The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Mo Rocca

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Mo Rocca (The Daily Show, CBS Sunday Morning, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me) joins Andy Richter to discuss his varied work across comedy, journalism, and acting, the charming violence of classic cartoons, opening up as you get older, the joys of Rita Moreno, some opinions on Three’s Company, and his latest book, Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs.Do you want to talk to Andy live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER. Listen to "The Andy Richter Call-In Show" every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on SiriusXM's Conan O'Brien Channel.

Hey everybody, welcome back to The Three Questions. I'm your host Andy Richter. This week I am talking to Mo Rocca and I'm very happy about it. He's a humorous journalist and actor. You can see him as a correspondent for CBS News Sunday morning or hear him as the host of the Mo Bituaries podcast. His new book, Rocca Gynarion's Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks and Triumphs is out now. Before my conversation with Mo, I want to thank everyone who has called into the Andy Richter Call-In show on SiriusXM so far. If you want to be a part of this new show, you can find more information in the description of this episode.

And now, here's my conversation with Mo Rocca. Can't you tell my love? Maurice Alberto Rocco. Arroca? God damn it, I already got it wrong. Maurice Alberto Rocca, how are you? You know, I'm great. I'm great. I love when people call me Maurice.

Do you or no? I do. I really do, because there's so few people in my life that do. And outside of family, I think there are, there is like one and a half friends who will call me Maurice. The one that doesn't, I want him to go back and call me Maurice. My friend Mario also been switched

between Moe and Maurice. But yeah. We'll call him Ma. and that'll teach him. Yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. Okay, Ma. And I'm always, I was not, I was an adult when I realized that, you know,

most of the world says Morris. You know, like the English pronunciation of Maurice is Morris. Well, you know, for a time time I really envied the Morris's. First of all, I love the cat commercial. My grandmother loved that cat commercial. And Morris, I always forget, was Maurice Purina? I don't think so. Yeah, Purina.

No, Maurice, yeah, Maurice, the Purina cat show cat. Yeah. I loved how droll he was. Yeah. Right. Like he was always, it's like he was always commenting on everything. He was a big, before people could comment,

he was commenting. Yes. He definitely had, well, as they say in casting, he read light, if you know what I mean. Oh, really? Yeah, that's what I, I feel like looking back on it, he was like a Paul Lind. He was a Paul Lind. Or Charles Nesson Riley, that's what I... I feel like looking back on it, he was like a Paul Lind or Charles Nelson Riley. You know what I mean?

Like, it was like a gay character before there could be gay characters. Well, right. Yeah. Wait, there's a word for them that my friend Eric Neer uses to describe Charles Nelson Riley and Paul Lind. Oh, and I'm going to remember it before we're done here. Okay.

The Zanies. They were called Zanies. The Zanies. And he's very serious about this stuff. And they were called, yeah, Zanies. And for some people in the audience, in certain zip codes, it was all done with a wink even back then. Yeah.

Right? There's, yeah, in Luchadores, and I just know this because there's a very famous luchador who was kind of, you know, gender fluid named Cassandro. And those, and that's a, that's a staple in, in Luchadores is the effeminate kind of makeup wearing wrestler, and they're known as Exoticos. Exoticos. Yeah. Now, the Blasic Pickle guy, that's different, right?

Do you think that they went to the same place? Yeah, he's a stork. He's a stork, right? Isn't that? Or is that Clausen? I can't remember, but yeah, I've always said that. I can think of the voice, but I wonder if they went, I wonder if the stork and the cat were at the same auditions.

Trying to put the same spots. It might've been the same guy for as creative as casting can be. And what was the cat commercial where the lady would like dance with the cat? Was that Pyramina Kachow? Meow, meow, meow. Where she would do a step back step?

Oh no, I think that was Friskies. It might have been Friskies. Because that's the one that I think my grandmother, she just thought it was so funny the way the woman and the cat would both do the same dance step. But I don't think what she realized, and I didn't realize as a kid, and if you go to YouTube, is it's so schlocky because all they're doing is rewinding the tape. Yes. When the cat takes-

Yes, just scrubbing. Right, right. And that was like, that passed for a major special effect back then. Well, so did like a little Conestoga wagon running into a cabinet, you know? But I mean, as a kid, I was like, oh my God, there's a, imagine if a little Conestoga wagon rode through the house, how fantastical that would be. Now, the thing that, you know,

cause they print out they, and by they, I don't know who they are, but they print out a list of research. And the thing that really strikes me about just kind of, you know, a synopsis of your work life is how like hard to pin down you are and how many different things you do. And I just wonder where that comes from. Is that something that you kind of set out to, to not, you know, cause

you're an actor, but you're a correspondent, but you're a writer, but you're, you know, you're an elector for the pope. So many different things. And I mean, it's it's enviable. It's really, truly enviable. You know, I always liked early on the variety pack of cereals, like the six little boxes. I mean, there was one that you never liked, right? I think that maybe they threw in like a total or an all brand in there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That one. But I, I think I always did like that idea of just, oh, the variety, I mean, whether it was variety specials, a variety pack of cereals, or electives in college. Like, just like the things that weren't part of the core. So I'm sure that says something

maybe more deep-seated. But I kind of, I always liked that. Because I'm similar. I have gotten to do different things and I'm very glad that I've gotten to do different things. And I take a lot of, I don't know if it's so much pride, I just pleasure out of the fact that like doing game shows and doing commercial voiceovers and then kind of hosting things and then learning to do kind of that, comedic reportage kind of things.

For me, I feel like it's really a part of my attention deficit. And I wonder if perhaps you have a touch of that yourself. I don't think I have, I know I can bear down hard on something and I'm pretty tenacious. Yeah. And I will tell you, by the way, that there have been periods when I've almost felt guilty when people will say like, well, what's your plan? What's your five-year?

And it kept thinking like, somebody I think once literally asked me, what's your five-year plan? I thought, well, five-year plans worked out really bad for the Soviet Union, so we don't like them. So I'm not sure that a five-year plan is a good... How much wheat are you planning to produce? Yeah. So I'm not... And so there was a period I definitely felt like, oh my God, if I don't know exactly what I'm building towards, is that a defect of some kind?

Yeah. I think it might be a little bit of, well, if it's not perfect, then keep searching. There might be a little bit of that there. But, you know, as I've gotten older, I've been at CBS Sunday Morning for 17 years. I only realized that that by the way, this past year when I was doing press for my book and somebody asked about that, I kind of had to do the math. And, and so, you know, it feels right for me because it's the kind of place where I get to do a lot of different things. And, you know, one point I remember early

on my boss here, who I love, who is just so great, the executive producer here said, I see he was asked me to do a certain kind of piece and I said, Oh, but I'm not sure I can make it funny. And he said to me, why does it have to be funny? And, and, and something I shrank said to me around the same time, like, well, you can be other things. And that kind of felt, that felt sort of good to me, like, all right, cool, you can be other things. And that kind of felt, that felt sort of good to me, like, all right, cool, I can do a piece. Because it's not, you're not going to make, you know, if you're, if you're talking, if you're doing a piece on one night, you want the whole of

demure, which is a horrible thing that happened in Ukraine, you know, and a famine orchestrated by the Kremlin. You're not going to find the comedy in that. Yeah. I want to be able to do that story. Were you a funny kid? Were you a cut up growing up? I was. I was in that word that I think had become pretty purple.

Then I get it, but I was a spaz. I guess in the 70s, that was a word that was really used a lot. Yeah and it typified a kid's idea of a particular kind of person. Exactly. So I was really really hyperactive but I was I think I had I tested well I had high aptitude so I wasn't you know like I wasn't pulling fire alarms I wasn't, you know, like, I wasn't pulling fire alarms. I wasn't dangerous in any way. I love that that's my metric for danger now. But I wasn't doing that. But I would do things like when the bell would ring and class, there was a point when I was like in third grade, right, where I would throw myself on the floor of the classroom, like a piece of bacon sizzling,

and just sort of go into spasms. I guess there was a reason they could have actually called me a spaz without it being, with it being accurate. But yeah, so I was- And it was just a bit to sort of entertain people? Yeah, to make people laugh. And then I was in, I love my elementary school, and they had these things, I don't know how

common this was, and it was partly because of an irregular number of students in certain grades where you would have mixed classes, so there'd be fourth grade, and then there'd be a fifth grade class, but then there'd be a fifth, sixth grade class, like sort of a combo. And I remember that I was so hyperactive and was constantly being put in the corner in different places. And the teacher finally said, she said, you know, the reason we put you in this class was because you were more advanced than you, you know, and we, and so that's why you're in the special class

where there are only a few fifth graders with the majority sixth graders and I and I had a moment I felt really even though I was being scolded I also felt that made me feel it I took it I suddenly started taking more responsibility I thought oh wow this is so this is a good thing that I'm in this class and and I should I should I should rise up to it. I should act more like a sixth grader. Yeah, yeah, but also too, you know, I mean, looking back on it now,

it's kind of, you also think like, well, yeah, you were, there's a difference. There's a big difference behaviorally, you know, from one year to the other at that age, it's a big difference, you know? It's huge, it was huge. Yeah. It's huge. It was huge. Yeah. It was huge.

I have a four-year-old and I see it because she's kind of tall and I see her with other kids and I think, God, she seems so less chill than these kids. And then I realize, oh, they're five and six. You know, like they're, like that's why. Oh, okay. You know, so, you know, I, I, I canceled the, uh, the psych, the clinical psychologists. Yeah. That stuff can go.

Yeah. I imagine that's looking, especially these days can go too far. Sometimes it's just that the five and six year olds have been around the playground a few more times. No, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I, I am, I have older kids too, so I'm very... Generally speaking, I'm pretty unflappable

about just stuff that comes along because I just kind of know, like, eh, it'll be fine. Did you control their TB diet? How much, my father tried to control my TB diet. A little bit. I mean, the tonnage we certainly try to, but you know, but the actual sort of what they would want to watch, there's some stuff, like there's just some YouTube crap, and by crap I just mean of no artistic or intellectual value. It's just I look at it and I see

opportunists making money By taking children's toys and doing little sketches with them absolutely and and they have a you know a million and a half followers and are monetizing basically taking copyrighted characters and going like, hey, let's go outside. And that I kind of, that I just balk against because it's not creative. And I do feel like it's, it's, it's piracy in some, in some ways.

Well, you know, last night I interviewed Candice Bergen, oh sorry, Candice Bergen interviewed me. I asked her to help me promote my book. If she would interview me at the 92nd Street Y. And I was really happy that she said yes. And she's really super cool. And, and, but she was talking about being a grandmother and she said, yeah, I love watching Tom and Jerry with my grandkids. And I thought, wait a minute, like that was probably your choice. And she said, yeah. And she said only the classics. I thought that was really kind of

great that she's, you know, she's raising them on like good cartoons. Yes. Yeah, no, I definitely, there is a lot of me choosing what she watches. And we don't. And she likes them, though. But I mean, my older kids, too, I did the same thing. We watched lots of Looney Tunes and lots of Tom and Jerry. Although, because

my wife had my daughter and then I met my wife. So, I adopted my daughter. And I first started showing her Tom and Jerry's and my wife is vegetarian and has kept our daughter largely vegetarian. But there's only so much you can avoid chicken nuggets in this world with little kids. But really it struck me when we started watching old cartoons, how much of them are about one creature trying to eat another creature? Yeah, there's a lot of that.

That's the basic engine of every story is, I'm going to eat you. Well, I was, I mean, when I was little, I mean, the witch Hazel, right, on Looney Tunes. So, June Furet, that was one of her great characters. And when she tries to get bugs in that fricassee, in that pot, in that boiling pot, I mean, to me, and that's a cup of tea, I can't believe, I can't remember. I know this song, of course I keep forgetting it,

but the way she sings and with the bobby pins flying out of her head. But like, yeah, I mean, that was really wild that she was cooking that rabbit. Yeah. In a pot, boil them alive. Can't you tell my love's a grown man? I just, I loved Three's Company so much as a kid. And then there's been a long period where I went, oh my God, that was a really stupid sitcom. But does there need to be a reevaluation of Three's Company?

Because I think it might have really been funny. I don't think it was just that I thought it was racy and fun, funny and outlandish when I was, you know, 12 and 13 years old. I think it's, it was, I think they were good performers and it was funny. Oh, yeah. Everybody was a good performer. Absolutely. But I have not revisited it in a long time.

So I'm not sure. The one that really has struck me that does not hold up and that was everything to me when I was a kid is Happy Days. Happy Days was a behemoth. Like, I were just kids going to school and, you know, and like us laughing around the house about telling people to sit on it, you know,

and that being genuinely hilarious to all of us. But, you know, we're talking grade school. And now it's just, I can't even- Oh, it's impossible to get through. I can't even believe. Like, anyone said that this is, it was like- Oh, it's impossible to get through. I can't even believe. I know, I know, I know. Anyone said that this is... It was like...

Oh, no, no, no. It was like people speaking slogans to each other. Oh God, no, no, no, no, no. Three's company's the Marks Brothers in comparison. All right. I mean... I will actually, you actually do make me curious, so I will take a peek and see.

But I mean, you know, John Ritter, deeply talented man. I mean, Joyce DeWitt's good. Norman Fell, fantastic. Oh, I love Norman Fell. Then they get Don Knotts in there, and Audra Lindley, they're all really, really good. And let me tell you that when I- And Suzanne Summers is great.

She's great. She's great. She's perfect in that role. Yeah, Jennerly Harrison, who played Cindy Snow, right? And Priscilla Barnes. Is she the replacement? Yeah. Who was her cousin, I think, or sister or her cousin. And then by the time they got to Terry, played by Priscilla Barnes, it had really gone limp at that point. Yeah. But when I met Audra Lindley, I just have to tell you this, that my friend, actually it was my friend Mario, he became friends with Audra Lindley, Mrs. Roper's granddaughter.

And Mrs. Roper has now become a big thing, a lot of gay guys dress up in the movement and all that, this whole thing. So he said, we're going to go over to have dinner with Audra Lindley. And I'm prepared for this. And I thought, because I always thought there are a particular kind of actor that's very sensitive about being known for playing just one role.

My agent used to represent Larry Linville, right? From MASH, Frank Barnes. And he said that he really, it was a lot for Larry Linville to work through and accept the fact that it was a great thing to have been Frank Barnes, right? On MASH. But I thought, I bet she doesn't want to be known as Mrs. Roper. And when she opened the door and she was lovely, she'd had a long affair, I think with James

Whitmore, right? The actor, maybe they'd been married. I forgot. Anyway, I think they've been married. But she opened the door and when I walked in, I said, it's such a pleasure to meet you. I loved you, Anne. And it was just a moment. It was just so tense. And I could feel her face just already begin to drop. Like, here we go again with Mrs. Roper. And I said, I loved you, Anne, the heartbreak kid.

Because she had had a role in it. And I knew what I was doing there. And I meant it by the way. Right. And she was what I was doing there. And I meant it, by the way. Right. And she was just so filled up. And she just said, oh, it was so wonderful to work with Elaine May. And I just, I kept that in mind that when you meet certain people, like when I met Cindy Williams, I didn't say I loved you in Laverne and Shirley. I said I loved you in the conversation.

Yes. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But fortunately I don't have a lot of those. If you look at my IMDB page, there's, you know, the one that I'll go, that I won't go, ugh. It's a little rough. I mean, I always have Elf.

You have Elf, but you must have been like in a production of like the Seagull somewhere. No, no, I actually, you know, I'm not really like an actor-actor. I did take like one theater class in college and I don't know if, if, oh, I'm blanking on his name. Who was in the Heartbreak Kids?

Charles Groton. Charles Groton, for Christ's sake. I knew that's who you were thinking of. Yeah, his first book, which was called, It Was a Long Title. It's So Nice If You Weren't Here. It was great, it was great. Yeah, and I think I read that concurrent

with being in a theater class and he just talked about being in a theater class and with every and how he did not do well in theater school because every time they would propose sort of an exercise that he deemed silly, he would say, why, why? Why am I being a tree? Like why, why should I just, you know, embody shame? Why, why? Tell me how it's, you know, how, what it, and I kind of related to that

very much and felt like a lot of theater class was about how to be good at theater class. Oh, right. You know, and so I, and I, and I also too, I probably too was just intimidated by the whole notion of it. Yeah. But you, you were in plays. You toured. Yeah.

Greece, South Pacific. You were in Little Shop of Horrors. Was that in college? I was in college. Yeah. I loved it. I loved it. Were you like a real bona fide theater kid? Yes, I was.

I went to something called the College Light Opera Company on Cape Cod in Belmuth, Mass the summer after my sophomore year of college, and did literally 11 musicals in 10 weeks. It was like a musical theater. Oh my gosh. I lost weight. And what you have to do is you'd rehearse the next week's musical while you were performing at night, the musical that you had rehearsed the week before. So it was staggered like that. And you also have to cook and clean. I mean, it really was a

friend's parents came to take me out to dinner, and they thought that I needed to be rescued from there because I had lost so much weight. I mean, they worked us to the bone, but I got to play Hysterium and a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. I got to play Jeff in Brigadoon. I got to play Heinze in the pajama game. I just loved it so much.

And yeah, I thought it was really fun. But I think that when I did South Pacific at when I was in my early 20s, at a very good theater in New Jersey called the Paper Mill Playhouse, I recognized that I was getting bored after a few weeks because it wasn't a one week run. And I remember talking to an older actor, a really great actor named Ron Rains,

who's gone on to do a lot of Broadway, and realizing that for somebody like him, he loved long runs. Or I have a friend named Arne Burton that I just did an Off-Broadway show with, and he did the play 39 Steps on Broadway for a year and a half, and he would have done it for five years.

And I thought, that's a very special, more than a trait. It's a special talent to be able to make something fresh night after night. And that's not what I could do. So it's so... I would have, that's, I mean, improv was so perfect for me because, and when I did, when I did, I did occasionally do plays and I did feel like, oh yeah, it's basically, I had a friend who was an assistant, did a camera assisting. She was an assistant camera person and she really wanted to get out of it because she said, you know, the point is to do everything very precisely and exactly the same way every time,

regardless of where you are. You know, you're loading magazines with film. And she said, there's no variation. And I think that that would be hard for me, you know. Yeah, unless you're like Zero Mostel or somebody who famously just changed everything night after night. Right. Or Yul Brynner. I mean, would you like, I'm whispering to you as if no one else

can hear, but I don't want to kiss any of Yul Brynner's family's listening. I don't want them to hear. But that Yul Brynner, when he did The King and I, there'd be certain nights when he'd be like, I don't want to do that song. And everyone would be like, okay, all right, we're going to change the scene early. Yul doesn't want to do the song tonight. Wow. It's getting crazy, right? Yeah. You just say, no, I don't want to do it song tonight. Wow. Crazy, right? Yeah. I don't want to do it. I'm the audience that comes to just fuck them. They know I mean, yeah, no, I think he was just like, no, I don't want to. And I'm the king of Siam.

I can do what I want. Wow. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. Well, he you know, I mean, I don't want to jump forward because you've done, you know, you have a whole podcast about obituaries, but you probably have already done a Yule Brenner.

Well, Yule Brenner had died on the same day as Orson Welles. And so I had a special episode of my podcast about famous people who died on the same day. And before anyone jumps the gun, this past weekend, the three luminaries who died actually all died on different days. Dr. Ruth Westheimer died late on Friday night, Richard Simmons died on Saturday, and Shannon Doherty died on Sunday. So I'm very sad for all of their losses, but they don't qualify as died on the same day. Oh, all right.

So, you know, stop phoning in all of you people. All of you critics. No, and there are people, I'm still hearing from people who will tell me that Elvis Presley and Groucho Marx died on the same day, not even close, it was like a week apart. Just everyone calm down. It's gotta be on the same day.

It can't even be reported on the same day. Why need a death certificate with a timestamp? Yeah, no, that wasn't even my point. My point was just like, Yule Brenner had an amazing life. Like just, you know, for people out there, if you get a second, look up Yule Brenner's life.

Because he did. But there was a lot of mythology there. Now, when I was growing up, well, when I was growing up, my father would say, Sakhalin Island, that's where Yule Brenner is from. Like this Island, North of Japan. It's not true.

He was actually from Vladivostok. Lots of people are from Vladivostok, okay, including Yul Brynner. Like, to be fair, I think that they're like deer on Sakhalin Island. And like, I mean, like Yul Brynner, maybe he flew over Sakhalin Island on a press tour, like when he had to go from Vladivostok to Anchorage or something. Yeah. But no, that's what you have to do. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

So film festival, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I know he is pretty amazing. Well, what happens when you decide, because had you been thinking like, I'm going to be an actor and, and then it makes you, you know, then you thought like, oh, uh, I mean, cause you had, you have a degree in literature. Was that just sort of like Was that just something to do? Something to do. It was default. Yeah. It was default. If I could do it again,

I would be a history guy because I love history. Basically, what happened was I thought, I'll move to New York and I'll audition for plays and musicals. I had a very type A friend who was like, you can't do that. That's not what you should be doing. I knew that he was right, but I didn't want to hear it. He said, no, for you just to go and stand in line at auditions, that's just, that's really passive. You can't do that. You have to write your own way. You

have to figure out what you want to do and do something more. I hate this word, but like more proactive. And he was right. I did love the two years when I moved to New York, I got a job at Macy's as a fragrance specialist. I was not a spritzer. Those were the male models in front of the counter that were kind of the bait to lure the women and those customers. You were the brains and they were the beauties.

Exactly. I was the brains of the operation. So I would cast out my rod in a sense and they were the bait or the lure. And then I reeled them in, and then the male models would hand off these unsuspecting women who were, of course, then disappointed when they were handed off to me, but then I would do the cell job on them. And so I did that as my survival job while I was auditioning for plays in musicals. And I did love it. I actually have really fond

memories of going and doing my eight bars of up-tempo and eight bars of a ballad. I always did if I only had a brain was my up-tempo audition song. And then getting cast in shows like that, it was a wonderful experience, but it did seem, I don't want to say directionless, but I was at the mercy of... I wasn't making my own way. I was just like, okay, if Carousel Dinner Theater in Akron casts me in Hello Dolly, I'll go there and be a dancing waiter.

I didn't get that job, by the way. Imagine how you're in the show, but you also have to wait tables. I know that exists. It's so like, oh, and you have to be like a galloping waiter. I mean, it's really, it's such a scam. Hello, Dolly, because they've got people waiting tables, but they're only but they don't get

tips. They're just paid scale, you know, and it's not a good deal. But um, yeah, so I did. So I did that for a while. But then I would say my break was a friend of mine developed a show for PBS called Wishbone. And that really was really important to me because it's basically, I don't know, not to sound too precious about it, but kind of how I learned to tell a story.

I mean, because we, it was, it was like a writing exercise devised by an English professor on acid. I mean, it was insane. When you think about it, it was take a classic novel, boil it down to 30 minutes as seen through the eyes of Jack Russell Terrier. Yeah, so the dog. A pro a dog. A pro-reading dog. Yeah, who in his dream life becomes the hero of that novel,

but in whose real life is living through an adventure that thematically parallels it. I mean, it really, this thing was so, and I can say this because I was not a creator of it, but it was so ingeniously constructed and forced you to really think about these great novels, these great works of literature, what made them great, and then to kind of translate them

for a six to 11 year old. It's, I can't imagine a better way of learning to tell a good story. Yeah. Did you have to submit for that? I mean, were you at Grow? Was it because a friend of yours and the friend trusted you to...

My friend Stephanie Simpson, who is a great person and I'm just so indebted to, trusted me. You know, part of the thing is it was filmed down the suburbs of Dallas. And I don't know if you had this experience, but I think a lot of people, when they get out of school and they want to go into showbiz,

they go, I'll only be in New York or LA. And you can't do that. If you're, it might work out for you, but you got to be willing to uproot. And so this meant, I'm not saying it was a great hardship, but moving to the suburbs of Dallas was not what everyone would have been willing to do at that time.

And I did it and it was just an amazing learning experience. And it was like five years too, wasn't it? No, it was just two years, but it felt like five years was when you're in your 20s. When you're in your 20s, time has a different property. Right, right. Well, no, maybe that was just the run of the show or something, because I have it as like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you leave the show before it ended? Yeah, after 40 episodes, most of us left. They only did eight more episodes after that. But so I was there for the core of it. How many writers were there? There were essentially three people writing on staff.

Wow. That's it. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. There were a bunch of freelancers and Stephanie was responsible for all of them. So she was a Herculean workload for her. But it was a very small group and it was really beautifully produced in a place like Dallas. It was bankrolled basically by Barney money. Barney, as polarizing as Barney was, it made

so much money that the family that had produced it basically had all this money to spend on this other show. And so these episodes of Wishbone were lavishly produced. I mean, for anyone who knows the show, since each episode dealt with the different work of literature, not all novels, but mostly, you were creating whole new sets and worlds like Musketeers, the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I wrote the Treasure Island and the Time Machine, H.G. Wells, that episode. And these would require lavish, they may not have required it, but they built lavish period sets for these things. And costumed the dog like crazy.

It's Dallas, it's Dallas too. So you can't just go get castle parts, you know, from a rental house. Exactly, it was built from the ground up. And our crew, we shared a lot. A lot of them came over from Walker Tech Stranger, because that was the other big show that was shooting that in Dallas.

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, only if we could have had Chuck Norris come on. That would have been incredible. He could have been the Three Musketeers. He could have come over to that. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Or, you know, or, you know, Harold Hill.

Got trouble, River City. He could be a good Harold Hill. That's interesting. Craig Bierko was a great Harold Hill. I saw him. Yeah, he was fantastic. He was great. He was fantastic. Yeah, yeah. And that's, it's so funny you say that

cause like, I don't know a lot of, you know, Broadway is not really my milieu, but I did see him in that and he was wonderful. We're, you know, our paths used to cross a lot more than they do now, but he's a great guy. I can't say that he's a great guy because I've never met him, but I'm going to take your word for it.

I mean, yeah, I don't want to color, I don't want that he's a great copy as I've ever met him, but I'm gonna take your word for it. I mean, yeah, I don't wanna color your opinion. You should, yeah, leave it a blank slate. I don't wanna go in, then I might be disappointed. Right, and also it's been years. He may have taken a heel turn. He might have turned bad. Only he's the Walter White of Herald Hills. Can't you tell my love's a-growing? Well, how did The Daily Show come about? It came

about because that's where you first crossed my radar, my all-important radar. That's when I caught your eye. I didn't know about the show at all. I had already, based on living in Dallas, in a suburb of Dallas, developed this compulsive need to visit historic sites. And I mean this because I had a period when I was living in Dallas in the suburbs, like kind of a Hurt Locker before the Hurt Locker. I didn't go into battle, but I would go to the Alberts,

was it the Albertsons? No, maybe it was the grocery store because there was, I had no social life. Yeah. Much of one. Perhaps a Bimli Wigli? It could, no, I think it, I wish it were, does that have more color to it? It sure does. But I remember everything was so overly air conditioned and I remember going down a long cereal aisle on like a Saturday night and seeing like 35 different kinds of corn flakes and feeling so, like the soullessness of it.

Yeah. Just, it was so upsetting to me. And so, and everything where I was living felt very paved over and all the glasses houses were like these pointy glass houses that were probably expensive but would have been destroyed by even a strong wind. It all just felt so temporary. And so I developed this hunger to visit historic sites. And so everywhere I would go, I would start just, if there was like a sign on the side of the road, Ohio has a lot of these.

Ohio is an amazing historic association. And I would pull off the side of the road to read it. And that led me into just sort of like going to visit the homes of presidents that you can't remember were actually president. The guys between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt with a lot of facial hair. Sure. Yeah. A lot of them are from Ohio and meeting the docents, like the people that would volunteer there because a lot of those places, if they're unknown presidents, they're all volunteers. And so they're people that are really committed to keeping these

sites alive. And the lives, these sort of, you know, midland lives, like, you know, like powerful men with very midland kind of existences when you look at it in retrospect. Oh, completely like Benjamin Harrison. Like he has his house in Indianapolis on Delaware Avenue in the old North Side section of town. And there was a woman there named Wanda Wheeler, like in a Victorian gown who had been volunteering there for 20 years. And she was an incredible character. We walked around the house. I remember I went to this visit on my own, just as a hobbyist in Indianapolis. And there was a group of second graders there. And I'll never forget, like, like by the end of it, really, she made me kind of want to sandblast Mount Rushmore

and replace it with Benjamin Harrison, because she was so completely committed to him. But I swear to you, at one point, I guess Helen Keller had visited the Benjamin Harrison house, if you see me. And so at one point, Wanda, who I guess was in the South, she was like barking at these second graders. And she went, now, do you all know who Helen Keller was? And then the kids, I think maybe one of the kids knew, and she said, well, she couldn't see and she couldn't hear. And at one point her parents said, well, we don't know what to do with Helen. And so they called up a woman named Annie Sullivan. And I just was, and her commitment to the story of Benjamin Harrison, and in this case, Helen Keller, I found so compelling. So I got really into these sites. I promise you this leads to The Daily Show. So anyway,

one thing led to another and I went to the Warren G. Harding House in Marion, Ohio and I met a guy there that was so obsessed with Florence Harding, the First Lady that he dressed up as her to give tours of the place. So I ended up, yeah, and he was really good. It wasn't like a sticky drag queen act. He was actually really committed. He was really good. And so, and an agent I then met said, look, you have all these really great stories. You should be on The Daily Show. I had no idea what that was.

So, I mean, to make a long story, not quite so long, she was really smart and methodical. She said, look, you've never been on camera. They're not going to, it's going to be hard for you to get a foot in the door. Apply as a writer and basically do a bait and switch. So I applied as a writer. And then when I went in there, I pitched myself as a correspondent by showing sort of photos of these different weird presidential sites I've been to.

And Madeleine Smithberg, the executive producer then, was like, wow, we wanna put you on air, but we're only gonna give you, you can only do a couple of pieces. We're not gonna put you under contract since you've never been on TV. But it's one of those things where the strategy actually worked.

Yeah. Anyway, so yeah. So that's a very long explanation for how I got on the show. And you were there, you were there for five years. That's kind of, that's sort of like a standard run for correspondents. They seem to sort of churn them out there. Yeah, it's a, it was a presidential term. I see.

I see. Yeah, you were followed, was. Was that Clinton's last, last run or was that the beginning of Bush? I know it was beginning of Bush. Yeah, I know. I have to work backwards to remember exactly what year everyone was president and when. I know. I was just on celebrity jeopardy and I'm still ashamed

that I couldn't remember who our 42nd president was off the top of my head. And I was in that those seconds, I was going crazy working backwards and I just couldn't get to Clinton. I couldn't get there. Yeah, I saw that one too. And I was in Washington because I've been on Celebrity Jeopardy. And in fact, I took a bad beat the last time I was on. And it was because I, and I, cause I was on twice before and won both times. And, uh, yeah. And, uh, in fact, for a while I was, uh, top three celebrity

earner and I think I ended up being the top celebrity earner. Yeah, hold on a second. Was this a tournament or was it just... The first time was not a tournament. The first time was in like 1999 and I was on the show and I did and I also did a remote for the Conan show while I was doing it and there was a point it went which because you know you know what it's you get really scared like I might look for the Conan show while I was doing it. And there was a point at which, cause you know what it's like, you get really scared. Like I might look like a complete asshole on national television.

And I know I know a lot of stuff. I know I have like a lot of worthless knowledge in my brain, but who knows, you never know. So it was a certain point when I was shooting the remote where I was there with another writer Jonathan Grob Who had actually been on Jeopardy as a legit regular guy back when you could only do five days. He was a five-day champion and He was I just said of certain forms like I'm no longer making a segment for the show

Like I'm now a Jeopardy contestant. So whatever you do just do whatever you want, but I'm now a Jeopardy contestant. So whatever you do, just do whatever you want, but I'm now focusing. And I did really well. And it was Esipatha Merkerson and Brian Dennehy and Brian Dennehy, graceless loser. Absolutely graceless loser. Yeah, yeah. Well, he was a great Willie Lohman,

but he was a past Celebrity Jeopardy player. He was a fantastic actor. Yeah, yeah, fantastic actor. But he was great. What did he do? How did he express his gracelessness? He had a very kind of Irish bully kind of energy, like in the beginning of it, you know, just kind of,

and I think too, I think he was an Ivy leaguer. I think he went to Harvard or somewhere. Right, Dan, I think. I think he may have, but he was very cocksure. Very like, you know, I'm gonna do this and stuff. And, you know, and like, you know, was kind of making fun of me as like the funny guy. And then when I started to do well,

and in one of the commercial breaks, Esa Patha Mergersen, who was absolutely lovely, and she said something about like the buzzer was hard. And I said like, yeah, it is kind of hard. And Brandon from the other side goes, you don't seem to be having any fucking trouble with it. I was like, Oh, Oh dear. And then I knew there was a, go ahead. Sorry.

When I won, he did that. He came over and shook my hand and squeezed it really, really hard. Like, you know, and said, congratulations, you son of a bitch. Like that. I knew there was a reason I always preferred Charles journey. He just seems more fun. Yeah, they're in the same category. They're kind of in the same category. And I feel like Charles Journey would have been more fun. And I looked at Brian Dennehy too as being sort of like, you know, like a blockish blonde,

like, you know, with a, you know, a large chest, like, you know, yeah, barrel chested. So I kind of was like, well, you know, whatever he kind of does. I, you know, I could see myself doing that kind of those kind of roles if he can do those kinds of roles. And then I saw him once in some sort of, it was like some sort of out of Africa knockoff, like some cable movie knockoff with, um, uh, Brooke Adams was the female lead. And there's a scene in which she is, you know,

it's in Africa, so she's in a, you know, a tub that's not attached, you know, that you have to fill up with water like old west style. And she's in this tub and he comes in off of the veldt, all dusty and in his clothes, and he gets into the tub with her and he's so large and she's so small that it looked... Like, you felt a moment of panic, like... Like, she's gonna...

He's going to consume her. Like, or crush her, or, you know, like, cease her to exist, and that's when I realized, I don't think I'm gonna get to do any love scenes. I mean, my God, and how large was he at this point? Because I'm imagining him in the Robert Redford role of Out of Africa. Yeah, it was a very strange kind of, you know...

He had, it was like he... You know, Brian Keith was like the lead in the parent trip. I was just thinking of Brian Keith. And he had, he was kind of that mold too, you know. But, Chad, you always, and now I'm sorry, but like in the parent trap, I'm convinced that Brian Keith is wearing kind of an early male spanks

because he looks more reined in than like a kielbasa sausage. It could very well be. He's really in taste. It could very well be, yeah. I once did something, I hosted a game show, and the wardrobe person asked me delicately, would you like to wear any kind of garment that, you know, kind of holds in it? You know, it was very, and I said, you mean like a girdle? And I said, is that something, and she goes,

I said, is that something people do? And he was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, there's a lot of people wear it. And I was just like, no, I don't think so. I don't, because I could just imagine how awful that would feel all day long. Yeah, yeah, no, I think, I think if you, if you look at the parent trap again, I think it's clear that Brian Keith is wearing some sort of a my Yeah. No, I think if you look at the parent trap again,

I think it's clear that Brian Keith is wearing some sort of a myrtle there, I think. Yeah. I will, all right, we all have homework now, folks. Well, we've been talking a long time. I want to kind of just, you know, you've done, again, here's some other stuff you would do. You know, the Celebrity Jeopardy, by the way,

you did very well. You were really good at it. Let me just say that I came in second. I won a quarter of a million dollars for charity. And I am not, I can't say that I'm like the most Pollyannaish person in the world, but I felt really good about it. And then I came back here and I love my colleagues here at CBS, but a couple of them came up to me and went, hey, we're really sorry about what happened.

And I was really perplexed at first. And then I was kind of ticked off. I was like, are you kidding me? There were like 27 people in this tournament and it is for charity number also, let's not forget. But it's like, I felt kind of good about it, but I will tell you that as soon as they asked the question, when they said the category of the final question was the literary cliches,

I knew it was over. Because I only play someone smart on TV. Like I'm really poorly read, especially when it comes to fiction. I'm okay with nonfiction, but I knew I was like, oh, please let them just say Sol Bello and I'll write Seize the Day. Because that's the only one I can think of right now. Oh, that's, see, that's, I'm the same way. I have a bunch of sort of connections.

And, you know, if you mention, you know, if you say Sylvia Plath, I can say Beljar. Beljar, it's always gonna be that. And that's about it, you know. Yeah, and so as the thing ended, I remember I felt a palpable sense of relief because I couldn't control whether or not one of the other two contestants would know the answer.

And only one did know the answer. It was the butler did it. And that was the answer. But as soon as it was over, I just felt like this relief come over me because if I had had an inkling what it was and got it wrong, then to this moment I would be torturing myself. But when you have no idea and you go, there's nothing I can do. And I just thought, I'm glad I didn't come in last, frankly.

That came in second. And I had no idea, but I felt such relief. And even Ken Jennings, it was really good when you're there and you see how good he is at this thing. It's not easy. And when he came over and he even sort of said something to the effect of, oh, not you must be bummed, but something like, I don't think he believed me

when I said, I'm just really happy I did this well. And anyway. The last one that I did was, it was the first time they had done Triple Jeopardy. And a really striking thing, cause it had been about 10 years that I noticed was I did not have the, the other people were, you know, 10 to 15 years younger than me. And I did not have the reaction time that I had,

that I had 10 years prior, 10 years prior, I could answer at will. But this, I would think, okay, I got this one click and then, you know, goddamn Simu Liu would get it. And the real, and then I was in the lead, but I didn't have enough to not bet anything at the end. You know, like Simu had like, you know, I seemingly had like 110%, or I should say like 55% of whatever I had. So I had to bet something. And the last question, I want to see if you can get this.

It was landlocked countries. And it was, you know, I would, this is, it's the smallest both in area and population. In the world? In the world. Landlocked countries and that, you know, I mean, I don't know how it was phrased, but it was just basically both smallest, both in, you know, area and per capita population. in area and per capita population? Total population or per square mile population? Population density? I think total population. Okay.

Well, I'm going to say, I mean, the first three, that's a very typical question. I mean, I went to Bhutan first, but I think it could also be San Marino. Yeah, that's, yeah. It was San Marino. It was Vatican City. Oh, Vatican City. And that's exactly what I did. And my wife was in the audience, you know, Catholic school girl was sitting there like,

oh, it's Vatican City, you know? And then she said- It's like one square mile, I think, yeah. She said, yeah, something like that. And I don't know, you know, I knew that, but I just didn't, you know, go into my head. And, and, and I, you know, Ken Jennings has become a friend of mine and, and he and I, he were,

we were talking about it once. And, you know, cause I was asking him about how he ended. And he said, you know, sometimes you just don't know the last question. Right. You just, you know,, you know, sometimes you just don't know the last question. Right. You just, you know, you know, yeah, you just don't know. And, you know, that is the case sometimes. And we can cut this out, but one thing we, that has been nagging at me, because

we were talking about, the heartbreak kid before is, you know, I just think Eddie Albert is so great and I never liked Jack Albertson. And I always sort of pair them together. But I just think Eddie Albert was ridiculously charming. Yeah, he was. He was just so charming. And when I was little watching Chico and the Man, Jack Albertson always seemed so cranky.

Yes. Yeah, unlikable. That's, you know, when you're, when you're getting into casting and they start talking about likability or you're trying to pitch shows when you're young and it's all likable, likable. And you just think, oh, that's what a stupid person says who doesn't understand comedy.

And then you do it a while and you realize, no, no. Yeah, there's a thing like that guy, I like that guy. That guy, I don't like that guy. You know, it just kind of happens. Yeah, and Eddie Albert, my latest exposure to him was showing a child, the classic, the original escape to Witch Mountain. Yes, yes, oh my God, oh my God. And Eddie Albert's in that and he's so,

it's just like, you do, you like, he's supposed to kind of be shifty, you know, like a drifter. And it's like, no, I didn't know wherever that old man was going. I love, it's so funny, my partner, and I just watched that the other night on Disney Plus and I just, it's so great.

And I wanted to like the sequel because it has Betty Davis. Yeah, yeah. Right? And it has that weird actor who died pretty young. He might've even had Marfan syndrome because he's so tall and kind of like gloomy and ghoulish looking is great, but it's just bad. The return to Witch Mountain, whatever, is bad. But I love Escape from Witch Mountain.

We also watched Candleshoot too. God, Jodie Foster was great. Well, we're coming to the end here. I got to plug this book. Okay, anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the book. Well, we're coming to the end here. I got to plug this book. Okay. Anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the book. Well, let's talk about the book.

Rock the Ginarians, Late in Life, Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs. It was released in June, and it's basically people who kind of, you know, were late bloomers, sort of. Yeah, basically people who accomplished great things in the last third of their life. And my co-author John Greenberg and I, you know, old people are kind of my jam.

Like on CBS Sunday morning, one of the best parts of this is I've interviewed, and usually they're my pitches. I love interviewing old timers. I love, like no one's cooler than Angie Dickinson. She's just great because as people get older, in my experience, they care less about what other people think of them. And so they're more unfettered. They are, they don't crowd source who they are, what they like. They just are who they are. And so it's no coincidence that a lot of people late in life have just, you know, in that unfettered way have just accomplished great things.

So the book is a collection of stories, everyone from writers like Frank McCourt or Laura Ingalls Wilder, both of whom were first published in their mid-60s to architects like Iain Pei, who put that glass pyramid in the middle of the Louvre and outraged the French at first. What a badass move to take an 800 year old French, originally what was a fort and just go, I'm going to put a glass pyramid in the middle. And he did it when he was 75. He wasn't a hot shot 25 year old who did it. Like what a badass move. Or Colonel Sanders, a story I don't think ever gets old. I mean, he's 66. He's broke. He's living off of $105 of social security each month. And he gets in his car with two pressure cookers and a bucket of his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices.

And he drives town to town, restaurant to restaurant, cooking for people. And within eight years when he's 74, has a Kentucky-fried empire of 800 outlets worldwide. So I mean, just, you know, or Estelle Getty was 62 when she made her television debut on The Golden Girls. Is Phyllis Diller in there? Phyllis Diller is not in there, and she probably should be.

I mean, she, it'd be, she was a pioneer anyway. Well, but she had, yeah, she had a full, like, raised children to the point of being an empty nester before Ian really saw her on, even on like, like there's, you know, there's an appearance of her on You Bet Your Life as sort of an unknown. She's a contestant, you know. Well, you know, it's, you know,

Estelle Getty was married at 23, had two kids, and she wanted to act. She took little parts wherever she could. And she did something that I think was really important here, which is after her kids went off to school, she was in her 50s, and she went to see a play off of Broadway that had then unknown Harvey Bierstein had written. She went backstage and she said, write me a part. I think he was so taken aback but also charmed that he did. And that part became an important part of what became Torch Song Trilogy. That got her noticed. And then

she got at 62 cast from the Golden Girls. But when I interviewed Linda Lavin, she said, you know, it doesn't matter how, in her case, how many years of a hit sitcom you've done. You got to know people, you got to let people know you're out there. You can't be too proud. And Linda Lavin did this thing. She's still great and she's in her 80s. She's so funny. But when Stephen Sondheim had his 90th birthday, it was during the pandemic, there was this online tribute with all these big people and the Broadway and Hollywood world singing and she saw it online and she just tweeted out, I want to be part of this. Like not too proud. And it's

just, I think it's, it's a quality that a lot of the people in the book have, which is they're, they're like, I got nothing to lose. I'm just going to go for it. To my eyes, there is a binary that happens where people, they close or they open as they get older. And the people that open as they get older, I just, I aspire to that so much because I have work out very well to let your fears and your insecurities, you know, increase, but to let them be what comes to the forefront of your personality. You know, I, I had not thought about that and it's such a great point. And it is true about the binary, but the thing is, it is look, some personalities, it's predestined either way, maybe it's going to be very, very, very, very, very,. But the thing is, look, some personalities,

it's predestined either way, maybe, or it's gonna be very hard to change. But I think for most people, it's in their control. I mean, it helps that they have another person in their life. Yes. It's a really, it's very hard to do alone, but it's also, it is, I mean,

I'm sounding like a guru here, but I interviewed Rita Moreno for this because she's had so many chapters of her life. And she said when she left her home and she went into this very nice senior living thing, she became very depressed. And then she said she realized, oh, I don't know how to make friends. I have friends like for many years ago, but I don't know how to make friends. I had friends like for many years ago, but I don't know how to make new friends. And so she like set about making friends.

So she went to the little grocery store in the community and there was this woman that she noticed that would always smile at her. And she realized, look, I'm Rita Moreno. It's gonna be easier for me because people are gonna want me to reach out to them. And but she said to the woman, she said, do you want to have lunch? And the woman was shocked.

And then the next day they met for lunch and the woman's, and when they sat down, the woman said, can I ask you a question? Do you always go around the grocery store picking up other old ladies? And then she laughed and she said, no, but she said, you smiled at me. I like your smile and I need friends. Yeah. And you know, and now she's in the Fast and Furious franchise. As I was, you know, you know, I got I was I got to do a day on 80 for Brady. Oh, you did. Yeah.

And and so I was with all of them. I play like a rich guy that has a luxury box that they sneak into. And she was a fucking joy. Like she was just the best and, and they all were great, but she really was the one where I was like, you know, cause they're, it was intimidating. You know, it's Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin. And Rita Moreno was the one, and I hadn't met all, well, no Sally Field I had, I don't think I'd ever met,

but I'd been around Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda before. And I'd done like kind of non-prophety stuff with Jane Fonda before. So she kind of knew of me and stuff, but Rita was the one that was just, you know, like there were some problems on set, and she was the one that like kind of did what I just, which is just, I, is so, just gave me an elbow

in the ribs at one point and was like, eh, pretty crazy stuff, huh? You know, like, and to be her and go like, can you get a, you know, get a load of this like drama here? Like, come on, you know, let's just go to lunch. And so this began like this, he was, this began this like long running joke. It had nothing to do with the series or script. It's just, he thought he had this funny idea that what if he sired a child by Rita Moreno. And, and then so they created, like they had this funny idea that what if he sired a child by Rita Moreno. And then so they created like they had this inside joke where they named the kid Moisha and they would text back and forth.

And she said it was like we were little kids. And I think there's something there like, yeah, because it's so it's hard not to lapse into cliche about laughter keeping you young. Yes, but but I think it is true. And so she just like had fun. Like this was just like this long running joke with him. Tony Hale was recently on this podcast and I had actually, I've worked with him, I've known him for years and he paid me the most wonderful compliment in that he said what he saw in me

and what he recognized in me, he said, you still have the same level of playfulness that you've always had. And I was, it made me feel so good. And so like, oh, I do, you know, I do. Cause you know, when you're, I live inside this thing and it's, you know, some days feel pretty dreary, you know? And it's like, oh no, no, I still, I guess I do sort of want to haveary, you know, and it's like, oh no, no, I still, I guess I do sort of want to have fun,

you know? But do you think having a small child is part of that? Yes and no, yes and no. I, I, I would be, I love having fun. I love being silly. I, you know, it was, I've listened to Howard Stern forever and I just got to sit next to him at Jimmy Kimmel's wedding and we just giggled and made fun of people.

And it was one of the most thrilling things of my life because that's where I live. Like sitting somewhere and just making fun of people and giggling and seeing the dumbest stuff in the world. You can't even like retell and you're just cracking each other up. And that's, I say, like I said, that's where I live. That's, that's my favorite thing in the world is just, is just giggling with somebody and saying silly stuff, you know, I got to let you go.

I guess I need to know like what you've learned. Do you have like kind of, especially, you know, and with this book, Rock DeGeneres's late in life debuts come back in triumphs. Is there something you've sort of taken away from interviewing all these people who are so wise? I mean, I think the best thing is just do it, just go for it because what is the worst that can happen?

Everyone's buried in their phones anyway, so if you fail, I mean, they're just consumed with their own stuff anyway. They may be buried in their phones reading about your failure, but then they'll move on to the next thing right after that. Right. Right. Well, and also too, your success can be viewed by, you know, you can do very well on Jeopardy and have people go, I'm so sorry. You know? All right. Well, the book is Rocked-A-Generions

and you also have a podcast, Mobituaries, where you cover a fascinating obituary. And as always, you are a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News Sunday Morning, which that seems like a fun gig. It's a wonderful job. It's a great job. I love it. Well, Mo, thank you so much. Andy, thank you for having me. Thank you so much. And I hope to see you soon. I hope to see you soon, too. And thank all of you out there, Liss, for listening

to another episode of The Three Questions. Bye-bye. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Doherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Leow, Adam Sacks, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Battista, with assistance from Maddy Ogden. Research by Alyssa Grahl.

Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to The Three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts. And do you have a favorite question you always like to ask people? Let us know in the review section. Can't you tell my love's a-growing? Can't you feel it ain't a-showin'?

Oh, you must be a-knowin' I've got a big, big love This has been a Team Coco production.