Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - J.P. Buck

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

Conan’s Stand-up Booker J.P. Buck returns to talk with writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell about his first job as Mariah Carey’s assistant, working on the rebooted Star Search, the process of getting a stand-up set ready for the show, his new web series “The Set Up,” and advice for people starting out in the comedy world. Plus, Mike and Jessie answer a fan voicemail with stories about Conan’s wife and siblings. 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. Hello, welcome to Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Oh, Hollywood, let's get back to the important stuff. Now that the election's over. Tinseltown, that's where it's at. Whether you're from a blue state or a red state. Oh, boy. Hi, we are your hosts.

I'm Jesse Gaskell. I'm a writer on The Conan Show. Yes, I'm Mike Sweeney, also ditto, yes, writer. Conan. And this podcast to talk about the Conan show, behind the scenes, talk to guests who have some connection with the show. That's the premise. And we solve murders.

We do. Yeah. So you have to listen all the way to the end in case there's a twist. That's what they always make you do, the true crime documentaries. You have to watch the very end. It's exhausting. The twist always happens in the last episode so i just watched the last episode some documentaries i've noticed lately they added some padding they cut it with baking soda yeah we were talking about the vow talk about padding in the vow that's about um nex And now Seduced, there's a competing documentary about NXIVM on Starz. Starz. I ended up watching that.

I don't usually, cults kind of, I don't enjoy delving into cults. But I have to say, this was pretty well done. The Starz one I thought was really good. Speaking of cults. Yes. I mean, the news right now. It really is a cult. We have a very doomsday-ish writer's room. So we get a lot of emails that are like, the coup is happening. Yes, yes. I assume that if a coup is happening, I mean, we'll hear

about it with enough time to plan for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I look out the window, I look for tanks, and I think I could hear the treads. I think there's a very distinctive... I've seen a lot of World War II movies, so I'll know when there's a coup. Yeah. I think the first place will come is Los Feliz. They'll go to Little Dom's. Did you observe crazy celebrations on Saturday? Well, no, I didn't because I was at my boyfriend's place in Orange County, and they were not celebrating there. How about you?

Were there fireworks here? There was a slight contrast to Orange County. We walked down to the local gas station where a party just broke out, and people were dancing on top of cars. And then I went by several hours later and it was still raging. It was juvenile fun. It was fun. Let's get into our show.

Yeah, let's do the show. We decided to have back a previous guest because so many other guests mention him. Yes. It's J.P. Buck, who is our stand-up comedy booker. And producer. Yeah, producer. Yep. For years now, he's been booking all the stand-up comics on the show, and now he's branched out.

And he really goes and finds people. I mean, he, like, sources new comics. Yeah, he likes to discover people and kind of really get into the comedy trenches and look for new talent. And he's great at it. Yeah. So many of our stand-ups have talked about him as being really integral to their appearing on the show and doing well.

Yeah. And they're greatly appreciative of how much he's helped them. And so we thought it'd be great to talk to him again. And also about all the other projects he's got going. He's producing comedy specials. Yeah. So we thought we'd catch up with him. And again. And also about all the other projects he's got going. He's producing comedy specials. Yeah. So we thought we'd catch up with him. And just how do you do all that right now over Zoom?

Yeah. Here's our interview with JP Buck. Hello, JP. Welcome back. Nice to have you back on the podcast. Welcome back. Hey, guys. Great to see you and talk to you.

It's been a while. Yeah, that's right. It's been a while yeah that's right it's been a long time i know but you look the same you look great you look well you look better are you wearing your signature khaki pants i haven't worn pants since like february careful i mean i've been wearing shorts that's why i should say yes sorry yeah yeah we're excited to have you back on because your name has come up so often when we have comedians have been on the show. They all sing your praises. And we're like, him? JP books all of the stand-up comics on the Conan show. You started out on Conan doing that. Now your duties seem to just be growing and growing. You're producing stand-up specials and live comedy shows, as well

as booking comics for the show. So it's kind of an expanding J.P. Buck universe. Do you find you're actually busier the past eight months in quarantine than you were when in normal times, we'll call them? Maybe not busier, but I've've certainly it's been more learning a lot of new skills right certainly been sort of trying to whereas for the past you know decade i've been on kind of all don't tell coney but i've been on autopilot and so once we went to this quarantine yeah it was sort of trying to figure out okay how do we keep doing what we're doing but in a different way yeah well especially when the whole industry is changing so quickly because so much of it was live, in-person performance.

I never thought that would go away. I never thought there would be a reason. Yeah. One thing that I'd love to know, was this your dream as a young man, like someday? Because it's such an unusual job when you think about it. But how did you find your way to where you are today? Gosh, that's a good question because I never knew this job existed.

Yeah, me neither. Up until this moment. Until I gave your credits. Hey, Jesse, I'm the guy that works downstairs from you. And this is what I've been doing the whole time. I grew up as a huge fan of stand-up on The Tonight Show. I was a huge Carson fan. I loved seeing comics come whole time. I grew up as a huge fan of standup on The Tonight Show. I was a huge Carson fan. I loved seeing comics come out there. And I just assumed that comics called Johnny up and were like, hey, I'm in the neighborhood. Do you mind if I pop on in? I literally thought that's how it works. So when I went to school, I went to school, I got a degree in economics

because I figured that was sort of, I mean, I liked math and I also thought that that was a safe play. And then as I got out in the real world and found out how boring a financial job was to me, after about two years, I decided, you know what, let's take the leap into TV. And then I just slowly tried to work myself from starting game shows and then eventually got into talent shows and comedy. Wait, so you were working in the financial industry? Mm-hmm. Doing what? I was working in the International Treasury Department at Viacom.

I knew it! No. Oh, so you were working at Viacom. Yeah. So that's where, okay. Now, did you specifically apply to a television giant like that, going into it, like thinking, oh, that might be more interesting than working at a bank?

Or was the TV aspect of it something you discovered once you were working there and said, oh, I'd like to go into that? I wanted to get into entertainment in some form. And so my first day after college, I think I was the only person in my group of friends that didn't have a job or was not accepted into medical school or law school or something after school. And so for the first few years, it was the bane of my existence, just kind of hearing how great their jobs were or whatever they were doing was. What am I going to specialize in? Oh, fuck you. Yeah, so go ahead.

I left school for graduation, was living with my folks. And then I took a train to New York City and did this whole, I guess it's old fashioned now, but I went literally door to door to every record label I could find. And I would talk my way to the highest person on the food chain that I could get to and hand them a resume. Oh, I love that. Because this was a thing that my dad suggested when I was looking for a job. And I was like, no, you can't do that anymore. They don't let you in the building. Right. What's the heist you got in this door-to-door?

I think an HR representative. Usually it was the front desk was like, no, we'll take it. And then they would dump it in a bin. Yeah. But someone actually took my resume that I got home the next day. I got a phone call. And it was from Mariah Carey's management company. And they wanted me to come in for an interview.

And they had heard that I had applied for the record, you know, I guess it was Sony records and she was with Sony and somewhere through Tom Mottola and the connection. They were like, well, here, why don't you come in and interview to be a personal assistant for Mariah? So that was my first job. So you actually were a personal assistant to mariah carey yeah oh did you sign a really ironclad nda and can't tell us anything let's find out i should say yes because that seems like the if i think of i mean you, you know, the cliche of a diva, that's who it is. So it's like the person who wants their M&Ms sorted by color and that sort of thing.

You know what? She seems like, to me, she's chill all year except around Christmas time. Then that's when she puts on her game face. That's when the Mariah Carey money comes pouring in. That's right. Every year, Christmas songs. This is right out of college, right? Yeah.

I went to four years of school to be running around New York returning bras to Barney's. Yeah, was that basically what you got tasked with was just kind of personal errands for her. I mean, I think every star sort of has this. You've got a personal assistant, I think, that goes around in your home. Right. Then you have an assistant that, I guess, is on the road with you. But I was doing a lot of the menial, boring, sorting, filing, picking up mail.

Returning bras. Which involved math. That was good. Had to compare the receipts and make sure you were fully credited. So you're using your degree. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My parents were thrilled, thrilled at that. No, I love this though. And I mean, she was a big star at that point too. So that was... This is 96. Yeah. Well, I only lasted there a few months because it got to the point where I wasn't, I mean, I didn't feel that it

was really leading me to a place where I wanted to be. Right, right. I think I was on a lunch break. I ran down to MTV Networks and applied, filled out some paperwork, and then got a job as sort of the HR department where you would cycle through. And anytime someone was sick, it would be like an internal temp. And so you would sit on their desks. And a lot of it was just sitting. Basically, most of the time I was a receptionist. Well, JP, when all this was happening, were you, did you ever try stand up yourself? Was that something that you ever wanted to do? I love stand up so much, but I

didn't think I had done some theater back in like junior high and elementary school and high school. I think the last time I was on stage was probably for my like senior class play in high school. And then I loved it at the same time, realized that that's, I don't think I have a career in front of the camera or on stage. So I just took, I think I took advantage of figuring out how the business worked behind the scenes and tried to find my way to get as close to the stage as possible, but still be behind the curtain. Well, so going back a step, I mean, I actually think that's kind of cool and unique to you that you were not like an aspiring stand-up who then decided, you know what, this is hard. I'm just going to manage comics instead. Because I think that that kind of builds resentment.

If it was like a dream of yours that never panned out, then I feel like that would affect your booking abilities. I mean, that's a good point. I never thought about that. I never thought about it that way. But yeah, I think I've seen other people before, I think, who have a vested interest in being on stage themselves. Right. And they can get in the way of the product on stage

and also block others sometimes. Yeah. Well, the last time you were on the show, you said that you got a job working on the rebooted Star Search. Were you working on booking on that show? And was that the first time you got into that realm? I did, yeah. I had just moved out to LA a few months earlier.

Okay. And the first job I took out here that was in the kind of stand-up world was a show called 30 Seconds to Fame. And if you don't remember it, that's quite all right. It was only 30 seconds. Yeah. Stand-Up World was a show called 30 Seconds to Fame. And if you don't remember it, that's quite all right. But... It was only 30 seconds. Yeah, it was basically... If you remember the gong show, it was like the gong show on steroids.

And we had like 24 acts in a half an hour. We gave the audience buzzers. And if people got enough nose on their buzzer, they were pulled off the stage. That's rough. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm still paying. I feel like I'm still paying a penance to this day of the comics I did for that show.

And then, yeah, then star search was the next gig. And someone I worked with on 30 Singers of Fame and recommended me. And so I was lucky enough to get pulled into that show. And I mean, it was my first great job that, I mean, I really, I really think i had a lot of fun and also a lot of influencer and creative control uh in booking so was it the first time you felt like oh this is a natural fit for me oh yeah did you have a storehouse of knowledge of stand-up from your years being a fan or that you brought to it or you feel like you just had a fresh eye for what would uh work on the show or what was your approach to the job i mean kind of what it's interesting just thinking about what jesse said before about not having sort of being wanting to be on stage myself i just wanted to

find the best comics right i thought it was the coolest job to be sitting in a room. And the way they set it up was not the best, you know, I think, kind of scenario for success for comics because they thought that it was, if you remember Star Search, Star Search had various categories. So there were singers, which were adult singers, there were child singers, and then there were models and there were comics. So they thought, hey, why don't we just rent out a bunch of ballrooms around the country and people will line up outside, sort of a la American Idol,

and we'll just have them come in the room and perform in front of two people and you'll judge them. And we quickly realized that this was a horrible, horrible scenario for standups. So we tried to bring in other comics. So we basically tried to fill the room with sort of almost like an open mic, but it, uh, the first person to walk through the door for

us was Roy Wood Jr. Oh, yeah. I thought I was like, this is going to be the easiest job in the world. There's all this talent in small town America. 6,000 comics later, he was still one of the best. Oh my God. comics later he was still one of the best oh my god we mentioned this earlier but so many of the uh stand-ups we've had on the show they're such big fans of yours and they just said you were so instrumental in helping them shape their sets and help them decide what to do on the show. And just as your fans of their work, they're really a big fan of yours. And can you tell us what that process is like working with comedians, especially for the Conan show and just

how long it takes? It's probably varies, but just in terms of getting them ready to do a set on the show it means a lot that people that you've talked to have had good experiences because i know it can be it's not the easiest thing to figure out um and i'm not always i don't i certainly don't have 100 track record um on it but i what i do love is i love trying to figure out how to basically where it's every time I think about it, it's trying to solve a problem. Comics are not normally testing out five minute sets in front of the same audience that they're going to be doing it for in the studio. Right. So I do really enjoy trying to like rely on their, their skills and their strengths and then give my little two cents of, okay, how do we get into this the quickest way possible, but also that feels natural?

Because you've got to really win them over so quickly, and you don't have time to do crowd work. So I really love listening to a full 10, 15 minutes, kind of marking what I think is the best for our audience, and then kind of tossing it back to them. So it's a lot of back and forth. It's like, here are my thoughts. What do you think? And they'll come back. And there's a lot of push and pull. And I don't try to be too heavy handed. I don't try to tell them I know it all. And I've had plenty of people that I've backed off and said, fine, you hear my advice, just be ready in case it does not work, have a backup plan. And my favorite, my favorite moments are probably the times that I've not had confidence in something and seeing it get like i see to get an applause break and be like okay well you learn there oh that's great can you do you remember any

specific times that that happened oh yeah ian edwards is the one that comes to mind all the time what happened what happened uh well he had a joke about how um basically about how jesse jackson was not a good leader for the African-American community. And I said, well, you know what? It was a very edgy joke. And I also, I don't want to ruin it and tell it outside of, butchered more, but really that was the concept and the premise. And then he said, well, you know what? It always kills. And I was said, well, you know, it always kills. And I was like, well, but you're telling it in front of a TV audience that's not really there to see stand-up comedy. It may not really go well. And they could actually kind of pull away and check out.

And he said, I'm telling you, it crushes. And I said, all right. So he goes out there. And I'm always standing out on the floor with Jeff Ross. And Jeff usually asks me before the set starts. he's like, how's it going to go? And I always tell him, I would always tell him it's going to go great. But this was, I think, probably one of the first times where I said, well, he's got a joke in here. I just hope it goes well.

And he lands with the first line of that bit and he gets an applause break. And I look at Jeffff i'm like oh well he's gonna crush from here on out yeah but it was all it was all in e and i just looked i know how talented he is right and i just sort of go here's my advice if it doesn't go well just be prepared for to have some sort of line to get them back right right and also that bit doing well you know it reflects well on you like of course you wanted to ultimately do well you know yeah if there's if there was a there's a bit i mean there are plenty of bits that i just tell people it's not appropriate for right right right late night

television yeah how often does that happen that someone's like no i you you gotta let me drop trow. Well, I mean, if you ever want to talk to Sam Morrell about his sets, he almost, I think he just enjoys having me have to run things by standards and practices. He just wants to make you work hard. And I'm like, Sam, again, really? And I mean, he's a wordsmith and he works so hard and I love him to death. But it's every time I get an email, I mean, I'm excited.

I've had, we've had him on the show, I don't know, eight times or something like that. But I know every time, it's not going to be one email and done. It's going to be, we're going to talk about this ad nauseum and he's going to be changing things up to the last minute and he's going to make me run stuff by standards and practices. Oh boy.

You know, the part you were saying where you go in and you watch and you see like 10 or 15 minutes set and then see what you like that that sounds like that's all kind of set up a little bit in advance like you've reached out to them they know they know you're going to be in the audience have there been times where you've saw someone that you've never seen or heard of before where you're like holy cow they're they're great and go up to them and kind of approach them? Yeah. A number of times where, because I will sometimes go to a show to see

one comic and then I'll stay there. I'm not going to just make the trip just for a five-minute set, but I will stick around. And I remember the first one I can think of is Salma Giorgio. I had been there to work on a set with another comic. I stepped away to go to the bathroom. Not 10 seconds goes by and the audience is just dying. I've chosen my intermission at the wrong time. I thought this was going to be the long, slow ballad. I'm like, okay, let's sneak away for a second. No, no, this was a killer set. I had to come back out and I saw him on stage. And the next day, I think we were emailing and figuring out the set. Oh, that's great. Wow.

So a good note for comics is if JP's coming to the set, make sure there's no one else better than you that's going up that night. I think we got two or three guests out of that night. Yeah, it was a good night. Okay, okay. Well, and I was wondering, because that's what you used to do before the pandemic, do you have a new sort of process for seeing comics since shows have gone all online? Well, it certainly changes.

We're trying to figure out ways to still keep stand-up going in our universe. There are a couple of comics, I think, that have figured out, you know, how to kind of deal with a new setup. And I think I've seen a number of people like Naomi Ekperigen, Todd Glass. There's a guy named Scott Moran, who's a comedian and director who started a web series, and he was just shooting comics at their homes.

And they can just do a rant that doesn't require an audience. And you watch it, and it's undeniably funny. Yeah. I think that's sort of, it's it's bold it certainly takes a certain style but that's been i think what's working the best right now are people that can kind of talk to camera right and still be really smart and immaterial that sounds cool and you're also producing live shows for team coco so how how are you handling the audience for those, like the Moses Storm show?

Our Moses and Friends show, we've had to kind of pivot a little bit. That show used to be live at the Dicey Typewriter, where we would have comics come and perform, and then he would interview comics. And so we've relied more on his monologues and then conversations with comics, where they're not necessarily doing material, but they're having fun, loose discussions that could be really funny. Right. And sort of flexing another muscle. I feel like comics right now are having to try

to hone their conversational skills, interview skills. Yeah. And writing less, because there's no, it's not a whole lot of crowd work. Yes, there are some drive-in shows. I know clubs have opened around the country. Right. We also, at the same time, we're not,

our show, Conan on TBS, we're not in front of a live audience yeah yeah changes things a lot yeah i'm not really chasing comics that are doing stand-up in front of audiences at the moment because we still haven't you know we still can't provide them with a live audience well you also you know beth stelling just did a comedy special for hbo max that you produced and you worked on helping to form that show. That sounds like that might've been a new muscle possibly for you or just because you're dealing with an hour long show. Yeah. Yeah. I love that was such a great experience to work with her on that because a couple of comics we had produced before Daniel Sloss, he had two shows that were fully formed, basically came in. So we would like to produce these for you. With Beth, I'd received an hour-long set that she

shot in Milwaukee just on an iPhone. I thought it was fantastic. And this is before? This was last year. Gosh, I think this was last, maybe August of 2019. And you loved it? Loved it. I mean was I think it was maybe 55 56 minutes long and I think I 56 minutes after I received it I called her managers and was like please can we please produce this this is so good but then that led you know Beth is such a perfectionist so I guess she shot that like you know August September and then we didn't shoot

this special until March 7th so she she spent the next five months or so just rewriting and restructuring and shaving off bits, trimming the fat. And I would have recorded the set that she sent me, but she being the perfectionist that she is, was like, no, this joke has to go. I've got a new bit. I'm rewriting this.

And it was so worthwhile. I think that she couldn't be prouder of what she achieved. Do people ever change stuff that you love and you're like, no, no, no, leave it the way it was? And do you ever have to play psychologists with people where maybe they lose faith in a bit that they want to do on the show? And they're like, oh, I don't want to do that now. And you're like, no, no, no. The reverse of what you were saying before, where you tell someone, I think that'll kill on TV.

I would say from the hour that we recorded with Beth, and I think this happens with every comic that we've done a special with so far, there are bits in there that I'm like, you know what? I don't think it's the strongest. And you can take my advice or leave it. Just like, I mean, you know, you can take my, you know, take my advice or leave it just like, I mean,

you know, they certainly run it by other people, other friends, other comics. Right. And so I've, yeah, there's certainly been bits that I think that I would pull,

but in the same time, the nice thing is that you're recording when you shoot a special, you do it twice in front of a live audience. Right. And you tend to go along. So we're looking for something under 60 minutes. Their shows may go 65, 66.

So they know, they know they're gonna have to trim something So I won't fight too much about the live show because they do this all the time They know how a live audience works So in a room if you want to do that bit that I don't think is that good? Go ahead and do it and then what we'll do is we'll watch it down the edit and we'll actually have a different opinion I think I think we can all look at and go here's here's this one really kind of loses steam don't you agree and there were a couple there were two bits that we pulled from her for

taping um that are great on its own but i think for the hour what she was trying to the point she was trying to you know prove and achieve and i couldn't think of it being any stronger than it is at the end you know final result if we didn't have to edit much yeah and we're talking you know a few minutes total out of an hour plus that's a secret you just mentioned for stand-up specials is the fact they're shot twice and then you yeah yeah i was gonna ask you can go back and forth and kind of cherry pick the best performances of each bit yes so the person wears the same thing i I'm assuming. Sometimes it's even more than twice. People will film for a whole weekend of shows.

The secret's out. It's not just one show usually. Right, right, right. Hopefully the first one goes well so you can really relax the second taping. Yeah, but you never know where you're going to have to trim something or cut to an audience member

and you want to have all those, all those cutaways. Beth did make it easier on us because she talks to the audience during the special. Ah. So she finds one person to zero in on. And basically has to stick with that person throughout the entire special. Yeah. So it presents a very unique problem. Uh-huh. presents a very unique problem or just a little something extra something you have to think about

like if we're doing reverse shots that audience member has to be there for most of the time so you really get tied into are we going to stick with audience number a from the first show or audience number b from the second show right because otherwise it's going to look a little bit weird because you're going to notice that we've made an edit yeah or you just have the same audience come back for every subsequent show. Always good for comedy to hear a joke a second time, right? So now that we're in the pandemic, I guess, are you still working with some comics on long shows?

I don't see how that would be. With the idea that when we get out of this, they'll be able to mount a special again? Or is that all on hold? There are two more hours that we were supposed to tape before the pandemic hit. One of which was Moses Storm. The other, which was Chris Redd. Moses, we were going to do the first week of May.

Chris, we were probably going to do June, July when he was off from SNL. And then when things hit, we realized, okay, let's put this on hold. But we've had many conversations about, can we do it justice? Can we shoot it somehow with a COVID-cleared audience? But it's hard to have cutaways to audience members and masks without it changing the tone of the special. And we don't want that. I mean, they both have such good specials that are great on their own and they will work past the pandemic they're not they're not top oh they will yeah oh good yeah and actually you're

doing a show i'm curious how this is going to work it's coming up on november 17th yes with the in crowd and it says the audience can buy a ticket to be on the on the zoom wall and interact with their favorite comedians how exactly is that going to work well this is this is a really i think one of the cooler things that's come out of this pandemic right now for comedy right is yes i think the drive-in shows can work in some aspects and some people are doing rooftop shows and right there are certainly other ways of working around it but this in terms of using the technology, these guys have a warehouse deep in the San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles, but they've got this facility where they've teamed up with a number of people that have worked on super high-end tours, festivals, TV shows, movies.

So they all have these skill sets that are very technical and they figured out ways to have a comic perform and interact with audience members that are up on a wall. So it is sort of like a Zoom call. However, all the wiring, everything, the latency and the delay and the laughs is minimal and you can actually do crowd work. And so if you buy a ticket, there are two levels of tickets. You can either just buy a general admission ticket and you can watch the show. And so you'll see this comic doing stand-up and also talking to a wall, which sounds horrible, but the way I just presented it. But if you buy the VIP ticket.

That's kind of what we've all been doing in quarantine, just talking to walls. Yeah. You buy a second tier ticket, which usually would not be my hope is that I would, I would, I like sitting in the back of the room, but if you buy this VIP ticket, you get up on the wall and there's 24 people that will be up there and the comic can interact with these 24 people. It's been very successful. A lot of comics have really enjoyed it. Uh, one of our friends, Flula, uh, Borg, he was the early, uh, canaries in the coal mine, and he came out saying it was a lot of fun. If he can have fun riffing with TV screens, then

I'm all in. He's a great improviser. He's so much fun. Yeah. He's super fast. I could talk eons about the stuff that he's done on the show and how much fun it's been to see that. And his various fanny packs.

That's a separate episode. Well, jp i think we would also be remiss with that if we didn't mention your new web series the setup um do you want to tell us about it sure yeah i mean it's it's it grew out of the fact that we couldn't have stand-ups on the show show over the past few months. And so we're trying to find ways of still supporting comics that we love. And we had done this series on Conan's tour where Conan comics were watching back their sets. And then Solomon Giorgio, I mentioned earlier, he called me up and he's, and he said that he would love to do a director's commentary of his set.

The first one he did on the show oh yeah so that sort of led to well why don't we get on a zoom call and have this conversation together i could tell you my thoughts on what happened and then you could tell me your version of the events and you know every every comic you know every sentence you watch is only like four and a half to maybe sometimes if you're ron fununch's six and a half minutes. But there's so much more storytelling that goes on behind the scenes of what leads to a booking, mistakes that were made, things that maybe an edit or two that had to be done. Sometimes there's the stories of people forgetting their next joke. Oh, yeah.

We talked to Tig Notaro and that was a pretty epic forgetting of she just totally blanked in the middle of her set. But then she asked you to keep it in, which was kind of shocking, too. I wanted to do everything to preserve and protect her, and she just said, no. No. Do not do that. I want the world to know who i really am we also remember the other time she was going to do the squeaky uh stool the squeaky stool across the floor and it turns out they had waxed the floor do you remember that in between preparation we had to do and i talked to take actually in an

upcoming episode i actually did get to talk to tig about her set where she pushed the stool around. And kind of what led to it was unlike anything I've ever booked on the show. But yeah, it turned out to be one of my favorite sets we've ever had. Yeah, no, it was hilarious. Well, just quickly, who are some of your favorite comics that you've had on the show? Oh, that's not fair. Okay, good. All the people that are on the set that are or how about the most memorable that's okay some of the most memorable sets and i would have to say are you know they're because they're unique and they certainly stand out in the community

uh would be we tigs pushing the stool uh john dore and rory skull coming out and doing the double the first time that was That was a great set. Can you explain the double? They both, was the idea that they were both booked the same night? Yes, that we made the mistake. The whole idea was that, and Conan sold, this is what was even more fun about the set, is that Conan really enjoyed blaming the staff and saying that they had made this horrible mistake.

We just happened to book two standup comics on the same night. And not only that, but now these comics are such professionals that they are comfortable performing on stage together at the same time. It's just a ridiculous premise. And I look back at the YouTube clip and there's still comments to this day going, well, why didn't one guy just go like the next night? I love that. Somebody really screwed up. Yeah.

And they just let it go for five and a half minutes. So like that. There's Reggie Watts, who, I mean, it's not considered a stand up, but those were segments that I booked that I really enjoyed because I don't think people realize how good a singer Reggie Watts is. He did a cover of a Led Zeppelin song. I heard one time that this day is still my favorite version, even better than the original. Oh, wow. And the fun thing about Reggie was that he could do pretty much do anything.

And I always loved like throwing a challenge at him. Like this week, you're going to have to do this and this week you have this prop or this week. And he would every time come up with something. And there was one show where I will one appearance where I asked him, I really wanted him to perform with a guitarist. So I would love to have you and another artist work together and have them

have to follow you. And so he agreed. I think this was maybe the fifth or sixth appearance. It took a while to get them there, but once we got there, can't tell you how many guitarists that agreed to do this, that he didn't know or recognize. I mean, these are, I mean, if you think of the nineties and two thousands of like level rock stars, like these guitar people, I ran by him,

which he had no idea who they were. And finally I just booked somebody on my own and he showed up. And then on top of that, Billy Gibbons had heard about this. Yeah. And Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top drove from New Mexico, drove himself with his wife, came to the studio.

And so we ended up with two guitarists that day. And Reggie at first was like, so set on one guitarist, but like, I was like, Reggie, it's Billy Gibbons. It's he's in like Rolling Stones top 10 guitarists of all time.

Once he saw Billy play, he was like, okay, yeah. He made him audition. Let's see what this guy's got. Okay, it's good. Any other memorable people you love? Oh, gosh. Gary Goldman, of course.

I think everybody says that. He's just not only one of the greatest stand-ups of his generation, but potentially of all time. He's in the Hall of Fame for sure. Yeah. Everybody really loves his, of course, his 50 States abbreviations. Right, which he did on conan which to this i mean i can listen to that on repeat i have no problem that never loses any of any yeah it's the day of the humor i really love that set but also his he

did one of the role playing i think my favorite one may be his role playing one where he talks about it i love that one too he and his his wife are going to role-play the various ridiculous jobs. He, that he role-plays with her, but he gets so deep into fixated on the details of the jobs. Yeah. And he has one line in there that if you listen to it, I don't even want to say it because out of context,

it'll sound horrible, but he has one line there where Conanen bellows so loud it's almost it almost like pulls you out of the bit for a second because but it's just such a great line and like yeah just every time gary's on the show like i can't have him on enough like he's probably the one of you know uh maybe you know three four comics that i will not even i won't even push to hear what the set's going to be. Right. And just say, I'm ready.

I'm available this date. I'm like, great. What are you going to do? What do you want to do here? Here are your five minutes, please. I'm going to take the rest of the day off. So here's the keys to the studio. That's a great place to be where you don't even have to check anyone out anymore and just slot them in, slot them in and off you go.

Well, before we're going to wrap up in a minute but we always ask everybody for some advice and i can't think anyone better to ask than you if you have advice for people starting out in the comedy field or people who want to be comedy bookers maybe i'll go with the first one first uh i'll say for standups, if my advice would be to trust your instincts and trust your voice, don't try to be anybody else. Because I think that the standup field is so crowded. It's gotten so much more crowded now than it was when I started that I think people are dying for unique voices. It's going to be harder. There's going to be more people closing doors to you in the beginning because you don't fit in. But in the end, I think it only yields to better and

bigger things for you. And it's really, I mean, I think it's going to take a while to figure out. I mean, it takes comics always say 10, 20, you know, sometimes 20 years to find your voice, but sometimes you'll age into that person. I think that's great. I think that's why some comics become bigger stars later in their careers, because people want to hear them as that cranky 50 year old instead of that young whippersnapper. Like not everybody's got that young voice. Right. Yeah.

Well, and also it takes a while for the right audience to find that person. Cause it's like you said, I think there's the inclination to try to mold yourself so that you can have a broader audience but that is often a mistake because then you're hammering out your individuality right to try to appeal to too many people so it's better you know if it's like maybe it's not appealing to everybody but it will be very appealing to this specific crowd. You have to stick to your guns. Otherwise, no one's happy.

What about anyone who might want your job? I mean, they can't have it for a while. Well, I don't want to, I love my job. So yes, I don't want to, but there are plenty of jobs like this. And I think that I would say, like, I think it goes back once again, Jesse, you made such a great point before I'm trying to steal your advice, your advice, but it's about getting your ego out of the way. I think that's one thing. I think you can't have too much of an ego because you need to want that person on stage to succeed. So I think you really want to provide that person with as much of a, you know, a safety net as well as some you know give them some space to uh to succeed

and i think that it's really uh important that they understand that you're not gonna you're not always gonna be booking stuff that you like uh like i i will say i mean as much this is a job uh i'm not booking i of the i can't even i don't even i've count, but of all the comics I've booked for this show, maybe like 60% are comics that I would go see and enjoy. I think there are other comics that have really good sets that work for a different audience but work for Conan, and that's why I book them. So I think it's really kind of trying to keep a very wide spectrum

of types of comics. And you're booking for your project. Like if you're booking for a festival, you're, you're looking to kind of cast a wide net of, you know, we used to do, you know, new faces for Montreal. I worked for them for a bit and you would try and find, you know, 10 to 15 comics and some of them are writers. Some of them are more performers. Some of them are just, are wordsmiths.

So like everyone has got to feel a different, and some it's all about casting so you really want to try and you know uh you really want to have a different array of comics uh in that in that you know 10 to 15 person setting and that's interesting on a tv show you kind of are doing that casting but over a much longer period of time you know in terms of trying to get, keep the variety up. Yeah. And it's not just like, it's the, you know, it's style. It's not just, you know, gender or age or race or ethnicity. It's really, you're trying to get a lot of. Right. Indie comics versus club comics versus. Yeah.

Yeah. Improvised loot players. You remember that you're still giving me shit for the, that loot player I booked all those years well thanks for doing the show well this was great yeah thanks jp and thanks for being such an integral part of the conan show too it's one of the greatest places to work and i can't i i conan has created an environment for all of us to i I mean, really, he allows us to succeed. So it's been, it's a lot of fun just working with you guys and everybody else on staff. And I can't wait to be back in the same building with everybody.

I know. Yes. Except you, Sweeney. Yeah, I know. Sweeney's never coming back. I'm not. Thanks, JP. Okay, thanks, JP.

All right, bye. And that was JP Buck thank you JP and here's a JP plug oh do it you can watch episodes of

The Setup on Team Coco's YouTube channel also check out Moses and Friends on Team Coco's YouTube Facebook

Twitch and at Team Coco Live on Instagram and the virtual stand-up show In Crowd is happening on November 17th YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and at Team Coco Live on Instagram. And the virtual stand-up show in crowd is happening on November 17th. Ta-da!

We have another fan question. Ooh! It's a voicemail. I love the voicemails. Hello, Jesse and Mike. My name is Rose. I'm calling from Michigan. Long-time listener, first-time caller.

So I'm wondering, will we ever have the chance? Oh, I'm so sorry. That's my GPS. I'm out driving for work right now. Will we ever have the chance to hear from either Liza or a sibling of Conan? I think that they would have an interesting viewpoint that we would all enjoy hearing about. Love the podcast. Love hearing from you both. Hope you're enjoying your fall. All right. Thanks.

Bye. Thanks, Rose. Thank you, Rose. I hope she got where she was going safely. She was going to work. Yeah. I like that she thought of us on her way to work. That's just another thing to cross off on your commute. Yep. Voicemail

for Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. That's a good question. She asked about Conan's wife, Liza, who was just, actually, if you're curious about Conan's wife, Liza, there's a YouTube video that just went up around a month ago of Conan met her on television, which is pretty unusual. Yeah, that's right. I love that story. She worked at an advertising agency where we went.

I was there. And you did a remote there. We did a remote there. I picked that advertising agency. And so if I'd picked a different one, he'd be married to someone else. Oh my God. Yeah.

Had you met Liza when you chose like did you pre-interview with her at all i don't think so no i think it was you know our team will be there and so i know i met her along with conan at the same time i mean he literally met her on camera so yeah you kind of get their initial reaction to each other which is it's crazy but and were the sparks flying they were oh yes they were they were flying right away so they were flying from one direction at least no i i think i think they really both hit it off so oh yeah and uh this remote went back up and and like now i can say oh yeah that was that was my remote. But for years I was like, you know, maybe I shouldn't bring up that it's my remote. Let's make sure the marriage has, you know, legs.

Okay, they're having kids. That's a good sign. But still, you know, it's Hollywood. You think it's safe now? Now I feel safe to take full credit. Oh, I guess it doesn't answer Rose's question. Yeah. Are we going to talk to her?

I don't know. I mean, have we tried? No. I think we respect her too much to drag her into this sort of affair. I know. And his siblings. You know, I assume they're all working on books. I have thought about talking to his brother, Neil, because he tells really funny stories about Neil.

And I'm just fascinated by him. He has a photographic memory. He does, especially for television. Television from its inception through like the 80s, I'd say. Oh, so it's limited to that time frame. Yeah, it's limited to 40 years. Okay. It's incredible. Right, right, right. I get the sense, and Conan said this before, but he likes to keep the show and his family separate.

No, I think that's very smart. I think that's just why I integrate those two things. That just seems messy and looking for trouble. Well, thank you, Rose. Yeah, thanks, Rose. And I hope you appreciate our non-answer to your questions. That's what we do best. Yes.

Future politicians here at the Conan Show. Yes. If more of you would like non-answers to your burning questions, please, please leave a voicemail at 323-209-5303. Or you can email us if you are voice shy, insideconanpod at gmail.com. Okay, that's our show for the week. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for listening. And 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 Blaire. 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.