Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff - Jesse Joyce

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Jesse Joyce joins Mark to discuss writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Comedy Central Roasts, The Oscars, and his book ‘Killing The Guys Who Killed The Guy Who Killed Lincoln’.   Check out: Jesse Joyce’s Website Follow on IG: @jessejoyce1 Buy Jesse’s Book: Killing The Guys Who Killed The Guy Who Killed Lincoln

Hi, I am Mark Malkoff and welcome to Inside Late Night, presented by late-nighter.com. Today's guest is Jimmy Kimmel Live writer Jesse Joyce. We discussed Jesse writing for Kimmel, the Comedy Central roasts, and so much more. Now it's time to go inside late night. Jesse Joyce, thanks for talking with us. Hey, how are you? I'm good, man. I haven't seen you since Astoria.

Yeah, they would do all, I'm not a stand-up, but they would do these, you know, Tony Deo, Andy Hendricks, and everyone would get together. And that's where I think I first met you, but those were always fun. I was invited to a bunch of those. Yeah. And you left us. You were not coming back to Astoria anytime soon. L.A. got you and you're there. You're there forever, pretty much. Yeah, yeah. I was pretty staunchly opposed to the idea of moving out here for a long time. Like, I, there's lots of podcasts that are out there of me talking L. I for years did that and then and then now I I love it. Andy Hendrickson lives out here too now. Like there's a whole bunch of former historians. Slowly, we still have a few people here, but it happens. I'm going to guess that you are probably the only person that I can think of that was a, that's a Kimmel writer that didn't have to do a packet. There's no way they made you do a packet, did they? I think I did. I think I did, but it felt, but I was like, kind of recruited in a way. So I still did have to do the packet for sure.

I'm surprised that you did it just because you were so in demand and so acclaimed at the time from doing the roast. I know that sometimes people like yourself are humble and stuff, but in terms of the roasts, I've talked to people that have worked on them. You are, I feel like the Robert Smigel, Jim Downey at SNL, like equivalent. Like there's pretty much no, no, not many people. I can't think of like a number two or number three on those. So you're going into this and you're in demand. Is that fair to say?

Well, I don't, I mean, I guess what I can, I have somehow, yeah, cobbled together a reputation as a decent writer. I mean, the nice thing is up to this. I've somehow cobbled together a career here without really having to, like, you know, just kind of going from a job to another job, which is nice because I'm aware of how bleak it is out there right now at the moment. So the nice thing is that, yeah, like kind of like when a job ends, somebody kind of tends to offer me something to do, which is nice, and I hope that continues.

So you get to Kimmel in 2017. It's different than any light show I know in the fact that normally it's a group of writers that do only monologue and that only do sketch comedy bits, and they're divided, but it's not like that where you were, correct? No, no, everybody does everything, which, like, oh, the writers, you could just, yeah, which I like better. Like, I think that it would be, I don't know. I've never done the other way. But, like, I feel like it might be limiting to kind of, like, box you into, you are on the bit team or you are on the monologue team, you know, like I, I like the fact that every morning we can kind of pitch whatever, you know, and so you get the opportunity to, like, work on all kinds of stuff. So I think it's, it's good. I think it helps, you know, whatever.

It gives you skills for down the road, too, where it's like, oh, like, I've produced my own bits. I've sat it in the edit bay and done those, you know, like, and then also just, yeah, like, jokes are something I've done for years. Like, I can do that too, you know, so that's rare. Like Conan, and I think some, maybe one or other show, you, you are able to produce your own bits at Kim, like, do you get the director? Because I know that some of the late night shows are not like that, not even. They separate those.

Yeah, I think that I, it might have been slightly before my time, but I think they experimented with trying both, but everybody seems to like the freedom of. of being able to kind of pitch either in the morning, you know? Some of my friends that work on those shows will show up, you know, 10 o'clock or whatever for a day, but you have to start really early. Is that correct for Kimmel? Because I got to interview him one time with someone else, and I was asking him some questions, and it's, I think he, didn't he say that he got everything from the writers

by like 7 a.m. maybe or 8 a.m.? Yeah, like, well, not that. We started, we started 7 a.m., right? So that was the biggest adjustment from anything else I'd ever done to come in here was to learn how to train myself to roll out of bed at 6.50 and start being funny at 7. You know what I mean? Like to basically just begin crank it out jokes at dawn, which I never, it's like, it's a specific skill that I don't know that you would necessarily have to learn any of the other type of comedy. But yeah, so we have like from 7 to basically 9. So like a kind of a two-hour window in the morning that we get up and we write the monologue stuff from home, right?

And that's where you would then, you know, we get a bunch of topics. There's somebody who has like a much worse job than we do who they're up at like three in the morning going through the news, you know, and they call together a packet for us that we get at like seven that lands in our inbox. And we basically have from seven to nine to just sit there in your jammies and chucked. coffee and write jokes and pitch bits for the day or the future. And then basically, once he turned those in at nine, Jimmy goes through them and he picks all the stuff he wants to do. And then you have to show up for a rehearsal. It's like at like 11, 1130. And then that's when we go, he's already picked all the jokes he wants to do. And so now you basically have what your day's

going to be for the most part based on how that has worked itself out. And then from 8 o'clock, then when you email until, or nine o'clock until 11.30, you don't have to do anything during that time? Well, it depends. If you, like, yeah, a lot of times, yes, that's when you can, like, you know, kind of take a shower and get ready to go, maybe start working on. A lot of times we get assignments that are like, these are due at rehearsal, then, like some follow-up thing. Based on what he has picked or not picked, he might say, like, I like this area, but we need, like, he doesn't like the punchline to this joke, but he likes to set up to it. So everybody kind of pitch out another version of that, that kind of thing. And then if you did get a bit picked, they kind of start pestering you immediately with all kinds of details about what they need to get that together, you know? So is there one or two people that get the most in the monologue? It seems like at every show that I've talked to some, there's usually maybe one or two people that have significantly or noticeably a little bit more maybe than others. Is there someone like that on your show?

I don't think so I'm not trying to be like gracious I just think that everybody is solid you know like so there are some people who just over the years it's shaken out they're less likely to pitch bits you know they're more like solid joke writers you know than others and then there are other people who are constantly pitching bits or like you know like little live bits with the audience or you know that kind of stuff and they might do fewer jokes but But yeah, for the most part, I think it's a pretty even team, you know? When you wake up and you have the two hours, is there any panic or is it one of those things like somebody that goes to the gym every day you just get used to it?

You wake up, you make the donuts, you hand it in. What does that like for you? Yeah, I mean, that's what I mean about, I guess, how like you just kind of have to have, you have to train yourself to get used to being funny seconds after you wake up, you know? Like, that's the hard part. but like there are days where you'll like there are some days where the packet is just like oh man like I don't know the none of these topics particularly speak to me and but then you can that's what you just like I can just force out jokes here because that's what my job is and

that's what I do and then ironically like there's days where you're like I absolutely nailed this packet like every one of these was so deeply in my wheelhouse like I could write 50 jokes about each of these and then like on a day like that you get three picked and on a day where you're like, I don't give shit about any of this. Like, that's when you like, really, you get like a ton of stuff in the monologue. So it just, you never know. To your knowledge, because I've worked out in some of these shows, are there any writers that to your knowledge will actually get up really early, like 5 a.m. or even before,

because they want more time to write. I know there's some people like that that would just rather, I don't know, that the pressure or whatever, it just helps them. Do you know, is there anyone like that on staff? No, I think, I think what I think some of the newer people, do like what what does happen is the monologue is is split our team is split in half in the sense that because there's like 18 of us like that's a lot like if everybody's churning out jokes that early in the morning that's an enormous packet of jokes to call through every morning so a couple

years ago they decided to have the room where there's two teams where half of us will right will do that do the morning thing the other half don't do that and then they will turn in a packet at the end of the day for the next day, right? So by that time, by the end of the day, if you're on that team where you're in charge of the end of the day stuff, we have a sense of what's going to be in the, like some topics that will probably be in for tomorrow. And so if you were like wanted to get a head start, you could look at those and go, okay, I know what, I know at least these three topics will be in tomorrow's monologue. And you could get a head start writing on those at night or whatever.

Don't the writers have a second pass then to do more jokes in the midday or is it all in the morning pretty much is that when it's... Well, surprisingly, a lot of stuff that you did pitch at 7 a.m. ends up in the show, you know what I mean? But like, but yes, there's for sure the purpose of the rehearsal is not like the way I've, I understand it has traditionally been on other shows where they just kind of go through the monologue and everything like that. Like, we don't do that. The rehearsal, is mostly just us sitting with Jimmy and we will watch clips that there's another job at our show called the TV watchers. I don't know if you ever heard of those guys. That seems

like an awful job too where they literally just have to sit there and watch hours of Hannity and pull moments from it or whatever, you know, like shit like that or the Bachelor and find funny clips. And then those then get shown at rehearsal. And from those like what gets a good reaction in what people laugh at or whatever. And then Jimmy picks what those clips are that will then be. And so then after rehearsal, we go to lunch and then we get the clips. These are the ones that we're going to do on the show. And then we write to those.

We write jokes for those after that. And then often there will be like a new topic because some news has happened during the day and we have to write jokes for that. Or we're working on this chunk is in the monologue. It needs to be punched up. That kind of stuff. So that's kind of what the, and then there's always assignments like going forward for future days, you know, like on Wednesday we have Oprah on the show, you know, like we need to pitch stuff for her, that kind of thing, you know. I find it amazing. There's very few hosts that are just calm before the show. Obviously, most people get, there's some nerves. Jimmy does not seem like that before the show. Am I correct in that?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, he doesn't strike me as a guy who gets, you know. like stage frights or whatever like no but like he could be chatting with you up until oh yeah yeah yeah whereas a lot of people they need that time this is a and i get it as a performer to really yeah that in their headspace and everything but he seems like one of those people that can just be talking and like okay got to go yeah yeah but i mean also he's like working very hard on the monologue like up until like you know like right up until like he's very actively writing the monologue If tomorrow you had to show, let's say, three or five comedy bits that you've written for Kimmel that you're most proud of in front of a couple thousand people, what would you show that you're the most proud of that you had your name on? I would say there's like two things that are like, that are kind of signature things of mine that I, one of them.

It's a thing I thought of years ago, too, and I always thought I'd be funny. I actually pitched it for at midnight when I worked on at midnight long ago. And everybody thought it was funny, but we just didn't, couldn't get it together. And so then I repitched it when I got to Kimmel and he loved it. And it was that I wanted our show to be the first show in history to win a J.D. Power Award. So that like every other show, like, you know what I mean? Like, we have other awards. Every other show, like, is always touting how many Emmys they have.

No television program has ever won a J.D. Power Award. And I wanted to be the first. and uh and that like i feel like hits like a sweet spot for jimmy which is like like put a lot of production value into something that's inherently kind of like dumb and car dealershipy you know what i mean like something that's like has that like a like just some random midwestern hotel would brag about like like that kind whatever that comedic sensibility is like it that seems to we both have or whatever so um so i pitched that and and it turned into this big goddamn deal and And like, we really had to go through the talk to JD, I would figure out, like, how we could

qualify, like, what we could do to, to, like, kind of bend the English language to have it make sense that we could win a JD Power Award. And we did. And then the day we did, the CEO of JD Power came. And we had a huge, enormous, like a hundred foot banner that, like, dropped outside the studio that stayed up there for, like, eight months. And for, like, you know, around that, like about eight months, if you see a clip from Kimmel, like, you know, whatever,

like that'll surface of him interviewing, like, I don't know, Magic Johnson or something. There's a JD Power trophy sitting on his desk, like in the background. Like, and it was like, so for a long time, that was sitting there. And it was like, oh, yeah, I did that. So I was very proud of that. And then he gave it to me, which is nice. I have it. I have the JD Power Award.

So that was really cool. Like when the time was up and it was time to take the banner down and whatever. But, uh, so that. And then I would say the Mike Lendell bits. I don't have you ever seen any of those? Of course. Yeah. So there's a guy, Brian Cook.

He's a very funny. He's a writer with us and he's a comic to stand up. And like he and I partner up on those. He's great. And I love those because they're just like, it's just a joke machine. It feels like the roasted away, right? Where it's like you don't have to bother with a lot of, I guess, like with a lot of other bits, you have to kind of waste time or jokes even.

The trick of it is to make it sound like this is all conversational. You know what I mean? Like, you have to kind of add words to just make it sound like this is coming off the top of somebody's head. But with, like, Liddell is such a bad shit psychopath that just everything that he blurts out goes in a different direction and can just be a very solid, sharp, crazy joke. And so they're really fun to write because it's like you really kind of play to the top of your intelligence by just like writing the absolute most insane.

change you can think of, you know? So the one time I talked to Jimmy, I asked him about the studio because, you know, most of these studios like Colbert probably has 450 people at least. I know Jimmy Fallon has at least probably like maybe close to 300. And you guys only have 150 seats. And for a comedian to get up like that is and not have as many people is, I think would be tricky. But somehow, I don't know how if it's the acoustics or maybe just have really amazing.

audience is it's not an issue which is so surprises me because I've talked to you know some of the host and stuff that sometimes have played to lesser houses and stuff and it was very hard for them. Hmm. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't, uh, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I've done tons of 150 seat comedy clubs over the years. You know what I mean? Like, I just think that the intimacy of it works, you know, it is, it has a low ceiling, you know, kind of like it does, it feels comedy clubby in that way, like just like a little black box kind of a vibe he's really up there into the audience which is great when he comes out for the opening remarks the monologue he's right there with the crowd which is good yeah yeah yeah yeah there isn't like a bad seat if you will and uh and yeah and then after

between after the monologue we stopped down or whatever and he just kind of does crowd work with the audience which is great so yeah he's he's a naturally just like super funny guy so it like it's easy he has a very stand up demeanor and energy to him that he could absolutely absolutely just be totally fine on stage with nothing prepared, even if you, you know what mean? Tell me one or two of the most surreal celebrity bits that you produced, that you made have pitched, you maybe have pitched to the celebrity, would you do this in a bit that you were there for, if anything stands out?

I pitched this absurd bit where it was a new story that sheep can, it was like a scientific study of some kind that sheep can recognize celebrities. It was some absurd, very late night feeling story, right? Where, like, they would show, or something about, yeah, like, that sheep would remember faces and they would gravitate toward celebrities or something. So the rock was coming on, who was at the time the biggest celebrity in the world. So we got the rock and then just some random person from the audience and we got an actual sheep. And then the goal was to get the sheep, see who the sheep gravitated to. And it did the other person, which is ideal.

And that's what the Rock said beforehand. Like, the way we want this bit to go, obviously, is that the sheep picks the regular person, right? And so sure enough, it worked that way. And it was very fun. You locked out. Yeah. And then I got to, I mean, getting to write for Dana Carvey when he guest hosted was a real treat. Like, just personally, like, that was kind of delightful because I'm such a big fan of his.

He's a really nice man. Yeah. So that felt cool that it was like, oh, and Martin Short, recently. was guest hosted and I got to kind of work with him. And that was, you know, so like that kind of stuff. When you got to get to work with sort of comedy heroes or whatever, that's a pretty neat feeling, you know. In terms of the guest hosts with non-comedians,

who do you think hit it out of the park, a few of them that just out, that were not stand-ups, not trained comedians that just did the best that that. Ah, that's tough. I mean, because really, Because the people who have a background in stand-up are the ones who do the best, for sure.

Like, or comedy, like Martin Short, I thought was phenomenal. And Jiminy Glick doing that was great. Who do you think the strongest guest hosts have been Kimmel? It's always fun when they have them. Who stands out? Well, the combo of Martin Short and then the night he did as Jimity Glick was pretty magical. Camel really nailed it. and everybody kind of universally he only did a single night he didn't do a whole week

because of his schedule or whatever but like i mean when he came in and did it it was just very refreshing and great because it was like oh yeah we could just write and do what we normally do like you know there's no there's nothing off limits he's not you know and he would nail it and you didn't have to worry about it because he and he's a podcaster so he could do interviews and you know what i mean like he it's noticeably different and good when uh you know somebody with a professional comedy and specifically a stand-up background comes in a guest host because that it's like, ah, great. You have to kind of explain to them how a monologue works, you know? Jimmy Kimmel in the beginning would come out for a warm up. And then he, Jimmy told me that Don Rickles

advised him, you don't want to do that. You want to, you want to say that. It's like being shot out of a cannon ball. The audience sees you for the first time. Yeah. Kind of like Johnny Carson. And that really worked for Jimmy. He said that Don Rickles was completely correct. And that's what he does. Were there any guests that did want to come up out before the show to talk to the audience, just to have some rapport? I know, I can't imagine like Dave Letterman, somebody like that, and he needs to know how the audience is going to be, or maybe they just want to get them pumped up. Did anybody go out there before? No, I don't think so because with those shows, they feel like such a mad dash to from the morning to getting them, getting a monologue solidified. because it's, and that would be, I think, for just anybody that has not less to do with them being

celebrities and more to do with just, you know, suddenly you're about to host a late night talk show for the first time in your life or, you know, this is night two of the first time you've ever done it. So it is really, it does feel like right up to the last minute getting everything in shape, you know? It's such a hard skill set. Dave Letterman, when he first guessed it for Carson the very first time, I know it was very nervous. It showed. Were there people that are not comedians, the guest hosted, that were just so visibly nervous. You were like, I don't know how they're going to get on stage, but then they were fine. I don't need names. Or was everyone pretty calm, would you say? Yeah. Yeah, I feel like everybody for the most part,

you know, kind of, they're all big celebrities. So, you know, I think that they're, even if they lacked the confidence, I think maybe they had an ego that would save the day and go like, I can pull this off, you know and they have like such good writing um joan rivers i know that you worked with her you did the roast what was it like working with miss rivers it was very cool like i i didn't know what it was good actually but like it wasn't even on the roast i didn't work with her at all on the roast i wrote on that roast but i worked with geraldo on that roast and for most of the those until greg died that was i my only that's who i worked with but i did work with joan separately on a show she did called How'd You Get So Rich?

Are you familiar with that at all? She sent you out on the street to do like man on the street stuff, didn't she? Yeah, well, the main part of that job, which was really fun, was that, so it was like that show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach. You remember that, right? Sure, of course. Except the way, the tone of the Robin Leach one is that he would go to these like old money, you know, millionaires, mansions, and then just fillate them about how amazing they are and how

great their house is. Joan, the premise of that show, which I thought was really delightful, was she would go to like new money people, like people who became a millionaire for doing something weird, and then she would go to their house and just like make fun of how tacky it was, you know, or whatever, or like dick on them, you know, like just, and it was very fun for that because it didn't have that air of reverence to it at all because it was Joan Rivers. It's quite the opposite. And so like, we went to like the guy who created the Hawaiian Tropic Brand's house, you know, just this like kind of like Bob Gucci-Oti type. Like he had these like tacky mudflap girls sculptures everywhere, you know,

and shit like that. And then we went to Mrs. Fields' house, the lady who makes the cookies, right? Like she is just some self-starter who started this cookie franchise. And so we went to her house and made fun of them and whatever. Like it just had a real different vibe. And I would just sit there off camera while she walked around the house and interviewed and talk to them. And I have like a whiteboard.

I'd write shit down and just kind of show it to her. and then she would, like, glance at it in the middle of a conversation and then punch it up in her head and spit it back out. Like, it was pretty amazing to see. And, but she was super cool. Like, I didn't know. It was like kind of a really early writing job for me, but she, you know, whatever. We were at Mrs. Fields house and I didn't know. I really wasn't on TV sets that often.

And I think it was lunchtime. And I just like went and sat on the diving board at the swimming pool and just kind of like sat there by myself. It was eating a sandwich. And she just came over and sat on the diving board with me. It was like, hey, you're a standup. right? And just started talking to me about stand-up and, like, told me some cool Richard Pryor story or whatever. You know what? It was just like, just like really a genuinely cool, neat person who cared about, it wasn't to talk about stand-up, you know? And that was

great. Didn't you tell me that for her roast that the one thing that was not allowed were Melissa Rivers jokes? Yes. Yeah, that's true. What, can you tell me why again or how did that happen? Like, did Joan say, you know, please? I'm sure it was her. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Like, what I do know is that when we do the roast, there's usually like, hey, these couple things are off limits, you know? And so, like, just don't make jokes about them. You know what I mean? And it's usually just some reasonable sensitivity that the honoree has that it's like, yeah, sure, okay, yeah, like, we're not going to bring up that your mom died of cancer or whatever. You know what I mean?

Whatever the thing is that they're sensitive about if, you know, like for the most part, we'll just go like, well, yeah, sure. Appreciate you coming on and doing this, you know? But Jones was that don't make fun of Melissa, but Melissa was like a celebrity. You know what I mean? And like, yeah, she's a public figure. Yeah, it's not like a child. I remember one of the jokes you told me you wanted to do about her and yeah, couldn't do it. Well, no, but I did.

Like, I actually, I made like, so I, because I was working just with Geraldo and we wrote this joke and she got, there was like to say, like, oh, we can't do it. But Greg was more or less like, ah, it's really funny. Let's do it anyway. and then he did do it and then Melissa stormed out and then they had to like bring her back like they had to talk her back into coming back because she was sitting kind of in the front and then she agreed to come back only to go up on stage if she could go up on stage so if you watch that roast that the Melissa Rivers joke has been cut out of it the one that Greg did but what is there is Melissa goes up and she just thanks everybody for coming and then goes like

you Greg Geraldo that's pretty much all she does and the reason that was there was because of this joke. So, which was, do you want me to tell you the joke? I think I know it, but tell me. It was that the true fact that it was based on was that Michael Jackson and Joan Rivers had the same plastic surgeon and that they had actually a lot of stuff in common, that they both, they're both creepy old white ladies, they both are more popular now that they're dead and that they both raised a chimpanzee.

That was the joke. And Melissa stormed out, right? And that was the, so anyway. To your knowledge, did you ever, and you don't have to mention who, did any of the people that were roasted, did they, did you ever see them shed any tears afterwards that it just really affected them or not really? No, no, I never, like, I never started to be like outright cry, like, but, um, I don't know, I'm trying to think, like, I think, you know, Donald Trump was a terrible sport about it.

Like, he was a real dick about it. Um, and, uh, he was the worst. I mean, like, his one was the worst. So I don't, and like, there's sort of like just the sort of legend of that particular roast. Like there have been, like when Trump then ran for president, there were articles written about what that experience was like and everything. And like from the top down, everybody was like, yeah, what a piece of shit that guy was. Like everybody, like the Comedy Central people and everyone was just like, yeah, fuck him. That was terrible.

How many comedians get cut out of the roast? Because I know that for the sagat roast, Norm McDonald, they were debating. cutting him, does that actually happen that some of the people get up and they just, I mean, maybe they don't do well or they're, I mean, what Norm did was so. So few people don't do well because they, if they take our jokes and if they do what we tell them to, like if they're set up, people get cut down for sure. I think maybe Eddie Griffin might have gotten cut out because he just went up and rift. Like, the people who go up. No material? Yeah, every now and again, somebody will do that where they're like, I got this. And then they just go up and they think

they can just kind of wing it, which is like absolutely not something you can do on a roast. Like, you cannot do that. Do you remember Nancy Walker? She was like Redhead. She was in bounty commercials and then murder by death. She was in a lot of stuff in TV and she did Dean Martin roast and they cut her up because she's like, I can, I'm fine on my own and not even a comedian and she gets up in tanks. That you would think that that would not be. Yeah, it's crazy. somebody like you i think what happens what happens more often actually is somebody will drop out at the last minute and that screws everything up and i feel like that happens because people will agree to do it this probably comes from the same place where somebody agrees to do it and then they

don't bother watching one so they don't really know what exactly it is and then i think the people who drop out is like one of their assistants like the week before is like if you actually see one of these right and then they show to it's like i'm not going to let them talk about my miscarriage and they bail you know so and then that kind of it really blasts a giant hole right in the middle of the roast because a lot of times you'll have one of the sort of delightful things about a roast joke is sometimes you you use somebody on the dais to like as a backboard to like bounce a joke off of to hit the other person and then if that person's gone then it screws up the whole you know what I mean so so there's a lot of like reconfiguring you have to do

to like everybody's set because one person is gone, you know, so. Were you in the room when Bob Sagitt, they did the roast and Norm McDonald got up and did. Yeah, I was. Yeah. What was that like? Because I know they added him down some and it was so for certain people, I mean, they did not get it in the room. What was that energy like? I mean, it seems like one of those things where all the comedians are laughing because this is so norm. But it was, yeah, I mean, I'm a norm fan and I always So, like, I was very tickled by it. I thought it was delightful.

Like, what a fun. And Geraldo and I used to then talk for years about the joke he said about him, which was like, I think it was something about, like, people say, you're going places, but not in the car. You're driving or whatever. It was just so, like, it's just so dumb. But we would talk about it all the time. And, yeah, there was another one, like, you know, he's got the face of it in the ears of an owl, the eyes of an owl. This man's for the birds or whatever. Like, they were just so corny and great.

And I had, but that was also delightful is what his behavior during the, when he wasn't on stage, when it wasn't his turn, he was just sitting there reading the newspaper the whole time. Do you remember that? That is so norm. If there was a joke about him, he would like, you know, like lower the paper and like frown, like, you know, like frown and then just like, you know, snap the newspaper back up. It was a really fun gag. I had a day job who wants to be a millionaire in the early days. And Norm was the celebrity version and he was reading. the newspaper during the show and they would cut to him and he's like marmaduke see funny i just i i just wrote on who was to be a millionaire so because jimmy hosted right so oh because jimmy was there yeah yeah so i was like backstage the whole time for that but just i don't know if you've ever heard this this is a an interesting i don't know how true this is because i was uh working with gregg for that roast for the uh sagot one so i don't have like the real inside track, but as I understand it, part of the reason that Norm did that was that it was kind of

like a bit of a protesting because that very day, Artie Lang, OD'd. Did you know that? That he was supposed to be on that roast. And then Artie was in the hospital. And so then as I, this is what I heard. And like, again, I don't, I can't verify this. But that Norm then, who was very close to Artie was like, well, I can't do it. I'm going to go. out with artie and the comedy central the somebody was more or less like no we can't lose two guys on the dais at once because i already told you how much that janks everything up if somebody's gone so then if two people are gone that would have really just knocked one of the wheels off the roast like the day of so they kind of more or less like made norm stay there and so as i was

told and i don't know if this is true that he he kind of just is like well then this and just kind of did that, you know, to show his sort of, you know, kind of annoyance with it or whatever, you know? That seems very normal. What was it like working with Robert Smigel on the Triumph special? That was the election special on Hulu in 2016. That was great. I mean, I didn't, I did it from, like, remotely, because I had a job. So I think I was working at midnight at the time. So I wasn't actually physically with him for most of it. I have been on past things that Robert has done, which is also like a pretty awesome experience because I mean yeah clearly I know you're a big smigle fan oh my goodness yeah he's he's my favorite it's just his his ability um sketch writing I don't yeah over to

SNL and just beyond SNL yeah pretty all in all of him his work oh me too yeah I mean he's an absolute genius and and I was I got to work with him because he came in and did this absurdly stupid show called the the guys choice awards that used to exist in a different Era. Do you know about those? No. It was Spike TV. You remember that TV network? I remember Spike TV. Yeah, yeah. The network for dudes. It was just like a like if Axe Body Spray was a network. And they would do this absurd award show called the guys choice awards where they would just literally reverse engineer awards. They would book for probably a ton of money like big tough, you know, like just like like like guys, guys. And then we'd have to come up with what award we were going to give them, you know, like.

Like mustache of the century, we'd give to Burt Reynolds. Like that, you know what I mean? And so Smigel would come on as triumph and do kind of this like a roundup of the year's worst people or something like that or, you know, the ear and guys, whatever the hell was. And yeah, like I just, I got to sit around with him and pitch jokes. And it was one of the coolest things I ever got to do. And he actually closed with my joke, which I was super happy about.

And then I think that because of that, he then called me an. asked if I would help him with the tri-up thing. And so that was literally just like, like, Robert, there is, I feel like there's like, at least, and I've written for a lot of people at this point, and I feel like there are kind of essentially two types. There's the type who writes until, has, until like, yeah, we got it. This is good. And then they move on with their life.

And then there's the other type, which is like right until you run out of time, because we might get a better joke, you know? That's Robert. That is Robert. That's Robert. Yeah. And so that is just this frenetic. There is, it's just this bottomless pit of jokes. You just keep just firing jokes into an email address or whatever or right up to the last minute. You're just still like whispering jokes to him just in the on the off chance that that might. So which is a really kind of, it feels very like frenetic and exciting because you're like, oh shit. Like maybe I can maybe jam a joke in at the last second kind of thing. You know? So it takes a lot of mental energy to do that. Like not. just because the jokes have to be sharp, but also because it's like, when you commit to doing that, it's like, oh, man, this is an endless job until it, until the cameras, until action,

you know? How many jokes do you normally write for Jimmy in the morning, if you had to guess? Well, like first pass 30, maybe, something like that, some, in that first batch, you know? And then throughout the day, I'd say another 30 more, maybe, is my thought, like, you know, somewhere in that vicinity. I was wondering about that. What was it like working at midnight? And it was great that you were on the show.

You always did great. Yeah, that was a fun show. And that was really a fun show to do. And I thought that was what was cool about because at the time, I was still very stand-up focused about getting out there myself and doing a stand-up. So the fact that I would regularly get on the show was helpful. And that was actually an interesting thing I learned about that was antithetical to how I thought show business worked. Like when I was a teen or a kid watching Comedy Central and seeing people on shows and stuff,

my assumption was always just that like, oh, well, they're there because they're literally the best. They're the most qualified person to be on this show. And then you get on at midnight and somebody drops out and they're just like, well, hey, can you just go on? Like, you realize it's literally like a lot of these people are there because they were closest. Because they were literally just a block away. So you'll do. Get on the show. You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. It's like Tony Randall with Johnny Carson in New York. He lived right by and be like, Tony. Yeah, and sometimes too, like, yeah, if I'd recently done it or whatever, that they would literally just like call around comics that they do that were close to the studio and bring them in for the show.

But that was really fun because I, that is the only show I ever worked on where the, it was the direct correlation between like what you wrote in the morning and then what ended up on television was like one to one. You know what I mean? Like Hardwick is a funny guy and had a lot of input and would, but he would pick stuff. But like if you wrote it, he would basically just kind of do it unchanged for the most part, which was kind of nice. And also with that show, it was like there would be like a like a topic would be like a chunk and that it would spin off into like one of those fake questions like game show questions, you know? And so it would be whatever the news story would be would then, you You'd then have to, at the end of it, reverse engineer, like, kind of make a joke into a question and then give three options or whatever. So that chunk, you would write yourself. Like, we would all, like, in the morning, go, like, I'll take that topic or whatever. And then you'd go off and write that. It was either, like, if your chunk got picked, then that's, like, two minutes of the show is just literally you wrote as is, you know? Like.

Yeah, that doesn't happen. No. And, yeah, and it's the complete opposite. it like at Kimmel like the like you know your batting average like the number of jokes you write versus the number of stuff that gets on the it's so disposable you know what I mean it's like three percent four percent you know at most like it's just you're just constantly so it to go from that to that where like 98 percent of what I wrote was on TV to like three percent it's like it was a real it's a very different dynamic but but still but very cool what was the most surreal moment

writing for the Oscars I know that you wrote for of course Jimmy and then you wrote also for Seth McFarlane. Is there a moment or maybe two that was being backstage and maybe writing during the show? You know, I remember during the first one, I was still the Seth one that I did, the Seth McFarland year. Oh, this is

funny. This is not a, this isn't has anything to do with the actual show. Well, I'll tell you too. One has nothing to do with the show itself, but the other one does. It was when we were writing on it. Like, I was still just coming from Comedy Central and whatever. And so I met Seth through the sheen roast. I wrote a bunch of

jokes for him for the Charlie Sheen roast. And that's when he started asking me to help him write other shit, right? Everybody else was like a family guy dude for the most part, except me. So I'd meet them sometimes at Seth's house. And it was right before Christmas, and we were working on the rest. I went to Seth's house, his enormous house on the top of the hill. And I had to go straight to the airport to go back to Pittsburgh to see my parents. And so I get in and I just asked Seth. I was like, hey man, how long does it take you to get to the airport from here? And he goes, you know, I have no idea. I was like, what do you have no idea?

And he was like, I'll find out. I'll get. And he like went to go ask somebody. And I was so confused. I was like, how fuck do you not know how long it takes you get to the airport from your house? And one of the family guys had to explain to me that it was like, you know, like he's like a helicopter like landed on his tennis court and then take him to a private plane. And then he just leave the plane leaves when he gets there. Like, and I was like, oh my God.

Like it was just a whole other level of like rich famous guy that I had, I didn't know existed where it's like his. international airport is like our bus station you know what I mean where it's like oh yeah I kind of know where the bus station is like I could get you in the general direction I don't go there a lot so I don't know you know so that was fascinating but for them for that rest I was still a cigarette smoker at the time and you know because it's the Oscars they just let you do whatever you want more or less or the time they did you know and so like not you couldn't smoke backstage but like they you could just go down to like this one area like off the red carpet and people were just smoking and like it just so happened that my smoking menstrual cycle synced up with Robert Downey Jr's and like I just kept

every time I'd go out to have a cigarette Robert Downey Jr. would be there having a cigarette. I just like, hey man. I just ended up like being smoking buddies with Robert Downey Jr. that night. It was like a really surreal cool experience. So that was neat. And then for the most recent one, I would say that the like the scrum where it was that mad dash to like come up with when Trump tweeted at us to come up with a joke to address it so and and like everybody was pitching out or whatever stuff and and tony barbieri threw out something that was that something about uh lights out in prison or something like that and that made me then go like oh is it a past your jail time or whatever and then that ended up being the thing and it felt like hitting a buzzer beater it was like cool like because it was really like

only there was just you know whatever we had like a very limited window of time to try to jam something out and so that was kind of a fun are you hired i don't want to say as a ghost writer, but when people have those Netflix comedy specials, there's no way that some of them can generate a new hour as frequently as some of them do with being busy. Do some times do you ghost write for stuff like that? No, like, so stand-up is uniquely a very different animal, and stand-ups are very particular when it comes to that kind of stuff. And for the most part, no, it will, like, there are plenty of stand-ups that I write for when they have to do a TV thing. I get that.

Yeah. But like their act is so personal that that feels like it crosses a line that most people wouldn't, it depends. Like, and I don't judge anybody for doing it. But that being said, I am a good friend with Jimmy Carr and I think he's a genius. And during the strike, he was such a kind, decent guy to me that he was like, I'll just put you on retainer. Why don't you just send me a couple pages of jokes a week? like stand-up jokes and I'll just I'll just pay you for him just to help me out because

we were on strike which was I mean like such a cool thing to do and so yeah so I basically like just churned out as much stand-up material as I could for him for that but yeah like I feel like stand-up is kind of a different animal in that way I want to plug your book let's do this now oh sure you had a book that came out in 2003 which was called killing the guys who killed You can just say last year. That makes it sound like it was a really long time ago. I'm just looking at my research. I just wrote a fucking book. Like, give me a break. Now you're making it sound like, you know, get off your ass and write another book. Like, it's been a long...

So tell me about the book that you wrote last year. Thank you. So, yeah, I'm super proud of that because I didn't know that I could do that. And I ended up writing a whole book. And I'm very proud of it. But it was... I'm a giant history dork. And I always have been. And that is one of the sort of little tells that. that, you know, people often go like, oh, I bet that joke was yours. If it's, if there's a Harry Truman joke that ends up on Kimmel, like the chances are that was mine, you know, or whatever, that kind of thing.

So like, I just, I've always been, I'm just fascinated by history and I think it's really fun. And that company Scrib, was, uh, which is now called Everand was just put out a call that was like, hey, we're looking for a funny history thing. And my manager was like, oh, I know the perfect guy. And so I just pitched him a few ideas. And that was one of them. And it's just this.

particular topic that's always fascinated me, which is how zany the, like, everybody knows that John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln, but, and people, a lot of people then know that John Wokes Boots was, was then tracked down and killed himself, but how utterly zany the guy who killed John Wokes Booth is, is such a fascinating dude. And he, uh, yeah, he was, do you, do you know anything about him? Or did you, like, I just know from doing research, he, uh, cut off a piece of his anatomy. Yeah, so his name's Boston Corbett, and he was like a hat maker. He made hats for a living.

And that then meant he went crazy because that is a real trope. Did you know about that? The Mad Hatter thing? I didn't know that. That makes sense now that to say Mad Hatter, but I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, Lewis Carroll is like the guy who wrote Alice Wonderland is like the first guy who kind of made that hilarious observation, which at the time was like, what a great comedic observation that was because every guy who made hats was just out of their fucking mind. they were like, and it took like 30 years for people to put together that the reason why is because the process by which you would make felt hats is steaming it in liquid mercury. So what would

happen is these guys who made hats would just sit in a room all day and just breathe in liquid mercury vapor and that makes you crazy. And so that's basically what happened to Boston Corbett. So he was this guy who made hats for a living. So he just went absolutely crazy like a mad hatter. And then the Civil War started and he joined the Civil War. And oh, no, no, before that, actually. So before even that, so before he joined the Civil War, so he's a crazy hatmaker, and he becomes an alcoholic, and then one night he gets propositioned by a prostitute on the street, and he gets really horny, and he doesn't know what to do about it. He gets very upset. He's a religious sell it. He goes home and he reads

the Bible, and there's that part in the Bible that says if your eye offends you, you should pluck it out, or if your hand is keeping it astray from God, you should cut it off. So he cut his balls off with a pair of scissors. And then he didn't go to the hospital. He just like went out to dinner and then went to church and whatever, and people were like, hey, man, you're, you're depleting, and they, like, took him in hospital, and he almost died. But then he got out, and the Civil War starts, and he joins up and becomes like a super soldier in the Civil War. And, like, he ends up in Andersonville Prison, which is, like, you know, like this, you know, notorious gulog in, and, uh, in Georgia, and he survives there. And then after, as soon as the war ends, uh,

Lincoln, or the war ends and then Lincoln, Lincoln's killed. And he's the first guy to volunteer. And he chases John Wilkes Boots for 12 days to a barn and shoots him in the head. So it's a fascinating, fascinating guy. It's amazing that that isn't a movie. Exactly. And like, I just thought, like, what a quirky little detail, like, you know, like little nugget of American history that I feel like a lot. And it's just like a story I would tell people, you know, like, it's kind of a drunk history type thing. You know what I mean?

Where, like, you know, he's a really funny, zany guy. He's kind of like 19th century Mike Lindell in that way. And I just find him to be such a fascinating lunatic. Because then after that, he becomes super famous and he tours around the country, like reenacting. the how he killed John Wook's Booth and he keeps getting crazier and then he holds the entire Kansas state out hostage and he moves into a hole in the ground in Tennessee in Kansas and escapes to Mexico. Fascinating dude. So the book is about him and then also it is about Edwin Booth, who is John Wook's Booth's brother, who you may know was his way more famous brother when everybody

kind of like it's Southern revisionist history to say that John Wook's Booth was a famous actor. like that's what they started doing after the fact to like bolster john wigg's booth was a loser like he was like he was like one of the shitty baldwins you know what i mean like he came from a very famous family of actors and he was the goofball like he was not like his brother edwin was like it was it's kind of the uh because their dad was famous too so it's kind of the uh kirk douglas michael douglas eric douglas trifecta right and that's and and john was eric and so The day after John Wooks Booth killed the president, that's the way everybody talked about it, was like, did you hear that Edwin Booth's brother killed the president? And then now nobody knows who Edwin is. And he's a funny, fascinating alcoholic. So is your book that came out last year? Has it been optioned?

Mm-mm. But I also haven't. Like, I've been pretty, I've been busy. Like, I would love to turn it into a thing. And I think part of the reason that we're, I've talked to my management about the possibility of doing a thing like that with it. But they just. did Manhunt on Apple. Do you know about that? I've heard I know the name I have I've been working on deadlines so I haven't seen anything in a while yeah and I liked it like so manhunt is was is like the sort of the quintessential book about this the hunt for John Wicks Booth so there's a lot of crossover with that that what what I did but that one is like a super serious like dramatic telling of and and Boston Corbitt's a minor character in manhunt but he is the central character in my thing. And so I feel like it kind of has to be put away for a little bit because that just came out. But, uh, but yeah. So I think it would be great. I had no, I was taught when

in school that Wilkes Booth was, you know, the equivalent to like a Jack Nicholson that he was like this famous. Exactly. That's literally like the, the like daughters of the confederacy made that a talking point years later is that John, like kind of the way they put up a bunch of Confederate statues in the 1910s, you know, that was when John Wilkes Booth became this lauded great actor. But at the time, like, Lincoln saw him perform and was like, this guy sucks, more or less. So, yeah, but Lincoln was a huge fan of Edwins and like went to see Edwin like half a dozen times. I had no idea. Before we go, people really don't know how generous Jimmy Kimmel is. I've heard so many stories behind the scenes, people that knew him. People that met him

for the first time. Do you have a story before we go? If not, no worries. No, but what I will tell you is that, like, he is just such a genuine dude, like a regular guy. Like, he's not, you could just kind of, the first, like, when you see him, he will, like, ask you how your kids are, that kind of thing, you know, like, he is just so nice every time I bring my wife around. Like, you know what me like he's just a my parents came to the show once and like that he like brought my dad down and like you know talk to him for a couple minutes got his picture with it like you know i mean like he just is a genuinely like a like a real sweetheart of a like a real guy that you could just you know kind of count on and talk to like he's just a a legit decent person you know so i'd like hear it in that

everybody by jessie's book that came at last year you have to you have to subscribe to Everrand. That's how you get it, right? It's an e-book and an audiobook, and it works like Netflix, right? Where you subscribe to the service and then you have unlimited access to their originals and all their other content, which is just like tons and tons of books that were published elsewhere or whatever. But they do like originals with like Stephen King and Margaret Atwood. And then like nobody's like me, they'll give an original to.

And so, yeah, you can find it there. I wish we had more time. I know that we have to go for your stand-up. What is your website so people can check out your stand-up? I know you have a YouTube channel as well. Yeah, I don't keep it up. Like, Instagram is probably where I would keep, like, put clips more recently, which is Jesse Joyce won, sadly, because I didn't get to it fast enough.

But my website is just jessyjoice.com. And, you know, you just type in my name. I'm the one who comes up. There's an Australian football player, but he's way down the Google hits. So, yeah. Jesse, Astoria misses you. Thank you so much for doing this. I really, really appreciate it.

This was fun. Sure thing, Mark. This is a blast. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. It's very kind of you. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode.

On Apple Podcasts, please rate it and leave a review. Be sure to go to late-nighter.com for all your late-night TV news. And you can find my podcast at late-nighter.com forward slash podcasts. Have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next Tuesday. Thank you. I'm going to be. And I'm going to be. And I'm going to

be the same. I'm going to the I'm going to be. You know what I'm I'm going to be. I'm going to be.

Thank you.