Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Carol Burnett
Episode Date: April 1, 2024Comedy legend Carol Burnett feels so much love for Conan O’Brien. Carol sits down with Conan to discuss her introduction to the comedic arts, memorable tales from The Carol Burnett Show, meeting an...d learning from Lucille Ball, and making new friends on the set of Palm Royale. Later, Conan himself recalls the rip-roaring days of his early career. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.
Transcript
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Hi, my name is Carol Burnett.
And I feel so much love for Conan O'Brien.
Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk and lose,
climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are gonna be friends.
I can tell that we are gonna be friends.
Hey, Conan here.
I just gave a short exhale before I started, and it made Matt laugh.
Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.
This is, what was they would say, probably in the 1890s, a corker.
We've got a corker today.
I'm joined by my pal, Sona. Hi, Conan. This is, what was they would say, probably in the 1890s, a corker, we've got a corker today.
I'm joined by my pal, Sona.
Hi, there's an insect.
What's that?
Flying on this tree.
Okay, let me explain where we are, settle down.
We're not in the woods in Brazil.
We are in a very nice hotel suite, which we booked
because our very special guest
is Carol Burnett.
She's here, she's doing a junket.
And definitely we don't move for anybody,
they come to us.
But when it's Carol Burnett, we packed up our shit
when we got here as fast as we could.
And we got a room full of insects.
And then we're in this room,
and Sona, you have not been able to focus yet.
It's so close, I just-
I don't fear an insect.
It's just so close to your face.
Yeah, what's probably attracted the hairspray.
Okay. A lot of it.
Do you see it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's bugs, there are these two
and I don't wanna now say the name of the hotel,
it's a very fancy hotel.
I don't wanna denigrate them in any way,
but there are bugs swimmingarming around these beautiful,
beautiful plants, tall plants.
And I'm worried because Carol Burnett's gonna be here
and we'll probably have to spray the place
before she gets in, you know?
We're pretending we didn't do the interview already?
I don't know.
Oh, okay.
Well, I just go with what you set up.
I like to lay out realities and Matt knows to go along.
We did it already.
Maybe she brought those bugs in.
I saw her release a vial of bugs at one point.
Do you think?
Yeah, it was incredible.
I'm sorry, I tried to say, oh, we have Carol.
I tried to build like an old show business,
some suspense like Carol Burnett's coming.
This is gonna be exciting.
And then immediately, Sonya, you went,
what do you mean?
We already talked to her and there's bugs here.
Well, you just completely deflated our bouncy castle.
I ruined it, I'm sorry, I am sorry.
No, you're not, you love ruining it.
I'm not sorry, I really didn't,
I don't know if I should feel bad,
because you're lying.
And I needed to point- It's just lying with the soft-
Don't do it, right here.
Well, I can't wait till she gets here,
because it'll be nice for you to meet her.
Okay.
Because you didn't already.
I will say this, which is unusual.
Gorley, you are always a smartly dressed fellow.
Sona, and do not take this personally,
but you have very casual attire.
You own one jacket, I believe it belonged to Dr. Zayas
on Planet of the Apes.
It's a well-worn leather coat that you've had,
I guess you found it in a bin somewhere a long time ago.
But anyway, you're not someone who dresses up a lot.
You look fantastic today.
You, you went all out for Carol Burnett.
I really respect her, her.
And I wanna look good for her.
Usually most of the time when we're recording,
there's no reason I should look good. Because
I don't care about what other people like you think about me.
Wait a minute. I know, but I'm saying.
I'm sorry. I really did.
I mean, there are similarities I have with Cobernet. We are both inspirations to women.
Red hair and it stops there, I think.
No, it doesn't stop with red hair. Many women got into comedy
because they thought I was a woman.
No, no, no, no.
They were inspired that I got the late night show in 93.
And then later on they figured out I wasn't,
but by then it was too late, you know.
So yes.
Yeah, but I did dress up for her.
And also I dressed up for the hotel because it's nice.
It's a very nice hotel, except for the bugs.
Yeah, I know.
I'm sorry, that distracted me.
And then I drove up here and my car is really dirty and there's a leak in it.
And so the inside of my car is kind of smells a little moldy.
Let me ask you a question.
You said there's a leak in your car, not that your car is leaking, which would mean oil,
antifreeze, one of the other brake fluid.
What is leaking in your car?
I think we have a sunroof and I think water is coming into the car from the sunroof
and it rained a lot.
Do you close the sunroof?
We do, it's closed.
So you have a mildewy car that's full of trash?
Yes.
You brought the insects in.
I think I did.
That's incredible, of course,
because they could nest in your hair.
Your hair is...
Oh.
I'm out, I'm out.
First the hard Gs, then the hair. Why am I in the clothes?
Why am I here?
No, no, listen, I made a joke about hairspray.
I'm not wearing hairspray,
but you do use various waxes, oils, balms, yes?
You are using hairspray.
No, that's not hairspray.
What is it?
I don't wanna say.
Okay. Why?
It's old mayonnaise.
It's a great trick that I learned.
You brought the insight.
I learned it from Danny K.
You get mayonnaise, you let it cure in the sun
for a couple of weeks, and once the smell is gone
and it's hardened, you put it in your hair
and it gives it great volume.
Okay.
And then I did that and then mistakenly
I let my son eat it.
But six weeks later he was out of the hospital.
Oh my God.
These stories.
This is so stupid.
I'm so stupid.
I can't wait to meet Carol Burnett.
Yes, a true comedy legend who knows what she's doing I can't wait to meet Carol Burnett.
Yes, a true comedy legend who knows what she's doing
and doesn't just babble about.
We did this after,
because if we did this truly before,
I don't think we would have felt worthy.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I know that too.
I mean, I still don't, but.
No, no, I know, but I'm gonna stick with my reality.
The reality is we already did the interview
with Carol Burnett and it's fantastic,
but I'm sticking with my old show business reality,
which is that she hasn't entered the room yet.
There are no bugs.
Your hair looks fantastic.
My hair is amazing.
As this is the reality I'm sticking with.
You're a good assistant.
Oh!
And we're thrilled and we're excited
and we hear footsteps coming down the hall right now.
She's coming right now. we better get this going.
I hear her, listen.
No, no, what is she on a horse?
You know this is on video too.
Is she, what is she coming here with?
She's walking, but someone put horseshoes on her,
which is just, I don't know why they did that.
Oh, she's probably doing a bit,
or maybe it's the new fashion.
Here she comes. No, that's probably doing a bit, or maybe it's the new fashion. Here she comes.
No, that's bad.
The door is opening.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
. Whatever you like That's a horse. That's a horse. Okay. Did the horse open the door? No, this is the horse.
I'm a horse.
She's standing right there.
Hold on, Carol.
I'm finished with this bit in a minute.
Carol, just calm down.
No, no, Carol, stand still.
Okay.
Oh.
Wow.
Oh, jeez.
Yes, I don't know.
Her voice changed rapidly.
Just stand still.
And yeah, and then the door opened.
Eee, I'm a door.
The door said I'm a door?
And all my sound effects,
the sound effect ends up saying what it is.
Okay. Through this before.
Anyway, enough screwing around
because you've just heard some solid C plus comedy.
Let's get to the ultimate master.
My guest today is a comedy legend
who hosted the Carol Burnett show for 11 seasons.
Now you can see her in the Apple TV plus series,
Palm Royale.
It says I'm honored.
Carol Burnett, welcome.
I really do adore you. I think you're so terrific.
I, well, I can't handle that.
My, I don't know if you could see it, but my soul just left my body because I have to
tell you something and we have met before.
Oh yes.
I'll never forget the first time you came on the show.
My parents called me and said, how did you get Carol Burnett?
Because you are in the stratosphere.
I'm sure you hear this all the time.
But when I was a boy growing up in Brooklyn, Massachusetts,
on Saturday nights, we would all huddle in our living room.
And there was one heat vent that had the heat coming out of it.
And we would fight to see who got to sit on the heat vent.
And we would watch that amazing night of television.
That Saturday night lineup, which was absolutely.
All in the family, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore,
Bob Newhart and us.
And you'd watch it and it was just this fireworks display.
And then my feeling about it was always that the biggest,
they always save that huge firework for the end.
You would come on and we would all sit there and watch it.
I've interviewed you several times.
I have bumped into you in different places.
I've stalked you.
I've been escorted out of your home, dressed as the gardener.
I've been escorted out of your home, dressed as the gardener,
but I'm driving here today
and my assistant had to drive me today.
I said, you need to drive me
because I just need to think about the fact
that I'm gonna be seeing Carl Burnett again.
And one of the first things I wanted to talk about
that we explore a lot on this podcast,
we talk a lot about comedy
and we talk a lot about
where does it come from?
And there's this common belief that it has to come from,
you need some kind of tragedy.
And you of course had some sadness as a child
and you went through a lot.
Well, you know what, sadness, whatever,
I actually had kind of a happy childhood for the most part.
And, you know, my parents, there was a problem,
but I knew I was loved. They were alcoholics. And so I was raised by my grandmother. We were poor,
but everybody in the neighborhood was. Our rent was, get this, a dollar a day. $30 a month was our rent. And sometimes we barely made that.
But we did save our pennies. And my grandmother and I, we lived a block north of Hollywood
Boulevard. We moved out from Texas. You were in Texas and then you moved
with your grandmother and you're living. Yeah. And we were living in this apartment building.
My mother lived down the hall
and my grandmother and I were in one room
and with a pull down Murphy bed and I slept on the couch.
But we would go to, we'd say, as I said,
we'd save our pennies and we'd see maybe four movies a week
which would be double features.
So that would be eight movies a week, second run.
The movies were my salvation.
My fantasy was I would go and I'd see Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, these wonderful MGM
musicals where they would say, we're going to put on a show and then have it.
Hey, let's put on a show.
We're going to put on a show in the barn and then it's going to go to Broadway.
So everything was always upbeat. The bad guys got their just desserts.
And nothing, when I was growing up in the 40s, was cynical.
And I just had this naive, optimistic quality that,
and I think it came from the movies,
that everything was gonna work out okay.
It's what they imprinted on you too, I think,
because clearly you were such a shapeshifter
in your comedy and all those amazing sketches
and in your different performances and movies.
I believe if at an early age,
you see a wide variety of ways that you can be funny
and you're young, it imprints on you.
Well, I didn't know I could be funny.
I was a nerd in school.
I wouldn't know anything about that.
I was a good-
You're gonna have to help me,
because that was an incredible job
and a real leading man material.
That's why we connect.
That's why it's exactly,
I have a little nerd clubhouse you can join, yeah.
No, and I thought I would be a journalist,
because I was editors, school papers, and I thought I would be a journalist because I was an editor of school papers and
stuff like that. And it never occurred to me to be a performer at all. And so I wanted to go to UCLA
to major in journalism, but we couldn't afford it. It was funny. I saw myself on campus. I knew it
was going to happen. I just didn't know how, right? So,
my grandma, we lived in this one room and it faced the lobby and there was a pigeon
hole mailboxes for each apartment or each room and ours was there and I'd look out
every morning to see if we had a letter in our little slot. So, this one morning
there was a letter and I, oh but first guess what the tuition was
that we couldn't afford to go to UCLA.
This is gonna break my heart
because I'm gonna have two kids in college
and it's gonna break my heart.
Tell me what the tuition was.
Guess, 1951.
Was it $1,000, $2,000, what was it?
$43.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Okay, I need an ATM machine and a time machine.
$43.
Okay.
But we couldn't afford it because our rent was, you know what I'm saying?
Sure, sure.
So anyway, now I get this letter and I bring it back into my room and it's typewritten
to Carol Burnett, 6434 Yacou Street, Hollywood.
Oh my God.
Look at you.
Okay. You know, with a little three cent stamp on it.
I opened it up and there was a $50 bill.
To this day, I do not know where that came from, but that was my entrance to UCLA.
That's like a, an angel story.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And so I got to go to UCLA, but they did not have a major in journalism.
I could take a course and join the Daily Bruin newspaper.
So I got the catalog and I'm looking through it,
it said theater arts English,
theater arts theater, theater arts film,
theater arts. And I said,
theater arts English. Well, I love to write.
I thought, well, I'll major in that and take
the playwriting courses and all of
that. But when you were a freshman in theater arts, whether you wanted to direct or write or
whatever, you had to take an acting course, you had to take scenery building, you had to take
costume, so forth and so on. So I'm a freshman and I had to take an acting course. I was terrified
freshman and I had to take an acting course.
I was terrified and I had to get up and do a little scene or something.
And I remember, uh, the scene where it would be a,
uh, a hillbilly woman and I'm, I'm from Texas
and Arkansas, so that came easily.
So I went out and I read this scene and everybody laughed where they should and I kind of liked that
feeling. And then after I'd done that, then some of the kids asked me if I'd be in a couple of one
acts that they wrote, they'd put on. Pretty soon I was starting to do that and getting that kind of response, which I had never dreamed I would ever get,
because had there been a major in journalism,
I wouldn't be here talking to you now about all of this.
Well, you screwed up.
Yeah, I did.
I did.
If this is the big prize you get
at the end of this incredible story, you made a mistake.
I can relate very much to it because I loved comedy
and watched comedy.
I was a nerd, went to a very good school
because I was a grind.
I worked very hard and thought,
well, I considered journalism.
I thought I'll just do some serious work.
Maybe I'll get into the law and then found my way.
How did you do it? There was I, there was a magazine at Harvard called
the Harvard Lampoon and I just heard that there
were, and I didn't even know what it was.
And I went and they, and I heard it was very
competitive and they're mean and they cut people
out and I just started writing cause I'd always
loved writing funny things and it was like
falling off a log.
I did it.
They said, who is this guy that led to me
performing that led to me being a log, I did it. They said, who is this guy that led to me performing,
that led to me being a comedy writer first.
But the thing that imprinted on me when I was young,
I would say to my influences when I was very young
was Bob Newhart, yourself and that amazing Carol Burnett
show and Warner Brothers cartoons.
And I think you can take those three,
and no offense to Bob, but if I had to,
he can drop out and it'll be Warner Brothers cartoons
and you, and I know Bob well enough to be able to say that.
But that's all the comedy class you need,
in timing, in just the joy of performing comedy.
So that was in me somewhere.
I had just watching you do your thing and it
wasn't just the sketches.
You did something that was very unusual at the
time, question and answer.
You did a Q and a segment on the Colburn at show.
And I remembered that blew my mind that you could
stand out there in front of people, not hide behind a character and talk to people.
And you'd see real people in the audience
ask you questions.
Yeah, yeah.
I maintain, and I've said this before to people,
human beings have this crazy ability to know
when something is organic.
They know when it's rehearsed
and they know when it's spontaneous.
I don't know why we know when it's spontaneous.
I don't know why we know, but we do.
And I would watch those segments and see you be
funny in the moment in front of back then these,
you know, half the country is watching.
And I thought, where did that come from?
The guts to do that on CBS, one of the most
watched shows on television, you know, that walking without a net on a tightrope. Well, what happened was when we were going to do that on CBS, one of the most watched shows on television, you know, that walking
without a net on a tightrope.
Well, what happened was when we were going to do the show, the producer, executive producer,
Bob Banner said, Carol, you know, instead of having a comic come out and warm up the
studio audience, you should come out as yourself before you get into all those sketches with
your fat suits and blacked out teeth and fright wigs and all of that so that they get to know you
and just open it up to Q&A. And I said, hi, you, I don't think I can do that. I mean,
I'd be too frightened. I'd be afraid that they wouldn't ask anything or that if they did,
I wouldn't have a good answer.
He said, well, we'll put some plants in the audience.
I said, no, if we're going to do it,
and if I can have egg on my face,
at least they'll know it's real.
You can't fake that.
Got to be real. Then I said, okay, we'll do like the first four shows,
four weeks, and if it's terrible, goodbye,
we won't do it anymore.
So I went out there, first show, I was terrified.
And some people did ask a question or two,
but I mean, if you look at the first episode,
I was really goofy.
It was that good. But then it aired. And then the next week, some people would come and
they were ready to ask questions and ready. And then I started to get into the groove
and love it. And it was, it became one of my favorite things to do. And it was, it was
great because I would do maybe about 15 minutes.
And then we do the show.
If the show was long, we'd only have maybe five or five minutes of Q and A, or
if it's short, we would have do the whole 15 minutes.
But some of the stuff that we did that people were just wonderful.
There was this one woman, she looked like B. Arthur
when B. did Maude.
Yes, kind of imposing a little fierce.
Yeah, yeah, and she got up, she raised her hand
and I called on her and she said,
I wanna come up and sing.
And I said, come on up.
Well, she was up there like that.
And I said, what's your name? And I remember she said, come on up. You know, well, she was up there like that. And I said, what's your name?
I remember she said, Terry McCann.
And I said, so what do you want to sing Terry?
And we had a 28 piece orchestra over there.
She said, looked at the band and she said, you made me love you in the key of G.
You made me love you. And the audience was laughing and she went, okay, okay, okay.
And then she started, you made me love you.
I didn't want it.
She was really, she was good.
Now I came in and I started to join with her. Yeah.
So we were wailing away and really, cause I knew
the song, she knew the song, you know, and the
audience was clapping and all, you know, and then
comes to where we're going to end it, right?
I had a different way that I thought it should end
from what she is.
Cause I went, you know, you made me love you.
Yeah, yeah.
I wanted that, she had a different way.
So after all this wailing, clapping and everything,
it was kind of petered out, you know?
And she looked at me and she said, you screwed it up.
I love that it's the Carol Burnett show
and she's whatever she is.
Millie O'Sullivan is telling you, you screwed up.
Maybe it was actually Bea Arthur.
Yeah, it was Bea Arthur in a wig.
Well, you know what?
Later on I heard from some of her relatives,
about maybe five years ago, she died at the age 100
and they played this at her memorial.
You know, I was thinking about when you just said you had a 28 piece orchestra.
And I was thinking about it because I want to get this straight. 28, this, the show that you did,
which ran on CBS from 1967 to 1978,
it won 25 Emmys.
Why?
It could not exist today.
It doesn't, that world doesn't exist anymore.
You had a 28 piece orchestra
and you had 65 to 70 costumes a week.
Do the math in 11 years, Bob Mackey designed
over 17,000 costumes.
Jesus.
But I mean, it was a time when I don't think we'll see that again, where you,
you had a large portion of the country watching.
And that meant because of the advertising power and the star power of the people
that would come by, it worked out.
It was very different.
And you know, what's happening now to variety is it just is getting, you have
that feeling every now and then you'll, you'll pick up a magazine, the newsstand
and it weighs next to nothing because everything's online and it's a magazine
that's a famous magazine that's been around forever and it's glossy,
but it's like 15 pages long.
And I think that's what's happening in a lot of talk
and variety too is it's unimaginable to have.
Also, you know, when we were casting and everything,
and I was fortunate enough to get Harvey,
who was brilliant, and Tim didn't come on the show as a regular
till the ninth season.
You know what's so funny?
Most people don't know that Harvey Corman always knew
and I was lucky enough to have him on the show
and he came on and lay on the couch
like it was a psychiatrist couch.
And he was wearing like a safari jacket
and I was crying, I was laughing so hard.
And then Tim, we were lucky enough to have him on
a bunch of times.
But you think of Tim as always being there ninth season.
Yeah, but we had him on as a regular guest quite often,
but he was doing other shows.
He did had a Tim Conway variety hour at one point,
but nothing that he ever did lasted more than 13 weeks.
He even had his license plate 13 weeks.
But one of my favorite Conway stories is he did a film comedy called Rango.
And it was film where he was this inept cowboy.
Yeah.
Tim needs an audience where he can just go and so they're filming and it was not good.
It was not good that he was kind of horn-swagged.
He couldn't do what he usually did.
He's in a vacuum because he's on a film set.
Yeah, so now they're on location.
And this guy from ABC is going to come and tell Tim that the show is canceled.
But Tim didn't know it yet.
So he's in his motorhome,
he's changing for the next scene and whatever.
There's a knock on the thing and the guy who came in from ABC was very nervous.
It was like he was an underling.
He said, hi. He said, Mr. Conway,
I'm Warren Tartt, I'm from ABC.
And Tim said, yes, hi.
And he said, well, stop doing this.
Stop doing this?
Oh my God.
Stop doing this.
Stop doing this.
That's how they cancel it.
I was told stop doing this many times and I never listened. I think that's the magic is you just don't listen.
But also, you know, when you talk about the back then, no network today would let me hire
Vicki Lawrence.
She was right out of high school.
She was 18 years old.
I'd seen her in a contest,
then she won. And we were looking for a gal that would play in an occasional sketch as my kid's
sister. And she looked a lot like me and we hired her on the spot. Today, no network would let me
do that. No experience. Right. Well, you had a degree of power.
I mean, you clearly knew what you were doing
and you could say, this is gonna work.
I always thought Lyle Wagner was an amazing choice
because you wouldn't think, you've got everything you need.
You don't need this handsome fella there,
but then you used him so well and he was terrific.
He grew as a comedian.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah.
But I mean, a lot of it is, I think your show had such a deep bench of comedic ability,
you could do anything.
I also think it represented a time when people had a common reference point.
I think now there's so much media and people are so fractured that it's very hard
to parody one thing and everybody knows what you're talking about.
So there was an era where you could do so many of your parodies of famous movies were
movies that we all knew, like Gone With the Wind.
Today I think it's a different time.
It's hard for everyone to agree on one thing that they've seen and
know all the nuances and know all the little bits like when you're taking the curtains
out of the window to me. Oh, I just saw it in the window. And that's a famous line. I
don't know if you could have a home run like that today.
I don't know, but there were times when we would do, we would do takeoffs on movies that weren't that
well known, but they, but they were funny in their
own right.
So if you knew it, it was twice as funny.
You know, I remember we did one, there was a
movie that Joan Fontaine was in called Born to be
Bad and it was bad.
Truth in advertising.
I forget what we called it,
something to be evil or whatever.
But so I was doing a takeoff on that character,
and it was very funny.
People who didn't know it,
it was still a funny sketch as opposed to a parody.
Those who did know it got it, you know, doubly.
I didn't want to embarrass you,
but I'm going to embarrass you because the achievements,
you know, all the Emmys, Tonys, Grammys,
seven Golden Globes, Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I was reading your achievements and I started to laugh
because it's comedically amazing.
I'm not even, and I'm halfway through the list. Mark Twain Prize for American humor,
Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement.
There's a Golden Globe Award named after you.
And what's interesting is I get the impression
that doesn't affect you,
that you're still Carol Burnett
and you're gonna give it your all
and you still have that humility and cherry optimism,
but it hasn't gone to your head in any way.
Because if I had one of those, I'd be an absolute madman.
No, I don't know.
I'm just grateful.
Yeah, yeah.
I wanted to ask you about Lucille Ball
because obviously growing up,
even though the show had long been gone,
it was running constantly in reruns,
I Love Lucy, and that was the format for the modern sitcom
that has endured for 50, 60 years.
And I know that she was very kind to you.
She saw you as, hey, this kid has something, I like her.
How did she reach out to you? Well, she- has something, I like her.
How did she reach out to you?
Well, I was doing the off-Broadway show
called Once Upon a Mattress.
And we had just opened the night before.
And the second night, there was a lot of buzz
I could hear in the audience.
And Lucy was in the audience the second night.
I remember I peeked through the curtain
and I saw this big shock of red hair and there she was.
I was more nervous that night than I was opening night,
the night before because she was in the audience.
Of course, yeah.
Anyway, it went okay.
I had this funky little dressing room off Broadway.
She knocked on the door after the show and came in.
This couch and it had a spring coming up. And she was going to say, I said, look out.
She said, I see it.
Is it my first rodeo?
Yeah.
Anyways, we visited for about a half hour and she said, she called me kid because she
was 22 years older.
Right.
She said, if you ever need me for anything, give me a call. So about
four or five years later, I was doing, I was going to, I did a few things and then CBS was
going to give me a special one hour variety thing if I could get a major guest star.
So the producer said, call Lucy. I said, oh, I don't want to bother her. He said, well,
all she can do is say, I'd love to,
but I can't, I'm busy.
Got her on the phone, called her office.
She came up, hey kid, you're doing great.
What's happening?
I was just, I said, oh, Lucy, I'm doing,
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I know you're busy.
She said, when do you want me?
And she did, we did the show together.
So then when I got my variety show,
and then I did several guest appearances on her later shows.
Yes.
The Lucille Ball show and when she played Lucy Carmichael.
That's right.
All of that.
With Gail Gordon.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
And then when I got my show, she came on.
So we traded on and off. And so, oh wow. This one time, she's got my show, she came on. So we kind of traded on and off.
And so, oh wow.
This one time she's on my show
and we have a dinner break before the orchestra rehearsal.
So she and I went over to the farmer's market
to have a little, so we were in the Chinese restaurant there
and she's knocking back a couple of whiskey sours.
You know.
Please tell me it's the morning.
No, it was a nighttime show.
Okay, okay.
So at that time, of course, my husband, Joe Hamilton, was executive, was producing our
show.
And so she now was not with Desi.
She said, you know, kid, it's great that you got Joe, you know, handle a lot of stuff for you because when I was married to the Cuban.
Like he's a cigar.
He did everything.
Desi did everything.
He took care of the scripts.
He took care of the lighting, the camera work.
He's the one who invented the three cameras. Yes. Yeah. Genius. Yeah.
Yeah. And also she said, when I came into the Monday morning, the table read,
everything was perfect because he had seen to it. And all I had to do is be crazy Lucy. You know,
fine. So then we got a divorce. Now I'm going to do the Lucy Karma, whatever it was. And I came in, no Desi.
And we read the script and she said, it was awful.
Kid, it stank.
And she said, oh God, what am I going to do?
Desi's not here.
She called me for lunch and she said, she went back to her office.
She said, I've got to be strong.
I've got to be, I got to confront this the way
Desi would have done.
She said, so I knew what I had to do.
Went back to the table read.
And I told them in no uncertain terms
how I felt about the script, how we had to fix it.
She said, and kid, and she took an ill.
And that's when they put the S on the end of my last name.
Now she sent you, I think, flowers every day on your birthday.
On my birthday, in this one birthday, I got up in the morning and turned on the Today Show and she had passed away on my birthday. And that afternoon I got
flowers that said happy birthday kid. Yeah. So we had a great bond.
You're doing this project now, Parmarial, which I got the I had the privilege, they let me see a sneak peek. Oh, really?
Of two episodes.
And I got to talk to Kristen Wiig
yesterday for a long time about it.
And it is amazing to me that, you know,
your work has reached so many generations of people.
I mean, just in this room, you know, I'm 60,
Matt, you're 50.
41.
41.
Yeah.
Let's just say 40, round it out.
Okay, but I'm 41, but okay.
Round it out.
But these two were apoplectic, ap-nervous about
we're going to come in and be in the same room
as Carol Burnett.
Oh my God.
And I'm talking.
Yeah.
You know, our rap sign for this is I do an earlub tug to Eduardo and that's how he likes it. about we're going to come in and be in the same room as Carol Burnett. Oh my God. And I'm talking, yeah.
You know, our rap sign for this is I do an earlub tug
to Eduardo and that's how he likes the rap sign.
He's been doing that since the day we started this podcast
five years ago, he's been doing it.
And I think you should file suits.
Is it longer than the other?
Mine is a millimeter longer.
You tugged it longer?
Yeah, but yeah, it was measured once.
Oh my God.
By some pervert in the park?
Yep, well I've been going up to shorten it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's so, I mean, I remembered you coming on the show and-
Yeah, it was for my grandmother.
For your grandmother and you did it on the show
and again, I had one of those moments where I thought,
this can't be happening.
I can't be here with Carol Burnett while she's tugging on her earlobe. That's the same earlobe.
And then you think, dude, relax. You've got to just be in the moment. But this is a bunch of
generations of people who are just astounded to be in a room with you and so grateful for all this
amazing work you've done. But also talking to Kristen Wiig and she's there just,
everyone's, your work has,
and I don't think that used to be the case.
I sometimes think that people used to do their work
and then because times were different,
they wouldn't rerun shows or they wouldn't be seen again.
But your work has been seen and now thanks to,
just the internet and your legacy,
everyone's very
aware of this crazily rich fabric of work you have.
It's wonderful.
I get fan mail now from 10 year olds, teenagers, you know, we're on like Shout and YouTube
and MeTV and all of that.
So people are seeing it, you know, and it's just, it's a thrill for me.
I have recently just stopped doing it,
but for about 25 years,
I went around the country doing Q&A.
That's right.
You know, and so just a few short years ago,
and I would get audiences that
range from five years old to 100.
I mean, it was wild.
So this one time, there was this little boy
in the second row, and he raised his hand,
and I called on him.
And I said, what's your name?
And he said, Andrew.
And I said, how old are you, Andrew?
And he said, nine.
Oh.
And I said, and you know who I am.
And without missing a beat, he said, surprisingly, yes.
without missing a beat, he said, surprisingly, yes. What's it like?
I mean, you know, it was so funny too.
I don't want to give anything away.
No sport spoiler alerts, but in the first episode,
we're meeting all the different, I mean, it's an incredible
cast you have on Pomeroyal.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
And I'm just looking at Alison Janney and I've just, uh, it just, Laura Dern, Laura Dern, And just looking at Alice and Janie, and it's just-
Laura Dern.
Laura Dern, just this powerhouse cast,
and I'm watching the show and I'm thinking,
well, I know Carol's in here somewhere,
but I don't see her yet,
and why isn't she with the other ladies?
And then there's this reveal of your character,
you are in a coma.
I just thought,
but you're still doing a little something in your coma.
And I was like, only Carol Burnett can lie in a coma
and kill it.
I mean, you're the only one that can do it.
And then I was in, I was like, I wanna see,
cause I know there's no keeping Carol Burnett
on this hospital bed.
She's coming out of this coma and I'm down for it.
I wanna see the whole, I wanna see all of this,
but it doesn't, it feels to me like you haven't lost
this sense of joy of working with people
and just the doing of it.
And also I'm just thrilled because, you know,
now I've got some new best girlfriends,
Kristin, Allison, Laura Dern.
I mean, it's just, so now we've bonded
and it keeps me young to be able to be,
and in fact, Allison and I, we were-dle.
Oh.
Oh.
A lot of friendships end that way.
Tell me, yep.
If you're not careful.
We wordle.
Uh-huh.
That may be the most intimate relationship
I think so.
of this modern era,
is if you're wordling with someone.
And even connections, do you know that one?
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, so we,
Alison and I are into connections and wordling. We love it. Yeah, so we, Alison and I are into connections
and wordling, we love it.
How are you with, you're out in the world
and people approach you, do you enjoy that?
Sure.
Yeah.
I always did too, and I have friends who are lovely people
who are very well known and they just,
you'd never know it because they appear like extroverts,
they're comedians, and thenians, but they're very shy
and they don't like it.
And I just was always felt very lucky that,
and I sense that we're similar in some ways.
I enjoy it, I'll talk to anybody.
Well as long as they're, yeah right,
as long as they're nice and not too pushy
or anything like that.
Yeah, and I enjoy it.
I, yeah.
The, uh, I remember when I, when my grandmother and I would go to Hollywood
premieres on Hollywood Boulevard, I was maybe nine or 10 years old.
We'd hang over the ropes to see all the movie stars coming in to go to the
mood and I remember one of my favorite movie stars was Linda Darnell.
She was so beautiful and she was in Texas.
So I knew her.
At one point, she was walking by us to get into the theater.
My grandmother who was not shy said,
Linda, Linda, this little girl just loves you.
Give her your autograph.
She looked at me and she said,
what's your name, sweetheart?
Oh, wow.
I said, Carol. She said, okay.
And she took her time.
I never forgot that.
Nope.
So it meant the world to me.
You never know how much you might be helping somebody
by responding to them and being kind.
Yeah.
It's so important.
I've had the experience,
and we've talked about it over the years.
I mean, years ago,
being in a restaurant and someone waiting on me and then later on they're a huge movie star
and they remember it. They were waiting at table and I was a couple of years into my show
and they waited on me and I always say, was I right? And they always tell me,
nope, you were very nice and you did some bits with me and then you kept doing bits and we had to leave.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So goddamn needy Conan,
but I always thought you just never,
I mean, you should be nice
because it's the right thing to do.
Exactly.
For its own, but if you're not-
But you're paying it forward.
Yeah, paying it forward.
Because the person you're being nice to,
well then remember that and maybe be nice to that person,
the next person that comes to them, you know?
Yeah.
It's funny to me because it's often people now,
every time, you know, a woman gets a late night talk show,
they talk about this woman's in late night
and it's breaking a barrier.
And I always think it's, yes, that's great
and it's important, but I always try and remember
that you, Mary Tyler Moore, Lucille Ball,
were smashing these barriers, you know, 60 years ago.
It's absolutely stunning.
And we need to remember that because I think you guys.
Well, CBS didn't want me to do it.
They didn't want you to do the show?
No, they want me to do a variety show.
And I had a weird contract that I'd signed a few years before with CBS,
that if I, Carol, wanted to do a variety show, or long comedy variety show,
CBS would have to put it on for 30 shows, whether they wanted to or not.
That was some agent.
I could have used him in 1993.
When the time came, I pushed that button and got one of the vice presidents of CBS on the phone.
And I said, I think I want to push that button. That's what we call it. He said,
what button? He forgot about it. And I said, you know where I get to do 30?
Oh, let me get back to you. So he called the next day. It's very got a bunch of lawyers,
you know, to talk, to find out about that contract. He said, yeah, I see that, Carol.
But you know, comedy variety is a man's game. He said, it's Cesar, it's Jackie Gleason,
it's Milton Berle, now it's Dean Martin.
Dean Martin, yeah.
And he said, it's not for you gals.
He said, we've got this sitcom we'd love you to do
called Here's Agnes.
That is the perfect, perfect bad bitch sitcom.
And by the way, I'd like to bank that now.
I will put up the money if you'll do the Agnes show.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's safe to say you proved them wrong.
I think so, yeah.
And-
Well, at least we got 30 shows out of it
and we wound up having 276, so we did okay.
I have a, this question just occurred to me,
but it must have been interesting the next morning
after the Carol Burnett show aired.
I know that everyone else in my house
would be talking about it the next morning.
We'd be talking about all the things that we saw
and what made us laugh.
One of six kids, we're all packed together in this house.
We're all about six months apart.
I don't know how my mom did that.
And we, it's the Irish thing.
But we would be talking about,
because we loved your show.
And I'm curious,
as Carol Burnett, you must have been hearing from people
the next day, people from the street
or just people in your life, was there?
Yeah, from the get go, people were pleased.
Yes.
With what, now we didn't score every week by any means,
but we had a pretty good average, you know, and the first few years,
like first two or three or four years, I was more goofy like I had been on the Gary Moore show,
which is why they wanted me to have Lyle so that I could swoon over Lyle. And after that,
I thought, wait a minute, I'm married and I've got children. Let's not do that anymore.
That's when we started giving Lyle more to do
other than for me to go gaga over.
Right.
Then we started getting more, I don't know,
a little bit serious when we did the family show.
Yeah.
Where Eunice and mama and Ed and some of those were,
you know, you look up dysfunction in the dictionary
and you'd find that sketch.
It would get very dark.
And I remember thinking this, like, it got to me
in a good way.
I remember very well when your character went on.
The Gong Show.
The Gong Show.
Yeah.
You know, it's all played for comedy. And then you get gonged and the camera just stays the Gong show. Yeah. It's all played for comedy and then you get Gonged
and the camera just stays on your face.
And it gets smaller and smaller and smaller.
Smaller and smaller and smaller.
And you're thinking, is there gonna be some reprieve
or some laugh?
And there wasn't.
And I remember that to this second, how powerful that was.
And it gave me the idea that it doesn't
always have to be funny.
Right.
I don't know.
It's, it's, it's one of those memories I have.
Well, some people hated, hated it.
Of course they did.
Yeah.
It made them uncomfortable.
And then others, after it had aired a few times, you know, I was getting a manicure and the manicurist was Russian.
When she said, you know that family you do.
That's just like my family in Russia.
So people identified.
But you know what's interesting too,
you were playing this really real dysfunctional family
and then that is most comedy now,
the comedy of discomfort and dysfunction.
So what you were not initially,
but what you were playing with a little bit
was something that now is Derrick Goor.
It's all comedy, I feel.
But you didn't see stuff like that on a variety show.
You did not.
That was different.
And what's really funny was we only thought
we were going to do it one time.
So they had written for me to be mama,
and we were going to have a guest star be Eunice.
But Eunice spoke to me because my mother had a lot of dreams
that never came true.
And I said, I think I want to play Eunice.
So then we were going to hire an older woman to play mama.
And Bob Mackie,
our costume designer, said, I'll let Vicki do it. We'll just take off her eyelashes and put her in a
fat suit and put a wig on her. And that's it. And she was so young at the time playing-
24. Yeah, hilarious.
24 years old. And I said we hired her when she was 18 to be my sister and she wound up being my mother.
we hired her when she was 18 to be my sister and she wound up being my mother.
The business will do that to you.
I mean, she nailed it. She nailed it. And like she talks, she said, I learned comedy in front of 30 million people every week. It was like she went to school, but everybody was
watching her. And Harvey was great with her.
He helped her with her props, told her,
he said, don't just wait for your cue to tell you,
you've got to listen when people are talking.
I mean, he was a master at giving her acting classes
and she sure, she was like a sponge.
Well, I did make a promise,
which is we have so many terrific people on this show.
And sometimes they say like, oh yeah, I can hang around for all day.
But you, and this is a real testament to you, Carol, your day is packed.
You are out promoting POM Royale.
You are working as hard right now as anybody I know.
And so I don't wanna monopolize your time.
I wanna let you go, but I do wanna tell you
that getting to know you just a little bit
is one of the most meaningful things to me
in show business.
I'm serious, I'm serious.
You're just, and the fact that you were always so good
at what you did and I got the sense watching you through the TV.
They say don't meet your heroes,
but I always got the sense through the TV,
through the Q and A's.
This is a nice woman who's real and she's connected.
Oh, thank you.
And then I got to know you and you're as amazing a person
as I could have hoped for.
So thank you for improving my childhood
and adulthood immeasurably.
Oh, let's do this again.
No woman has ever said that to me.
Love you and just have an amazing day and let's do it again. I like this.
We were in a different environment.
I love our home base.
It's incredible. I love our little studio.
It's very comfortable, wonderful location.
But we are today at this incredible hotel.
I have very fond memories of this hotel because I used to
live back when I was writing
on The Simpsons, I lived about, I don't know,
a block and a half from here.
We're standing here at this hotel,
you could hit my apartment with a tennis ball,
but I think you'd need, I mean, I couldn't do it.
I think you'd need like a pneumatic cannon.
But still, it's close, but not close enough.
You can't say you could hit it with a tennis ball if you had a cannon of some kind.
I don't think people take that literally.
Well, I just wanted to be clear.
I'm always worrying about the legal.
And if I said you could hit it with a tennis ball,
I'm worried some listeners are gonna say,
oh, if Conan was at the Four Seasons on Doheny,
he could hit his old apartment on Weatherly
with a tennis ball.
And, you know, and then I'm challenged to do it
and I can't do it.
Oh.
So I just want to say, please don't sue me for that.
You think you can get sued for that?
It's a crazy country, you can get sued for anything.
I don't think you could get sued for that.
You'll see, it's coming.
Also, if someone says, I bet that's not true,
you could just be like, yeah, it is,
but then not actually try to do it.
Okay.
All right.
Well, anyway, you didn't help here.
I took us down a bad alley,
and then you said,
let's go further down the alley and then drive in circles.
I have fond memories of living here.
It was the early nineties.
I was writing for the Simpsons.
This is a pretty ritzy area.
So were you living that large back then?
Well, I had already,
I had been working in television at that point.
I got started in 85. Yeah.
And then I worked on Saturday Night Live
and then I came out here for the Simpsons.
So I had done okay at that point.
I had just purchased a brand new 1992 Ford Taurus.
Yeah.
Which when you see someone driving a new 92 Ford Taurus
in 1992, you know they've got bank.
Oh, that's the Toyota Camry of Fords.
Yes, it is.
Wow. Yeah. Which's the Toyota Camry of Fords. Yes, it is.
Wow.
Yeah.
Which was the Dodge Neon of Camrys.
So anyway, I was living in this neighborhood
and I remember my mom came to visit me
and she didn't know anything about The Simpsons
or didn't watch it and didn't think it was a big deal.
But I remember she came out and visited
and I said, I know a good place for brunch
and just walked her like a block and a half
to this Four Seasons, which has the most amazing brunch.
And I told her, you'll probably see a celebrity.
We did not.
But I kept telling her that just random people
were celebrities.
You did lie.
I did lie.
Yeah, okay.
I said that guy over there is Tony Curtis
and the guy had already left the room. She just saw the back of a shoe. Yeah, okay. I said that guy over there is Tony Curtis and the guy had already left the room.
She just saw the back of his shoe.
She was excited.
And I don't know, I just have a nice time here.
I was a single guy living the life.
What was Bachelor Conan like?
Single Conan?
Bachelor Conan of that era.
What was he getting up to?
91 Bachelor, 92, 92 Bachelor Conan.
Oh my God, ladies, look out.
Look out.
Look out! Look out, ladies! Oh my God.
It's 92 Bachelor Conan!
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Now I know now we're in an era where we're saying
look out, ladies.
Probably not the way to go.
No, I was a kindly gentleman, but I did okay for myself.
Yeah?
Because I was, I'd started to fill out a little bit.
I had been way too skinny for years.
Yeah.
And my skin had cleared up. And I was like kindly gentleman, but I did okay for myself because I'd started to fill out a little bit.
I had been way too skinny for years
and my skin had cleared up.
I was a little more, I had a little more confidence.
I had a credit card.
Oh, sick.
Yeah, I was cash in my pocket.
They were all like, you know, ladies would be like,
hey, I kinda like this guy.
And then I'd say, yeah, and when do you see my car?
And then the four tourists would come out and then I'd say, yeah, and when do you see my car? And then the Ford Taurus would come out
and then I'd have a hard time finding them.
Oh, okay.
They'd take off.
So I'm one woman jump behind a hedge.
And you still have your Ford Taurus.
I still have the Ford Taurus.
Are you serious?
Yeah, it became kind of a thing
because on the late night show,
guests would talk about their Lamborghini or whatever.
And they thought that because,
oh, Leno has a lot of cars,
let's find out what Conan drives.
And I would say, truthfully, I have a 1992 Ford Taurus.
It's an SAE show that's super high output.
So it looks like a Taurus that you'd pick up your kids
at soccer practice with,
but it's actually got a stick shift inside.
Yeah, that guy fucks. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha People's lives up. Did you drive that cross country to New York?
No, I had it shipped.
Oh, an aristocrat.
Yeah, I didn't want it to be damaged.
So I had it put on the roof of another Ford Taurus.
And yeah, but I brought it out here.
When I bought it, I did not drive stick.
I bought it completely on faith. And then my brother, Neil, I bought it out here. When I bought it, I did not drive stick. I bought it completely on faith.
And then my brother Neil, I bought it in Massachusetts.
So my brother Neil took me to a supermarket parking lot
and taught me how to drive stick.
And then I brought it to LA and went right into LA traffic,
grinding gears like crazy, but got good at it.
And then pulled up at the Simpsons lot in a Ford Taurus.
And I think they knew then there's a badass in town.
Yeah.
Who definitely fucks.
Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Dun-dun-dun-dun.
She was born.
Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
Down in Ford Taurus.
Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
It's got a stick shift.
Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
The gears that grind.
And it was, but I lived in this neighborhood
and it was really nice.
I had a good time.
I enjoyed, I loved working in that Simpsons writing room
and kind of loved it.
And this was, this is the hotel
where I met Jeff Ross for the first time.
I thought you were gonna say where you lost your virginity.
Where I lost my virginity?
Well, that's true.
Four years ago.
Yeah.
With the help of my wife.
But yeah, I met Jeff Ross here
because I was being considered for the late night job
and Lauren said, you should go meet with this guy,
Jeff Ross.
And we met about 15 feet from where I am right now,
which I could hit with the tennis ball.
Okay, back to the tennis ball.
I'm serious.
The tennis ball that went through walls.
Okay.
Anyway, that's my story.
So this brings up a lot of nice memories,
this hotel, this area.
And I like getting out of the studio once in a while.
Yeah.
It creates a new vibe.
You do have a swagger about you today
that makes me feel like you're back in your prime.
Because it's, I'm telling you,
I'm channeling 1992 single Conan and I look out!
Here he comes.
That guy likes to meet people.
And try and buy them dinner.
He has a credit card.
He has a credit card.
Na na na na na.
I've had it four years.
Na na na na na.
$1,000 limit.
Na na na na na.
I've only gone over twice. Na na na na na. $1,000 limit. Na na na na na. I've only gone over twice, na na na na na.
I like coming to these fancy places
cause then I know that you can buy us lunch.
I'm gonna take you out for a nice lunch.
Yeah, okay.
And you know what?
And you too, and you know what I'll tell you,
Matt, you don't know this, it's 2.15 in the afternoon.
And if there's one thing I know about Sona,
she's having wine with her mom.
I'll join you on that, are you kidding?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's wind it up.
Hey, and David's driving, up. Hey, David's driving.
So I'll-
Well, he's driving you.
He drove me.
Yeah, yeah, but we drove ourselves.
I drove in a mildew car.
Yeah, you're gonna be wine drunk driving in a mildew car.
Yeah.
You're gonna be pulled over by the police.
Not for your swerving,
but because of the odor of your car.
I know.
Toxic outfit.
All right, peace out, Tupac.
Conan O'Brien needs a friend, with Conan O'Brien,
Sonam Avsesian, and Matt Gorley.
Produced by me, Matt Gorley.
Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Nick Leow,
and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody
Fisher at Earwolf.
Theme song by The White Stripes.
Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.
Take it away, Jimmy.
["Tupac's Theme Song"] Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.
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