Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - Remembering Bill Tull

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Bill Tull, Team Coco’s prop master for 28 years, passed away on July 27th, 2022. In honor of their beloved colleague, Jessie and Mike are revisiting an episode from earlier this year when Bill and fellow prop master John Rau came on to talk about their adventures over the years, from Late Night to CONAN. 

Hi there, and welcome to Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. It is your hosts, Jesse Gaskell and Mike Sweeney, and we're here under sad circumstances. And Bill was the original prop master starting back in 1993 with Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Worked with the Conan family for 28 years and was the most beloved person working on the show. Just from Conan on down, everyone just flat out loved Bill Tall because he he was just an amazing guy yeah he really was heart and soul of the show and consistently was making the impossible possible and fulfilling our crazy requests sometimes just minutes before showtime yep and and he was doing that you know the first year of the show when you you know, it was like, oh, is this show going to hang in there? And I know Robert Smigel just talks about how Bill was a pillar of strength for everyone else because he was so positive and was like, was such a big voice of, let's make this work. And he really was a hero. And I know Conan called him a hero in his tweet,

and it really was true of him. Like you said, he made the impossible possible day in and day out. And I think it's not overstating it that he, I think, really inspired everyone. And he did it. Yeah. But he was always in a great mood and always really funny and just like, hey, let's do it.

And I... Always trying to make the show better. Yeah. I think everyone, I mean, I fell in love with him. Like I was there a month and I was like, oh my God, now I understand what a real man is. You know, he's just great in every way. We all wanted him to be our dad. to know Bill. And we were lucky to have Bill and our other property master, John Rao, as guests on the show a few months ago. And a lot of people said it was their absolute favorite episode.

And it's because Bill came loaded with all these wild, wild stories. Oh, yeah. He had a notebook full of illegal things that they had done on late night yes like just they were confessions of of the extremes he he they had to go to to make props every day for this show that aired five nights a week it was often written that app the afternoon of the show and he had to come up with these create all these props for all these sketches and he always got they they always got it done he got it done and the way he accomplished that was it was often uh it violated many a few rules were a few rules were violated so but they always got it done. Yep. And he's hilarious to listen to. So we're excited to have you here, Mr. Bill Tull and John Rao.

Nice to be here. Thanks for inviting us. Bill, so you started when the show began, right? In 93? Yep. Were you already working in 30 Rock? Like, did you work on the Letterman show? I worked on the Letterman show when he was in the morning. Oh. Oh.

And then before Conan, I was up on Saturday Night Live. Got it. For two years. And then you just wandered down to the Conan studio. I just walked in. I liked the way the band band sounded so i asked if i could have a job the band they were playing this really zany music i said this is going to be fun this show i remember saying that to myself that's how we all ended up there yeah unlike snl it was on every night so that had to be was that a bit of an adjustment like all of a sudden our show was was um a lot of last minute late night yes conan

especially in the beginning the writers i think everybody was starting to know each other. You guys were writing as you walked down the hallways. People would throw wads of paper at our door with a prop request on them to leave. John, when did you start on Conan? The end of 94, I believe. Okay, so it was still pretty early. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, what did you think of, what were. Okay. So it was still pretty early. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, what did you think of?

What were your first impressions? It was crazy. You know, driving around, getting a 5737 911 beep on your pager. Then you had to pull over in a cab, find a pay phone, and find out what the problem, you know, what it was. And Billy would say, you got to go here now. And then you get back to the cab. It's like you were a drug dealer. Yeah.

It was just nuts. It's crazy. Really was. It was a lot of fun. Wow. And we have to explain to our listeners what a pager and a pay phone was. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

You had to build your own pay phone, then call on the pay phone. I can tell you this i didn't have an assistant for like three or four weeks danielle perna our designer he insisted i get an assistant that's back when we had beepers we didn't even have phones like a surgeon so there was so i had to go out and get props and get whatever and then i people were trying to reach me by pager wow it was a pain in the ass But the show itself was just, I just knew it was going to be fun. I mean, the shit we were getting hit with in the beginning was just crazy. So you were laughing, but you were also really angry at the same time.

I really wasn't. I mean, I really did enjoy the challenge. Well, do you remember some of the early challenges that stick in your mind? Oh, yeah. There's so many. Well, my favorite is the of the early challenges that stick in your mind? Oh, yeah. God, there's so many. One of my favorite is the Trojan horse. Yeah. Oh, what was that?

First of all, we had no budget. We had no freaking money back then. So they wanted this huge Trojan horse to hide all our riders in, left outside of Letterman's stage door. Right. It was a comedy bit. Conan was going to send over riders to Letterman. We were going to take over to letterman we were gonna take over the letter we were supposed to infiltrate his show and who wrote it brian rich wrote it

but you were in charge but i shot the whole thing and we had to shoot it and edit it the same day well we didn't have a budget to build that thing so i had two friends of mine in new jersey build it in their driveway wait seriously so so it didn't have a shop stamp on it. Everything we did at the beginning of our show was illegal. I think there's a statute of limitation. Right. I think we're safe. We broke every rule you could possibly break, union or building.

I love this. And I'm not kidding. I believe you. We used to never get permits to shoot anything. We would just go out and shoot. When we did the Trojan horse, we had an 18ed uh dump truck that once the horse was left there we ran through it with a dump truck right and smashed it we backed up we backed up i was sitting shotgun we backed up to eighth avenue and we're getting ready to go and i look ahead of me and adio had not cleared 53rd street jeff adio was the the production coordinator at the time.

Yeah. And there was a wall of people right in front of where we were going. Just to set the picture. First of all, this Trojan horse, can you describe how long you said friends built it in a, in a driveway that blows my mind because can you describe how huge it was? It was about 18 feet high and about 16 to 20 feet long. Oh, wow. All on wheels. And there

was a door inside one of the legs where all the writers got in before the truck hit them. Yeah, it was a functioning Trojan horse. Was there a bathroom? No, it was a kitchen. Yeah, a kitchenette. The whole idea was we sent it from our studio, which was only three blocks away from Letterman's studio, which is now Colbert's studio, the old Ed Sullivan Theater. Right. So we pushed it across 7th Avenue down 53rd to the stage door entrance of the Letterman. Across 7th, across Broadway? Right. And so then the end of it was, you mentioned this giant dump truck was going to barrel down 53rd

and smash it into smithereens. Oh. Correct. With the riders inside? Yep. Yes. They were actors, so they were expendable. So you're saying Jeff Adio, the coordinator,

he didn't clear 53rd Street? There was a wall of people from corner to corner on 53rd. It was like right in our path. Yeah. Cause I wanted to be on TV. So what I, what happened? Well,

I told the truck driver to drive back up there. So we drove back up. I said, Jeff, do you think we might want to get rid of these people? Which he did. Okay. So they just yelled at him.

Like, if you don't move, you, you may get run over by a truck. Exactly. I remember Martin Scorsese was the guest after that aired and he just went on and on he really liked it oh was he impressed with the directing no but oh yeah he just liked the bit so that was sweet uh yeah so a lot of stuff was built illegally back then i didn't know that shit

yeah remember the catapults no the catapults they they called for a meeting in the in the conference room on seven or nine whatever the hell floor we were on, after work on a Friday. Okay. On Monday morning, they wanted to somehow drop gummy worms over the whole audience. Uh-huh. So I'm sitting down at one end of the table and Jeff Ross is up at the other end. Our producer. And I'm thinking, literally in about three minutes minutes i calculated how to build a catapult

that would throw gummy worms i went to new jersey to our stage manager's house built it that weekend dropped it off in the city on my way back through to long island where i lived and then monday morning we set it up and when we let the the catapult go with the gummy worms on it yeah they flew about eight feet and landed on the floor in front of the house band. So I was worried it was going to go the other way and be so powerful that they took someone's eye out. That's what I was waiting for. So I'm sitting there and I said, don't worry about it, which is just a couple of adjustments. And I went back and I tightened up the bungee cords to give it more power. Yeah.

For the live show, they went back eight feet in front of the band again no change no nothing and conan stands up he puts both hands on the desk leans over and he goes let's hear it for the crappiest catapults on television jersey built the next morning they wanted to do this bluebird of happiness a bit called the bluebird of happiness okay yeah and it's it's supposed to fly in and land on somebody's shoulder i think mike gordon okay so they're all going well how are we going to do this how are we going to do this and i from the other end of the table i go i got catapults anyway one prop someone reminded me about the stanley cup oh yeah the writers asked for the night before they needed it smigel called me himself at my house robert smigel yeah the

head writer never a good call yeah evidently they had just won the cup and they were skating it around the ring the rangers i think that night the ranger won the the stanley cup yeah so they're skating it around and i get a phone call and it's Robert. He's going, Bill, can you help me out? He said, wardrobe just said they,

they won't do it. Do what? Make a costume, make a Stanley cup costume. Okay. So I said, I'll do it. And,

um, for the, for the next day. And we ended up, we, I, I calculated how much of the supplies we had, which almost everything. What we were missing was the cup.

And I finally found one up in the rainbow room in the catering department. But the guy in charge of the catering said, I'll only give you this cup to use if you can get me a date with the girl down at security. Oh, wow. I said, you are kidding, right? He goes, nope. No. One thing I know. You're bartering.

That's never a joke when a man says that. I went down to the lobby, and here was this girl in a suit, really finely tanned. And I walked up to her. I just said, are you dating anybody? And she said, as a matter of fact i'm not i said would you be interested in dating the head of catering at the rainbow room she said sure wait this is a true story wait was this the same night that smigel called you about this was the next day okay the

next day yeah you were adding the cup the next day and it was for that night's coming show we were building the whole thing the next day. Wow. When I was at home, I just calculated how much stuff we had. Got it. Got it. Got it. And it really turned out great, except we had it full size. We had five tiers and then two and then three tiers in the cup. Smigel wanted to see Mike Gordon's underwear. Right. Michael Gordon was a writer and he, yes, he wore it. It kind of went over his head. He wore it in the parade. And it was in all the newspapers the next

day. Yeah, yeah, right. Oh, so it was worth the effort. I thought it was great. I loved it. It came out it was amazing. But so what happened with the date? Yeah, that's... Did the head of security go out with the catering guy? I guess, I remember I switched cards I said, give me one of your cards and then I got one of his and gave it to her so i don't know what they did that was like

an early tinder you were pioneers it was crazy man wow i wonder how many hookups happened in order to get props made for the show that could be in the hundreds it was crazy but i'm telling you wow that's amazing and and do you remember some other early crazy? Like, I don't know how we're going to get this done, but. We just came on. There was no emails. You get 12 or 13 voicemails. Oh, like you'd come in in the morning.

You just morning and you hit play and you scribble down 12 things that were for that day show. Oh, my God. And you guys wanted the Mormons with gerbils taking them through a... Covered wagons. Covered wagons through a diaphragm. Right. I don't know why, what the bit was. Diagram.

But it was reenacting the Mormons. Migrating west. You gotta tell me how the diaphragm factors in here. Diagram. But played by... But instead of horses, it was gerbils, I think, pulling stagecoaches. So that was all night. And John was doing that.

So we worked on that all night. You had to make gerbils. Oh, man. No, they were real gerbils. But John was hooking up a lizard harness to one of them. And then you could buy them at pet stores. They're like little harnesses with a string. Well, sure.

Gerbils. Of course, everyone knows you can harness a lizard, but not a gerbil. I've never heard of a lizard harness. John's trying to get this thing done, and it's biting him. And he's screaming, getting bit. And next thing I know, the hamster

flew out of his hand and hit the deck. And he was out cold. The hamster? He got knocked out, man. And John picked him up and started massaging his chest. Oh my God. It was crazy. We knocked him right out. Well, he hit his teeth into

my finger. So did you massage him with one finger or both thumbs? Just one pinky. And you brought him back to life or both thumbs? Just one pinky. Okay. And you brought him back to life. Wow. Did you hear of something called the I hate myself machine?

Yes. I remember that. It had a mousetrap and a monkey. I don't remember it, but I have it on my notes here. I hate myself machine, mousetrap game, and monkey. Let the court know that Bill is reading from a legal pad. Are those notes you have from way back then? I made this list back in New York. We were doing so much work.

Yeah. And working so many hours that we needed to make sure we could justify the hours. Yeah. So I started making a list of the stuff we did just to have in case they asked us. Wow. Which they never did. You had to prove all the illegal stuff you had made. Yeah, right.

I hate yourself, machine. I don't remember. I think it was like a Rube Goldberg contraption that there was a big, long explanation and then the scientist pushed the button and it ended up, of course, a gun came up and shot him and he died. Best way to end a sketch.

I don't know where the monkey, how the monkey was involved. I tell you, this job was fun, man. Do you remember, Mike, the day that you came in with your son and his schoolmates? No, I don't. You came in with like two teachers and about 12 kids. That was a class trip. I'm showing all the kids this stuff. Right.

John's in the back by my desk looking forward. And I'm pulling stuff out of this box of body parts. Right. And I'm handing it to the kids. So I didn't realize it, but I'm sticking my left hand in after I had something in my right hand. And I'm holding it up in the air, giving the kid the thing in my right hand. You may not want to do that. And I look over at Rao and he's laughing

and I look at my left hand and there was about a 15 inch black dildo. In my hand. You know, the kids still talk about it to this day. That does bring up, I think. It was extra credit. Maybe after guns, dildos are probably the most requested.

Yep. Yeah. Prop. Absolutely. was there anything else that got requested a lot remember the sheep skeleton horse testicles wait what was the sheep skeleton yeah they tell us about the sheep skeleton they came in on a on a wednesday around three o'clock writers or the head whoever it was right and they they wanted to do a uh world records the next day

like a bit where we introduce new world records yeah conan opens a book he picks out a record he goes i think we can beat this so it called for a sheep and then it called for a sheep skeleton okay and some shears the gag was he would start off with the live sheep with the fur on it start to shave it. We'd throw fur by his face. And then when he was done, he looked out. He shaved too much. He went too far.

Right down to the bone. So I couldn't find a sheep skeleton anywhere. What? And I went and called up. I went into I called up a friend. I said, is there a sheep farm in New Jersey? And they turned me on to one and i called them up and i said this is bill from the conan brown show do you bury sheep there

when they dive not they go well yeah we do just wondering no reason they go oh yeah we do so i said well i'll call you right back so i went into the dressing room conan was getting his hair done yeah and i said conan here's the deal this is what they want for tomorrow i said i can get one but i have to dig it up i said will you mind handling it if it's if i dig up a skeleton out of there oh he said you're fucking crazy he goes but i'll do it the next morning at six o'clock we're at this farm in new jersey in new jersey i love how new jersey's the prop state yeah it's where all props come from yeah you're in you're at the farm the next morning at the farm i'm in their kitchen yeah there's an 85 year old woman with trophies all over the kitchen for sheep and her son comes out who's not too happy about doing this yeah and we go out into the field that

we start digging with a little bobcat we We ended up getting a shitload of bones. We were missing the lower jaw. So we had to dig another hole to find that. We found it. And Smith, our stage manager, said, Bill, we got to go. So we got to NBC under the marquee on 49th Street. I slit holes in the plastic bags to let the gas out. Oh, God.

And we go upstairs, and the guy I had working with me, Jasper, he had boiling pots of hot water. We had a garbage can filled with muriatic acid. We had all this shit ready to go. And we go up, we start throwing these bones

in these bins, in the buckets. We broke a bunch of beer mugs, and we're using the glass to scrape the fat off the bones. Oh, my God. And we take them out and they're all over the scene. Was the sheep. Are you sure the sheep was dead? He had a little bit of fat on him.

So they're all over the scene. They're out in the hallway. Fans are blowing on him. And George Mendez, the head of management're out in the hallway fans are blowing on him and george mendez the head of management comes in and he goes bill i said hey george he goes he holds up holds up both of his hands he goes how many fingers do you see i said 10 he goes that doesn't even begin to tell you how many health codes you're breaking out here and i remember i stood there for like 10 seconds i just said but george what about the old saying that the show must go on and he just dropped his hands and walked away that was the end of it

i thought the end of the story was going to be that the bit got cut no wait so did you assemble that in one day for that night show? Mark Rudolph. Yeah. Wow. Oh, my God. Yeah, we gave it to the scenics. Yeah, Mark. We brought in research on what a sheep should look like. We couldn't find it. Right. Actually, I think we used a dog skeleton to go by it.

So what we did was we just glued a bunch of vertebrae onto a steel rod. Right. Bent the rod so it would hold the head. Then we just started gluing shoulder blades to the rib bones. I remember that skeleton because it hung from the ceiling of the prop room

for years. We brought it to California with us, but by that time it was getting really funky. Yeah. Then it was finally dead. When that was done, Conan looks over at Andy and goes, we got to keep this thing. Just like that. Yeah, man.

We can't let this thing go away. I kind of brought it up a second ago, but how often would you be deep in on making a prop and then it would get cut? A lot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

That's a good question. A lot of times it was like rush, rush to get it done that day. Then it would do it three or four days later. Yeah. Right. But Hey, both of you have appeared on the show a number of times as well.

Maybe we'll start with John. Do you remember the first time you were actually on screen on the show? It was John Lith lithgow oh yeah he was singing us a kitty song i believe yeah camp song oh and all the stage hands were sitting around him oh nice and that was the first time oh that's cool that's a good one that was easy because you didn't have to say anything you had to sit there yeah yeah there was no acting there's a good way to get your feet wet. But then you moved on to a lot of speaking roles. Oh, yeah.

I hated them. Oh, is that true? Oh, yeah. Because you're a good actor. You're very natural. You're very natural. You're both good actors. You're both great.

I didn't like it. Bill, did you like it? Because, Bill, you were in a lot of scares. I didn't like it. I didn't like it live. I didn't mind the pre-taped stuff. Ah. Oh, I see. And towards the end of that,

I got pretty okay with it, to be honest. Live is scary. That red light comes on on the camera. And reading cue cards when you never do that. Right. That's hard. That's weird. Yeah.

I don't know if people realize, yeah, like all our sketches, we'd always have cue cards. Yeah. It's very distracting. It's not easy. And I give everybody who's an actor like that credit for doing that that great yeah and that's it's really hard not

easy for me and bill you you did uh a bit that really became popular called tolls tips where yeah yeah where the the whole idea would be like well it's valentine's day and you know that can get really expensive buying stuff for valentine's. Here's some money saving tips as our prop master built tall. Yeah. And then they were just quick little pre tapes. Yeah. Quick vignettes of you showing cheap ways to, uh,

yeah, it got ridiculous towards the end. Yeah. They weren't even tips anymore. They were just silly things. Well, sometimes the tips would become more time consuming and expensive than the original.

There's a scraps., like, you know, an outtake from rehearsal where, like, it's a classic thing where we had done Tull's tips a lot and they always did great. You know, you start getting diminishing returns. So, like, maybe the 13th time we tried it, it was for cinco de mayo that's what i without going into detail if people watch it on a team coco it's a really hilarious rehearsal outtake because none of the beats made sense and conan and andy just jumped on how bad it was immediately and when we were doing them we were we were laughing and we were doing we did them all the proper way. Matt O'Brien was the writer. Right. Matt O'Brien was the writer at the time who was in charge of them.

He'd be lowering his head, laughing with his hand over his mouth. It was just ridiculous, man. So that was a good sign for you, right? You'd be like, okay, I think that one. I like those things. They were good. They were easy. They were quick.

Yeah. They were really funny. The first time I was on camera, I was in the airlock, patting the top of my head with one hand and pulling a bird out of my mouth with another. I don't remember that one. And John, I remember another bit you did

where it was just a few years ago in Baby Yoda. Oh, I wrote that. I was Jesse's bit. It was a Jesse bit. Sure. It took me a second to remember. No, no. Yeah, no, John Rao was, his acting was superb.

Yes. Thank you, Jesse. You're my muse. Conan was doing a Christmas manger bit and he wanted to reveal a baby Yoda, but we didn't have one because you couldn't find them anywhere. It was a year that, yeah, they were all sold out everywhere very popular and i had written this bit about the lengths that you would go to to get the baby yoda and you end up finding one on the dark web but you have to have your kidney extracted and i was great and honestly when i wrote it i didn't realize that you guys it was kind of literally what you've done on the show.

Exactly. They've donated. That's what your career has been. Yeah, so many kidneys. They've donated more organs and boiled down more organs. Here's something that's really not prop related, but it's prop room related. Okay. Yeah. Tell them the story about your first week there with the phones.

Oh, God. Do you remember the roll-arounds? Oh. Libraries have them sometimes, too, where they're shelves. The cranks. But behind them, there were relays. Oh, yeah. On the walls.

There were huge relay systems on the walls. All phone. All for phones. It was antiquated, but it was still there. They were big bundles big boxes probably four feet long maybe 18 inches wide and they were just on the wall and they weren't doing anything right so we know billy's like why don't you take those off i said all right and they were probably what 10 12 yeah so i just keep pulling these things off.

Yeah. Keep pulling them off until I get to the one that went to 6B, to the local news. Right. Where their relay system went to their satellite trucks on the road. Right. And I ripped that one off, too. Right. And from the control room to the news desk.

So NBC News had a big issue. How did you find out that that was? Oh, the management came running down. Everybody came running. What happened? I was like, I don't know. They're like, I don't know. I pulled some props off the wall.

I said, we're making shelves for storage. Yeah. The news, the control room couldn't talk to the news. The satellite trucks couldn't talk to the control room. We ripped all that out. Well, I ripped it all out. Wow. They had to use their pagers.

Yeah, exactly. Did the shelf look good, though? Yeah, it was helpful. Small storage. We had to call catering and bring catering in for the guys. Oh, it was crazy. Oh, wow. I hadn't been working there long.

And I went down to the sixth floor before the show. Oh, because I did the warmup back then. And I go down and people are running and screaming on the sixth floor. And I'm like, what is going on? And so I asked them, I said, what's going on? They're like, live at five. It's totally down. All their phone lines are dead they can't broadcast we haven't missed a single broadcast in our entire history but it's

true these phone lines were how they communicated as you said with all the satellite trucks in the field and yeah they're like we don't know what happened and they're running around and i they got these guys from 18t who had to trace where the break was and i think that's when they're like it's coming from this prop room this woman in charge of whatever whatever she was in charge of she was in charge of a lot she came in that prop room and i mean she had steam coming out of her ears man yeah i'm looking over i'm looking over at john he's just shaking his head and she she's screaming and yelling at me. She's going, what do you think you're doing?

Who gave you the authority? I said, I'm building shelves. Well, I mean, why would they put such important machinery in someone's office? I don't know. But next to stuff that's so old and outdated, and this little one that looked kind of maybe i shouldn't have taken it off but i will say this though at the end of the day about an hour after the whole thing happened she came in the room again yeah and she said i want to give you a hug okay she said she goes i can't believe it you just came right out and told me the truth i said i said i said no no no hugs no

wow she did a 180 there. Well, she must really like the shelves. I remember going into the prop room after you cut through those phone lines, and they were bundles, and each one had like a few hundred phone lines. Oh, my God, Sweeney. The cable's coming in from the ceiling. You cut through like, I don't know, a couple thousand phone lines. Well, there must have been a moment when that was happening that you thought this might have been important or no.

This is what it was. 95, 98% of the cables came in through the ceiling. Big cables that were about four inches around. Yeah, easy. Right. So just big fat cables. And inside of those were hundreds and hundreds of wires. These little copper relays and they they just waiting to be sawed they fed these big panels yeah what i started doing was we could get the shelby you cut the first just go by like four or five times a day and just rip wires out and throw them in the garbage and then if

there was and then if nobody reported anything, I'd go rip off some more. Remember, I cut the first big cable, and nothing happened. John had to cut the cables. So you were testing them. He had to use a hacksaw. You're going to go to jail after this.

But the stuff that John ripped out, which was the last part of it, it was a newer type system. Okay. Why'd it rip it out? Yeah, you say. Wow. I wouldn't admit to it.

No, they were beautifully sawed. I remember they were. You guys are going to have to get married so you can't testify against each other. And I remember talking to you about it and you're both just like, I asked him nicely to remove these things because we needed more shelving space for our props. They didn't do it. So fuck it. We took them out. Yeah, exactly. There you go. You know what? It's your can do style.

It was helpful. I can tell you that you needed more space for all the black dildos. They used to put that prop room on the tour when they had the tour going through. Oh, you mean for tourists? The VIP tour. Okay. Oh, wow. While you were there, there'd be just like tour groups passing through. Oh, you mean for tourists? The VIP tour. Okay. Oh, wow. While you were there, there'd be just like tour groups passing through?

Yeah, as you're working. Guys, put the dildos away. I'm making horse testicles in a jar right now. Right. And that's what you're doing. They're like, ah. Bill's dropping sheep fat into muriatic acid. Just a regular day at a television show.

Yeah, it's crazy. your yadda gasset. Just a regular day at a television show. Yeah, it's crazy. Did you ever get requests from staffers to make things that weren't for the show, but they just... Around Halloween. Around Halloween.

Especially Halloween, right? Because I was actually just looking for a dog skeleton and I realized I should have called you guys first. Maybe we got rid of them. Yeah. We got rid of a lot of stuff.

Yeah. You know what? Saying you got rid of a lot of stuff. Yeah. You know what? Saying you got rid of a lot of stuff, I'm wondering when we left 30 Rock and moved to LA, did you guys leave a lot of props and take some? Everything in that prop room came to LA. Oh, okay. Everything. Including

the sheep. Wow. Oh, man. Ross, Jeff said to bring it all. Okay, okay. Everything. Including the sheep. Wow. Oh, man. Ross, Jeff said to bring it all. Okay, great. Wow. That'd be a great moving truck. So, when the Tonight Show ended, do you know what happened to all those props then? Half of them went into Bill's kitchen because we had

to hide them. Every dad would leave really important things like the Texas Ranger lever. Yeah, we'd just start taking stuff. Things that were old to the show. Every dad leave really important things like the Texas Ranger lever. Yeah, we just start taking stuff. Things that were old to the show. You'd put them down your pants and walk out. No, I'd just put them in my car and leave. Oh, that's great. So you were just smuggling

them off piece by piece. Wow. Yeah, just the important stuff. Stuff that we still have. We're trying to fill out the indictment against you too. So this is really helpful to also know that you stole a lot of nbc property so all those things that you brought to your kitchen i guess when we landed at tbs did they all move back there yeah all right cool okay i'm just curious and where are all those things down are they what happened when i saw a lot of things in the dumpster as we were leaving warner brothers oh you know most of the stuff that's important to this show we we kept okay yeah and it's in storage right now i sent you pictures all right and uh the other stuff

set dressing and stuff you know that were one of that stuff who cares you threw out you gave away or we put outside uh warner brothers and people just came and took a lot of stuff wow which was you know the set dressing yard sale lance was ahead of great eye so a lot of people took things lance was uh one of our scenic designers yeah remember the uh the masturbating bear bobble hand still got got it. Oh, I remember that. His hand Yes, instead of his head bobbling. Oh, that's great. His hand bobbled down by his crotch. Flanagan made that. Did you keep that for yourself? I gave

it to Mike Gordon. Oh, that's nice. Yes. Oh, did you guys make that? Flanagan. Bobby Flanagan made it. Bobby Flanagan was this artist in Brooklyn. Puppet maker. Oh, he was great. Who made so many great props. Aet maker. He was great. Who made so many great props. A prop maker. He was great.

I used to go down there and pick up a dead dog and have to bring it back on the subway and it looked so real. I just put it on the floor next to me on the subway and its tongue was hanging out. It was just dead. Were people upset? People were just looking and I

just pet it every now and again and just looks I got pulled over on Long Island by a cop. I had a pickup truck and it was in the back and he goes, what's wrong with that dog? What's wrong with that dog? That's how good it looked.

Why did we need a fake dead dog? Why didn't you just dig one up? Yes, he was a genius one up? Yes. He, he is a, he was a genius. He was amazing. He, he,

he was a great artist. Like we remember we did those Jesus. Yes. Sports statues. Oh, those are amazing. Yeah. My favorite is the cockfighting.

Cockfighting. Jesus. Cockfighting was my favorite. Kids getting confirmed. There was a catalog that had inspirational Jesus soccer and baseball, like kind of showing kids how to play baseball and helping a kid catch a football and a game. So we were like,

Oh, let's make our own. And we had like Jesus getting picked last in gym. Yeah. Jesus Sumo wrestling. And yeah, Jesus with two kids betting on cockfights. He fought.

What was a skater? He was fighting Ta Harding. Oh, I didn't, I forgot that one. Playing office basketball. Right. We had to stop doing those because Christians complained. Is that true? Really?

Yes. We never heard that. I was like, oh, we'll be doing these for years to come. No. You were just getting the word out about Jesus. That's right. Yeah, that's all. We still had the one getting the word out about Jesus. That's right. Yeah, that's all. We still had the one with the cockfighting.

Oh, good. I have one, actually. Here, this is... It's the one prop I took. It's Jesus... I was looking for that. ...getting picked last in gym. Well, I'll return it to you guys.

You want me to read this list off to you? What's on the list? It's like a bunch of props that we built. Sure. It'll take like a minute. I think this is a prop list. Bible with guns sticking out of it. A guillotine for satellite TV.

Was it a working guillotine? Yep. Yeah. Satellite TV was rough. That was always, but it was fun. We had the jetpack raccoon on a ceiling fan. The jetpack raccoon was one of my favorites. It was a raccoon that would go.

Yeah, it's great on a ceiling fan. It was a taxidermied raccoon wearing a jetpack. And then I found out. Oh, my God. Was it real? Yeah. Yeah. That appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

Really? Oh, my God. god yes i think they ripped off late night we gave that we got no actress somebody said to give it to her yes uh matt o'brien reminded me amanda's amanda safe read she was on the show and i guess i guess the segment producer found out she liked taxidermied animals so conan on the air gave her the uh raccoon wearing a jet pack yeah and matt o'brien reminded me of this because he ran into her somewhere two weeks ago and he asked her if she still had it and she said yes she absolutely still owns it that's great that's funny that jet pack was left over from Letterman. Oh, okay. Yeah, but we added to that.

We added the flames coming out. You guys were the most, you were always can do. There were other, you know, there were some people you work with where it's like, oh, nah. Like, we can't do it. Yeah. You want that in a month? No, we can't.

And you got, we'd go like, oh, we need, you know. A tauntaun to sleep in at San Diego. Right. Right. Yes. Oh my God. That was amazing. Wow.

All right. Well, thank you guys for the great memories. Thank you. Thank you. Hopefully there'll be more someday. This was fun. Sounds good. Yeah.

This was so much fun. Thanks guys. Yes. We love it. And that was our conversation with Bill Tull and John Rao. Thank you for revisiting with us and we love you, Bill. We love you, Bill. bill.