The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Mike Sweeney: Bad Grandparents (The Andy Richter Call-In Show)

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Longtime Conan writer (and recent Emmy-winning director of “Conan O’Brien Must Go”) Mike Sweeney joins The Andy Richter Call-In Show this week to talk about BAD GRANDMAS & GRANDPAS! In this episode of Andy’s weekly SiriusXM radio show, we hear stories about a grandma’s dealings with the Amish, the grandpa who loved his BB gun, how one grandparent wrote their own rules on the road, and much more.Want to call in? Fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER or dial 855-266-2604.This episode previously aired on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio (ch. 104). If you’d like to hear these episodes in advance, new episodes premiere exclusively for SiriusXM subscribers on Conan O’Brien Radio and the SiriusXM app every Wednesday at 4pm ET/1pm PT.

Conan O'Brien Radio! Conan O'Brien Radio! Hello! Yes, that reasonably priced theme song can only mean one thing. It's time for the Andy Richter Calling Show. I'm your host, Andy Richter, live on Conan O'Brien Radio. I have a very special guest here today, fresh off his Emmy win, Mike Sweeney. Hi Andy. Who's worked for Conan entirely too long. Way too long. Both of us. What the fuck, what happened to us? No, well, oh right, well you

left for a minute but then I latched right back onto that fucking Conan nipple and I've been sucking ever since. But it was a mature decision, well it was a decision on your part to return, whereas I've never, yes, I've never left. So I think my mental illness is really, I'm the one, I'm the problem. Well, no, I mean, I came back because it is, it is a lovely place to work. It's a lovely organization. Yes. And it is very, you know, people throw around, it's a family kind of thing, but it is very, it does, I mean, granted.

It is. It's not really, but it is kind of like, there are people, you know, there are people that I'm still working with. And I'm now, you know, like technically just a visiting uncle. Right, right, right, right. He's out in the garage.

Yeah. Doing the live college show. But, you know, there's people that like, you and I have known since they were just fresh out of college and they got kids going to college now and we've been with each other that long. We have someone, Lisa, who's leaving actually.

But she was like, this is my first job out of college. And I was like, wait, what? I at least did a few other things before I started working at the code. Barely. But yeah. And it is like a family. And it's getting even more like a family,

because it's smaller and smaller. It used to be like family reunion every day at a giant sound stage in Burbank. Now it's pretty intimate. Yeah, and it was, it definitely for me, like, satisfied the urge to be around interesting simulating adults. Right. You know, like, every day you got to go spend time with funny people and be funny.

So, and early on, it was like hard. Like I would get home and, you know, my poor wife at the time would, I'd be home and I'd be like, I have nothing for you. Like, I've used it all up with all those funny people. Leave me alone. I have nothing left to give. Yeah, yeah.

I started in 1995. Yeah. Right after I started your show, you guys, you and Conan got a six month pickup, which was, prior to that, it was like nine. It was obscene. It was, you guys were, I can't imagine. It really made us inspired to make funny stuff when they're like, we'll give you another three weeks.

Ha ha, yes. Yeah. No, it's, that would flip me out. I would just go into a corner. Well, Conan and Jeff did a good job of, like being good parents and not knowing, not letting us know there was an addiction notice on the door.

Which, you know what? That is an unusual amount of maturity, especially the younger you are, to not want to like, I'm panicking, everyone else is gonna panic with me. And it was just like, nope, we're, you know, if I panic, it'll be when I go home, you know? Well, yeah, and it is, I mean, Conan is always, even before he knew how to be on TV,

he knew how to make TV, and he understood that he needed to protect the sanctity of the being funny part. Like the little section of our lives that was just about being goofy and funny and coming up with the weird stuff. So you don't wanna infect that with the fear of fucking pencil pushers. Because he worked at SNL.

The two there and the Simpsons, I can only imagine, especially SNL, the need to put on blinders and block out all that noise. The healthy kind of compartmentalization. Yes, yes. I guess anything's healthier after you've dealt with, like, doing a live show once a week. Well, speaking of family, we're here to feel calls.

Yeah, feel calls from people. That's the, you know, the show is, we, I think of topics and people will often be, well, they always are so negative. It's like, well, yeah, but who wants to hear about good stuff? No. You know? No. Like I want to hear about how, you know.

Your life's going well, right? Yeah, you're deeply in love and fulfilled? No, that's not good. I wanna hear- You have amazing relationships. Yeah, I wanna hear about, you know, the shitting of your spiritual pants, of course, basically, is what's good, and that's entertainment.

And then we can feel a little better about our own lives. Oh my God, I leave this, I drive home from this thing. That must be on a cloud. Flying, just on a, yeah exactly, like just flying high. Like, cause the people that call in here, they're fucked up. Oh my god, yeah, you probably don't want the calls too bad, or maybe there's no bottom.

Yeah, no, no, there's no bottom. No, I won't, you know. It all feeds your happiness. This is all basically just been designed to eventually intercept a call from a serial killer and then stop them. And then you can pitch a documentary about how you caught them.

Right, and then the show will just become each week talking to that serial killer on an untraceable line. Yeah, oh, so they don't catch them. Yeah, no, we eventually will. Okay. We'll eventually, like, John Ham, or a John Ham-like person will come in and catch him. This sounds like Chimp Crazy.

Did you watch Chimp Crazy? I haven't seen the last one. I swear the documentary maker is like, eh, I think you kind of knew about that purloin chimp. Just have a hunch. They had cameras everywhere and then all of a sudden, oh, there's a chimp missing. It's like you were recording everything up to that moment. All of a sudden you're like, what? Well I'm amazed, like the thing, and I'm just amazed, like, because he had a beard director. You know, like, they knew he's the Tiger King guy.

Was it Tiger King? Tiger King, Tiger King. Yeah, yeah, he's the Tiger King guy. All the Antelope people. The real director. Yeah, yeah. Who's behind the scenes. Right. But he hires a fellow to kind of play him, which is- Yes, he started to try to do the chimp story.

Yes. And they were all like, fuck you. Yeah. So he's like, all right, I'll get a beard. So I wonder how. I know that beard. When I was doing stand-up in New York, he came into town for a while, Dwayne Cunningham. Yeah, yeah.

And he's a clown. He was a ringling brother. There were a few comics back then that were former clowns. Like a lot of people went into stand-up, they had clown training or they were, you know, trained actors and they'd make you mention that in their intro, like, please mention I'm a trained actor. From Juilliard, get ready to laugh. Hope you like monologues.

Hey, who here likes Ibsen? I do all the parts. It's a tour de force. You're gonna love it. But you knew that dude? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just like Dwayne Cunningham. Oh my god, but there he was. Well, I just wonder I just wonder like how they got releases, you know, like right The whole thing is predicated on a lie, like most of life. Well, anyway, back to the topic at hand. Do you have any bad grandparents stories? Your producer didn't really do his research because my grandparents,

they were more just hands-off grandparents. I think that's a sign of it. Is that bad or good? Who's to say? Well, we're not dependent upon your stories. That's not why you're here. I know. Yeah. Okay, good. We just want you to be funny when you react to the people calling in. Yeah, no, no, I don't.

But it's just a way to sort of get the gears greased. I was thinking about, both my parents were estranged from their parents. But I remember once when I was 14, we went to visit my father's grandmother, who lived in an old house in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. And this is more of a bad parent story. It was an old house with old, like, guilt Victorian mirrors and old books.

Yeah. She had me steal these things while she distracted my grandmother, and she had me carry them into our car before we left. Oh wow, isn't that crazy? Did grandma notice? There was a mirror I removed from a hallway wall that had been clearly hanging there since the 20s because when I took it off, it was the old wallpaper. Oh wow.

They wallpapered? Are they painting around the mirror? Yes, and she came up to me the next day, she goes, she goes, where's my mirror? And I said, you gotta talk, you gotta talk to my mom. Listen, I just, And why'd she ask you? She made me do all this stuff. No, no, I mean, why's your grandma,

why does she keep the wallpaper all of a sudden? No one wanted to deal with my mother. I better ask Mike. Everyone avoided dealing with my mother. So that's my grandparents story. Yeah, mine quickly, because I have a few of them. But my paternal grandfather was, we call it cantankerous. OK.

That's the phrase for it. But as he got older, after my grandmother died and after he got older, he lived alone and became more cantankerous and more obstinate. And he went to get a new car. And he was very old. He probably should not have been driving, which is where this story will go. He came home with, because he let a salesman talk him, like a sitcom, let a salesman talk him into a manual transmission Mustang. Like a super souped up red Mustang

for like an 86 year old man. It was stick shift, and as my father said, the last manual transmission he drove was a three-speed dairy truck in 1956. Is this the 70s? This would have been the 80s. Wow.

And so apparently, I wasn't there to see him. I saw the car once. Was it at least a convertible? He was really going through a crisis. No, it was Springfield, Illinois. So you get two months of good convertible weather. But apparently, every time he would come or go from anything, you could just hear the grinding But that car led to him finally going into assisted living because he drunkenly with his dog in the car drove onto somehow the runway of the Springfield Airport. The Springfield Illinois Municipal Airport was chased by police and took a swing at one of the cops that arrested him. And then it was like, everyone was like,

time for the home. Wow. The dog must have been mortified. Yeah, the dog, it was a sweet dog, you know. That had to make the local news. There's gotta be video of the- I don't even, I'm not sure. That's a good point, I should, it was a sweet dog, you know. That had to make the local news. There's gotta be video of the- I don't even, I'm not sure. That's a good point, I should look it up.

Maybe there's even early security camera footage of- He was also, back in I think the 60s or 70s, he was on the Springfield City Council and he got, the reason that ended is because he took a swing at somebody on the floor of the Springfield City Council Hall. Was alcohol always involved? Not always, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, alcohol was just like sort of like the cherry on the cake, you know, just a little aspect of it. Because I think alcohol probably is part of a lot of bad grandparent stories. Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. Well speaking of bad, speaking of them, let's get to the phones. This is the Andy Richter call-in show. We are live today and we're going to Caitlin, or Caitlin, Corpus Christi. Hello.

Hi. Yeah, how are you? How are you? Good, good. How are you doing? or Caitlin, Corpus Christi. Hello. Hi. Yeah, how are you? Hi, how are you? Good, good, how are you doing? You know, I feel a little bit guilty, even calling because my grandma is a great lady and I love her, but she has her days.

Yeah, you know, to that I say, yeah, yeah, yeah, just get to it. Give us the days. Come on, you know. Look, we all love our grandparents, but they can be real assholes just like, my kids love me and I'm an asshole. I mean, it's going to happen. What? Yes.

So there, disclaimer, legal disclaimer out of the way. Yeah, we said- Incredible granny, right? Tell us. Fantastic. That does a lot for my Catholic guilt. Good. Okay, so when I was a kid, my grandparents had a farm, which was really just like a couple of acres and 30 goats.

Yep. And there wasn't anything to do. So like my grandpa would get bored and he'd go out to the hen house and write secret messages on all the eggs because there's a few things to do. You know? Wait, stop.

Like what? Such as? So sometimes they would be specific to people in the family and then sometimes they would be like parodies of his enemies. So he had a guy he did not like with only one eye and he would write a lot of things on the eggs about this man. That kind of thing. Yeah. But he was not the bad grandparent. He was actually a really

lovely guy all the time. Well, he sounds fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Did he try to pretend these were magic eggs that just came out with writing on them? No, no. I mean, he would actually go up to us when we were eating eggs to ask us what we thought about the captions. It was really, really proud. We wanted approval. Oh, he should. That sounds like a burgeoning business. Like fortune eggs.

Fortune eggs, yes. Yeah, yeah. Might as well. By the dozen, you get an egg after dinner. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they were super fun. So, you know, that was the kind of thing we did to entertain ourselves and sort of keep from going crazy. And we always wanted to move. We wanted to get out of there.

But my grandma, who is to this day, sort of like a tough, Texan, matriarch type of lady, she's like, I cannot be more than 10 minutes away from my mother's grave, so we have to stay. And we did. So that was kind of my childhood up to the point I was 12 and at that point somebody called us and asked if we would like a free pony and I was a 12 year old girl and I was in love with horses and I was totally jazzed yeah so you know we

end up with this absolutely scruffy little Shetland pony named Captain Nemo. We did not name him. He came with a name. You got to honor that. Yeah, exactly. You know, it felt like... One of them nautical horses. Maybe with a dog they might not care, but a horse, it seems like, okay, this is just what it is. Anyway, so he was not a great pony in terms of general user experience. Yeah, right. He would sort of kick and bite, and you couldn't ride him.

So he was just ornamental. We kept him around and looked out at him. Yep. Well, you get what you pay for. Exactly. A gift horse probably has some baggage. Anyway, so that was like my 12th year of life was the best year, I think probably up to this point, because I would just sit on the fence post and watch the pony for ages and that was life and I really enjoyed it. Until one day we go to my grandma's house and it's like early in the day, breakfast time, and I run out to the field to go and watch the pony and he's

gone. And so it's just me and these goats and dust. And you know, when you're 12, you don't always make connections in the way that adults make. So I was thinking like, oh my God, like cattle wrestlers or like horse thieves, you know, because it's the 19th century. Pony thieves. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, pony thieves, right? And they're really little, but they keep busy. Anyway, so I go to my grandma now. And again, like it's breakfast time.

So the whole family is there. We have like bacon and eggs cooking eggs with the messages on them. And I go find my grandma and I'm like, Captain Nemo is gone. And she turns to me and she says, I know I traded him to the Amish. So for what? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. For a beard. That was what I said. And the thing was like, that's bad, obviously. Yeah. But we did not live in Amish country. Right. This was in Texas. So she had to go out of her way to find an Amish community, like, you know, within a day's drive. Yeah. So I'm in disbelief. And at this point, like people are, you know, fixing their plates,

they're sitting down and I'm actively wailing and my grandma turns to me again and says yeah I got like three gallons of honey for him so now I'm super upset because you know I mean I love honey I love the bees all of that but come on you should have got at least five. It's part of the family. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. So now I'm not just wailing, I'm like crying. And everyone else is kind of like, you know, doing their own thing, all of that.

And my grandma looks at me again and she says, stop crying and put some honey in your oatmeal. So that was kind of a, I guess, a formative experience, and put some honey in your oatmeal. So that was kind of a, I guess, a formative experience, but what made it worse, and I would find this out later, is that these were like the shady Amish. They had a little store. Is there any other kind? Yeah, yeah.

They had this little shop at their, um, in their community and they would sell handcrafted goods, but they were not handcrafted by the Amish. So they're bringing in like all of these straw hats from Mexico and hiking up the price, which just, I'm, obviously I'm not a member of that community and I don't want to sound insensitive in any way, but it seems like that should run counter to Amish values. Yeah but the beauty about making fun of the Amish is they're not gonna hear it. You know what I mean? They

can't, what are they, listening? They got satellite subscriptions? No! It's the only reason we took their call. Yeah exactly. Unless there's a hand crank serious XM player, I don't think they're gonna hear what we're saying. You get in the wrong side. They will travel three months to get you. All right, Caitlin, thank you so much. We're gonna move on. Thank you.

And is this Caitlin from Blue Sky? Yeah, yeah. Yes, hi. Hi, it's so nice to hear your voice again. We're mutuals, yeah, cause you've called in before. Yeah, a while back I think. Yeah. Well cool, well good to talk to you again. Good to talk to you, enjoy that honey.

Enjoy that honey. Three gallons is a lifetime surprise. Alright, talk to you later. Alright, next up, we got Emily from New Jersey. Hi guys. Where are you from in New Jersey? My home state. I am in, oh really, I'm in Monmouth Beach,

so I'm about 45 minutes outside of Manhattan. Oh, very nice. By the beach, that's nice. Yeah. Oh yeah. Probably a lot of mercury over there. There's something in your books off of the beach there. What's going on?

Yeah, what's going on? Tell us about your grandma or grandpa. OK, so this is less of a bad grandma and more of a badass grandma. Oh, nice. That's good too. So I've got the kind of grandmother that everyone mistakes for my mom. Every time we go out she gets asked out by whatever guys are in

the room. Wow. She does, she'll go from cycling class to yoga, she can stand on her head, she's like invincible in every way. Is she single? A few years ago. I mean, I'm not asking for me, I'm married. No, we're both very interested in your grandmother. I'm just curious, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she is, she's widowed.

Okay. So, so yeah, she technically, I guess. No, she is, she absolutely is. I'm just saying, you know, I just wanna get the full picture, you know, because it's like if these guys are hitting on her and she's like, no, I, you know, I still got, you know, Abe back at home. She's so, she's genuinely innocent.

So she's like, no, they weren't. They were just kidding. And we're like, that's not what happened. Grandma. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. They were just kidding and we're like that's not Exactly but a couple years ago She she was in the city. I have a lot of family in Manhattan and she was going to get a colonoscopy and Yep, it's you know, we all we all do it and she

Because she thinks she's invincible when they asked her who was picking her up, she lied and said that my uncle was going to be picking her up, her son. And when they brought her to the recovery room, she called an Uber and told them to pretend to be her family member. And the address that she gave was not my uncle's apartment, but the apartment complex across from Bergdorf Goodman because she wanted to go shopping. There's nothing better after a twilight sleep. Yes, she wanted to go, you know, have lunch at Bergdorf's. Yeah. Do a little shopping.

Because she's hungry too. She's been pooping water for a day. After that cleanse, no doubt starving. Yeah, that's the best part. So she, oh absolutely, the Yeah, that's the best part. Oh, absolutely. The post-colonoscopy. Yeah.

And so, she goes to Bergdorf and she's having lunch. And you know, my uncle and his sister, my mom, are waiting to hear how things went that she's home. And while she's at Bergdorf having lunch, the fire alarm goes off. And if there's one thing my grandma loved more than Bergdorf Goodman, it's firemen. Instead of getting a photo of her resting at home, we got a picture of her with about 15 firemen. And she's got, you know, shopping bags and is just beaming. And we were like, is this from yesterday? What is going on? But I think it was the best day of her life. It was scary for everybody,

everybody else involved. She's now scheduling three colonoscopies a week. Yeah, I'm just wondering, do you think that she was able to keep the information from the fireman that her colon was clean as a whistle? I don't, you know what, I don't know that that's what she's into, so she probably didn't say anything. By the way, boys. Yeah.

I was going to ask you out already, but this really sweetens the deal. Was her son a little hurt that she'd rather get picked up by a strange Uber driver than her own child from recovery? I think she just didn't want anyone to know that she wanted to go shopping. Of course. If she had gone to his place, he would have shut it down. He would have been on lockdown.

Yeah. And she was like, I have better things to do. But yeah, we get her the shirtless fireman calendar every year. So this was very on brand for her. How long ago was this? This was like right pre, I feel like we say periods of time, like pre-COVID and post-COVID.

I think this was probably right pre-COVID, when this would have been more allowed to be picked up by whoever. Right, right, right, exactly. Oh, that's a great story. Thank you so much, Emily. Thank you guys. All right, bye-bye.

Speaking of colonoscopies, I remember once after Conan got his colonoscopy, he was at work and I think, I don't know if he got it that day or the day before, but he was telling me about how much he enjoyed the sedative. And like, you know, you wake up and he's like, and you do, you, cause that's the part of the colonoscopy is you wake up

and you're like, you're in a good mood. Yeah, you're in a good mood and then you go have a big breakfast, you know? And it's over. Yeah, and it's over, but he was just like, "'Oh, there was just this sense of wellbeing, "'and I felt so good,' and I just was like,

"'Yeah, Conan, that's drugs. "'That's what drugs are like.'" That's right, he's never done drugs. You know, he's never done drugs. I was like, yeah, there are lots of different ways to feel that way, and they're called drugs of all different kinds. Really? And he was like, yeah, there are lots of different ways to feel that way. And they're called drugs of all different kinds. And he was like, oh, because he was like, I can't wait for my next colonoscopy. I'm like, well, you don't have to.

Technically, you want to replicate that feeling and dive right in. All right. Next, another Jersey caller, Artie. It's an excellent name if you're from Jersey. Artie, how are you? I'm good, man. How you guys doing? Hi, Artie. Good, good.

What's up? Where are you calling from in Jersey? Yeah, Vineland, which is pretty much Delaware. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's way down south. We're close enough to Delaware. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Pine Barrels. It's pretty down there, though. It really is. It really is. It really is We're a little more in the suburb area. Not so much farm, but yeah, we get it all down here. So Yeah, my my grandpa Long long time ago He was a war vet fought in Korea. He

You know was a little bit of a hunter, but you know after he retired you kind of like slowed down with all that But he kept a BB gun around the house mostly for the squirrels in the backyard which is kind of weird. Yeah no that's a very yeah I had my mother's BB gun and it was always hanging around the house yeah. I never had it never got my hands on the BB gun. I never think it was loaded I think he just like would crank it up to make the noise to scare him we had no idea, you know. Yeah. One day my mom and I, we were coming home from shopping

and across the street there were two cop cars. And we're like, wow, why would there be cop cars? Like it's a young family with kids and they're and the grandfather and they're very friendly people, you know. Why would there be cop cars? So later on that day the neighbors came over, they knocked on the door and they said, hey, just to let you guys know, there were like bullet holes in our windows. We wanted to see if you guys were dealing with the same exact thing. You know, did anything happen to your cars? Your windows were like, no, like no no no like whatever and I I thought about it for a second I'm like no grandpa doesn't shoot out the front window that's the front window he's not

you know I think it was like three days later I walked down to the living room and he was had the window open with the beady gun shooting squirrels in the trees in the front yard unfortunately he was hitting the window open with the BB gun, shooting at squirrels in the trees in the front yard. Unfortunately, he was hitting the neighbor's house and we had to toss the BB gun. And grandpa. And grandpa. Keep the gun. Get rid of grandpa.

I couldn't believe it. I never thought, I don't know where he got the BBs from, which is the wild thing. He was kind of a hoarder. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. We never bought it for him. He wasn't going to stores or anything. Right.

It just kind of like, you know, but... Yeah. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that was, like, on early on stage, like Alzheimer's dementia thing. He wasn't really aware of it. He wasn't processing, like, this is a bad idea. Yeah. His judgment wasn't good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. I mean, did you guys end up fessing up to the neighbors that it was

grandpa that did the window shooting? No. They probably suspect. Yeah, I don't know, but it wasn't too long after that though. They moved to another neighborhood and they were probably just like, this is too, we got crazy 80 year olds here with BB guns. Yeah. Gotta get the heck out. Yeah.

No squirrels anywhere. Yeah. No squirrels. When I worked at a, I worked at a state park summers in college, and they had an area where they had trap shooting, you know, like with shotguns. Yeah, yeah.

And it was apparently like where it was placed, there was a trooper pulled over to the side of the road to have his lunch, and there was shot raining down on his car as he sat there. So that was how we found out like oh the shots going across the road. So they had to cut, they had to, you know, no more trap shooting at Silver Spring State Park. That's amazing. Yeah. All right, well thanks Artie.

Thank you guys, have a good day. You too. We're talking bad grandparents on the Andy Richter Collins show. I got Mike Sweeney, a long time old, one of my oldest friends and an Emmy winner. We'll say it again. He won an Emmy for the Conan's Mac show. Just Saturday, yeah, yeah, yeah.

For the writing, that was great. That's great. Yeah, very exciting, very exciting. Yeah, it's a really funny show. Do people think, do people like sometimes think that that show's not written? Like, do, very exciting. Yeah, it's a really funny show. Do people think, do people sometimes think that that show's not written? Do they go like, oh, it's just Conan? No one ever mentions the show.

You're the first person to mention it. No, it's really more of an infomercial. Yeah, it is, it is. It's just like to keep Conan. It's a thing his family puts money into to keep him out of the house. Keep him out. Keep him away. Just keep him busy, guys.

Like taking a dog to a dog run. Just let him burn off some energy. You know, because you were so great at doing remotes, and you guys together were amazing at remotes. There's an idea, there's some gags to gags, but the bits to do along the way, but then a lot of it, the best parts usually are the ad libbing, just based on, because there's no faking it. But you've got to have people there with you.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we'll go back to the phones. If you've got a bad grandparent story, we're live here. Give us a call at 855-266-2604. 855-266-2604. Going back to the phones, Alex from Ithaca, New York, a lot of East Coast, all the bad grandparents concentrate on the East Coast these days. Hi there. Hi Alex.

Alex, how are you? I'm doing really well. It's a beautiful day here. It's really great to get a chance to talk to you guys. Well, thank you for calling. Yeah, so this story that I wanted to tell actually isn't necessarily East Coast, it's deep South. Oh nice. And that's kind of significant. So I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and about 30 odd years ago was like the first time my really kind of like conscious memory that it really snowed in Birmingham, Alabama. So this is I

think 92 or 93 and it was one of those, you know, big, spontaneous southern blizzards. They gave it a name on the news. It was called like winter storm 92 or something like that. And the best thing of course, for us kids, I was about 13 years old or so. We got out of school for like four days and all the roads were kind of getting shut down, but right at the beginning of the blizzard, as this first kind of coat of snow came down, my brother and my next door neighbor and I

were sort of playing out in the front yard. And it's important to know here, obviously, that this is a grandparent story, that my grandparents just happened to be in town that week. They lived up in North Carolina normally. And my grandfather was a Navy vet. He had served on submarines in the Second World War

in the Pacific, and he was, I came tankerous in his own way. He had a big, loud, booming voice. He was completely bald. He used to tell us that he was bald from all the Japanese jet depth charges that they would endure under the water and stuff like that. He was kind of a suck my arrow. That'll excuse for baldness. And he was not really, at least up to that point in my life, somebody that I knew as a playful man, I wouldn't say.

So he's inside with the other adults while the three of us are out in the front yard. And keep in mind, because we're Alabamians, this is sort of like a foreign concept, snow. So the first thing, of course, we did, having seen movies and that sort of thing, we taught ourselves how to make snowballs. Yeah.

And we had enough fun throwing them at. Yeah. And we we had enough fun throwing them at each other and very short learning curve on that one. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's a class right, right. So we had enough fun throwing them at each other. But then eventually we decided the real fun would be to throw them at the at the cars that were passing of course, to make it home about five o'clock in the night as it was getting dark on the street.

So we started hurling them at cars and ordering each other points for hitting the cars in various spots, windshield, side window, that sort of thing. And we got a couple of direct hits. And finally we got a direct hit on this car that was sort of creeping down, kind of avoiding

the ice patches. And we hit this guy in the windshield, he slammed on his brakes and really literally, as I remember, kind of slid into the curb in front of our house and jumped out of the car. And this guy clearly was not happy to be on the road in the first place. He was a nervous driver and he let us have it. He was telling us how dangerous it was to throw snowballs and how we were going to cause a wreck and it was hard enough to drive in these conditions and how dare you.

And so we were sort of cowering there like realizing that he had a point, right? Yeah, but I mean, come on. And so he finally finishes letting us have it and turns around and just as he's opening the door to the car, we hear from the front door of our house just behind us the big booming cantankerous voice and it just said, hit him again. Before you could get his front door closed, we just absolutely loved him. Hit him again! You know, compared to some of the earlier stories, it's kind of a normal story. It really is something that I'll never forget. I thought it was a great example of a bad grandpa.

You know, I never thought my grandfather quite the same again, but it probably led me to a life of petty crime. I was going to say. You're calling us from jail. To have license to do things like that. I think that's awesome. Good for him. That's really funny. Because what the fuck is the guy going to do? Yeah, exactly. That's really funny. Hit him. Cause then what the fuck is the guy gonna do? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Redouble your efforts. And also that guy probably, as the snowballs were hitting him as he got back in, probably realized- He's probably laughing. He was probably like, yeah, I did bring this on myself.

Like, you know, like this is, cause once you're presented with that kind of closure to a story, you can't, it's undeniable. Everyone knows like this really does sort of wrap things up in a beautiful way. You cannot yell at kids. Yeah. So, and who knows, I hope that guy maybe remembers that story too. He probably hadn't spent much time driving in the snow and-

He's on hold right now. He's the next caller. All right. Well, thank you, Alex. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot, guys. All right. Thanks. It's funny.

The word cantankerous has come up a few times. Yes, yes. I wonder if it's a generational thing. Do you think younger grandparents of Gen Z are less just as cantankerous as... Will we be cantankerous? It's an old-timey word. Yeah, but just crabby, cranky, angry.

Oh, crabby, yes. I definitely think... Due to advanced age. I think there's a crust that forms that you have to work actively against if you are prone to it. I mean- Do you worry about that? Like as you- I do.

I do. I do worry about like, I do not want to become a negative scared. I see older people who are scared of things. They're eating cats and dogs! Like that was just last night. Ripped from the headlines. They're eating cats and dogs. Like that was just last night. Ripped from the headlines. They're eating cats and dogs.

That's such like a red face. Like I said something on Twitter about like, it's such like a Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving ruiner thing to say. They're eating cats and dogs. No, they're not. Sit down. Pass the turkey.

Yeah, just put down the Christian Brothers brandy and stop that. But yeah, they get scared, they get withdrawn, and I just really don't want that. I really want to stay open. Yeah, well you think you should get, in some ways, a lot less scared because you've kind of been through everything, so it's like, who gives, like, but. And it is kind of, I think, how you're built. Because you know, and you knew my Aunt Pat. Yes. Like, she had dementia, and she was,

it just made her sweeter and funnier and happier. Oh, is that true? Yeah, yeah, and then, and she was in a memory care facility thing, and most of the people were just scared and crabby and kind of... The other patients, right? Yeah, yeah.

The employees. Yeah, and I mean, nurses used to fight over who got to take care of Pat because she was so fun, you know, and positive. And that was just her, you know, that was just... It's kind of like a synth, the distilling of her personality. Yes, yeah, of her personality, yeah. All right, we got a wild card. Hold on, I wish we had sound effects.

Woo, woo, woo! Wild card, this is off topic, basically. Oh, okay, great. We got Brad from New York. Hello, Andy, Mike, how are you? Big fan. Hi. Thank you. Wild card. Wild card. Brad, wild card.

We got a wild card, Brad from New York. Crazy, what will he talk about? Yeah, apparently dissecting organs all day for a living is a wild card. Tell us about it. Yeah, it's a little bit of behind the scenes work at a hospital, but you know, I wrote into your show because I know it was interesting. It might shed some light on what happens when you get your gallbladder or colon taken out. You're a pathologist. Yeah, a pathologist assistant. Yeah, I do all the dissecting every day. Wow.

And, you know, I work mostly with cancer specimens, alike, and benign stuff. But, you know, I could get an entire leg one day and then be cutting up someone's placenta or uterus the next minute. Man, you are a lucky guy. Interesting, needless to say. Are you making slides? Are you making slides out of things? Yeah, I work with making all the slides too that all the pathologists have to read to

diagnose any sort of tissue that they get. But the weirdest part is when I have a friend call and say, oh, you're getting my polopium tube this afternoon. Usually that's a fun party conversation to have. Steal me a slice. Have you ever gotten the leg of a grandparent? I'm just trying to bring it back to the topic at hand. Yes, I know.

I was trying to think how to bring it back to that. Yeah, unfortunately, that is very common because how prevalent diabetes is. Right. That older people with peripheral vascular disease all of a sudden find themselves without legs. Yeah. I'm the one that has to cut them up and figure out what's wrong with them. Well, now you're just taking like a tissue slide, correct?

Yeah, exactly. We already established that. I know, I know. Their entire organ. But I mean, what do you do with the rest of the... Because they take up the whole leg, you only need a little tiny slide. What do you do with the rest of the leg then, and what happens with it? Exactly.

They're eating cats, dogs, and legs. They're feeding it to the immigrants. We got a bunch of pigs in the back that are hungry. That's a good question. What does happen to the rest of the organ? Yeah. So eventually after it gets signed out, quote unquote, signed out by the doctor, it has to wait a certain amount of time. I hold it in my lab. But eventually a company comes and picks it up. Dry age. That's a dry age. It's like Gallagher's day. Clear a glass. Eventually a company comes and picks it up, and then they all eventually get incinerated.

Incinerated. Yeah. They just incinerate everything. Yeah, yeah. I know someone who worked in a pathology lab years ago and just said, you know, the veteran's there, you'd open the refrigerator door, there'd be labeled body parts and like bag lunches, and they'd just reach and go, oh, there's my sandwich. You just get so immune. That's exactly how it is.

Yeah, I'm surrounded by body parts all day. But I have a note here that my producer said that you compared the insides of people to a bowl of borscht. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Like what would it be like when you open up an abdomen and you can see potatoes and cabbage in there? Yeah, yeah, if your spleen gets all lacerated and throw some bile in there

and it looks like a bowl of borscht. Oh, we know all right. Oh boy, do we ever. Tell me about it. We've been to those Hollywood parties. Yeah. Do you stay surprised how often you compare organs to what pieces of food look like.

Yeah, yeah. A little bit of gallbladder. So what looks the tastiest? Yeah. Well, I would say liver, but I can't really eat it anymore because I'm trying to drink off from it. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, a little bit.

The smell. Yeah. Brad, I know someone who went to medical school and and they played a game. Like the day they did the small intestines anatomy on their cadavers, they put all this money in a kitty, and they stretched them out on the floor. And whoever had the longest small intestine would win all the money. I'm just saying that might be a fun little thing

to add to the hospital. If you have a gambling addiction. I'll bring it up tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Gambling addiction and love is the word on the tip. What a great way to channel it in a healthy way. No, I mean, it's kind of like,

it is like a fascinating thing that's happening every day. It's the same thing. When I used to, when I worked in film production and I would have to go to the air freight part to pick up, usually it was like camera packages, all the flight cases that had camera parts. And I probably did that in the three or four years that I worked as a PA.

I probably was there 20 times at O'Hare Airport. Every single time there was at least one human remains. It was a white box with like straps on a pallet with straps over it. And it stamped human remains. Oh, well that helps. And they, I think they put them right up front. Wow.

You know, they don't ever, because every time I was, which just makes me think yeah there's you know like they're like most of them rains everywhere like you get you get on a plane there's probably a dead body down there underneath you know probably yeah yeah you're right that's a good point yeah baggage handlers accidentally put it on the wrong yeah oops oh, there it goes through. It's on Carousel 2. Grandma. There, see that, I'm bringing it back to Grandma. This was a wild card call. Well thank you, Brad. That was a good one.

Oh yeah, I'm glad I could. Thank you, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, Brad. Thanks. Happy slicing. My sister. Oh, go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, your sister. You know what, it's Grim.

I love Grim. Oh, go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, no. Well, your sister, it's good. No, listen. You know what? It's grim. I love grim. Oh, she worked for a pathologist once during summer job, and she brought this book home that she found

in his bookshelf at the hospital, and we spent all weekend. The photos are still imprinted on my mind, and we were angry at her for years for returning the book. It was a- Was it wounds? No, it was a- Diseases.

The coroner of Tokyo put together a book of his favorite grisly deaths. Wow. And they were by, they were by cause of death. So the hanging chapter was like, body found after two days after being hung, body found after one week after being hung.

But, and just every possible auto erotic asphyxiation deaths. Everything, but I think that the most amazing one was an elderly man who had a heart attack in his hot tub in his apartment. And the hot tub kept going. And they checked up on him like a week later, and it was, he'd been reduced, there was soup, it was just soup. There was no sense that there was a person in there.

A person in there. Because he cooked for a week. Wow. So page after page of amazing photos. I was 13, I'm like, mmm. Oh, so page after page of amazing photos. I was 13, I'm like, mm, this is pretty. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it sounds really gruesome,

but it also sounds like, oh yeah, I could, I would take, it'd be an hour at least, an hour, two hours of just. Because it's stuff no one, you're like, oh, you knew immediately, like, oh, this is stuff we're not allowed to ever see. And it's all in this, it's all in this one book. So I was kind of like, okay, this is stuff we're not allowed to ever see. And it's all in this one book. So I was kind of like, OK, I'm just

learning about what a real plane crash looks like. So I don't have to ever want to look at it ever again. Yeah, I always wonder that in movies when there's different, the way that they have people that are shot, how that looks, or how people die when they're shot. I always wonder what kind of gruesome research goes into that, you know? Oh, and because it was a Japanese book,

it had a whole chapter on Harikari. Oh, wow. The old-fashioned stuff. Seppuku, I believe. Seppuku, Seppuku, Seppuku. I watched Shogun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy, so did I.

All right, let's go back to the phones. Andy Richter calling, so. Back to heartwarming calls. I'm a big fan of this show and Mike and Andy. Hi. Hi there. Oh, thank you so much. This is, hi there. This is so cool. I'm a big fan of this show and Inside Conan. So this is a nice double bonus.

Oh, nice. Wow. A relative. Yeah, there's, this is, you are a part of an overlapping Venn diagram that's got like four people in it. So, you know. 3.2.

You're very special. So what's your story? What's your grandparent's story here, Joe? Sure. So my grandpa and grandma lived on a farm outside of Milwaukee, and they were married for a very long time, and they maybe shouldn't have been married. And I learned this as a kid when I visited my grandparent's house once. I was about eight years old, and my grandma bought me like crayons and like a dinosaur coloring book, you know, she's very thoughtful

that way. And my grandpa saw me coloring and he says, I need you to do something for me. Okay. And he says, I need you to make me a purple heart. And I made so, so, you know, I turned to a blank page and I color a purple heart. It's kind of small. And he says, no, I need you to make one that's bigger. I'm like, OK.

So I make one that's like five inches wide by six inches tall. He's like, great. I need you to cut it out for me. I'm like, OK. And again, I'm eight years old. I don't know what he's going for, but he's my grandpa, right? I'm not going to say no.

You're happy to get some attention from the old man. Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. Especially him, because he's a little remote, a World War II guy, another one of them. So I cut out the Purple Heart and he takes it and he takes a black crayon and on the Purple Heart he writes, awarded to grandpa's's name, for being married to, grandma's name, for 40 years. And then he nails it to the wall. And it stayed there for about 10 years after he died. Oh my God. He nailed it to the wall.

I love that he made you do it. He was a big nail, truly. He didn't know how to draw a heart, I guess. I mean, there's a metaphor there, right? That is so weird. That is a strange one. And it's like, oh, here comes my grandchild with art supplies. Now's the perfect opportunity to do this thing I've been thinking about.

For 40 years. Yeah, what the fuck, old uh-huh why I didn't think about it until years later and it's kind of like that was kind of messed up yeah did your grandmother get mad at you for participating in the art project like did she think you I don't really think she knew until until much later because I don't remember her being around when when when I did it. And then I think I told my dad later and he just kind of laughed at it.

And you know, what else are you gonna do? It's still, it's still. I mean, yeah, they fought like cats and dogs. What are you gonna do? Wow. The whole thing of like, you know, my wife is a battle ax and isn't that funny? You know, like that is, it just blows my mind.

And I, there was, I just online the other day, there was like, there's, I guess it's some video thing that people are doing. And it was just one after the other of a younger married couple at the woman, at the wife's parents door and the the husband pushing, him ringing the door, that parents come to the door, and it's all set up, obviously.

Yes. And he goes, take her back, she's too expensive. Ha ha ha. And it's like one after the other and these people are all laughing about it and it's like, that's so funny. It's like, Jesus Christ, what year is this, people? You know?

Yeah, that's like 2018 humor. Yes, it's, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't age well. It's not good. No. It's just, come on. They're eating cats and dogs, Mike. All right, Joe, thank you.

And drawn purple hearts. Thank you very much. All right, thank you both. Bye, Joe. Nice to meet you. All right. Bye. We got one more call, yes? It's Matt from Virginia.

It's Matt from Virginia. How you doing? Hi, Matt. Mike and Andy here. Good. How are you guys? Great. Really good. Well, you won't be once you hear my story.

I love it. I'm already happy. Matt. I'm already happy. Matt. My father, my father, my grandfather has successfully broken a bone in every grandchild and one cousin. Great babysitter.

I need his number after this. Yeah. Well, he plays really rough, but he does it in such a loving way. So you still can't hate him afterwards Yeah, yeah, my daughter is my daughter's six and He was you know, he's 84 years old. So why he's on a bicycle in the first place I don't know, but he's doing her that you can do a wheelie He does that but he crashes into her knocks her over and she falls awkwardly in a broker Hey watch this by the way requires surgery and he's oh no I do that oh sorry we're laughing

yes sorry you kind of you kind of said you know after the fact yeah yeah right oh my my nephew he broke my nephew's collarbone because they were wrestling on the couch. And my nephew said, you know, pick me up and throw me. So he threw him. You know, I was doing as I was told, he said. Did he actually say that? I mean, this is a story that was related to me. I wasn't there for that. Yeah. I was't there for that. I was there for the time he threw my niece through a window.

What floor? The 38th floor. Oh, it was a moving car. Because we grew up on a farm. We all grew up on this big farm in Virginia. So we often go over to his house and he had this big window and we'd always run against the couch

and we would sort of throw ourselves against it. And he said one day to my niece, why can't if you let me sort of give you a push, you can go faster. And the problem with that was that right when he went to go push her, she tripped and she missed the couch and went to the window. Oh sh- oh boy.

Oh. Well does he ever- does he express remorse or is- or does he just shrug it off? Honestly it's a little bit of both. Yeah. At first it's remorse and then he's like the next day like well what's the problem like you're- you know you stop crying. Yeah yeah. Right exactly. I would say- so I know for sure anchor isn't a word, a theme. Yeah, yeah.

But he's more of a cold, I'd say. If you're going to make an omelet of fun, you're going to have to crack some eggs. That is the right attitude. And I assume no one has seen him in several years, right? I mean, I think that's when you cut off, it's just, or you wear football equipment. Unfortunately, we love him too much. We love him too much to cut him out. You know, he's getting up there in age and you know, his dog, he loves his dog more than he does people but now he slowly pushes you through but we definitely yeah the arthritis he uh hopefully we give him a hug but from a safe perspective.

Right yeah yeah yeah well thank you so much Matt we're running out of time here that was awesome. Thank you Matt good luck. Yeah thanks for letting me call and guys good talking with you. Glad your daughter's okay. Careful well Mike Well, Mike, do you have a favorite? We usually, we like to pick a favorite. First of all, I should say thank you so much for coming and sitting in with me. I loved the grandfather who wrote messages on eggs. That stuck with me.

Although, what's your favorite? I think this, well. The Matt, the guy. I liked grandma with the firemen. Yes, that was a great story. Grandma ignoring the doctor's advice so she could go shopping. And her scheming.

And have a luncheon. The two-step scheming. Yeah, that was good. Was great. But I really, in terms of just a grandfather shrugging off multiple broken bones. Oh, that is a great story. Of his descendants, that's, I think that's the one. That's the one for me. Especially.

And he told them in the right order. He did. Like, the last one was, and threw her out the window. Yeah, yeah. Threw a window. It's a nice story. All right. Well, thanks for tuning in to the Andy Richard Collins show.

We'll be back next week with more of it. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Andy. Thanks. Keep on rolling out there. I don't know. Yeah, that's it. I got to think about it.

I'm going to think about it. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to more of it. Thank you Mike. Thank you Andy. And keep on rolling out there. I don't know. Yeah that's it. I gotta think of a sign off. That's what people need to do. Keep on rolling. How about bye. Conan O'Brien Radio. Conan O'Brien Radio.