The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Jimmy Kimmel

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel joins Andy to discuss his childhood in Las Vegas, how he made the jump from radio to TV, and why his family is such a big part of his show and his success.

Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Three Questions. I'm Andy Richter and as you know, my whole life is late night television. I don't care about anything but late night television. my whole life is late night television. I don't care about anything but late night television. So that's why I insisted that I get my next guest on this show. That's right. It's Jimbly Kimble.

No, you've pronounced that incorrectly, Andy. It's not Jimbly Kimble. It's Jimmy Kimble. Oh, Jimmy Kimble. I'm sorry. I just was, Wendy the Slow Adult is my publicist that's Jim yeah that's my Jimbo Kimball Jimbo Kimball that's what she says a little uh reference to the Howard Stern show yes of which yeah which yeah we are both uh devotees you much more than me you're like now a member

of the family on the Stern show I feel like you could be a member of the family if you invested more time in the family that's true that's true I traveled more, you, you are out there and then, you know, or you're out here too. And I, you know, I'm more hunkered down in my little, in my little Burbank bunker. Yeah. Well, I go to New York usually once or twice a year. I haven't obviously in a while, but I always make a point to go on the show. I really love it. It's one of the few things I really enjoy doing. It is. And I mean, I, you know, I'm listening to it. It just like I get annoyed when they replay things during the day,

when I get back in the car and I turn it on, it's like, oh, shit. I already heard this. God damn it. If you learn how to use the app, which I've not, it's easy to fix that. But it's much easier to just, you know, there's some things that are just like you just want to turn the app which i've not it's easy to fix that but it's much easier to just you know there's some things that are just like you just want to turn the radio on in the car and have it come to you right exactly i'm like an app shmap i don't have time for that and also too i never think to turn anything on until i'm actually on the road so i you know if i'm fussing with the

app which you know i was listening to you and Zach Galifianakis on, on your podcast. And I, you know, once I get something going, I don't want to change anything for fear that it might not work. So I was listening to it just on my phone, not with headphones, just listening to it as using the phone as a speaker. And then I realized I had to like, you know, go into my office and stuff so I just held it with me and sometimes I'll put it right in my front pocket and I had the speaker pointing out at my head and I'm just that's like my version of a of a boom box I guess right right or like a transistor radio that like a you know like a slow person would listen to the ball game on you know

I miss listening to the ball game on you know i miss listening to the ball game on a rate being at like a dodgers game or something and somebody remembered to bring their radio which i never did and i was always jealous because you always you know you kind of half know what's going on when even if you know a lot about baseball if you're not paying really close attention to what's happening on the field it's easy to get confused especially when there's like a close play and you're like so what happened wait what you don't know what's going on yeah but i will tell you when i was a dish jockey i worked at a radio station in palm springs kcmj fm and there was kcmj am it was right when i say across the hall i I mean, like, like your bathroom would be close to your kitchen and no, it was automated. They'd run the Dodgers games. And so when I was there on the weekends,

doing my weekend shift, I would go in there and to entertain myself, I would put sound effects into the Dodgers game. So while the Dodgers broadcast was coming out of LA, I would like, Vince Culley would say, and here's the pitch. And then you'd hear boing. And then people would call the radio station and I'd answer the phone and they'd say, I'm hearing strange sounds on the radio during the game.

And I said, I know, I'm hearing the same thing. It's coming out of LA. We don't know what's going on. That's awesome. That just reminds me of when I lived in Chicago, and this is also tangentially a radio story. There was a DJ there that was a personality jock. I mean, they call them shock jocks.

It's like, it's like, nope, they're not that shocking. Who was it? Jonathan Brandmeier. Oh, he's one of my idols. Oh, really? He was huge, huge. And he had a deal to do a TV show,

to do like sort of like a comedy sketch talk show, like a late night talk show. And it was like Fred Silverman. And it was sort of like it had something to do with like the the fallout from the arsenio joan rivers thing or maybe before arsenio i don't remember exactly but it was a syndicated show fred silverman produced it and they tried to make him into a tv host and it didn't it didn't work i have it on VHS, by the way. I have that in my office right now on VHS. Oh, my God. Because we, it was, there was a bunch, there was a group of us that were in an improv group.

And they had two slots, like two slots for researchers. Because you couldn't be a writer because then they'd have to pay you guild dues. Or you'd have to pay your guild rates. So you had to be we were researchers and the group of us like i was all for like look let's just go for it let's just each of us try and get that spot because there was like six of us like let's just each go for the the two spots and there were other guys in the group who are like no why don't we rotate in and out and i was like because i would like to get a real salary rather than one-third of the salary or one-sixth of the salary or whatever and it i was quickly shot down

to the point where it because i kept pushing the point and it was kind of like all right they kind of like we're like hey shut up we're gonna do this all as a group okay Okay, okay. So we, like each of us work two days a week, but we worked at the PBS station, WTTW in Chicago in their studios. And there was a current event show that was on five nights a week. I can't, John Calloway, I think was his name. But in his set was a bookshelf, like behind him and then behind the guests,

it was a bookshelf. And I took then behind the guest it was a bookshelf and i took some pieces of ham and put them between the books that so that they were hanging out and for like a week you could see in when you turned on his show pieces of ham hanging out of the books behind him and it like i say it took a week like it just shows how much the quality control and what a sharp eye everybody had on that show. Well, I do want to say in Johnny B's defense, he was not a shock jock. He was just kind of a fun guy. He wasn't a shock jock.

He was hugely popular in Phoenix before he went to Chicago. The impact that he left on every dish jockey, I went to college in Phoenix, on every dish jockey that I worked with was enormous he was so popular he had like a 30 share or something in Phoenix yeah yeah he had a band and they would play and he'd do like funny songs but he was really great and a really funny guy and yeah the TV show didn't didn't work he had almost too much energy for television. And radio guys have a hard time on television. And I think there's a weird reason why, a very practical reason why, which is

they're used to being like an inch and a half from a microphone. And when you're not close to that microphone, you feel you have to shout. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And just amp up the energy. And it's hard to get over not being able to control the volume of your voice and you're not wearing headphones and it just kind of changes everything. And I think that's like if somebody sat down with all these radio guys beforehand and said, Hey, listen, you're going to be shouting. Uh, it's going to be much too much, especially for late night television. You just need to focus and calm down. It do a it would i don't know i probably wouldn't have a job i guess all right well this this podcast is kind of you know as uh as one of

my guest ones called it origin story because everything's got to be freaking comic books now um so this is kind of like you know this is your life you're you're gonna you know share with us where you come from. And you're originally East Coast, right? Brooklyn? I'm from Mill Basin, which is down in the bottom of Brooklyn. It's not the cool area. It's not the place where all the hipsters live now.

It's pretty much the same as when I lived there. Really? It's an Italian and Jewish neighborhood in the bottom of it. It's for people from Brooklyn who never go to the city who stay in Brooklyn all the time yeah oh yeah there's there are in Chicago there was the same thing my barber told me he hadn't been downtown for 25 years and that was that was when he got his barber's license like so there's just people that live in the city are like I'm not going down there so and is it do you still have people there or do you still have relatives that live there? Oh, you do.

Okay. Yeah, sure. We moved to Las Vegas when I was nine years old. My uncle Frank was a cop in New York. He retired. He was 40 years old. I think he decided he heard that you could get a job as a security guard at a casino in Las Vegas pretty easily if you'd been a police officer. Yeah. And so they went out there. They

actually, this is a true story. It sounds like it's not true, but it's absolutely true. They were going to move to Florida. They went down to Florida and they put a down payment of a hundred dollars on a house, which was a lot of money. And they were staying with friends. And, uh, in the morning, my aunt Chippy saw an alligator in the pool, in the backyard at this friend's house. And she said, I didn't give birth to three daughters to have a meeting by an alligator. And so Florida was out, they forfeited the $100 and decided to move to Las Vegas. Wow. And that they did

and we followed them about a year and a half later. And all three of their children were bitten by rattlesnakes. And so it was just because they led the way. I mean, did your dad have a job lined up?

My dad did not have a job lined up. Oh, wow. In fact, a local lounge singer helped him get a job he was working at ibm in new york and he got a job working for this company called suma corporation which is a company howard hughes owned and founded they owned seven casino hotels in las vegas and um and they had their office wasn't even an office building it was like this ranch on right near what or that welcome to las vegas sign it was right near that yeah and they worked

on this ranch and um it was like in a house basically and they were operating uh the computer systems that determined the odds on the slot machines in the casinos. Oh, wow. Wow, so your dad, could he finagle the slots to, you know? You know what? It's interesting, and people don't know this if you don't live in Las Vegas, but there are certain percentages, payouts, certain payout percentages. So if you're on the strip,

you probably have the lowest chance of winning money on a slot machine if you're in if you're on the strip that's you probably have the lowest chance of winning money on a slot machine if you're in a big casino on the strip then you get into downtown and the odds are higher where they have to and then you get to like a supermarket and that's where the odds are best oh really yeah like at the what about the airport uh the airport is the worst oh okay yeah it's just like it's like the cost of it's like the same reason a pack of gum is three dollars at the airport it's the same principle now that i learned from him and that's what he did in las vegas and um until we moved to arizona in the in the later 80s and how old how old were you when you moved to vegas i was nine and how old

when you moved to arizona. Okay. So that was pretty much your, you know, your formative years into young manhood were in Las Vegas. Yes, for sure. Is that a weird, I can't even conceive of growing up in Las Vegas because it just doesn't seem to have its own identity that is in any way genuine. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean. And I could see why people think that. And I didn't, it was never obvious to me until I moved from Las Vegas and people couldn't believe I was from Las Vegas, but it's a place where we went to church and played little league and, you know, had the same upbringing that anybody has the only difference being that most of our parents worked on the strip you know i'm like uh my best friend clito who's now my band

leader his dad who's also in my band was a room service waiter at caesar's palace for many years and would like he'd be requested by sam Davis Jr. and Bill Cosby and these guys when they would come into town so it was like a regular job that was interesting and this weird dose of celebrity injected into everything because I lived two and a half miles from the strip I it's where I grew up and yet it wasn't like we you know we didn't hang out there we didn't have showgirls living next door or anything like that. But when we wanted it, we could get right to it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It does seem like it would be. Well, you know, it's like sort of like any Western city, but with like a little bit of glamour and a little bit of crime to like, you know, a little bit of crime, a little bit of desperation, maybe more desperation than any place. And you could see it. I mean, more pawn shops than you'll see in the typical town, more motels, more hookers. Yeah, yeah. All the times that I went to Las Vegas, there's this, and I don't know whether it's just my emotional makeup, but it's like, there's a palpable sort of sense of desperation. You know what I mean? Like, just like people losing money. And, and, and do you feel that

while you're there? Do you feel that like, oh, like I'm going to school and everything, but just, you know, a few blocks away, there are people losing their children's college fund. No, you know, when you're a kid, I, you know, that's not something I was really aware of until I became an adult. But yeah, I think that like this, you know, like suicide rate is right up there with the Pacific Northwest. And up there, I think it's largely has weather has a lot to do with it. The gloominess of living up there and in Vegas, people just kind of there are a lot of people who come for their last shot. And they're like, you know, I'm at I'm at the end here and maybe a miracle will happen. And if it doesn't, goodbye.

Yeah, yeah. Now, is it true that you and all your friends had to wear pinky rings? We didn't have to. I will say my Uncle Vinny does wear a pinky ring. Yeah, yeah. And he's got hands like an ape. pinky ring yeah yeah and he's got hands like an ape i i i i one time bought a ring that i intend like it's like a cool antique kind of like old buckle ring that i was gonna wear as a pinky ring and i put it on and i was just like no fucking way no way i cannot do this you know you made

that decision on yeah i just like just put it on it's like it's like when i bought a leather jacket like a cool not like a fonzie biker jacket but more like a you know like a I bought a leather jacket, like a cool, not like a Fonzie biker jacket, but more like a, you know, like a motocross leather jacket. Yeah. You know, at Berman's, the leather experts when I was 15 or something. And I, you know, I bought it and I got it home and there was something about the store mirror wasn't as truthful as a home mirror. And I put it on when I was home and I was just like, I just, I look ridiculous. I have that experience with every hat I ever buy.

You know, you go on vacation and you buy a fedora. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to be my thing, you know, my grandfather wore a hat. Maybe this is my thing. You know what? I think, you know why we do that on vacation? Because our friends aren't with us. And then when you have to face the prospect of walking into the office and all your friends being there and seeing you in this hat now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know you're going to get mocked. Yep, exactly. Yeah, I'm going to be a hat guy now. Surrounded by strangers is the reason they sell so many hats on vacation. Yeah, hat guys. I'm sure that hat guys at some point will rise up and demand representation. Because there like with like a little like pork pie hat. I just am like, what are you doing?

I feel that way too. Only when it comes to white people. Yeah. Oh, white people are not allowed to wear funny hats. But Steve Harvey, like you see Steve Harvey, like, yeah, he looks good. And Cedric the Entertainer, you're like, yeah, that works. Yeah, that is true.

100%. Sam Jackson wears a Kangol hat all the time. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. George Lopez has like one of those hats on all the time. And you never think he looks dumb. Yeah, because I'm thinking like Jimmy Vivino, our old band leader, he wears hats like crazy.

And it's like, well, yeah, but it works on him. Yeah, kind of, yeah, I'm probably glad you just got used to it. Uh, well, what, and what predicated the move to Arizona? My dad lost his job and, and was out of work for a year and then got a job in Arizona. I'd gone to college at UNLV for a year in Vegas. And then there was some deal where if you were hired, you'd get in-state tuition for your children. And so my father said, we're moving to Arizona. And I was like, well, I'll miss you guys. It was really nice knowing

you. I'm in college. It's normal for people to be away from their families in college. And they said, no, no, you're coming. I said, well, no, I'm not coming. I'm going to stay here and go to college. And then I found out how much rent was. And I think I was making like $4.15 an hour at the Miller's Outpost at the time. And I realized that there was no way I could support myself. So I moved with them. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's gotta be a good feeling. Were you living at home? And you were living at home through that first year of college, right? Yeah. I mean, I didn't, my family, we didn't think about college until after I'd graduated high school. There was never a discussion of college. Really? Yeah. It was like the 13th grade.

It was like August came and we were like, well, I guess you should go to UNLV next year. And I did. Yeah, it's right there. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. You know, I think back and I can't believe it, especially now I see like my father, how involved he is with my niece and nephew and figuring out their college and, you know, the SAT tests and getting them a tutor

and all this stuff. It was like, where were you when I was a teenager? Yeah, I know. Pete, I remember when my son's in college now and when he was going through the process and other parents talking about it and like, my kid's applying to seven colleges, my kid's applying to eight. And like, my son asked me like, how many did you apply to? And I said, one, the one that I went to.

I'm not sure I even applied. I just signed up. Yeah, just show up and do it. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's a different ballgame. It's the same thing with, but like my parents, they'd go to like the parent teacher conference. That was it. You know, sport, you know, if you were in a a sport they'd go to us they watch the game but

beyond that like you're on your own and that's you know that was always a difference of opinion between my ex-wife and i was always like we'd go you know we would go to the parent nights of the orientation nights and they'd tell us about the math they're teaching and and she would realize that i just was zoning out or trying to look at my phone, you know? And, and I was,

and I would tell her, I was like, yeah, but it's there. It's between them. It's between the kid and the teacher. I feel the same way. What,

what, what's it got to do with me? I can't tell you how many times I've said I've graduated kindergarten already. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, it's like, that's your business. I don't need to know.

And also, I can't absorb it anyway, even if I try to focus. I mean, I was shitty at math then. I'm shitty at math now. But I'm also a very self-involved guy. I showbiz asshole. Well, you know, that's the way it was when, you know, our parents, yeah, they'd come, like like if we have like a like the band if i was playing my clarinet in a band recital they'd all they'd be there for sure

yeah you know if there was a game or something they'd come to it but unless i was in trouble they hadn't they didn't nothing happened as far as school goes you know yeah and i it's not you know i don't know i don't know i i mean i i my kids are my kids are pretty good at school my daughter especially my daughter is like you know i had a lot of uh attention issues early on you know was basically a wild animal until age nine and uh but now she's like straight a's and super organized and like and and i that has nothing to do with me i mean and in so many ways and i'm sure you've noticed this your children are who they are like fresh out of the yep fresh out of the womb they're just like you can kind of sense like oh this is this is what this kid is like and then they just sort of spend a you spend

a lifetime being, it be reaffirmed to you. You conjure up this personality for them. Like our son, Billy, you know, he had, as you know, operations right when he was born.

And he was the, you know, this sympathetic character in our lives. Like, Oh, you know, poor Billy and all this baby. Is he going to live?

What's going to happen? Really? Like became very much the center of our lives in in a much greater way than a baby usually becomes the center of your life and now he's just a maniac he's a pain in the ass he's a crazy little monster who runs around scaring us and roaring at people and biting and stuff. What is he, five? Is he like five now? He just turned four.

Just turned four. Do you know how worried we were about you? Yeah. Why are you biting me? I was on TV yelling at the president about you. I was myself on television because of you. You know how much money I've been given to that place because of you can't you tell my loves are growing my sister has a five-year-old and my assistant has a has a has a

toddler now and i i just, when I see him, I'm just reminded of this period that I called high stakes boredom, which is just like watching a kid like do the same thing 50 times, but you can't take your eye off them because they might fall and split their skull open on like, you know, a twig or something, you know,

or poke their own eye out with it just for fun i guess yeah and you signed up for it again i did you were out from under it from had two i was in the clear yeah i was on a magic carpet ride to europe yeah and you're like i can't wait to change my parents diapers i want to change a diaper now. My oldest daughter turns 30 this summer. You know, I could be a grandfather soon. Yeah, yeah. That's a spread. Wow. Does it keep you young, though? I kind of feel like the longer the babies are around, it kind of, it keeps you from slipping into being old and crotchety. It keeps you young and makes you old, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can get that. It's a lot of responsibility. You know, when sometimes I feel like my wife doesn't understand that I did this once already. Like, sometimes it's like, if I'm not holding up my end of the bargain I'll sometimes go like oh my god do you know how many times I woke up before I even met you well now is that oh it's just like it's the burden of it it's like I don't want to do that or is it just kind of that like this does she sweat things more than you do just because you've been through it? Yeah. Yeah. I think so for sure. I think that's natural. I think there's a, when you have adult children, I'm sure as you realize your kids are,

you know, right there, you realize like, oh, okay. Uh, all that stuff I was worried about. I'm maybe, maybe it was worrying a little bit too much about that kind of stuff. And so you have that wisdom to comfort you. And then, you know, like for instance, my son is four years old and he's got this best friend named Trey. He loves his kid, you know, and Trey's moving. And my wife's very upset about it. She's like, he's going to miss Trey so much.

And I used to go, you know what? He's not even going to think miss Trey so much and I just go you know what he's not even gonna think about Trey I'm gonna tell you right now that uh this is he doesn't understand what moving means he um is like a dog where you leave the house in the morning and he's panting and then you come back at at night and he's jumping on you I mean it's like it their kids are more like dogs than I think we'd like to admit. Not just dogs, but just like little animals. Like they live in the moment. There's like, they're, you know, I mean, depending on the kid, they're like, you know, scared of being eaten. You know, it's great evidence that kids live in the moment. They will tell you the same joke 40 times in a row yeah

yeah yeah they don't understand that they're diminishing returns on the joke it doesn't matter to them because each time they're telling you the joke for the first time each time you like throw them in the air they then want to be thrown in the air again and thrown in the air again and the fact that you're now tired of throwing them in the air doesn't mean anything to them. They want you to keep going because they are, yes, they are. They exist in that moment and only that moment. And there's no thinking about the future at all.

And I guess it's a slow, I guess it's why teenagers think they're indestructible. I guess it's why it's like some people won't even get the vaccine. They have like a, like kind of a, um, an immaturity or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Like they're an immortality that's based on ignorance. Yeah. Ignorance of reality. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Although I do love picturing you screaming at a four-year-old.

There's a thing called diminishing return. Let me write this on, on, let me write this on the refrigerator with those little letter magnets we have. Now you, nobody in your show and your family's in show business. So what, what happened? You were, well, some of them are now, but well, yeah, cause you gave them jobs. I was the first one. It was an accident. I think probably I was a, I was planning to be an artist. That was always my plan for my life. I started watching David Letterman. I loved him. I started

listening to Howard Stern tapes of Howard Stern. My uncle would send me and I loved him and I got it in my head that it might be fun to be on the radio. And it just so happened this guy I worked with at this clothing store was on the local college radio station. And he said, you'd be funny on the radio. I can get you on. And I said, all right, I'd love to do that. And I started doing that. And then I just loved it so much.

I love being in radio stations so much. I decided to make that my career. And then it just so happened that I was doing morning radio in LA at K rock with these guys, Kevin and bean and, um, television producers would call and ask me to audition for things. So that's how I got into television. There was never a plan to get into television. Oh, wow. And was this all in Arizona when you started doing radio? I started in Las Vegas in high school. In Las Vegas. Oh, okay.

So do you think that if they hadn't called you that you'd be still doing radio? Yeah. I mean, yeah, probably. I mean, hopefully it's a hard business. It's especially hard now. Oh, it's awful now. It's really terrible. Now it's evolved into podcasting.

And I think it's in some ways it's better if you can get an audience. It's great because you don't really have a boss, which is a miracle. And you could practice, which you couldn't do when I was a kid trying to get into radio. You just hang around the radio station until somebody let you on. And then you'd be on maybe once a week on the weekends and you're talking in between records. So you're really not getting a lot of practice but now the idea that people could anyone with a computer can do a show that's a huge just being just doing it is is like 80 percent of it yeah now do you feel good about

that or is there a part of that that annoys you there is a part of it that annoys me and i know like when we listen to howard you hear it's annoying but i i do feel more good about it than annoyed i wish i didn't have to jump through those hoops and i wish i didn't have to like volunteer for three years before i finally got paid nothing to be on the radio now it all worked out obviously but I do think that my skills would have improved more quickly if I'd been able to I guess I could have just talked into a tape recorder you know yeah yeah yeah but it's you have to have like some kind of a reward and even you just want a few people listening well now when you you know as this evolved from going, you know, from doing the radio, auditioning for things, and there was the first TV thing was, oh, it was Win Ben Stein's Money, right? Yeah. And then when you get to the point where it's like, how about doing a talk show that's just you, do you have qualms about it?

Are you like, kind of of like i'm not sure i want to do this you know nobody ever asked me that question when i was i wasn't even offered the job so much as it was explained to me that i would be getting this job and i know that sounds ridiculous and i'm sure that there are people are are like, oh, fuck you, you know, but I believe you. You know, when I was a kid, like I had a cake for my 16th birthday that said Late Night with David Letterman, the cake on it. So you would think at my license plates at L8 Night on it, you would think that I set out to become a late night talk show host. Yeah. That's not at all what it was.

I just loved that television show. That's not at all what it was. I just loved that television show. And it was like, you know, I was just me trying to make conversation with people about the show because there weren't that many people who watched it at the time. So I enjoyed wearing a late night

with David Letterman t-shirt because sometimes people would come up to me and say, oh, hey, you watch that show? And then we would have a conversation about Larry Bud Melman. Right. The truth of the matter is that I never set out to do that. And everything is just as you described it. One thing led to another. These things led, one thing led to

another. It wasn't like I had this plan of how I was going to build my career. And I do see people because, you know, I have people on my show every night who, you know, sometimes had this plan from, from childhood, you know, and their parents were in on it and their parents quit their job and moved to LA and, and you go like, what? Yeah. My dad actually tried to pay me $200 a week to stay in Arizona and not go do my first morning show in Seattle. All I wanted was to do a morning radio show. I got that opportunity in a big market, in the perfect size market for me to hopefully succeed. And my dad tried to thwart it with a small amount of money.

Let's see. What price can my son be bought for? How about 200 bucks? It seemed like a lot at the time. I know it was a lot for him. I also knew in the back of my mind that he would stop paying it about five weeks in. So, you know, and then it would be too late. So what was I going to do? But yeah, right. It was not my intention. I went into a meeting with the president of ABC. He at the time was looking for a late night host and I didn't know it. We had a very nice conversation almost the whole time we talked about David Letterman. At the end of the meeting, I went home.

I called my agent. I said, yeah, we had a great meeting. It was very nice. My agent didn't know what was going on. In fact, he's also Jon Stewart's agent and he thought Jon Stewart was going to get that job. And then Adam Carolla's wife, Lynette, was this president of ABC's receptionist. And she called my ex-wife and said, ABC, they're going to offer, they're going to give Jimmy the midnight talk show at the time. And my ex-wife's like, hey, they said they're going to give you this show.

And I was like, what? What show? And the next thing I knew, I was, next thing I knew by like the next day, I was in their office and someone opened a bottle of champagne and said, welcome to the ABC family. Wow. Do you think that sort of this, you know, backwards stumble into it made it possible?

Do you think that if you had been just knowing yourself, knowing the way you're built, if you had been focused on it and, you know, and, and that license plate had actually been like a, a mission statement or something, do you think it would have worked out like this? Or do you think that there's just, I really don't know because I would like to be able to say, no, it worked better this way, but I really was focused on doing morning radio at a great radio station. I was very, very focused on that and that did happen. So I know that, I know, I know I've had at least one instance of setting my mind to something and it working out and now it didn't, it certainly wasn't a direct path and it definitely wasn't a pleasant path. It was a very rough path to working at K-Rock in LA, in which I had to move around the country a lot and was fired a lot of times and really went through,

it really was an unhappy time in my life in a lot of ways. But, you know, when you look back at this stuff, I'm sure you do this. And I know the way when you guys started your show and you get these, you know, way when you guys started your show and you get these you know multi-week long contracts oh yeah at one point it was week to week insanely it's just so insulting and so unnecessary and just bad from beginning to end you know it's like if you're an executive putting your talent in that situation, like what do you think they're going to do if it does work out?

They're going to hold it against you. Like, yeah, you should be prepared for success, you know, and, you know, anyway. But the lack of the lack of people skills at people at the like the upper echelons of entertainment power is jaw-dropping at times it's just jaw-dropping same people will treat you like absolute shit at the beginning i mean like like bring you into a meeting tell you they're gonna do something get you all excited and then never talk to you again and then the way they treat you to the point where it's really kind of terrible, where if there's a problem, they don't, they won't even tell you, they will just lie to you. They will just say, no, it's great. This is great and great and great and great. And then you find out like,

oh, wait, wait, what? You know, this idea of talent relations where they treat you like you're some kind of show horse, but then you inevitably will find out the truth. Inevitably the bad news comes and it doesn't make it any better. It's just like this really short term thinking, I guess. It's just, yeah, it's hard to figure. It's hard to figure out how any of it works. Yeah, it's hard to figure out how any of it works. Even just like the process of like, okay, you and I made a game show together, right? Yeah. I thought you did a great job.

I thought it was a fun show. And, you know, the ratings were pretty good on it. You know, it was not an easy show to do. It was kind of hard to put together. That show has never been canceled. As far as you and I know, that show is just in between seasons because no one ever said anything about it. And what was that like five years?

Yeah, it was on. And then we just kind of waited to see, you know, if they were going to pick it up again and no one ever said they weren't. And no one ever said they were. Yeah, it was just it the thing

that i mean what i always feel it is is that no one they they cannot stick their neck out for any they can they can they want you in they they sense like and and usually it's like they want you because someone else has spent money on you like Like, well, there's a precedent of people spending money on this guy and him not flaming out. So, all right, come on over here and we'll spend some money on you. But they can't really, like, back you 100%. Because if you fail, they're afraid that you'll get, they'll be caught up in the vacuum of your failure. Like a tumbleweed sucked in behind you yeah so it's like i never liked that fucker you signed him right yeah but i mean i was

i always had qualms you know yeah like it's which is just like such bad parenting you know like i love you but you better if you don't do well i won't love you anymore i'll have to not love you that's how it goes. A lot of the way show business television specifically, I don't know anything about the movie business, but a lot of the way television works is am, am I going to be embarrassed by the result of this? So am I going to be embarrassed if I don't pick this show up? If the answer is yes, then I'm going to pick the show up. If I, if I order a pilot and then bury it and no one ever gets it, no one else ever sees it, then I'm pretty safe. If a lot of people are bidding on it, I'm going to bid on it just because a lot of people

are bidding on it. And if I wind up wasting money and being wrong, I can always go, well, we were all wrong. You know, look at that. That's how so much of it goes. Yeah, it's all covering your ass. It's all covering your ass. And then also, too, the thing that I think is, and I've always said this, you could go into any network, any studio, and just randomly fire every third person, and it wouldn't hurt a thing. It wouldn't matter at all. There's just so many people, and especially in television,

you go in and you pitch a show, and you're pitching to like eight people, and now they're all fucking younger than me, you know, and it's all, and they all, everybody's got to have an opinion where it's like, well, maybe the opinion is, well, that guy has a track record, and, you know, it's been pretty good, and why don't we just say, OK, you know, but they all need to have an opinion and they all wait for the person with the most power to express the opinion. I'm OK with them all having an opinion. It's just when they're trying to guess what the opinion of the person they were and the guessing is what really kills you. That's where. Yeah. Oh, my God.

I know. And there also is, by the way, it's where you're like, oh my God. I know, I know. And there also is, by the way, it's funny us harping about this, as we've both been pretty successful and we're still angry. There seems to be, and this I don't think exists in any other industry, there's a middle part when it comes to like television and television production. There's this group of people between the people on the top and the people who actually make the shows. Whose only job seems to be having meetings

with people who might one day be on their network, but that's not really what the meeting is about. The meeting is just there to make the managers and agents look like they have some kind of power so like i mean i just remember being a disc jockey and my manager would send me on all these network meetings and i would have these meetings with people who've gone on to become like heads of networks you know very you know successful people and i have like i had a meeting with this guy uh Bob Greenblatt he ran uh NBC you know who that guy is I remember I had a partner named David Janellari and they're very nice guys and I had a

great meeting with these guys and it wasn't about anything in particular but I remember coming out of this meeting and thinking like well these seem like great guys and they definitely love me and then sure enough you know it's like's like, oh, we absolutely love. He was, we loved him. We love, he was absolutely great. And I never heard from these people again, like probably producing dozens of television shows in between meeting me and whatever.

It's like, wait, what happened? It went, didn't it go? It went well, right? I mean, like everybody agrees that it was great. There's no reason to say otherwise. Why didn't have that meeting like what was the what could have been better than what had to do something had to do something that day had to fill up the schedule can't you tell my loves are growing you know late night has changed you know i mean now the thing that's amazing to me about late night is is the numbers is the difference in the ratings

and yeah right what yeah like what is a successful number now is just you know it just feels like nobody's watching anymore yeah it's and it's not really true because what really is is happening and you know this is that people are just watching on youtube yeah they're watching they're just not watching through their television set yeah so you know if you really look at you know youtube does a good job probably a better job than nielsen does of actually tallying what the numbers are as far as people really watching something. There are more people watching late night television than there were when Johnny Carson was doing it. People have this idea that like, oh, well, you know, things have demanded.

They haven't. They're just not watching it on TV. YouTube has done this brilliant job of getting us to produce television shows for them for free. Yes. Yes. Now, does that matter to the people that are above you? Like, do they look at it and go like, oh, you're still doing a good job? Like, because it doesn't affect the ad rates, you know? Like, does it affect the kind of bottom line of the show? Weirdly, it hasn't. I think there will come a time when it does. I think there's still people, sponsors are willing to pay a premium for quality content. And I say, I don't mean to say that the things people put on YouTube aren't, but these are what we put on the air on our shows are network approved. You're not going to find out that there was a Klansman in the schedule.

Yeah, yeah. It's safe for them to advertise on. I think over time, yeah, that will become maybe an issue. But the days of talk show hosts making gigantic amounts of money are over. That's not going to happen in the next incarnation. But there will also be 40 talk shows. There probably are already, but there will also be 200 talk shows, which I think is probably better.

You know, you'd be able to be more niche-oriented. You'd be able to have a smaller audience, still make a living and, um, and do the show that you really want to do. Are you, are you still happy doing it? Are you still like, do you still enjoy it? Yeah. I mean, the grind is, is a grind and there's no two ways about it. And I also know from previous experience in my life that whatever I have to do, I don't want to do whatever it is. It doesn't matter. Things that I'm looking forward to when I see them on this calendar, I go, oh shit, you know, and that's just me and it's just my personality. And I wish I could figure that out. But ultimately I've had the luxury of choosing who I work with, which is,

you know, that's the best part of it. And you get to work with people that you like and people that are competent and you don't have to explain the same things over and over and over again. And it is fun. You know, I mean, there are many nights where I'll walk down the stairs to the stage and go okay i got some good jokes here this will be fun yeah yeah and it's always fun to do the show itself but i mean how much longer do you think you're gonna want to do i'm not gonna do it forever yeah yeah it's uh you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna get removed from television. That's for sure. Oh, I just want to see you sitting in the chair as they wheel you away in the wheeled chair, but from behind the desk. Yeah, I think that I've been doing it a long time and not that much longer.

Yeah. One aspect, and I referenced it earlier earlier you have like 8 000 relatives working with you yes and for you yes that's unique i mean at least in in television i love my family more than others do i guess it's not unique for like a construction company or, you know, or a bakery, but in television, when you're Italian, there's no difference. What is now, what is this? I mean, what is this about? What do you think it is about you that, you know, is, is there a comfort you get from it? Is it, is it a trust level or is it some obligation that you got to bring the whole clan along? There's, there are some elements of all of that yeah there's also guilt

right uh that's part of it too you know you have like certain amount of like why do i make so much money and you know this person in my family doesn't you know that's always yeah but ultimately more than anything i think that something that i believe is that if I think someone is funny then others will also so um there are certain people that I've identified like over the course of my career and like help them or you know giving them a position on my show or help them get their own show and it seems to always work out. I mean, even just like in the case of Guillermo, you know, security guard, like, you know, this guy's in the parking lot.

I was like, this guy's funny. You know, like, yeah, I think he's funny. People will think he's funny. He has charisma. Yeah. He has charisma. And people do sometimes get the idea that he's just like this caricature or something like that, whatever.

But this is a genuinely funny person. Like this is a, you know, like off camera, even more so like a funny ball breaking kind of guy. And, and I just always figure like, well, if I think they're funny, probably other people will think they're funny. And it just turned out to be true. And I also come from a funny family. I heard you and Zach talking about your funny families. And I'm not the funniest person in my family. So to me, the funniest person I know is probably my cousin, Sal.

He is just funny on a level. As a laugh getter yeah just did he just like he his jokes are beyond inside jokes sometimes his jokes will come like from 35 years in your past and they'll come they're at the tip of his tongue and you can't believe it and it's not just like with his relatives like you know it's hard to explain but Sal's the kind of guy you can meet the first eight times you meet him you're like yeah he seems like a nice but Sal's the kind of guy you can meet the first eight times you meet him. You're like, yeah, he seems like a nice guy. He's pretty funny. And then the nighttime you go, oh, okay. Now I get it because he's now memorized every character in your whole

life. And he knows every reference that will hit you in a certain spot. And so I always felt like, you know, why not give it a try? Plus it was a way to make my show different you know it's hard to make the show different and these talk shows are all basically the same you know there's monologue in the desk and abandon all that stuff and and so for me like I was like well how am I going to make it different and bringing my family into the mix was one way to make it different and um you know so that's been done to a certain extent like Dave Letterman would have his mom on every once in a while and you know but to have like you know my uncle Frank standing by the door every night and he's this kind of like dense man who is um uh you know sweetheart of a man but not too bright and but very charming and

totally confused as to why he's there yeah it just gave me something to work off of yeah so much of uh you know so much of like your job is a weird job like being you know like late night there's no sort of like late night talk show school or late night talk show host class. So a huge element of it is what makes you comfortable? What makes you comfortable in this space and in this hour that you have to do every night? And if it's having your uncle there, then I guess, you know. Yeah. Then yeah, why not?

Now, is it weird? why not now is it weird do you think sometimes for the people that aren't in your family who are working on the show is there like a dynamic going on where it ends up feeling like you're at someone else's house for christmas and you're quite you know you don't quite understand the dynamic what's happening there was a little of that at the beginning there was some inter-family auditioning going on oh wow same with the security guards at the show. Oh, boy. Suddenly when Guillermo became popular, there was a lot of comedy happening from my car to the stage. I think that

it is a sign of respect for the people who are on the show and who are successful, and not just on the show, but behind the scenes. You know, my brother is a director and writer and he does Crank Anchors now. He's the executive producer on that show, and I think that brother's a director and a writer and he's, he does a crank anchors. Now he's executive producer on that show.

And I think that over time, those people in my family who thought I was basically handing out jobs have come to realize that the people I handed them to are very good at, at doing them. And that's why I gave them those jobs. I mean, obviously being related to them didn't hurt, but if they couldn't do the job, it would be really obvious.

Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever had to fire a family? I have. Yeah. Oh boy. I bet that's a joy. Oh boy. That's terrible. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't, um, I hate firing people just to start with partly because I've been fired so many times I understand how horrible it is but um yeah firing a relative is uh not great wow it's bad I'm gonna try to avoid that thanks for the for the tip yes avoiding at all costs now what do you what do you how do you envision your future like what's the picture of yourself you know and i don't know how many years but i mean beyond beyond what you've got now i don't really know um i know myself well

enough to know that i change my mind a lot i'm also impulsive sometimes and um if there's an idea i really like i can jump all in on it without thinking about the realities of what it's going to require. Yeah. I know that I'm interested in producing shows. I like writing jokes. I like watching somebody's career develop. I enjoy that. I like finding funny people and having the

ability to help them um get seen i love that that's probably my favorite part of of doing this so i'll probably do that you know i think like after the show i'll i'll limit my my activities as far as uh producing goes because this has been such a grind and it's, um, you know, at a certain point it's enough is enough, you know, takes up my whole day. And, uh, I don't love doing homework either, but I just feel like I have to, but, um, I'd like to have an easier schedule. I'd like to have more, um, options. You don't have any options when you have a show every night. You're doing that show the next day, and you need to feed it,

and you can never feed it enough. I've always called it laying tracks for a train that's coming. It's on its way. You better lay those tracks or there will be a crash. Do you think you'll be in L.A.? Do you see yourself staying in L.A.? Yeah, I do. Yeah.

I like it here. I think there are things that are not so great about L.A., but ultimately I think I could find things that are not so great about any place that I lived. And my family lives here. My parents live here. My in-laws, you know, my kids go to school here. Yeah. It's probably where i'll stay well the uh the final of these three questions is what have you learned i mean you know and that usually whether that's the form of advice or you know like what you'd like to kind

of make the moral of your story or the point of of of of what you've been through or what you want to share such a tough question it's such a big question right yeah i know and the answer is really i just got to ask it i don't have to answer it there are really a lot of tiny little answers to that question i think um more than anything but what have i learned i think that one thing I've really learned over my years is that, you know, you find yourself in situations where you want people to think you're funny or smart or just to like you, you know, for whatever the reason, whether they be social reasons or business reasons. Because it's nice.

It's a better feeling than the opposite, you know? Yeah. And I think that for the first part of my life, my way of doing that would be to be funny, you know, and, and have something, something sharp to say, you know, to really like try. And I think that ultimately, if you really want people to accept you as a fellow human being, you're better off being quiet and listening to them because I think that people just want you to listen to them. And that's hard to, it's hard to control that impulse to just talk and talk and talk. I mean, even now, as we're talking, I feel guilty that I haven't asked you more questions. I have to constantly remind myself that this is your show and you are the host of it. And that the

arrangement is supposed to be that you asked me the questions, right? Like if we were at dinner, I never would, I would never have done this much talking i would have went home going like whoa what an asshole i am i talked the whole fucking night um but that's as far as like i don't know i think it's kind of a big lesson really and i think it's a lesson that maybe maybe i'll nudge people towards it or maybe people just wind up just being completely silent at dinners from here on but I do think that um people want you to listen to them more than they want to hear you talk yeah and I mean that has wide implications through you know whether it's uh someone you just met someone you're at dinner with, or someone you're married to, or someone that,

you know, you fathered, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a,

it's a, it's a good advice. I think. Yeah. It couldn't hurt. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, wouldn't the world be a little bit better? Huh? It would, it would. We could use it being a little bit better. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jimby Kimble.

Well, that was fun. Jimby Kimble. Thank you so much. It's great to see you. It's been a while. Yeah, it has been a while. Well, now that we're coming out into the open, you know, we'll be able to resume our occasional socializing. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. Well, you know, I could come over and trash your house. Yeah. I know where you live. All right. Well, it's, thank you so much for taking out some time for us. My pleasure.

That was fun. It sure was. And thank you all out there for listening. We will get back at you next time with the three questions. I've got a big, big love for you. We will get back at you next time with the three questions. and executive producers Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Make sure to rate and review the three questions that Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.