Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - Steven Wright Revisits His Late Night Appearances

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

Legendary comedian Steven Wright joins writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell to discuss Conan’s skills as an improviser, giving one word answers on Late Night, the crazy coincidence that led to his big break on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and the freedom of couch appearances. Plus, Steven answers some listener questions! Got a question for Inside Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone] and e-mail us at [e-mail]

And now it's time for Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Hello, welcome back to Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. I'm Mike Sweeney. I'm Jesse Gaskell. We are former Conan writers and current Conan fans. We can't get enough. We can't get enough. We can't move on. We're contractually obligated to not move on. You know, we'll post our contracts if you want proof it's all in writing we're walking you through conan's illustrious television career not just conan's but the whole show and all the all the people involved it's a whole organism it really is a living well it's a breathing well it's an organism. Multi-celled organism. Yes. Many, many parts.

It's like the U.S. Constitution. It's always being changed and improved. Hey, what have you been up to? Oh, my God. Since I saw you last. Don't ask me that. I literally, I did a podcast with you an hour ago, an interview. And other than that, I might as well be like cryogenically frozen.

Well, but you're going on a little trip, aren't you? I am. I'm going to Santa Fe. Well, that's good. We can talk about your anticipation for the trip now. And then when next week we'll talk about how it was. Well, okay. Sure.

I mean, you know, it's a trip. It'll be fun i'm excited it's great it's supposed to be snowing oh oh that's a lot colder than i was expecting yeah so we're going a day early because we were going to take a train amtrak and a sleeper car which sounded like fun i always romantic yeah even though it's like you know in an amtrak beds yeah car that was made in the early 70s um i don't know how romantic that would be amtrak shockingly contacted us a few days ago and said they're canceling oh because of the snow no just because they're amtrak oh They're contractually obligated to cancel every fifth train ride. They're so reliably unreliable.

Yes. Because they let you know in advance that it wasn't running. In advance, in writing. They emailed us. They're like, we know already now that we're just not going to be able to pull this off. Yeah.

They're like, you know what? We realized, why surprise you when we can let you know a week in advance, which we really appreciated. That's nice. Yeah. Well, that's too bad. So you know you're driving, said no we're gonna fly oh you're gonna fly okay yeah yeah yeah you've probably been to new mexico i have yeah um i mean we used to go there when i was a kid

yeah for vacations to taos you had good parents yeah they have great taste you had some idyllic childhood we went to maine which is great if you're an 80 year old person but like if you're a kid it's like like you like i'm going down to the beach okay you have to walk over 40 yards of sharp pointy rocks yeah and then my parents would fight and my mother would make us drive home early so let's not talk about vacations but anyway you what have you been up to um you know i'm still in the undisclosed location right still working i do i have a new, well, okay. So we've gotten a few, we've gotten contacted

by a few listeners who. Because you've been giving hints. You've been giving hints. You're doing punch up work on a movie. Yes. Which is incredibly exciting. Really fun job.

You're prescribed to talk about it in detail. Yes. I'm not legally allowed to say, but if you guys were to guess, I think that. Right that I would be protected. I've been giving hints and some people have gotten it,

but I'm still not going to say it because there might be people listening who didn't get it yet. I submitted an answer. Did you? I thought there was a money prize and I was like, oh man, I'm going to nail this.

But yeah. I think you're disqualified because you work for the station and I know where you are, but my clue for this week is that in the hotel room every night they play four hours of friends reruns. Is that just in your room? That's very specific clue.

I mean, that's what, that's what the cable package includes. Four hours. Wow. Okay. Huh. That's an interesting hint. Uh-huh.

So really that could probably be anywhere. I think it could be anywhere on the planet. But there might be certain places where Friends is not licensed. So it might rule some things out. Sure. I don't know if Estonia gets Friends. All right. That's a new clue. That's the new clue.

All right. And are you ever coming back from this place to... Yeah. I am coming back. I'm actually coming back next week. Oh, that's great. Good. But then I'm leaving again.

You're going out again. I'm going somewhere else. So there'll be a new great. Good. But then I'm leaving again. You're going out again. I'm going somewhere else. So there'll be a new game. Okay. New game. Yeah. So you're going, you'll be working on the same movie. Yes, but we're changing locations.

Okay, great. All right. Well, that's exciting for me. I mean, when I would do this with you over Zoom, knowing you were three miles away, I mean, it was pretty exciting. But this, this is, I mean, you're so far away. We have to work out time zone changes. Yeah.

Yeah. Very exciting. We've been eating different meals. Oh. I mean, we will be at least. Sure. Oh, you mean at your new location? At the new location for sure.

Okay. Wow. I can't, I can't believe there's a whole new game coming. I know. You're never coming back. I'm Carmen Sandiego. She's been working on that movie for seven years now. Left my dog.

I worked on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Oh, that's right. You did. I was getting married and I, it was just, my sole income was standup. So, you know, I worked at night. It was a kid's show? It was a kid's show. And I did audience warmup for different shows.

Oh, yeah. And I got offered that and they're like, it's all sixth graders. And I was like, oh my God, I shouldn't do it. I can't imagine doing comedy for sixth graders. It was terrible. What can you do? It was terrible. But I was like, I needed the money.

Yeah. I couldn't say no to it. And it was, oh my, I don't even remember. It was, it's all like a dark. I think I got in trouble for making fun of one of the teachers. Because a lot of it, they were teachers groups. Oh, yeah, yeah. But what else could I do?

What else do kids like to laugh about? I got to go after the teachers. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I got called in the next day. That's a brilliant move. Thank you. Oh. Well, it was the only move.

I had no options. Yeah, those are long. I mean, I guess we haven't really talked before about the, there's always a warmup for even for late night shows too, to kind of just get the audience. Well, cause there's some downtime while they're waiting for everything to start. Well, I did it for Conan for five years. You did? From 95 to 2000. And then I did it at SNL for a season. Oh, wow. After that?

Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. You'd come in on the weekend too? Yeah. Oh. I was working till like, you know, 1 a.m. every night. And then I said, hey, I'm also going to work on Saturday.

Oh my God. Yeah. Were you married at that time? I was with two little kids. It was not good. And also I thought when they offered me the job, I was like, oh yeah, I,

you know, I'll just go in at 11 o'clock and do that. And they're like, oh no, there's a dress rehearsal. I forgot about it. Of course there's a dress rehearsal. So I had to be there at like 6 PM.

And, uh, so a full day of work. Yeah. On Saturday night. And man, those Saturday night live crowds for the 1130 show, a lot of it, it would be like a cocktail party

because a lot of it is celebs and friends of the show. And they're all talking to each other. No one's listening to me. No one's even in their seat because they're all like- They're not used to being told to do things. Right, exactly. And they're totally savvy. They're like, being told to do things right and exactly and they're totally savvy they're like we'll we'll sit down when it's 11 30 i know i know when they're

recording when the red light goes on we don't need to listen to this guy or don pardo because i'd introduced on pardo and that was the best part working with don pardo a living legend yeah that's i mean i see why you took that gig that no be fun it was it was a bad move it's just too much it's too much time too much too much too much yeah anyway yeah doing for conan was fun i'd come out for 10 minutes and just rag on the crowd and then introduce a band and conan yeah did you do anything i mean did you give out candy? Did you later in later years, they started doing like a dance competition? No, none of that stuff. None of that.

I can't emphasize enough how far from that kind of warmup I was. I will say that's more of a sitcom warmup thing out here in LA. And those guys really like doing the warmup for Conan. That was like 10 minutes so it's nothing right sitcom warm-up as you know yeah the audience is the same audiences here for like three hours yes they're there for i mean a whole day almost and they have to reach like they're changing camera angles yeah or a lot of times someone screws up their line and they have to do it again. And then the warmup guy has to-

Yeah, the same jokes. Yeah. Yes. So they have to get you in the mindset to like, oh, act like you haven't heard this, seen this scene three times already. It's awful. So that's why the laughter, even when it's live, it sounds canned sometimes because it is, I mean, you know, you're not going to laugh the same way the third time you're seeing

a joke. I mean, I'd have candy. I'd have tea. How else do you get through three hours? I don't know. Oh my God. If you're throwing, you got a t-shirt cannon. Yeah, that's just.

You got to juice people up. Wet t-shirt contest. They should have like 10 different warmups. So each person could come out and do. A whole lineup their thing and not have to get into that babysitting stuff but that's true but then they'd have to pay 10 comics oh right well hey speaking of comedy yeah which we are we always are uh this week we're speaking with a legendary comic, Stephen Wright.

Yes. I was amazed that he said yes to talking to us. I had never met him. So I was, I was kind of like, me too. It's like, oh my gosh,

Stephen Wright. Yeah. I was a little starstruck. Yeah. You know, I went online and read, I looked up some of his famous lines, you know,

just cause he's a master one liners and it reads, I don't know if Shakespeare has that many quotes. He's got so many, he's got so many great, or it's like, wait, you were telling me the airplane, I never knew they should make the whole airplane out of the black box. Right. That became like a cliche about comment, like comedians going, Oh, why don't they make the whole airplane out of the black box material? You know you know and but that's such a brilliant line you're right and it's stephen wright's line i never knew that wow so yeah me neither that it is like finding out yeah that he he invented bread or something he's the man behind oxygen and putting it in your lungs. Now from a, yeah, I guess I never thought about the origin that someone had to come up with that.

And it was Stephen Wright. Yeah. And I was, I was also really pleased to find out he's a, he's a sweet guy and was very, you know, thoughtful and had some great memories of his time being on Late Night, which he was on many, many times. Yeah. He'd be working on coming up with bits on the spot too, which is kind of fun.

Oh, that was really fun. I know it was fun to see his brain working and know that he was making material out of nothing. I mean, I don't think we even need to play the interview. We can just reminisce more about it. All right. Okay, here's Stephen Wright. Hey, thanks for joining us, Stephen.

Yeah, thank you, Stephen. We're excited to talk to you about your many late night appearances, in particular, how you prepared your material. We pride ourselves on being a material-free podcast. That's in the promo yes exactly another material free hour it's so great to do anything without doing the material like even as a guest on a talk show because the material is so at least for me it's so sculptured and intense and in front of the audience. And then to be in front of the audience without that, in a different way, is a whole other thing.

I'm not complaining about the stand-up version, but the other way is just so different and more relaxing. Sure. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because that is one thing we wanted to ask you about. Since you are one of the rare people who have done both versions on late night where, you know, you come out with your sculpted set, like you said, or you come and do a couch segment. But the couch segments are also somewhat sculpted, too. I mean, how much did you have to prepare for those in advance? Well, you know how they say, what do you want to talk about?

And then you tell them you have different stories about this or that. And then the host, obviously, then he leads you into that. That was all, except for the last time I was on Cone and it was completely just improv but the the other way even when you have prepared stories even when you're doing that it's just you have to remember that you're a funny person even when you're not doing the stand-up you have to like okay i'm amusing even without that you're so used you're so used to being focused on the stage that you have to go, oh, it's almost weird. What do you mean? You want me to talk to this guy?

Why would that even be interesting? And then you go, oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. And then you do it even though it's prepared questions and everything. It's a different way of being funny. Okay. Oh, yeah. And then you do it, even though it's prepared questions and everything. It's a different way of being funny. Yeah. Stephen, you were on Conan so many times, but I was wondering whether would people, would they contact you? You know, we'd love to have you come on the show. And at that point, was that when you started coming up with sort of a bit to

do on the couch or would you come up with something and then say okay you know i've got something i can come on now no when i when i would have another five minutes or whatever amount of time for material then we would contact them and see if there was a time i could go on and then that would be booked if there was and then when it got close to going on like your mind starts going like three or four days in ahead of time your subconscious starts thinking okay well what am i gonna talk to him him about like then you start thinking oh yeah oh oh yeah and then you it would make notes of like that's how it would work, at least for me. I was wondering specifically about that time you came on and just did one word answers in the 90s on Late Night. You know, how much of that was you planning that out in advance and how much was kind of being improvised there?

Yeah, no, that was planned. Like we talked about that before. I remember it didn't work. Amazing what your mind will remember and not remember, you know, but that one word, he said something. Wasn't he doing one word too? Or was it just me? He was asking questions and you had one word answers. Yeah.

Whatever it was that didn't work. And then we just, then we went to normal answers. I mean, not, not, not normal answers, normal speaking. Let's do it now on the podcast, give it another chance. Well, I want to tell you, it works as an internet clip. Now it looks like it's killing. So, you know, maybe it didn't feel that way for the live audience, but it's very funny. We added laughs to it. And now it's wall to wall kill zone. Oh my God.

Well, it made me laugh. I was, I was adding my own soundtrack. You're saying you were, you thought it didn't do well when you're on a TV show and you're feeling like, oh, it's not doing well. Do you just kind of shrug inside? Like, does it make you nervous while it's happening? Or you're just like, well, this is what I'm doing. And I think it's funny and, and screw the audience if they're not laughing at it. Oh, I care very, very much. I mean, going on TV is a bizarre, intense thing because everything's, I mean, you have 10 minutes

of your life all the time, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes. And then here's, you have 10 minutes of your life all the time. Right. 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes. And then here's 10 minutes that's going to be blasted on the television. And even though 10 minutes is still 10 minutes, it's like you're going into this, at least for me, it was like this weird, like intense. And the allergy was like being in a car accident. You'd be like, the next thing you know, it's over. And then you think back, well, what was that? How did that?

It's very heightened. Right. Yeah. Really intense. Moment to moment. If you're doing the stand-up and a joke doesn't work, well, you know it's going to work because you've tested it so many times. It might not go as good as you want.

But then when you're talking with the stories and that doesn't, something in there doesn't work, the host always would save it. That's so you, I say something and I think is interesting and there's no response. And then the host comes back with something he's saying about that. And so there's never really long gaps. I mean, Conan is hilarious. He's fast. His mind is so fast. It's like a net. It's like an automatic net. You can't fall off the tightrope all the way to the ground because he's a net. Right. So you're saying something and if it works, oh good, it worked. But if it doesn't, he saves it. Yeah. That had to be a big change from, like you're saying, doing sculpted jokes, especially the thing that really impresses me about you and other comics who do, I use the term loosely, one-liners. But I think you know what I mean. Just kind of tightly written jokes.

It takes a long time to accumulate five minutes like oh yeah oh yeah it's more jokes per minute than yeah if you're telling a long story yeah it's unbelievable how much material a five-minute appearance on tv gobbles gobbles up it would come out for me would be about 23 ish jokes right in the five minutes that's what it always around would come in there but you know for only for every joke i write if i if i think something's funny i write it down because i think it's funny right so it's passed my test right right the fact i wrote it down is i like it but then you go you know it's not up to you, the audience, they're the editors. And I, it would be a one in four, a one in three joke that I would write that they also would

laugh at. So if you have all those jokes, you've written double the amount to get to that amount. Yeah. You know, cause most of them fail, right. Like a baseball player, if he's batting 300, that's really good. Yeah. But that means he got he was out seven out of 10 times. He was out. And if they don't laugh at it, the audience, when I test them, if they don't laugh at I don't think, oh, well, that wasn't funny. I still think it's funny. I think they didn't agree with me. Yeah. I'll try it three times, but then I won't do it anymore. But because they're in charge, the audiences, they are the editors. Right. But I never think, oh, I was wrong. That wasn't funny. I like that. You'd give it like kind of a three try rule.

Yeah. Because you can't depend on one audience. Yeah. You can't go in one audience. No, you can't. You know how they are. They have their own personality. It might be a fluke that it worked. One time, this only happened on Conan when I was talking to him. I was telling my stories that I thought were funny. You know, I would say it in my head or out loud before I went on there. And I remember screwing up so much when talking to him like i was couldn't remember and i was these giant gaps that were like not funny gaps like awkward gaps and then i remember when i saw the show that night they had cut it they had edited it was the only time the panel was edited they edited all that shit out. And I'm watching going,

oh my God, that's fantastic. They saved it. Well, you know, there's a lot of people that need to get edited every time. Oh, really? Because I never, all the things I ever did, that never happened before or even after that one time.

And I just thought it was fantastic. That's terrifying. I find the red, that red tally light that when the camera's on you, that when that comes on, to me, that's kind of terrifying. I mean, it's what you're talking about, the 10 minutes of being a filmed car accident. You probably worked with Frank Smiley, the segment producer. Oh yeah, yeah. Hilarious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, hilarious. Yeah, yeah. Frank's great. Yeah, you know, because of all the different camera shots, they could just pull it out seamlessly, and you don't even know it ever happened.

Yeah, it was seamless. You wouldn't know. And then we had everyone in the audience murdered. So there are no witnesses to your crime. Yeah, the cameras at the Walmart to the parking lot, you know, and you see the guys putting someone into a car and kidnapping them. Criminals should have editors with them so they can edit the tapes. Oh, yeah. And yeah, defendants or they're allowed to shoot additional footage and edit it in.

They're like helping a woman across the street or something. They've got a green screen with them at all times. Yeah. But this is not a real opinion. This is just an observation that when they edited that thing on Conan, it's almost like they screwed with your memory because you have a memory of what really happened. Right. And then you're watching it and it's not lining up. I mean, I know they edited it.

Yeah. But if you looked at it another way, it's like, oh, my God, what's wrong with my mind? That's not how I thought it went. Well, but I would think, I mean, you probably do remember it worse than it was. You know, when you're up there in their silence. Oh, yeah. The seconds last so much longer than real seconds. Oh, yeah.

And it's weird how you wired psychologically that when it's over, you mainly remember what didn't work. Yeah. You mainly, you're not, oh, that went great. That went great. It's like, oh, my God, those three things. And then when you watch it back. Right. Because now you're not standing there anymore, so it's not as intense,

because your mind's going a billion miles an hour. But Conan, I don't know how he, I don't know. I would like to ask him questions, because I don't know. He must have gotten to a point where it was normal, even though he knew he was on television. He must have been to a point where it was normal, even though he knew he was on television. He must have been like it was casual because from doing it every night. I mean, he you could never tell what you can't tell what's going on in anyone's mind.

But in my mind, oh, my God. Yeah. But now I have no facial expression. I wonder if if he had that he so fast. I think he says he would sort of go the other way and kind of black out during it so that later he wouldn't remember anything. And then he just doesn't remember anything about the show. Seriously? Yes. He's done so many shows like he'd be like, people will show me this clip and I'll have no memory of that person being on the show or what we talked about. Just because of the sheer, it's like 4,000 hours.

Oh yeah. Is it really 4,000? But yeah, how could he remember all those moments? Right, right, right, right. The crazy thing with Conan is, to me, he had to learn how to do that on the air. Do you know what I mean? Like there was no... No training period. Yeah, like he didn't have a lot of TV experience. I think a lot of times talk show hosts kind of learn how to work on camera somewhere. You know, like even like David Letterman was a weatherman for a short period of time. And then, you know, he had kind of lower radar TV experience.

And I think all that stuff. But he did stand up to Letterman. Well, yes, of course. In front of an audience, front of an audience, front of an audience. And from what I know, Conan didn't have that. Wouldn't he go from a writer to the writer sitting there? I mean, that's mind boggling. It is mind boggling. It's almost like an experiment.

It's like, let's do this to this guy and just watch him explode. But he pulled it off. He pulled it off. Yeah. Yeah. CIA mind control experiment. Yeahuren michaels might be the greatest sadist of all time he's like oh you know what let's destroy him but we're going to do it over a few months period but at one point he will explode just that stand-up experience of course

yeah and i i think for Conan, that it was always a little like, yeah, I mean, he was used to entertaining people like in writer's rooms and stuff, but he didn't have, he had a large family, but he didn't have the same experience of being in front of a audience of

strangers every night, which is fascinating. How he, how he, he did it, how he did it so excellently. It's almost like if you wrote this concept down, it would be like, no, that can't, that would not work. Right.

This guy, nobody could do that. You know, it's almost like he was a baseball, another baseball analogy. He was just in his, you know, throwing the ball against his garage door and coming back, and then a car pulls up, and then he's in the World Series. You know, he's... I want you to play... You're playing center field for the Mets tomorrow night.

It's the sixth game of the World Series. And he does good. And he does really good. Well, Stephen, I was wondering, because your first TV appearance was on Johnny Carson and you really killed and he liked you so much that he had you come sit on the couch and then had you on again the following week. How was that for you to have such a positive first experience? It seems like in some ways it would be a nightmare to have to then follow up after that.

Oh, my God. I never thought of that. Thank God you didn't think of it till now you're not in my head yeah talking to you then to four four-year-old jesse how are you gonna top that one oh my god it was just like a fairy tale i mean it, that was a really fast car accident. Yeah. I mean, that was just introduced and then it's over and it's what, what happened? Yeah. That was like a fairy tale. And then when they wanted me to go on the next week, I mean, Jim McCauley called and he said, he was talking about the tonight show. I thought he was reviewing the one we from that was just happened.

And he said, no, no, I mean to go on tomorrow. I want to go on tomorrow again. Oh, my God. And I said, what do you mean, go on tomorrow? With all new material? Yeah, with another set. And I said to him, he said it would be amazing. People don't go on twice, you know, one week and then the next week.

And I said, yeah, but I have like 18 minutes. I have 20 minutes of material. It took me three years to write. If I do that, half or a little bit more, half or a little bit more than half of my material is gone. I'll never forget. He said, yeah, but it would be amazing for you to do this. Plus this little sentence, you're going to have to write new stuff anyway. But that helped me a lot, that sentence, because not only just then, it was like, you know, you had to, but it made it even clearer that you had to. So I did it because it was just so freaky. Right. Listening to him and I'd be amazing to do it. And then whenever I would go on, whenever the show was over,

I had no more to, I'd have five minutes, do it, and then I was out of it again. Right. No more material. Wow. And then I was worried, like, what if I don't think of it? Oh, my God, what if I don't think of it? Right.

And then after years of that, I realized it was like rain, like the material was like rain, like it won't, it doesn't rain for two weeks and then it sprinkles and then it doesn't, or then it pours for four days and then it doesn't rain. So I knew it was going to rain after years. I knew that it was going to come. So I didn't, I didn't freak out as much. So that second appearance, did you feel more comfortable having done it? Were you like, oh, once you're out there, did you kind of go, okay, I just did this a week ago. I think I got it down. Or was it

just as scary? It was probably 3% less intense. Wow. Wow. I mean, it's only a week, right? It's still insane. I don't know how like Conan, like, I don't know how he would do the monologue, like a new monologue, and smoothly do the monologue. In NBC, the commotion, the commotion in the hallway, the commotion all the way up to the doors where the studio was,

and all the people and everything. I mean, I have to be, I don't know how he could do it. I know he wasn't standing out in the hallway, but he knew that commotion that how, how could he focus? How could he focus on the show? He's on an aircraft carrier and us in a windstorm and he's comes out and he's playing the banjo to like entertain the other sailors. Like it's like, it's like, it's normal. normal it's wild how intense that is yeah did you have anything you would do to try to kind of calm yourself before appearances i mean

how what was your routine usually i need time alone even the day before yeah which again getting back to him like how could he do that night after night doing the monologue with new jokes, new jokes, new guests, right? If they had me do a talk show, I could do probably one every six months. You're ready for streaming. Yes. That's perfect. Just to talk to one guest. Let's put the monologue aside. Just to talk to this guy. I'm going to say this, then I'm going to say this. Just that one thing would take weeks for me to get in my head. So then he does the monologue, then he does three of those people, and then he's doing other weird stuff with Andy and stuff. Andy's hilarious, too.

I mean, what a nice guy just he is very yeah he's very calming he he's very he very calming guy yes yeah their their personalities mesh perfectly together because andy truly doesn't seem to give a fuck he doesn't like he doesn't he's like so that that attitude whereas conan is like you're saying is so intense he's oh he's he's't he's like so that that attitude whereas conan is like you're saying is so intense he's oh he's he's yeah he's bouncing around he's living moment to moment yeah and also reading like how it's going moment to moment so that's exhausting and andy's just kind of like yeah nah whatever yeah he's just so relaxed like relaxed. Like, how do you physiologically, you're born, you get this brain,

then you have all these experiences, and then you conclude that, all right, even though 3 million, 8 million people are watching this, I don't care. I mean, it's amazing how he became like that. I agree. I always felt like Andy's body

should be donated to science and they should study his brain. Yeah. Maybe his heart just beats at a slower rate. It's. Yeah. I was, I was amazed at comics who didn't seem, I always thought they were lying or bluffing. They were like, yeah, it's no big deal. It's like, what? You should be terrified all the time. There are true sociopaths in the world. Exactly, exactly. That's the only explanation. Can I say one thing? This is going back. It's just such a different era when you were discovered by The Tonight Show in Boston. Did they, I mean, just today with the internet and you can learn about, you can watch people online they make little videos but back

then did the tonight show did they come to boston to see like a showcase of several comics or were they did they already know about you do you know whether they were coming to see you this is another fairy tale uh there was two comedy clubs in boston the Comedy Connection, and then there was one in Cambridge, the Ding Ho Comedy Club was a Chinese restaurant, comedy club. So the front part was originally for folk singers and stuff. There was a stage there and everything. So then it was changed to comedy, but the back was a Chinese restaurant. So a freelance writer wrote a story about that place. This woman wrote the story. And I don't know why, but for some reason, that went into the L.A. Times, that story.

So then Peter LaSalle, the co-producer of The Tonight Show, he reads that article. And then like eight months later, his kids were about to graduate high school. So they had a summer trip to go look at colleges in Boston and New York and so they were going to Boston he remembered this article oh that club I should go into that club so he called the club up he said it was tonight's show I'm gonna or he had someone call up and you know like I'm to go in there on this night. And the club was like, oh, my God. So rather than having like three comedians, they put like seven doing a few minutes. And I was I was one. And then and he saw me and then like next week they called me up.

And then two weeks later, I was or three weeks later, I was on the show. And I've been so lucky in my life. Like so many flukes have fallen. Like what the woman writes the article. Why is it in the LA Times? Peter sees it. Kids are going to get out of high school. He's going to go to Boston. It's like a fairy tale, like someone pulling strings, you know, so lucky's just so lucky obviously with your act you would have been seen by them eventually one way or the other yeah but when you tell it that way what if he never had kids i mean yes yes you'd still be at the chinese restaurant but no it's luck luck always does have

yeah you know obviously a role but it but it's also kind of like you're doing the work every day. And then, yeah. But it is part of the unknown, the audio control, the luck thing is part, it's like a soup. That's part of the mixture. Right. I never take it for granted. I just, I know how many things happened.

It's just unbelievable. You and Conan are both from Boston. I mean, Boston has a ton of comedians, obviously. Yeah. Why is that? The weather? I mean, the ratio is insanely high of all the people. Yeah.

Oh, I just realized something right now. It has to be something to do with the city. I know that's not a clear answer, but I mean, why? The people who move there, the college students, the people who are drawn to that one place. The Catholicism. You know, all this weird accidental screening process of if you're going to there you're gonna have to be a little bit insane i i don't know really yeah do you have an idea i think all the colleges there i yeah a lot of smarties and but also just in terms of this kind of ready-made fertile audience this ground

oh yeah for for some sort of entertainment that wouldn't explain why there are, but I don't know. My experience when I did stand up, because I did it in New York and comics from New York would go to Boston. It was a very different mindset up there. Like none of the comics talked to the audience. New York comics would literally like,

I think there's a guy guy ran Catch a Rising Star in Cambridge. He would yell. He wouldn't let comedians talk to the audience at all, which was a staple in New York. Cause I think the audiences must've been better in Boston because in New York, you had to talk to them because they were such, they were always talking to you. That was how to win them over. Yes. How long did you do it in New York? I did it from like 87 to 94. Oh, wow. When I started working at Conan.

Wow. Yeah. So you know, I didn't know that. So you know what I'm talking about on everything I just said. Yeah, yeah. As far as standing there. Yeah. Oh, all the pain?

Yes. I specialized in the pain. Also, you must know Brian Kiley, right? Who was a monologue writer on her show. One of the nicest people ever, as you know, and a brilliant writer. Amazing jokes. Amazing. Almost like, I don't know if this is true, but it's almost like Andy in the way, at least when he appears to be on stage, he doesn't seem like he's in a fighter jet that just got hit. I mean, he's just standing there like casual. What a great mind. He's a great joke writer. As a matter of fact, when Conan ended in June,

he got snapped up right away by the Ellen show. So. Yeah. He was out of work for about three days. Yeah. Oh, good. Good for him. That's great. Yeah. Such a nice person. Genuinely nice person. Yeah, he's a great guy.

Upsettingly nice. Upsettingly nice. Yeah, we assume it's an act. Oh, actually, we had a few fans write in questions for you. Yeah. Could we throw some questions at you? Great. You have a lot of fans. How are your parents in your career?

Supportive? Thought of comedy as not a real career? Funny? Is that one question? That's many questions from someone named Pepe Deutsch. Seriously? Yeah. Yeah.

My parents were normally funny. Neither one of them was like an extra funny person. Not TV funny? Normal funny, you know, not more. And they never said anything really. My father, I was doing it about two years in Boston, and he only said to me once, he said, Tony, what about maybe you should get like a job?

Like he meant a real job, you know. And I said, I mean, i had no intention of stopping that but he only said that once and my mother never said it ever and they used then they would go to the clubs in boston quite often my father loved lenny clark do you know lenny clark yeah yeah sure he he loved him uh he would ask me where i was playing and where Lenny was playing. And then he would go see Lenny, which was fine. Cause I knew his mind zone.

And you're like, he's a fan, not my fan, but I think I was like too weird to, especially my mother. I don't think, I mean, she would watch me because I was her son. But if I wasn't her son and she was flicking through the TV and saw me,

she would flick right past me because she had no, that's too weird, too weird to another planet. But another thing about them is they, I don't, they didn't, there was an innocence to them. I don't think they realized how lucky i was that all it happened like that i thought that i think they thought you go to the clubs for a few years and then this happens right you know i don't think they ever really processed that they needed to be parents of other comics for a while and then they'd be like oh my god get, get Steven back here. Okay. And here's another

question. Oh, who makes you laugh the hardest? I know that's probably changes all the time, and maybe that's not a fair question, but who asked that? Somebody. 73 Carbon, of course. Oh, who makes me laugh? You know, a lot of the Boston guys. Yeah. Steve Sweeney, Don Gavin, Kenny Rogerson. I only saw him once and I thought he was hilarious. He is brilliant, hilarious, and extremely prolific. He's like one of the best comedians I've ever seen in my whole life. You know, there's comedians you can watch them and think, oh, that's funny. Oh, you probably know this being a comedian and being doing this conan show and everything you can watch something

and think that's fantastic that's hilarious but you're not laughing out loud yeah that's just how it is you know but then there's other comedians right where you you see them and you're laughing out loud and that's a a much lower amount of people. It's not putting the other comedians down at all. It's just weird how... Yeah, there's certain people that just surprise you. Where writing comedy and consuming a lot of comedy, it's hard to feel surprised enough to laugh out loud.

Yeah. Oh, Taxidermy, my puppet show. What? The question is, did you like doing stand-up on SNL? Oh, yeah. That was, you know, that was because it was live. It was a few notches even higher of this is insane. This is insane.

Because you knew he was going right into the houses, right through the camera. It's like, you know, I'm basically an introverted person. And it's like, the fact'm basically an introverted person and it's like the fact that i even do this is wrong i mean it's just like what but i loved it so much i wanted to do it but i remember i tried a new joke you know this guy conan does this every single night i tried a new joke on saturday night live just as i slid it in just to see, okay, oh my God, I'm going to do this. Silence. Total silence. But that's all right. I love that you slipped a joke in on SNL. That's pretty ballsy. That's impressive.

Yeah. Well, we have to wrap up. Thank you, Stephen. I just want to say that it was very welcoming. Right. And I really loved going on that show. I was happy to be able to go on there that's great to hear yeah i other comics have said that too that it's there was a lack of intensity or pressure doing the show maybe because it was on so late and you know it it didn't seem like as serious to to do an appearance on it might have

helped maybe but it also like like a manager of a baseball team or so a director on a set like the their their personnel their vibe trickles down you know to the whole thing yeah definitely yes so that was andy's vibe yeah that that's true. It does trickle down. And I think like Conan and Jeff Ross, the producer, just they're kind of pretty laid back. Yeah. And everyone who worked there, it was a pretty happy crew. So yeah, the green room did have a nice, happy vibe.

Jeff was always so nice. Tom, I said, hello, if you talk to him. He was always nice to me. Really nice guy, Jeff. We can do that. Yeah. Nice to me. Very flexible.

Like, okay, he can come on here. Okay. Very nice guy. I always liked talking to him. Really. I felt like I knew him longer than the amount of time I actually interacted with him. And the band. I love the band. I would end up in

their dressing room for some reason, like they're walking by and they, they were always fun too. They were great guys. Yeah. You're sounding like less of an introvert by the minute. Yeah. After being alive this long, it's like, now I start to talk to some people finally starting to like people you know i think you could host a talk show four times a year thank you yes yes oh yes will you work on it will you were you to work on it with absolutely i'll lay out all the snacks in the green room. I'll need to get four other jobs, but... Well, that's true.

Well, Stephen, thank you so much for your time. It's really great to talk to you. I mean, I'm such a fan of your comedy and you've got a lot of fans out there. They're going to be excited to hear this. Oh, thank you. Thanks for coming on. And also a big fan and really excited to talk to you today. So it's been a pleasure. Thank you. Great talking to you guys. Thanks for coming on. And also a big fan and really excited to talk to you today.

So it's been a pleasure. Thank you. Great talking to you guys. Thanks for the compliments and thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And that was Stephen Wright. Thank you, Stephen. Yeah.

Thank you so much. Oh, and thank you, Stephen, for doing our listener questions with us. Yes. He did double duty and he answered some listener questions. Extra pay coming your way. But you all can still submit listener questions. We'll do a new one next week. Yep.

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