Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Howie Mandel

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Ted Danson and his old friend Howie Mandel are covering all the bases this week, from health concerns to personal finance! Howie shares about the origins of his glove bit, how comedy gave him a sense of belonging, his investments in new tech, and how his judging on “America’s Got Talent” has evolved over the years.Like watching your podcasts?  Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I will not be remembered. I know for a fact. Joe, what is the first name of your grandfather's father? I don't know. Yes. Yes. Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. to spend an hour, hour and a half with them today.

I'm very excited. We go way back. We co-starred in a movie called A Fine Mess in the 80s. Unfortunate title. You know how he has the voice of Gizmo and Gremlins, his animated show, Bobby's World, and as the host of Deal or No Deal, he's been a judge on America's Got Talent since 2010.

He's a massively successful stand-up comedian, businessman, a tech mogul, an executive producer, and the list goes on. He is an off-the-wall kind of personality, but one of the kindest, wisest, biggest-hearted people I know. I can't wait to talk to him. His podcast with his daughter, Jacqueline Schultz, is called Howie Mandel Does Stuff.

I was recently a guest and had a great time. Anyway, here is Harry Mandel. The reason I'm late as I was in the car talking to my doctor, who wants me to go get more scans. I'm good, though, but just like everything, you're just busy with your body. I wasn't busy. Full body scans?

I'm not getting a full body scan. It was a heart scan. You know, I have aphib, and I've had ablations. Is this a good start to a podcast? Yes, I've had ablations. Do you know what, Aphib is? Aphib, yes. What is that, the other one?

Well, so I went to do a show. this is years back, but I went to go do a show and you know how they have these they say they're doctors that come on to a set or the first day or before that so you can sign the insurance thing.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's not really a physical. No. They say, are you, Ted? And then they just say, oh, you seem fine. And I think that they sometimes wear a stethoscope,

but it usually never touches you. No. Right. But in this case, the guy did put the, stethoscope to my chest. I didn't feel terrible, but he went, uh-oh. And I went, those are two words. Well, that's one word that you don't want to hear twice. Oops is one of them too. From somebody with a medical degree. And he said, how are you feeling? And I said, I feel okay.

You know, I'm very medicated because of my mental health. I think this is, I'm giving, I'm numb. I'm a numb person. I am emotionally numb. And I'm, I'm, think I'm physically numb. I'm not aware of how I feel. I don't know. I don't understand when I'm tired. I don't get scared. I don't feel pain. I don't feel. I feel happy to be here. But aside from that, that's the only feeling I have. So he said, how do you feel? And I said, well, he said, tell me. I said, well, I'm tired. He goes, well, your heart, you need to go to an emergency room right now. Wow. I didn't know this. I'm now somewhat of an expert. My resting heart rate was like 130 or 140. And I know if you run, it's usually like that. And here's the thing. I was running like seven miles every single day at this point. I felt like I was young. How old are you now then?

I'm seven. How old was I? Yeah. This is about seven years ago. Like over 60, like 61, 62. Right. You know, so maybe 10 years ago, 60. But it's running seven, eight miles a day, every day. I do that. And I don't do that to be in shape. I do that. I don't do it anymore. But I did it because of my mental, that's my meditation. That's my, I just need to run away from myself.

And so, so, and I would go to the, sometimes I would pass out at the end, but I thought, okay, so that's a good run. Really? Literally, literally I would, like, get ridiculous. and then, uh, even, yes, I did a couple times. And I didn't tell anybody. And apparently I have a, I went to the hospital. My heart was in aphib. They said, how long have you felt this way? I said, I don't know. They do a thing. Do you know what cardioverting is? No, cardio, oh, would they shock you in it? The shocks that the, they put, they, they put me out and they, they, they, they give me the, the, the,

the, the, the pallets. And I got shocked back into, uh, rhythm. Right. And then. And then, And they checked me the next day, and I was back in AFIB. Oh, really? Yeah, and then they said you need to have a procedure. And I didn't want to, I don't like going to the doctor, and I didn't want to get a procedure. I waited a year. I couldn't breathe.

And I actually thought I was probably going to die, but I would rather die than go get a procedure. But then I had something called an ablation, which they do differently right now. But your heart... That's a procedure. That's the procedure. Gotcha. And the ablation is your heart is a muscle that sucks in blood into the ventricle and then pushes it out throughout your body.

And that's your circulation. And the way it was explained to me, your heart gets a little shock. You have an electrical current that hits your heart. And because your heart gets hit by this electrical current, what would you call this? What would you call this? Joe would know. Contracts. It contracts.

Thank you. Thank you. I didn't know what Joe's the one. I don't, is it? She, by the way, loves body stuff too. So you're talking to a great audience. Why does she love? What is that mean?

But she's just curious about her body. She cares about her body. Go on. Is there HR at this company? Why do you know that? Because she just told me in front of, in front of Nick. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, brother.

Anyway, Mary calls me a hypochondriac. I call myself just curious about my body and what's going on. I like nothing. That's a glass half full, but hypochondria, body curiosity is hypochondria. I think so. Well, it depends what kind of curiosity. An office mate's curiosity about their body is called Harvey Weinstein. But anyway, your muscle contracts, but what happens is the reason it contracts is because this muscle gets a shock.

Right. And you have a rhythm. That's your heartbeat, right? That's how you're, when you have a fib, the electrical part of, you. your is out of sync. So it goes and your body's just, your muscles just contracting sometimes not all the way, but it gets another shock and it gets another. So the blood

could stay in the ventricle. It's not being pushed out. You can end up creating a clot and end up having a stroke. So and, you know, so that's my, so what they do. Not totally uncommon. No, incredibly incredibly common. Yeah. Right Joe? Okay. Okay.

Enough. Enough, Joe. So the ablation, I think they go in a different way now, but the ablation, as was explained to me, is they go in through the artery in your groin, through all the way up, all the way up. I guess the way to every man's heart is through his groin. And so they go up and they get to the part, they're able to pinpoint where that muscle is getting shocked,

the wall of that muscle that's getting shocked. There's a problem with that. They go in with a laser, and they burn the wall on the ventricle, which gets the shock. You get a, what's it called, a scar tissue. Right. And then your body naturally reroutes the electricity,

and hopefully when it's rerouted, it's like pulling out the plug and then putting it in or redoing it, then it starts to go right. How soon did you have to wait to find out whether it works? And did it? The first time I went and got it, I woke up in the hospital and he told me it didn't work, you're going to need another one. So come back in two weeks.

And then I went back and I got another one. And it was harrowing. It doesn't hurt. It's an amazingly common procedure. But for me, I'll tell you a couple things about it. And it's so me. It's so me. I'm not going to name the hospital.

It's a hospital here in town. And it's a teaching hospital, I found out. So you had a group of students around you. That's Standing O. I had Standing O. It was a, it was, it was a, I did not know that. I said, you know, I don't want people to know I'm in the hospital. I don't want that so that when they took me from my room to the OR, they, they covered me in a sheet. So I would look like a body, you know.

But so nobody in the whole. hallway would go what's wrong with how he man i didn't want news i didn't want not that there would be big news that i was in the hospital you know but i was in a hospital they they put me in the r and then they they take the sheet off me and then a nurse comes in and they go i'm just going to shave you i told you where they go in yeah so they're shaving me so she's shaving my groin yeah yeah and you know i'm looking i don't know i'm looking i'm just looking i'm watching her shave me yeah and then she goes it's okay it's okay, because she could tell I'm nervous and I'm... Well, she's touching you.

But that's... I'd rather her shave there than shake my hand. I'm telling you that's how weird. I'd rather... I mean, that's how people should greet me. They should shave my groin. So anyway, I lied back... Hello, Howie.

But anyway, so I lied back on the... I'm trying to keep my belly button where Joe told me to put it. Anyway, I... See, the whole Joe thing? For people that don't know, Joe is the... Technician. technician here and she, they have a mark on the table where I'm sitting by my mic. They've marked it in a piece of tape. I'm colorblind, so I don't know what color that is, but it's, I think it's

blue. Is it blue? A piece of blue tape that you're supposed to line up is your belly button off? No, I was off. I've never had a piece of tape for my belly button. Like as an actor, they go, you know, step here and stop at the tape, but I've never had to line up my belly button. It seems to be harder than my feet. It seems to, and now I'm so fucking focused. on not moving my belly button that I've gone, I've wavered from the story. But anyway, when I lied back, there was a glass dome at the top of the,

at the top of the thing, I looked, and there's like a, nobody asked me, there's a circle of students. Faces. Watching me being shaved. Yeah. I was not happy. But then I, the Propofal hit,

and I couldn't comment to the audience about, that's, that's, that's, I remember when they used to put you under, you could go, you know, count from 100. You used to be able to get to, like, backwards, you used to be able to get to about 90. Propothal is like, and boom. I actually like it. I understand. I did, you know, and now every time I go, like, to have a...

Your teeth cleaned. No, I don't do that. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, because I will overuse. But I'll get, I have to have a colonoscopy a lot, right, when we're our age? Yeah. they're fun yeah joe joe is a very young attractive woman in the room but two guys just talking about our our ablations and colonoscopy is not that attractive right it's really fun yeah it's fun i know you like bodies we talked about but but but i always try to stay i want to fight it i want to see

how long i can stay away i'm gonna it's a but anyway the point is they they go up there and they gave me the uh the ablation the second time it worked here's the thing i'm lying in the in bed the next morning I don't think I stayed overnight but hours later and they said would you like anything Howie and I wanted an apple juice

so I took some apple juice and I'm drinking apple juice and I swear to God it's going right through my I think I'm pissing as I'm drinking I feel like I'm wetting myself so I move the sheet and this is the freakiest thing

that ever happened to me with every one of my heartbeats I guess the incision where they went in on my groin did not cauterize. Oh, you were pumping blood. Every, when I moved the sheet, every beat of my heart, there was a shot of blood almost to the ceiling. Oh, my God. It's in my fucking crotch is like,

you've ever been to the Bellagio? Yes, I think I have. In Vegas, the mountains out front. Oh, yes. This is like that without Frank Sinatra music. Without, there's no Celine Dion, it's just my blood in rhythm, almost hitting the ceiling. Enough so you were like pooling blood, you were making a lot of blood. Wow. I was losing a lot of blood and it was shooting into this guy and I screamed like a little girl.

I just, help, I didn't know what to, I didn't, I thought I was maybe now sleeping and this is, this can't be happening. The nurse comes in and goes, uh-oh, the same, uh-oh that the doctor said originally when I found out this. Oops. Uh-oh. One minute. And I don't know why she puts up her finger like one minute. Like I'm going to wait. No, I've got to go. But I was just lying there.

And then the doctor, a doctor comes in. And he goes, don't worry, don't worry. I'm a blood fountain. And he takes his, he puts on his gloves and he takes his hands onto my groin. And he just presses. He goes, I'm just going to apply pressure. So now he's essentially doing like a pushup on my garage. Yeah.

his nose is touching my nose. He's like in my face. I'm lying down because I'm sitting up because this is happening. And he's got his nose on my nose. Right. Holding on my groin. Yeah. And I was scared and terrified and the most.

And then he, I think he was trying to put me at ease. He goes, he tries to make a conversation. He says, you know, I really, I really enjoyed you on St. swear. I said to him, is there any way that I'm not, I don't want to be rude. Can you not, can we not talk? Can we not talk? And, uh, is there any way you can close your eyes? I'm going to close mine. He goes, you're not going to kiss me. I go, I'm not going to kiss you. I just don't want to, I don't know what this is the most uncomfortable I've ever been. Like this is, but anyway, for you, it's like the, well, for anybody, but a perfect storm. It was a nightmare. I forget

what the question was, Ted. But I don't care. It was an amazing story. It is? Yeah, it is. So I want, you said something in the beginning when we were amping up our physical, you know, life, health. You talked about mental health. And

you said you don't feel happy. I said I feel numb. Numb. Do that more. I mean, because I see you, I saw you enjoy your daughter. Oh, my God. So that's happy. That's joy.

So here's the thing. What I go for, what I want in life, what I think success is, what everybody, you know, I don't think anybody, the majority of people are not striving for the right thing. This is just my little theory. And I think that social media is fucking us up in the sense that social media is about look what I have and look what you don't. look what I've achieved and you haven't look what I and that's basically it that's you know even if you're lying about it even if you're you know you're putting a filter on it even if you're standing in front of a jet that's not yours even if you're whatever you're doing you're promoting and I believe that success no matter what amount of you know people think if they become famous or they get a lot of money they're going to be happy and I don't I don't anybody that can honestly say, and I know a lot of famous rich people, and they could be content

and happy, but I don't think it's the fame or the money that has made them happy. And I think in order to find contentment, it's not anything that you gather from the outside. It's whatever you gather from the inside. So if you can create an environment for yourself, I have the help of professional medication where love, there's no measurement for the amount of love I have for my children and for my children's children. And it's not an intellectual thing, it's a feeling. You feel that love. I feel so content and so safe when they're around, when I'm around them. I don't even have to, if they're in the same room and I could just watch and not do anything,

There's a feeling of ease, and I don't have to work at anything, you know, just life. So that's what I, it's always about even if I go to work, and not that I'm not enjoying myself right now, but when I get home, you know, this weekend, I'm going to go spend the whole weekend with my kids and their kids. And that's my goal. That's what I achieve. At this point in life, I realize that everything that I was changed. casing wasn't as important as I thought it was. Do you think that's partly because you have aged and partly because you have kids and partly

because you do have success? That's why I know that that's not the answer. Absolutely. I think that as we go on in life, we have to learn to adapt and adopt. And I think that life and our world changes constantly around each and every one of us. and a lot of us are not willing to kind of I think we have to learn you can't be the same person you were 20 years ago or 30 years ago and I feel like I'm every single day learning a lot I feel like 20 years ago I'm one of the most curious people not you're curious but you have curiosity

curiosity is my fuel yeah I see that in you I want to know and I want to know that to to a fault you know my wife gets mad at me because I will talk to somebody just because they're in my periphery and I, you know, to the point where I'll walk away and they're crying and my wife goes, what happened? I go, well, they just said they liked the show I saw. I did and then I said, where are they from? And I said, are you married? And then they said, they just lost their husband. And I said, well, what happened? And then, you know, and how long were you married? and I just, I don't stop and I don't feel uncomfortable and, you know, it's humanity and stuff like that, but that kind of stuff irks some of the people around me because I will, I'll get

into worlds that I don't need to be in, but I like to be in. But what I was saying about success is, like you, I would imagine people will come up to you, younger people who maybe want to get into this business or want to do that. And they said, do you have any advice or how do you, What is your formula for success? And I think I've said this to you before. I've said this to other people, but April 19th, 1977, I got up on a dare at Yakkak's Comedy Club in Toronto, Canada. And I just went, it was, disco was still very big, but I'm not a dancer, and I'm not a drinker. And I don't play sports.

And I just went because a bunch of friends, I hadn't seen stand-up live. And somebody said, after the show, they said, if you think you're going to, after the show, they said, if you think you can do it, we're having amateurs at midnight. Somebody said, you should go up and I went okay. I went up without a plan, but in that... Never had harbored a thought of someday I would love to do something like... Never. Even when I started doing it, I didn't. The business kind of chased me. But I've talked about this. I went up that night just because somebody said you should go up and I said, okay, okay. And that might be fun. It might be funny.

Because I'm not a comedian, because I don't want to be a comedian, I don't think I want to be a comedian, and I'm not prepared. And that's kind of funny. It's kind of funny to hear somebody say, ladies and gentlemen, Howie Mandel. There's no reason to say, ladies and gentlemen, Howie Mandel, and I think it's funny. And I think it's a great story that I can tell my friends that aren't there. There's a couple people there. I don't have a lot of friends as it is. But there's a couple of people there, and you're supposed to, when they go, ladies and gentlemen, whatever the name is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be a name you know. We all applaud because that's how we say hello to strangers. So, and then I'd never been on a stage before. And you're blinded by the light. And except for the front row. And I see a mic, not unlike this, that foam that's over it. And then I look beyond that. And there's people with their cigarettes, billowing smoke coming out, just looking up. And it's like, okay, what do you have for us? And terror, terror surged through my body, that adrenaline that goes, oh shit, it's like that dream where you show up at a party and you're naked and you don't know anybody there and everybody's looking at you and you go, and if you look at my old, if you go on YouTube and you look at Howie's Howie Mandel's first specials or first time on TV, it's just terror. And all it is is me going, okay, okay, all right, okay, okay, and people started laughing like that

And I would go- Because I remember it. I remember that. And when people laughed at my, like, loss, and they would laugh like you did. And I'd go, what, what, what, tell me what, tell me what, what. And they laughed more. And I go, okay, all right, all right. And you want to hear something? So that was never rehearsed planned or anything.

No. Was you literally in your panicking moment going. Panicking. Panicking. And because I have OCD and I've had it for as long as I can remember, I always carried rubber gloves with me because if I was out in public, I would have to go to a public restroom. I didn't want to touch anything. I carried gloves.

I bought at the drugstore. And I put my hands in my pocket. I'm going, okay, okay, okay. And I took out a glove. I wasn't even thinking, and I'm standing there with the glove. Now I'm standing there with a glove in front of people. And I'm going, what the fuck am I going to do with this glove?

And so I just, for no reason, I just took the glove. I've never tried this before. I took the glove, and I pulled it over my head and past my nose, and I started breathing. The fingers are going up and down. And the audience is roaring. They're laughing at my breathing in a rubber glove. So I took it and I blew it up and it popped off and the audience roared and I had the instinct

to go, good night. And I ran off the stage and the Mark Breslin who owned the club, it was standing in the hallway, he goes, that was great. Come back tomorrow. And I go, what am I supposed to do tomorrow? He goes, do that again. I go, what, can you tell me what I did? Just show up, he said.

And I, and that moment, I'm a guy who was not ever accepted, you know, I'm. not an athlete. I'm not, I was 4 foot 10. I was 89 pounds in, in high school, because I was later on, you know, diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety and OCD, but not, not until my mid-40s. You know, I don't know what it was, but this collective kind of comfort of accepting that we were all having a good time like my adrenaline was running they were they were laughing everybody i could sense they enjoyed me i didn't understand why but i've never had a room of strangers just enjoyed my presence i've been chasing that moment every day of my life since but but it was just beautiful and i didn't even come away going oh this is good i'm going to be a comedian

i said i had no place in life to go outside of work i said if even if I'm a server, even if I'm, I don't care what I do in life. I was actually working and doing okay. I was doing sales. But if two, three times a week,

I could drop in and just have that goofiness. I'm not going to make a, I don't know anybody in show business. I've never studied anything. I don't know anything about comedy. But if I could do this two, three times a week,

what a fun, fun thing. And then what happened was, I'm from Toronto, and it's right close to Detroit. A lot of the, comics from Detroit would come up to Toronto and play. Like, people dropped into the club. Lano dropped into the club when he was playing.

He was already on TV. A guy by the name of Mike Binder, do you know Mike is? I don't know if I do. Mike is a really good comedian, a director, writer. I think he got nominated for an Academy Award for the upside of anger. Do you remember that movie with Joan Allen? Is it the upside of anger? Yeah, with Joan Allen.

He wrote and directed that. But so I made friends. friends with comics who were actually making, I found them fascinating, people who were making a living. I went down to California on a business trip. I went down here to California on a business trip. I had a business trip. I had meetings for something that I was going to do in retail. And there was a manufacturer here. And at the same time, I brought Terry. I wasn't married yet. I brought Terry and a couple of friends because I thought, hey, I've never been to California. And this is a great vacation. It turns out that Mike Binder, the guy that I met at

yuck yucks was here and going on at a place called the comedy store constantly and he was a regular and he was a regular on a show called Make Me Laugh. And he said, you want to get on the comedy store? I can get you on the comedy store. I went, okay, what a great like moment at night. I'd finished all my meetings. I'll go on the comedy store. He got me on at the comedy store. There was a producer by the name of George Foster who had the comedy game show Make Me Laugh. He saw me and he's, he's, after When I walked off stage, he goes, young man, are you interested in doing television? I went, oh, yeah, this is so fucking Hollywood. This is such a, I didn't.

But he goes, come and see me to more of my office. And the first, it was at KTLA, which is just down the street here. And I went, I've never been on a studio lot. I went there. He had me try to make a secretary laugh, which I thought was ridiculous, but kind of funny. I'm always game for whatever people asked me to do. And then he said, you're great. okay, you want to tape tomorrow?

And at that time, they taped, well, they still do. They tape five episodes of a television show, whether it's a game show or something like that, in one day. So I went and taped the five shows and it was a great story to tell about my vacation. Went home, continued in my business. When it aired, we didn't air in Canada, but when it aired, I started getting calls

from the Mike Douglas show. Oh, wow. And they flew me down to do the Mike Douglas show. And I went, oh, holy shit, I got to do, like five minutes. And then right after that, Merv Griffin called, the Merv Griffin Show.

And I did the Merv Griffin Show. Yeah. When I did the Merv Griffin Show, I got a call, this is 1980 or 1979, I got a call from Gene Simmons from KISS, which was at its height at that time.

You know, I never met any celebrity. I never met anything. He said, you know, me and my girlfriend watched you last night on Merv. You're so funny. I went, wow, thank you. I'm in Toronto.

He goes, would you be her opener? I didn't even know. that meant. I don't know what was having trouble with their legs. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing is an opener. I don't know what that means. He goes, will you go on before her?

I go, she's a singer, who's your girlfriend? His girlfriend was Diana Ross. And did you know that? No. He lived with Dinor. He was cheating on Cher. He was his boyfriend and then he told

share he wanted to he was in new york and wanted to buy a present for his girlfriend and she arranged for diana ross to take him shopping and then he ended up with diana ross and he lived with her for a while but she was playing at caesar's palace and they hired me to be the opening act i didn't have an i was dying every night they hated me the audience hated me every fucking night and then they called me into her office and i thought oh great i'm getting fired and she goes you're so funny I want you to stay on for another two weeks. It was two shows a night, another 14 shows. The lights would go down each night and go, ladies and gentlemen,

Caesar's Palace is proud to present an evening of Diana Ross, and the crowd would roar. And if you listened really closely, nobody did. You can hear, but first, Howie Mandel. And I would go up. Which is keeping them from Diana. You're keeping them from Diana Ross. In their minds.

And I would play in front of the curtain, and the people in front would bang on my feet and say, get off. They'd go, get off, get off. Just hate, hate, hate. It was the most harrowing. But here's the thing. I liked, I never thought about the success. I think I became successful April 19, 1977, because if you find something in life, and I think this is very rare for most people, or they don't, they don't open themselves up to it. If you find anything in life that you are looking forward to do in the of a day and you're excited about it and you look forward to it and you enjoy it while it's happening that's success yeah and a lot of people don't do that you know we refer to hump day Wednesday because the reference is that most people are halfway through the week doing the

shit they don't like to do they're just paying their rent to get to the weekend to not even do something they like to do just not to do the shit they are hating every day and I feel like You and me are lucky people because there's these challenges that are put in front of us and whether it's telling a story and acting or, you know, even if it's scary, you know, and standing in front of an audience, I love, I still to this day because I don't feel a lot of emotion. Maybe that's why I still like thrill rides. I'll go on every roller coaster I possibly can.

The higher it is, the faster it is, the closer to death I feel. Because it's just my adrenaline. It's just exciting. You know that if you sat on a, I don't know if you like rides, but if you sat on a ride and it didn't have a huge drop and you just, you know, the breeze goes through your hair and it went on for like five minutes. You wouldn't go, I want to go on again. But if you are screaming and it's scary and it's thrilling, you go, oh my God, I want to ride that again, that's what I look for in life. And that's what stand-up comedy, which is my favorite thing to do out of everything I do. That's what stand- Because it's dangerous.

You never know. It's scary, you know, and I try to not do, you know, obviously after almost 50 years, I've got a plethora of material to pull from. I'm always coming up with things, but I like when it's dangerous and it goes bad and I'm scared and I don't know what to do and I'm humiliated and I feel, but I can dig myself out of that. That's great. I will show up at a club here three times a week. if it's pouring out

and I'm not and they didn't announce that I was going to be there I used to go even this past winter I'd drive down to the ice house in a rainstorm and there'd be six people sitting in the audience

at midnight who sat through a million other people and that makes it fun for me that makes it like how can I work this and make this something well you must Terry is a remarkable woman

and I know how much you guys love each other. My wife. Your wife. Yes, and I got to meet her early. Well, when I met you, I met Terry. You were married. Yes. By then. By then we were married. First off, let me just say one day. When you said numb, I got sad because I love you and I know we don't hang and know each other that well, but we're not intentional friends. No. Accidental. Accidental friends. I love that phrase. But it made me sad because I do love and care for you from afar, however we describe our relationship. We can go back to how we met and all of that in a minute. But you described more of what you mean, and I'm happy because you are madly in love with your children and your wife.

And my wife, the luckiest guy in the world. I've been married for 46 years. So you're numb in a different way. I have to, in order to feel any way, I have to push it. doesn't come. I think there's a lot of people who are, see, I'm not a hypochondriac. And if you are a hypochondriac, then even physically, you're more sensitive than me. You know, I don't know when something's hurts. I, you know, I'll get an x-ray and they'll go, you know, your bone is fracture. Do you not feel it? And I'll go, yeah, you know what? I realize that I haven't been

stepping on that leg. You know, I don't. Exact opposite. Yeah. So I don't know. And, you know, I'll be deathly, before I knew, you know, I'd passed out 50 times before I knew I had AFib. Yeah. I just thought, okay, I'm working myself right to the, boy, that's a good workout. If you could work out till you are unconscious. Yeah. That's where you draw the line. I just probably didn't have enough water.

That's where I went. Like I just, I don't, I'm like an idiot. I get excited around 1.130 in the afternoon because I know a nap is coming my way. I mean, I'm joy, full of joy. I'm excited about my nap. We're very different people. Very different. I've met people who, we said this.

I think we maybe talked right before we came in. But I know people who are, you know, heads of companies or billionaires or whatever, who had dyslexia and couldn't read and was just messed up in school and, and failed horribly. Does ADHD give you something that you go, well, if I didn't have this, I wouldn't exactly have my fast brain or my ability to do, da-da-da-da.

If any of these issues that I have is considered a gift, I would like to return it or re-gifted. Well, forgive me. I don't mean to be naive and stupid, but I am wondering that. No, you know, no. But here's my thought.

I don't have a GED, and I'm not proud of that. I wish I had the opportunity to go to college. My behavior was such and undiagnosed that I cannot, I mean, the last thing you could do with me is put me in a desk from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon and just tell me stuff that is not that interesting, nor not only is it not interesting. doesn't even make sense to why you tell like what do I do with this piece of information um and so I was thrown out of three different high schools and then not you know so I have I have nothing but I am incredibly curious so what what I learned and my my theory in life this is pre-medication

oh yeah I've only been medicated since my uh the last 30 years I'm 70 this year so you know more than half of my life nobody even addressed it. I was just a crazy unhappy just trying to tread life, you know, keep my head above the water.

But what I was saying was, I truly believe that anybody with a fourth grade education could be, and I'm using the word that I don't believe in, but successful. They can be financially capable.

They can put a roof over their head. They could probably feed a family. Once you learn to read and comprehend whatever it is you read, and once you learn fourth grade math, if you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide, you have all the tools that are necessary to create a mammoth corporation.

You can't be a doctor. You won't be an engineer with that. You won't be any real, you know, a skill, but you'll be able, it's fascinating to me that even people who are adults or, you know, finish college will go, you know, I got a job and I want to buy a house. What can I afford? Why are you asking somebody what you can afford? That's fourth grade math to figure out what you can afford, you know. And one of my favorite books, and I don't think it's a well-written book, but I like his philosophy. and I was following this before I ever read or knew about him. Have you ever read Rich Dad, Poor Dad? No. Do you know of that book? So in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, He says that, you know, there are two philosophies.

We come from the same generation. That generation says that you need to get an education. You need to go to college. And then based on that, if you're able to succeed at that, with your diploma, you will be afforded opportunities that other people who don't get that with. bill. What does the average person do with that kind of thing? What's the first thing they would probably do? Ted? Spend it. Right. Buy a house. You're buying a debt. Now here's my thinking before I ever read the book. When I started making some money doing this, I didn't trust that tomorrow, and I still

don't, that tomorrow I'm going to have a job and somebody's going to write a check for me. But every dollar that comes in, every dollar that comes in, I don't care if you're making minimum wage today. Every dollar is an employee. How can I take this dollar and make this dollar work for me? I don't want to give it away. I don't want to buy a debt. How can I do that? So if I can afford with the little dollars I'm making or just barely afford a shitty two-bedroom apartment,

that's what I'm going to get because I'm going to get a shitty two-bedroom apartment and I'm going to rent out one of the rooms in there. You know, I'd rather live alone, but I'm going to rent out one of the rooms for more than half the rent. So all of a sudden, with this little money I'm making, I can make some money or live for free because I can rent out my. So the first time I had like $5,000 in the bank, we had $5,100, Terry was mad at me. We had $5,100 in the bank. Nobody was telling me what to do, but I bought a term deposit for 12 years at 15%. You know, I bought a, you couldn't take it out for 12 years, at 12%.

So I was making $12,000 on $5,000 guaranteed. I was making $500 a year. and now we had $200 in the bank. I said, don't worry, I'll try to make money so we can make the rent and we make the rent. But it was always putting money. I always wanted my money to make me money because I didn't want to rely on this.

And I've always done that. You know, I've been more involved in business than I, people know me from show, but business is my thing. I've been involved in, I loved Monopoly. I loved that game when I was a kid. I played it all the time. I like to play it now.

I'm involved in real estate as we speak. You don't have credit cards. Did you tell me that? Or am I making that up? You're making that up. I do have credit cards. But I never, I'll pay them off 100%. I never take the, I will not buy anything on a credit card, even when I first started

getting credit cards, that I'll never make that minimum payment. I wouldn't charge anything that I couldn't pay for, in full, always. There's no, I don't, there's no value to debt. The only value you have to debt is if you want to borrow against something, because you could take that money out and with that money you borrowed make more than that payment, then you should do it. But I know that from fourth grade. I'm not a high, I'm a high school dropout. You don't need to go to college and learn finance and learn all that to know that. Boy, Mary and I do not have that brain. We do not understand money. You do have that brain. Yes, you do. You just choose to not.

Okay, that's better. I choose to. I just, yeah, I just can't. I'm saying it's fourth grade math. I know you, Ted. You and Mary are smart enough. You understand. So if you would look at it, but you don't care. I was always, and you know, it's funny, you're a hypochondriac about your body, but. I'm curious. No, your body curious.

But you're not curious about your bank account. So the point is because you're both been incredibly, well, you're both successful. And you're working and working. You might pay more attention to it if you weren't working. Not everybody is as lucky as you and me. you know um i i when i sit back i go i can't believe this i can't believe i you know i live a life far beyond i lived as a child you know as far as financially and and uh i'm really lucky but i you know i also started working when i was 12 years old i wanted to be independent i had a paper route with 200

papers in the you know and i and it killed me to to lift those stacks of papers and then you had to, you didn't make money unless you collected. It was really hard to collect for that. And then I worked, I've always worked from the time I was 12 just because I wanted a couple of bucks in my pocket because I didn't want or couldn't, you know, to go to my parents and ask for money. Or I wanted a car when I turned 16. I bought my own car. You know, I just wanted that, I knew I always wanted that independence of being able to take care of myself. Right. I grew up, I grew up where my father grew up with a lot of money i mean literally upstairs downstairs you know people working in the house chauffeurs and then his father died when he was 10 and depression and all of that stuff so it

diminished greatly but he still had money then he went off to be an archaeologist and the most he and a director of a museum and the most he ever made was 10,000 a year and he got a car and a house to live in but got had very little money coming in. But the attitude in the house that was unspoken was money's not a problem, even though we don't seem to have a lot of it, which was kind of a nice thing. I didn't like depend on money for happiness,

but I never worried about it. Even when I didn't have any, I always figured, I don't know how, but somehow it will come. But you figured up maybe subliminally you were making it work, I mean, you weren't hungry. No. You didn't have a, you had a roof over you.

I'm not saying you have to be, I don't know what rich is. You don't have to be rich. You don't have to be, but I love, you see, your father is exemplifying what I just talked about. As far as contentment, I think if you look at social media today, people want to have a, you know, rolls, or people want to have the tag on their, whatever they're wearing that says Prada, you know. But the thing is that your father, I think, purposefully, walked away from even pursuing whatever he had as a child to do something that interested him. Interested in him. Yeah. Interested it.

There's an E.D. on that. Yeah. I don't know why it's not coming out of my mouth. But the point is... He followed his in... You know, he's digging. And he's success. Yes.

And that is success. Yeah. He wasn't successful until he found his contentment. Yep. His bliss. I was lucky that when I first... I found acting the second year of college,

which I just faked my way through it. I wasn't dyslexic, but I realized now that I could not read and retain. I read on holidays and love it, but it goes through me. I don't retain information well. So how do you memorize scripts?

That's kind of a short, well, here's how I do it. I have my daughter teach me the words, or I can learn hearing. I can't learn from reading. So I can, I can, but it's tedious. But anyway, I found acting and didn't have, you know, any money and living in a teeny little place. But I was so excited by acting.

It was all I cared about. I love it so much. I see that. And listen, and that's why you excel at what you do, because it's hard to excel at something that you're not enjoying. It's very funny because my wife is an agent. And I'm fascinated by how many times these, she has people on series and things like that.

But there's other people who aren't working and you don't know. And I believe you'll never know because they say no. No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that? And I'm going, listen, don't they want to just act? That's a job. Why are you looking?

Like, then you don't like it. And it's kind of like, I can remember what movie it was, but it was a comedy where they go, I want to be a star. They just want to be a movie star. They don't want to be an actor. But you've got to be an actor, you know. You can't, it's just, and what is stardom? Startom and fame is so fleeting.

It's so, it's amazing. And it's none of your business. What do you mean? Your business is to do the work. Right. To enjoy the work. Stardom and fame is somebody else laying that on you and it can fuck you up. Absolutely.

You know, so just pay attention to your job. Well, I always say that, you know, listen, I love the business, but it's really, people put so much, it's hard as somebody who's raised now they're adults, but you watch what humanity, how people perceive whatever's coming externally to them and how it changes them. And, you know, when your job in success is to go to work where somebody picks you up, and they put you in a chair and they comb your hair for you and they make you look all pretty and then they dress you and then they put a piece of tape on the floor and tell you where to stand and what to say and they'll do it four or five times and then people call you brilliant and ask you who you're going to vote for

you go like I must be really important I must be I must be something and you know you could give your your child like a much bigger self-image of themselves and we're all children. Yeah. But I find it... There's not an acting... Sorry, to interrupt.

Acting fame, success actor trap that exists out there in the world that I haven't fallen, smack dab in the middle of. Just what you just said, I remember my first interview after Cheers became kind of... Huge.

Something, but even before huge, it was my first interview. And I remember calling my sister and say, what do I say? She said, well, make sure that whatever you say you'll be okay hearing it played back to you, you know, when you watch it. But I remember it kind of got away from me. Some guy was talking, and it was during Dr. Corvokin.

Corvokin. The guy who, yeah, assisted suicide, thanks. Kervokovokin. Kovarkian. Thank you. Anyway, thank you. You should know that, Joe. It's about the body.

So that was in the, you know, euthanasia. So it was like he did this whole Cheers thing, and then he ventured into other topics, current topics. And he said, so what do you think about euthanasia? I went, oh, you know, I think they're the same all over the world. And I mean, seriously, and the poor dude didn't know, oh, he's very funny or, oh. Oh, no, they think you're brilliant. You shouldn't cop to the fact that you just misunderstood. What a brilliant joke.

What do you think about you? When you were in a comedy, thank God you were in a comedy. That's the brilliant line. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It wasn't. Now that I've kidnapped the conversation for a second, let me go back. Because thank you for having me on your podcast.

What is it called? Howie Mandel does stuff. No, I know stuff too, but it does stuff. Yeah, does stuff with your daughter, Jackie. and you had me on right before I started the second season of a man on the inside for Netflix and I was so insecure. I am always horribly insecure before I started job.

Acting. Starting a new job. Am I too old to do this? Can I remember lines? Can I blah, la la la la, whatever. I just always do that. And I showed up at your door, really insecure. And you had these, this is what I want you to talk.

talk about because I found them brilliant, but I can't even recreate. It was like a video Zoom. No, I have. Please explain it, but I knocked my socks off. So I live, I live, eat and breathe social media. And that's because my curiosity is such that I feel like in order to communicate today, our culture is changing so fast. Television is not what it was when you and I started in television. And that's the way I can keep up with pop culture. I can keep up with technology. I can keep up with news. That's the only place I get. I scroll 20 hours a day. And I scroll every platform, whether it's Instagram, even Twitch, TikTok, everything, everything. And I see things. And in the middle of COVID, I saw, I was so tired of Zooming, Zoom calls and FaceTiming and doing everything.

thing on that. It was so, at the beginning, it was kind of cool. And then I said, I saw this thing called Proto. Spel it. P-R-O-T-O. Protohogram is the handle on it. And I said, this thing looked great. It was a 3D full-body image where you can project yourself anywhere in the world in any number of places in the world. Don't know. Like a Zoom. You use Wi-Fi? On adrenaline. Yeah. I didn't know that when I first looked at it. I didn't know how it was, but I saw a 3D image. A guy was in another place on the planet, and he was talking to this whole room of students,

and he was standing there virtually in the room and interacting in real time, and I just DM'd direct messaged. You're having trouble with your E.Ds, but go on. I know. It's past tense. Sorry, go on. I didn't mean interrupt.

I'm living in that. No, no, you didn't interrupt. You called it as it was in the month. moment. Okay, but go on, please. You interrupted. E.D., it worked. Okay. So the point was, I just direct message the guy who was running the site, and I went, how can I work with you? And he, right away, he got back to me, and he said, come see it. And they were in Pasadena, and I saw this thing. And it's really, they were, he was originally with a company that put Tupac at Coachella. And if you know that technology, that's called Pepper's Ghost. And it's like,

like you see at Disneyland, where they just project something on an opaque screen, like a see-through screen. And then if you light something behind it, it looks like what's ever on the screen is with what's ever behind it. So they were projecting Tupac on that. And then they had Snoop. Snoop was actually there behind them, and it looked like they did a duet together. He said, how can I take something that images and people that are now and not have to light a whole room and not, and he created this proto-hologram. machine. And I saw this and I was so intrigued by it. I said, and he goes, we're moving. I'm looking for bigger space. I have, I said, I have space. I have. You have a studio. I have a studio. I have

warehouses. I have a place. Come do it at my, I invested in the company and their head office now. We're in 39 countries. The head office is at my office. Right now we're partners with Christy's. Christy's has done over $5 billion with the business in the last seven months. They do all their art auctions on these from all over the world. So you can see a 360-degree visual of a piece of art. And you don't have to be at the auction. That could be anywhere all over the world in real time. So they get it in front of more eyes.

I was there when they sold a Jacamati sculpture for like $40 million based on a picture. They don't have to pick up the art and fly it to a location. insure it so the carbon footprint is less they don't have to take security there it could just stay wherever in a secure spot and and the image live is there we're also virtually essentially a software company so we partnered with AI companies and now i can take your image in 90 seconds i can take you ted recreate you in three-dimensional um an image of you you're in a room you don't have to be there. Like they could just draw from AI.

People should go to a proto hologram and see what's happening. But you could be on your iPhone, in your underwear, in your room, looking through the camera on that box that exists, and you could talk your image standing there, well-dressed, groomed, and everything is standing there saying whatever you're saying. Their mouth is articulating exactly what you're saying. So they're talking to Ted. You could see the whole room, but you're lying in bed someplace,

and they're looking at you. By the same token, wherever that is in any... Whatever country. Whatever country. So say you're in Mexico and you're doing a speech in Mexico, you go, hi, everybody, how are you?

And you're Ted, in your voice, in perfect lip sync with no is going, Ola, and you're talking Spanish. If they have a question to you and they ask the question of Ted Danson in Spanish, you hear it back in English. So you can have a full, with no latency conversation with anybody. People are using it at MIT. They're using it at colleges.

They're using it in hospitals. They're using it into, you know, I've talked about this before, but I have a grandchild that's immune compromised. So, you know, if you want to visit somebody, but you can't be there, you're actually interacting and you don't feel on Zoom, you feel like you're doing a FaceTime call. This you see and the return is like you're in the room. It's one of the most amazing things, it's something I'm very excited, but I always love technology and I like new ways of doing things. Is there a fearful thing, you know, when you talk about AI and you talk about acting and you talk about all of that stuff? You go, oh God, I'm being left behind, you know. Well, I think when you see AI right now is top of mind in most people's, especially in a, well, not

maybe especially in our business. I would imagine even in manufacturing because they're going, it's going to take away our jobs. They're going to be able to copy. But I find, but I find, that the more fear something creates probably it's equivalent to how exciting it's going to be. And my analogy is like when they first invented fire, you know, you could get burned. Yeah, it can burn things, it can destroy things, but it also can be used. And the fact that you can create, um, create. and control your delivery system and how many different places you can be delivered

and how you can do, ultimately you have to be able to prompt it, you have to be able to deliver it, you can control it if you want. I get the, you know, existential fear of somebody taking control of you, but I don't have that. And I do believe this is the universe,

this is the world we're in, stay curious. Give me my 20 minutes. nap and then I'll be curious and I'll try to keep up with you. But you have curiosity. Oh, I do. I know you do. Do you have it? Do you think you got that, you know, it's genetic? I think your dad who just by virtue of who he was and what you described to me, he's digging for shit. That's, you know, that's what an amazing, what an amazing to just be, you know, an explorer to discover. There's also a philosophical thing that really served me well, which is this. This

This life is not just about you. It's about your stewardship of what you've been given. And that kind of became a overriding thing. You know, people ask us in our business, you know, the questions that were asked, and this is where I realized fame is nothing. You know, my daughter, one of my daughters, the one who I do the podcast with, has a master's in urban education and taught every day

and Crenshaw in South Central and the people, she taught kindergarten first and second grade. And some of the kids that she taught and inspired so much are still calling her from college. And we walk into a room together and people gather around me. Me, they gather around me because I'm on TV and I'm an idiot

who put a fucking rubber glove on your head. This is a woman who changes people's lives. This is a mother who is, you know, just, she's a superhero. She really is an amazing, my daughter. And you realize that our, how fucked up our world is that people want to,

they want me to sign something, they want to look at me, they want to talk to me. I have done nothing in comparison to what my daughter has done for no money. They really, they're underpaid, under respected, under,

you know, education is not big in this country. But if you pretend, if you pretend, you know, they love you. Everybody loves you. I learned early on that being famous when it first started

to build with chairs was like being a four-year-old in the middle of a room full of adults and everyone focusing on you. It can spin you out. Just the energy of that can spin you out. And I learned how to early on deflect that and make use of that energy coming my way.

So I was the guy in front of the tent saying, thank you for watching, cheers. Hey, there's this marine biologist behind me that I think you should really talk to. So I'm the guy in front of the tent. And you used it. Inside the tent is really important. But you used your fame, not for yourself,

but you used your fame. The world is better. And people say all the time to us, You know, how do you want to be remembered? What's your legacy, the last actors and pretenders? Well, I always say, first of all, I will not be remembered. I know for a fact. You can ask anybody in this room.

Joe, what is the first name of your grandfather's father? Your grandfather's father. What was his first name? I don't know. Yes. There you go. So that's her family members. Well, you can just ask people, you know, Jack Nicholson or, you know, if they're young enough, they don't know them.

But I'm saying people don't, they forget their own families. They're going to remember me. They're going to remember a show. They're going to remember. I will not be remembered. Our legacy, not how I want to be remembered, is our children, is the people we touch. If you can make this world a better place, if you created enough of an energy that people donated to the oceans and cleaned up something. Or if your kids are taking inspiration from whatever you and they're just good people, you just want them to be nice.

That's my, I just want nice. I just want people to respect. Kind. We don't have it, but there's so much disrespect in this world. I think that's the ultimate. You don't respect somebody who thinks, who doesn't think like you, who doesn't believe what you believe. All of a sudden, you disrespect them. I just want respectful. So how I'll be remembered, I'm just, my daughter's calling me right now, but it's okay. Dad, get out. Do it. Can I answer it? Yes. Yes. Is this Jackie? I think it is. Yes. Well, then she's fair game. Hello? Put her on Mike. Yeah, I'm talking to Ted, and I'm right in the middle. It's Jack, it's Jackie.

It's not done. Say, say hi to Ted. Hi. That's Jackie. Hi, Jackie. I remember you. I'm good. I remember you fondly from our, you know, our podcast that we did together.

Thank you so much. How are you? Oh, it was my pleasure. I had fun. I'll let you guys go, though, okay? Okay. It's all good. Everything's good, right?

Yep. Okay. I'll call you back after. Bye. I'm also a very worried person. If you get a call from a child or anything, I just, I'm, I worry. But I see, just hearing my daughter's voice. I know.

It gives me a little. Yeah. She's my, that's my first, too. That was my first. Jackie's my first. She's 40. Was she there when we met? No.

She's 40. What year did we do the? 85. She was born in 84. She was probably an infant. She was probably an infant. Yours are a little older than mine, right? 45 down to 41, and there's four of them.

I've got three. It's 40 down to 32. Yeah. And my two girls are married and have given me grandchildren, and my son I live vicariously through Instagram on it. Have you noticed that your seat on the bus has gone back a few rows as the, yeah, a little bit. Yes. Yeah.

Our kids are not finding it as quite as fascinating as they used to. No, I thought, you know, and when you have kids, is you think because you think of your parents and you go well you know what i can imagine this must be i must be a cool dad i must be i have never you know it's the dichotomy between people celebrating you and asking you questions and want to know about all the youth in in asia to the fact of uh to being the biggest embarrassment just for existing yeah you know it's so weird you could drop me off here dad well the school is like another block Dad, just drop me off here.

Yeah. You know, and so embarrassed of my existence. The rare occasion when NBC would send a limo to pick me up to do something, and I said, well, can I drop my kids off? And so the kids would get in, and they went, oh, no, no, no, no. You drop us four blocks away. Jackie tells a story about, because she would never say that I was her dad. You know, I was on St. Elsewhere at the time.

And she had a friend over that, apparently was her friend for a year, ready. And I'm always, I was always on the road. I was doing 300 live days a year as a stand-up. And she says, this friend came into the room and said, left the room for a minute and got something and said, you know who's in your house? Howie Mandel is in your house? And Jackie goes, really? Like that, this can't be the smartest kid in the, your last name is Mandel. It's just, but she was amazed. But they never even shared. And they always. thought, you know, when you grew up in the world, you think it'd be cool to have, I remember my kids coming home and saying, you know, Josh's dad sells cars, all those cars, he sold all those

cars. Like, this was nothing, you know, but it kind of puts it in perspective. It is nothing. Oh, thank God. Thank God. It is nothing. Yeah. You know, but, but you know what? We are really lucky. I feel for the most part, like one of the luckiest guys on earth, first for my wife and kids. And secondly, the fact that I've got a place to go and people like you still call me and want to talk to me. I didn't have a friend in the world when I was a kid. And somebody that wants to just sit and spend a moment with me. This, by the way, is one of my greatest joys during this podcast. It's one of the great privileges of my life.

And nobody cried. No, I can make people cry on this, so I'm very good. Not with you, I don't think. Have you had a lot of tears? No, I touched people. I almost made Joe cry at the beginning. All right. Let me do one last thing about you.

You are so supportive of people's creativity and America's Got Talent. I love, first off, because I like seeing you in the sour, I get to see you. We love the show. It is, it is. Come to a lot of taping. Yeah, we will. Would you? We would.

Absolutely. Any Tuesday and Wednesday. It's just fun. Yeah. I can imagine. Do you know Sophia and? No, no, none of them all, but no. Great people.

But you are. You celebrate people. people and that's a pretty neat job. It's an amazing job. I didn't think it was a job. You know, it's the 20 years, 15 years, 15 years. I've been on it for 16 years. It's 20 years old.

I can, you know, I can't believe that, you know, that I'm lucky enough to be there. I'm doing everything. I wasn't there for the first four seasons. I never missed an episode. I'm not doing anything different than I was doing watching it at home with no pants on and commenting, and now they've given me pants and a paycheck, and I got a really good seat. And I'm saying the same things. It was really hard, it was a hard adjustment. Because when we first, when I first went to the show, I don't know if people remember at the

beginning, we used to go from city to city. So, um, auditioning. Yeah. So we'd go like tonight from Dallas. And, you know, what would happen is anybody who walked up on stage was their hometown person. Yeah. And they supported them because they wanted somebody from Dallas to win. At first, it was really hard for me. I never, at best, I want to be constructively, my criticism to hopefully be constructive. I mean, I never want to be mean. I don't want it to hurt you.

I want somebody to go, oh, yeah, if I come back, I'm going to, this is what I need to do. This is what, you know, it's a hard position to be in. I think all of us, whether you're on television and in a film or we feel judged anyway. But what would happen is if I said, like, maybe you should try this a different song. Maybe your voices, you should do like something more. 2,000 people sitting behind me would boo me, boo. And that was really hard as somebody who's, you know, come to this business to be accepted, to be coddled, to be just enjoyed, to be entertained.

it was really hard, but what I learned is, if I'm not authentic to myself, if I don't say whatever, if I'm not honest, I got more heat, which I see online for just, you know, just trying to be and pandering. I'm not pandering. So I'm now comfortable with being uncomfortable sometimes being myself, like not knowing what to say. When did your mom and dad passed? Because they were alive when I met you. Well, my mother is still. alive. Oh, sorry, thanks. Don't cut that part out.

No, don't cut this part out. Do not cut this part out. All right. Well. Because it's a good question. How old is she? 93. 92.

Oh, you've got good genes. You'll be around. No, so here's the thing. My dad passed very young. My dad passed at 63 in 1989. And he was my like rock. He was, he, you know, came to every show. He had more energy than me.

He died of lung cancer. And I wanted to quit comedy when he died. It was just really hard for me. And even to this day, I'm on stage like three, four times a week. And every time it gets a laugh, I look over to the wings. Because that's where I always been trying to make him laugh. And I feel like he's still with me. My mother, who is also an amazingly wonderful, funny woman who I talk to every day of my life,

I never missed a day of talking to her until the last two years she's in late stage dementia Alzheimer's now and the heartbreaking thing about her is she doesn't know who I am anymore which is really tough and philosophically you go

listen we're all going to go nobody's getting out of here alive but do you want to go physically first or mentally first and now she's in a I believe and hope that she's incredibly comfortable, but there was a time where she was aware. She's a very intelligent, intuitive woman who even my friends would go to for advice,

and she was really aware of losing that faculty and her memories, which was a torture. I'm glad that she's on the comfortable side of it. And it was also, you know, In order, my panacea was always, and our whole families was humor to try to get through. I'll never forget, like, it was really hard. I put her in assisted living. There's a few years back.

I put her in assisted living, and, you know, she loved roses. She loves roses. And on one of her birthdays, she'd already started having dementia and, like, memory loss and things like that. And one of her birthdays in her 80s, I sent a dozen roses every hour. to her and I would send and you know I figured after the first dozen came she would call me and go how yeah I got the roses she was always so pleasant so wonderful never a mean word her lesson to me was if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything always that's what I always heard being nice being respectful was always her motto and next hour roses came the next hour they came the next

hour they came. And after like 10 hour, she had 10 dozen roses, I finally called her to think maybe they were delivering it to the wrong thing. And my mother never swore, never said anything. And this was like, she was in the throes of dementia. And I called her. And I said, mom, she goes, I can't talk now. And I go, what's wrong? She goes, get me out of this fucking hole that you put me in. I go, what did I do? What is this? What's wrong? She goes, out of all the places, the gardener is storing all his fucking flowers in my apartment. So you've got to laugh. You got to laugh.

And so it's a journey. Life is a journey. You have to find your ways to cope. But I was always very close to my family. I talk to my brother every day. And family is all we have. It really is, you know. I so admire you and respect you and I love who and how you are.

I feel the same about you, buddy. I'm really glad that you spent time with. I would do anything for you. called me and needed a favor. But I mean it. You know, there are certain people that just call me. We don't, we don't communicate a lot. This is a weird world that we live in where you work closely.

We met on a movie, on a Blake Edwards movie in the mid-80s. And we spent like three months every day working together and had a lot of good times. And then you part and we're busy people with very different worlds. spend time with your family when you have it. Yeah, and that's what you do. And so these moments and these times where we can come back together and talk and share some time are greatly appreciated.

Me too. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. Yeah, take care. Howie, if you're listening, thank you. I had the best time. America's Got Talent is now in its 20th season. Tune in Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on NBC, and the next day on Peacock. That's our show for this week. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco.

If you enjoy this episode, send it to someone you love. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you're in the mood. If you like watching your podcasts, all our full-length episodes are on YouTube. Visit YouTube.com slash team cocoa. See you next time, where everybody knows your name. You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow, our executive producers are Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer, Engineering, and Myrtle.

mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Grawl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Battista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antoni Genn, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.