In COVID, it's like, it's so hard to write material because so much of my comedy is about like experience and stuff like that and

there's not i'm kind of out of story so i am legitimately like you know i have a girlfriend which is wonderful congratulations no i'm so i'm this is a joke but it's also true um i call her mazda because for the first six months she had zero interest. And I think that's a very like funny, I know it's very, very sticky, but I will occasionally go Mazda and she'll be like, that's not funny. But she is interested now. She is interested now. It was like, we were starting running a couple of days before COVID and then COVID happened. And I go back,

I was in the UK on tour when this all started melting down. Oh, yeah. I wanted to ask you, we could jump to it now, just that you have a big following in the UK. Like you had a show on the BBC there, a radio show. Yeah. Yeah. Did that start with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? So, yeah. So I was in 2014. I graduated college and things weren't super working out because there's stuff like that initial twin joke. I was still finding my feet as a comic. It took like a really long, like, all kidding aside, I'm not being like modest, like took a really long time for me to like get good at comedy. Took a really long time for me to like find my, find my voice. Yeah, it's supposed to take a long time it takes a long time i mean i mean you're being matter of fact don't you think for most comics it takes a long

time yeah but i think i was uncommonly bad for uncommonly long but you know i also started young right and i i didn't take it seriously till after college and i had a lot of stuff that i thought you know i don't like when comics go and this is the only thing I can do. I'm like, no, that's it's not true. It's one of the most versatile jobs on the planet. Like, you know, you can do pretty much anything. Yeah. Help me move. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, so I actually felt like the tacky thing is I had something to say, which is about, I saw a bunch of people who are my age feeling really frustrated about their prospects. So I wrote a solo show called Millennial before the word was really like a thing. And my agent in England was like, you can't call a show that

no one knows what it means. And I was like, well, I'll make it like a 45 minute explanation, hour long explanation of what millennial is. And so I did that. And it was sort of the right time because the word was just starting to flourish through a little bit. And so things kind of got a little bit better because of that show. It won an award and I got an agent. And yeah, I kept it. And I dated a woman in the UK for like four years.

And so I was going there a lot. And I do a show about young people for the BBC called Peer Group. And it's very like hard to do a show now, but I miss the UK. It's the longest I've gone in many years without going there. You know, it's the second home for me. And it's a really savvy comedy place. Like people really understand. Conan is the, I would say the only late night host that has significant, you know, significant audience there, even though Corden is British. I think people's comedy tastes there are just kind of alternative. And it's really like, yeah, there's a reason he left.

Did you have a learning curve as a standup performing there? Cause I think it's, it's tricky a little bit, or maybe you didn't experience that at all. What's always worked for me as a comic is sort of planting my flag in how I feel about being a certain thing and drilling down on that. How I feel about being Jewish, or how I feel about being a young person, or how I feel about being from Boston, or how I feel about being an American American or how I feel about being an American who loves to travel and be other places. And so I think no matter where you are, those things actually do become important. And the audience encountering like a really complicated, not complicated, but complex identity works anywhere. So in Australia, I am a 20 something year old Jewish person from America interrogating what that means. And in England,

I'm the same thing. And in England, it's actually even like a little bit more special because to them, you know, a young Jewish American who is curious about what it means to be young Jewish American is actually kind of an oddity. You know, my last show,

the one that I was touring when the world ended and I hope to tour when it stops, is I went to a meeting of white nationalists in New York. And I sat there for like an hour. And then eventually someone's like, hey, you're like a Jew, right? That's terrifying. Yeah.

But I mean, it was like right now to talk about what it white white nationalism means like it's interesting over there but it's interesting like people are curious about it was it was a trippy experience it was in like long on city how many people were at that meeting when someone turned on you there were 12 men and five women so there's 17 people 16 17 people and no one turned on me it's just like well one guy was like you're jewish and i'm like yes i'm jewish and the whole meeting was like record scratch we're gonna take a little break yeah that's genuinely what happened people started yelling and the guy running the meeting was like okay we're gonna take a break oh wow and like anyone who needs to go can go. And I was like, I think he means me, you know, like, I was like, hey,

I think we should talk about this. And they were like, you're leaving. Like, that's, that's what's happening. Oh, wow. But yeah, I mean, like, that is all about identity, that show. I was going to ask you about, you were working in a room on a new show that just came out on Netflix. Oh, yeah. The Teenage Bounty Hunters. Yeah, Teenage Bounty Hunters. So was that all done prior to the lockdown? It was done in 2019, but I did a Passover Seder that had a writer's room. Oh, okay.

This sounds silly, but, you know, the Jewish ceremonial meal of Passover Seder. Of course. Me and this guy, Benj Pasek, who wrote La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman, like a great musical theater guy, me and him and a bunch of, we made this online Passover Seder with like Bette Midler and Josh Groban and Jason Alexander hosted it. And it was like a musical comedy Passover Seder. And we raised like three and a half million dollars for COVID relief. Wow. It was like a bunch of sketches and songs and it was fun to have a writer's room. Yeah. Even so it was still like, I mean, I miss the like people break

for lunch and someone's like, Hey, this might be nothing, but X, Y, Z, you know? Right, right, right. Someone's over farting on the beanbag. Yes. That's great. There's the writer who doesn't clean up their cereal bowl. It's always me. We've been having writers zoom meetings too. And I, Jesse, agree or disagree.

I feel like none of us really want the meeting to end because they're very, everyone's laughing and having a great time. And it's kind of like, Oh, don't go. Don't go yet. Yeah. Don't send me back into the void. A hundred percent.

Like it's the only thing I have to schedule into my day. So it also helps me know what, even whether it's morning or afternoon. Yeah. Yes. There's some great writers or anecdotes. My favorite one is some guy got hired on a show in the early 2000s who was like legit in his seventies.

And he had a box of index cards that he had written his jokes on that he'd been carrying this box of index cards around for like years and that was his that was his thing is his act his life his livelihood was in this box of index cards and so they're stuck in this moment in the room and this guy flips open this box of index cards and he was he was never pitching anything good but he was a friend of a friend of the guy who was the boss or something like that. And he flips open the box of NX cards. And the writers are puzzling. And they're sat there with their hands on their chins trying to think of the thing.

And he pulls out an NX card. And he looks around the room. And he goes, can the floor be wet? And he was like, I have a joke here. but it only works if someone slips on a wet floor it's just such a funny just desperate thing oh that's so great stick with me on this i think about that all the all the time just like yeah you know when you're in a desperate spot sometimes yes like i'm just like well can one of the characters have red hair? Right, right, right.

Because then I've got 10 minutes of material on redheads. They're all in space. The great thing is, like, if you've been in a writer's room a long time and some people,

you know, are kind of trying to shoehorn something in that they've had for a long time, you know, and it's like, uh, it's not going to work. Something from their act. Right, right, right. trying to shoehorn something in that they've had for a long time, you know?

And it's like, uh, it's not good from their act. Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing that you learn when you're on your first job is to not repitch. Right. But like sometimes,

but I remember someone told me that and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But right, right, right. You know,

there's one or two things that you really love. So I always wrote him down and saved him for later. Yeah. And also something you learn on multicams is that people get sick of jokes by the third time they've heard them. So if a joke is in the original draft, it won't make it to the end. So never pitch a joke like that will wind up in the original draft. Oh, my God. That's brilliant.

Although that sounds really hard. So you have to to you save your better jokes for later draft that seems so counterintuitive it is counterintuitive and i would always you know when you're a staff writer which is for people listening to lowest rung on the totem pole right you know you learn to be judicious and and talk when you know and talk when it's appropriate and pitch when it's appropriate so i was always like very know, like if I had a joke that I really loved, if I really wanted to bring in, but like, so my showrunner is really smart. And sometimes he'd see me like someone would pitch a joke and it would get a laugh. And he'd see me or one of these other guys write something down.

And he was like, hey, what are you writing? Why are you writing something down? You don't believe in that joke so much that you're already prepping an alt. And I'm like, no, Sam. And he's like, why won't that joke work? And it would be like... And then you were like, can the floor be wet? Can one of the characters have glasses? Can everyone call them four eyes? Well, Alex, this is a good segue. We always like to ask our guests at the end,

if you have a piece of advice for someone who's starting their comedy journey. I think having really high standards for yourself and for what you like is really important because the funny thing is that most people who go for a certain thing in comedy craft wise wind up hitting it you know if you aim for an airtight seven minutes of stand-up you will eventually get to the airtight seven minutes of stand-up but if you aim for an hour of stand-up or if you aim for stand-up that is really surprising and you know sort of lets easy jokes go by the wayside and focuses on being like really original and unusual and kind of stands out, I think it will always, always benefit you. So I think that even if it takes you a while to get there, and even if you're kind of dying on

stage, people who really know comedy can always see someone who has high standards and is going for that high standard and them trying to hit it and will always respect it. So I always encourage people who are because when you're a comic, especially in COVID, younger comics reach out and go, oh, hey, you know, can I pick your brain about stand up? And I'm always like, and you're like, I don't have an excuse anymore. I am not too busy. Yeah. And for Biglia, Mike Biglia and i run jokes a lot and he's actually a really frustrating guy to run jokes with sometimes because his his standards are so high you know i'll pitch him a joke that i thought is like great i'm like this is done and he'll like yeah but it's the first you know the setup was funny and you haven't really built on anything so can you find like

the second or third joke down and all the great comics have really high standards. So like, I think that's what it is. Just have really, my advice, as pretentious as it sounds, is to like, be a snob for yourself. And like, it doesn't mean to look down on stuff that you think you're better than, but like, try to really achieve something with your comedy. And the likelihood is that you'll get there. Well, and on a similar note, I mean, I think when I'm writing a lot of times, it's easy to be like, all right, I got something on the page. I'm done. But inevitably,

if you go back and you do a second, third, fourth, fifth, eighth draft, it's going to keep getting better every time. So don't just leave it there being like,

well, I finished technically, so I'm done. Right. Assignment is ready to hand in. Yes, exactly. It's like the funny thing is that I think the great, great comics are comics who are just really good editors. Right. Assignment is ready to hand in. Yes, exactly. holding yourself to like a high standard and going out there and making sure your jokes are really unusual. When I did Conan the second time, I had to decide between two jokes and JP was really great. And here's why JP Buck is really talented, like comedy booker is because he picked the joke that frankly, isn't as like, I think the two jokes are equally funny, but one joke was just

a little bit more unique and weird than the other one. And honestly, you know, it's the joke that most people, most people come up to me and talk to me about. Is that the Neil Armstrong? It's the Coco the Gorilla one. Ah, oh yeah. It's a really, it's a weird, it's a weird joke. You know what?

I'm sure we got to end, but the one, I have one regret from that, which is that I made the cue card guy write out all the sign language and i didn't get those cue cards like someone like they got lost somewhere oh yeah because uh because i in the joke just come back the next day and look through our recycling oh i tried i tried but they and the poor cue card guy i was like because i made him write the sign language in the joke and I made him write, I made him draw the hands and the motions the hands do. Oh, that's wild. So he was like, I've never had to do this before, where it's just like, cue cards look

like various, you know, things. Well, I kind of want those now too. Well, Alex, thank you so much. Guys, thanks for having me. Really good to meet you and good. And good luck out there. Just stay safe. And that was Alex Edelman. Thanks, Alex.

Very funny guy. And guess what? It's time for a voicemail. We have a fan question. Yay! Or a question. Here it is. Hi, this is Dave from Indianapolis.

I imagine that sometimes a great joke or bit gets pitched, but everyone agrees it's not quite right for the show. Maybe it's not silly enough or too political, etc. What happens to those? Do they get trying to bend into shape to better fit the show? Or do they get discarded onto a big pile of unused jokes? Or do they get handed off to someone to retweet or maybe to Laurie Kilmartin to use on the road? Just curious.

And Jesse and Mike, I love you guys. Thank you so much for all your work and this great podcast. Oh my gosh. That was so nice. That was lovely. Thank you very much. That was a great question too. Yes,

that is a good question. I think the answer is yes to all of those possibilities as to what happens to bits. Well, first of all, yeah, this is a frequent occurrence that there's something that's really funny but for some reason doesn't work for the show and it might just not be the right tone or maybe we just can't we can't execute it in the time frame or it's filthy yeah or it's too dirty that's a good point too yes sometimes there's, you know, that's so topical, but we're doing the show in

two hours and it's like, ah, there's no time to pull this off, you know? Or it's like, it's going to cost $10 million and it's just not realistic. Yeah. I mean, I think that all of us do some kind of writing on the side as well. So I have been known to recycle things before. I mean, there's such a volume of discarded material that there's just like a landfill of it. Yeah, we've mentioned this before, but like what, 10% if you're lucky of what gets written makes it on the show. Yes. And the rest gets put in recycling bins. And then only a small percentage of that is actually recyclable. So the rest of it just becomes trash. No, but I mean, we

will often write something like for McSweeney's or for The New Yorker if you're Mike Sweeney. Or for... That was on their web. That doesn't really count. Just the daily shout. Or for a personal

pilot or a tweet or a stand-up routine. Right. There are lots of places that those can go back out into the ecosystem. And also sometimes we'll write something that's too political. And by that I mean it kind of comes down too strongly once where the other... Yeah. It's too pro-fascism.

Right. Exactly. where the other... Yeah, it's too pro-fascism. Right, exactly. We had a bit on Late Night that I loved that I thought allowed us to do jokes that we called heavy-handed. And it was actually, I think it was Andrew Weinberg, one of our really funny writers, came up. It was like Conan would do a joke that was over-the-top political

that we don't normally do, and then it would cut to the audience, and it said, this joke was brought to you by Nakamura heavy hands. Andrew Weinberg had giant steel hands that he was clapping together. Every time we did a heavy-handed political joke. You can have your cake and eat it too. Yeah. Exactly. You'd cut to, we'd comment on how heavy handed it was. And at the time I was just like, oh, this is great. Now we can do all these jokes that have been getting cut because they're too heavy handed.

We've got this safety net with these heavy hands. But Conan was like, you know, after we did it twice, he's like, okay. I see what you're doing. We get it. This is a loophole. Well, and you also used to do another joke bucket uh the spring cleaning yes that was bits that pre-taped bits that got cut from late night because they were just they just didn't go over well in rehearsal didn't make the show yeah we

talk conan because you know we were doing five shows a day and it's just like i mean five shows a week you just have to fill these slots we're like oh come on we have all this stuff that the writers that we all love okay why don't we just say okay we don't know why this got made but here it is and show them all in one piece yeah and it protects conan from having to you know endorse it exactly but and i think those are great, because then he can also make fun of the bit. It was win-win. Totally. But yeah, well, that was a great question.

I feel like he was in our writer's room, because he knew exactly what happens. Yeah. The call's coming from inside the room. I know. Well, that's our show for the week. That's our show.

And hey, if anyone else wants to leave us a voicemail, please call us at 323-209-5303. Or email us at InsideConanPod at gmail.com. So we'll see you all next week. That's how we end the show. We like you. Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast, is hosted by Mike Sweeney and me, Jesse Gaskell.

Produced by Jen Samples. Engineered and mixed by Will Becton. Supervising producers are Kevin Bartelt and Aaron Blair. Executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Earwolf. Thanks to Jimmy Vivino for our theme music and interstitials. You can rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. And of course, please subscribe and tell a friend to listen to Inside Conan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you like best.

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.