Episode Transcript
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2:00
Hi, my name is
2:03
Susie Essman and I
2:05
feel tickled pink about
2:07
being Conan O'Brien's friend.
2:09
Alright, I'm not buying that for a
2:12
second. Hey
2:35
there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a
2:37
Friend and I'm hanging here with Sonam
2:39
of Sesyan. Hi Conan. And Mr. Matt
2:41
Gorley. Hi Conan. I don't know why
2:44
I did that. Hello Mr. President. And
2:48
I'm just happy to see you guys. I have
2:51
something I want to bring up to you
2:53
actually. That sounds... Something this weekend that I
2:55
realized. Okay. Did you hear he just said
2:57
he was happy to... I know, I know.
2:59
And I want to... Because there's always... Yeah,
3:01
that's your answer. I really was. I haven't
3:03
seen you guys in like, I don't know,
3:05
10 days or something and I was happy
3:07
to see you. So there you go. So
3:10
anyway, let's hear your thing. What
3:13
is it? What's up? Now you just threw me off. No, no,
3:15
no. What is it? Let's hear it. Oh, I hate this. Okay.
3:18
Alright. Well, okay. So my kids go to
3:21
an Armenian school. I don't know if you
3:23
knew this, I'm Armenian. And then we... They
3:25
learn about notable Armenians. And one of the
3:27
most notable Armenian composers is Aram Khachaturian, who
3:30
he's like, he's like well known. Everyone has
3:32
like heard of something he's composed. What kind
3:34
of stuff does he compose? Well, I will
3:36
tell you. I will tell you. Okay. I'm
3:39
sorry. I'm coming in hot. You are. Because
3:41
I just realized something this weekend that upset
3:43
me. You took his most famous composition, the
3:45
Sabre Dance, and you made
3:48
it the theme for the masturbating there.
3:50
And I...
3:53
When I figured that out... Yes! Yes! Well,
4:00
I know. Yes, you asshole. That
4:02
was our guy. And you made him
4:04
the masturbating bear thing. Well, because that's
4:07
what I used to hum when I masturbated as
4:09
a teenager. Oh. Out of respect for
4:11
the Armenian culture. I just loved him.
4:13
I think he's one of the great Armenian composers.
4:15
But you've got to admit it works really well
4:18
with a bear masturbating. Dun, dun, dun, dun,
4:20
dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
4:22
dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
4:24
dun, dun. It's wah-dah, weeny. It's just I
4:26
think there's a generation of people who think
4:29
that was made specifically for the masturbating bear.
4:31
And they don't realize it's part of a
4:33
bigger, beautiful thing. Well, first of all,
4:35
don't you think that however they hear
4:37
the music, it's introducing them to a
4:40
great Armenian artist. And then they can
4:42
go and appreciate the music on its
4:45
own right. By singing, bear-jizz,
4:48
bear-jizz. It's
4:50
also, it starts right as he grabs his
4:53
junk and starts jerking it. Yeah, that's when
4:55
you would, I mean, in comedy, that's when you would
4:57
hit the music cue. But it's not even like,
4:59
hey, here's the intro for the masturbating. It's
5:01
like, that's the theme song for him jerking
5:03
it. Is this, is this, is
5:05
this work by this Armenian
5:07
composer? First of all, we didn't
5:09
say what Armenian song would
5:12
work well with a bear masturbating. It just happened
5:15
to be that that was the best song. And
5:17
I think that speaks to this man's creativity. Also,
5:20
Sabret could be a euphemism and maybe he
5:22
wrote it for masturbating. No, it's a
5:25
Sabret dance. The people dance with
5:27
sabers in it. Yeah, okay. That's a
5:29
euphemism like I danced with my saber
5:31
last night. They did dance? Yeah. No,
5:34
it's masturbating. No, but I remember. He's in there
5:36
dancing with his saber. I once said to Matt,
5:38
you know how did it go last night? He
5:40
said, oh, wife's out of town. I did the
5:42
old saber dance last night. That's right. And I
5:44
remember, he remember who said that? Yeah, so bad
5:46
I couldn't sit down. Yeah. It's the
5:48
grown man in a bear costume jerking it to
5:50
like. No, no, he was real, he was a real
5:52
bear. Oh. But anyway,
5:54
I don't know why you're upset
5:56
about this, honestly, I don't know why you're
5:58
upset about it because. What? Because so
6:00
many young kids know that song
6:03
over the years because of the
6:05
masturbating bear, which was a very
6:07
popular character. And I mean, Eduardo,
6:09
you would never have heard of the Sabre dance
6:11
unless you had seen masturbating bear. I would have
6:13
been honored if you did like Mariachi Loco to
6:15
it. Yes. I don't know why you're upset. That's
6:17
not true. No, you wouldn't. Yes, we wouldn't. We
6:19
have so very little. And I think that you
6:21
took one of the things we have. What are
6:23
you talking about? You have Cher. You
6:26
have the Kardashians. You
6:28
have Dr. Kevorkian. Glandokalrissian.
6:30
Glandokalrissian. You know what I know? You
6:33
have all kinds of dried fruits and
6:35
apricots. Oh my God. No, seriously, you
6:37
have a beautiful culture. Don't say we
6:39
have so little. You have so much.
6:41
No, I think that you could
6:44
have used it for any other bit. And then
6:46
you used it for the masturbating bear. And now
6:48
people, like when we were listening to it, playing
6:50
for the boys in the car, dad was like,
6:53
isn't this the song for the masturbating bear? And
6:56
I was like, no way. And then I
6:58
Googled it. And it was. What do you
7:00
mean, no way? You work for me. This
7:03
was one of my biggest cultural achievements. And
7:05
you didn't know that this was the music that
7:07
went with the masturbating bear? I have a bigger
7:09
question. When was this written? Is this guy getting
7:12
royalties from the masturbating bear? Or is it like-
7:14
Oh, this is a long time ago. How long
7:16
ago? You don't know anything about him? He
7:19
was during the Soviet era. I know. So I think he was like
7:21
in the late 60s. Wait a minute.
7:23
He was under Stalin's thumb when he wrote this. He
7:27
was out of the Iron Jack boot. What
7:29
difference does that make though? Well, I'm just
7:31
saying, you know, now I have different implications
7:34
with that song. Can you change it? No,
7:36
it's been done. It's happened.
7:38
It's over. And can I say something?
7:40
His estate, I'm sure he's not around.
7:42
I'm sure Stalin took care of him.
7:49
But I want to assure you
7:51
that his estate has made a
7:53
lot of money off of that
7:56
that they can use towards all kinds
7:58
of cool- projects to
8:01
further Armenian culture. So you have
8:03
no right to be angry with
8:05
me, none whatsoever. And as the
8:07
judge here, I find you, not
8:12
only do I throw this case out, but
8:14
I find you for bringing it. Cool, you're
8:16
the judge. I think you own my entire
8:18
community and apology. Isn't it Conan O'Brien needs
8:20
of- Okay, you should just apologize. No,
8:23
how much am I- Just do it, just apologize. No,
8:26
I went to Armenia with you. I've done
8:28
everything I can to uplift and uphold. I
8:31
married you, no, that's not true.
8:34
No, no, I christened your children in the
8:37
Armenian church. Okay, I
8:39
learned lines in Armenian.
8:42
I have performed an Armenian wedding. Didn't I
8:44
do that? No, well, yeah, you married my
8:46
friend, Christine at Piss and her husband. Don't
8:48
call her Piss. Piss, Piss. Yeah,
8:51
okay, so you're thinking I'm disrespecting people.
8:53
Your good Armenian friend is named Piss? Yeah,
8:55
but you took one of our most famous
8:58
composers, took his music and put it for
9:00
the masturbating bear. And I just think that-
9:02
Because I knew that that would spread joy
9:04
everywhere. Yes. I was gonna
9:06
say, just think of all the joy that
9:08
that song has given people. Also, I will
9:11
say we've had many musicians on this podcast,
9:13
not to go against you, Sona, I'm sorry.
9:15
And they've always said they create a song
9:17
and it goes out into the world and
9:19
then people bring their own meanings to that
9:21
song. In this example, that meaning is a
9:23
bear masturbating, but I'm just saying, it's people
9:25
bring their own meanings to the
9:27
song, the song doesn't belong to them. He's turning
9:29
in his grave. He's turning in his grave from what
9:31
you've done. Grave, Stalin didn't. When
9:34
he shot people in the basement, they just went
9:36
away. There's no grave. I'm
9:38
sorry. I'm
9:41
fine with using the music. This is going too
9:43
far. Okay. Well,
9:45
anyway, Sona, I'll apologize
9:48
off, Mike. Or
9:50
will I, you'll never know. I apologize.
9:52
You'll never know, listener. We
9:55
got to get into today's show. My
9:57
guest today played Susie Green for 12
9:59
seasons. and they hit HBO series Curb
10:01
Your Enthusiasm, and I'm very excited that
10:04
she's here today because she's absolutely lovely
10:06
and hilarious. Susie
10:12
Estman, welcome. Are
10:17
we friends, really? Well, I'd like to think we
10:19
are. Or are we just showbiz friends? We're showbiz
10:22
friends. If you ever try to speak to me
10:24
outside of a showbiz setting, you'll get- Here we
10:26
go, I need clearance. You'll get- I
10:29
mean, it's funny, the reach of
10:31
that Curb Your Enthusiasm is
10:33
incredible because, I mean, ever
10:35
since I did that episode, which was,
10:37
I think, third from last or something
10:39
episode of the run of the show,
10:41
Larry needs Conan clearance, so many people come up and
10:43
say, I know I don't have clearance, but
10:46
would you like some french fries with your burger?
10:49
So that's been going on. Is it tedious at this point? It's
10:52
tedious. Oh no, I like it. Okay. I mean- You
10:55
know what I love that you did in that
10:57
episode? You allowed yourself to be an asshole. Oh,
10:59
trust me. Was it a stretch?
11:01
No, it was not. Well,
11:04
this is, I'm constantly
11:07
riffing with different people in
11:09
the office or writers or
11:11
other comics. My go-to is
11:13
this antagonistic guy. And
11:16
it's so funny because I was raised to
11:18
be so polite. And I
11:21
do really want people to be happy.
11:23
I mean, I'm a people pleaser, but
11:25
one of the things I love about the job
11:28
is that when there are moments when
11:31
it's comedically necessary, you can go to
11:33
town. That's who you're talking to.
11:35
I know, exactly. No, Susie, I
11:37
don't think you get it. Let me
11:39
explain. It's really fun to vent as a
11:41
comedy. God, Susie doesn't get it. But
11:44
anyway, when I went into that episode,
11:46
my thought was, because I've done a
11:48
lot of improv was, oh, I get
11:50
it. This show is whatever Larry wants,
11:52
don't give it to him. So
11:55
Larry sees me, and
11:58
he's trying to establish a connection. and
12:00
I know my job is not to let him have it. And
12:03
then he wants to have maybe get together and
12:05
I will not let it happen. Which is,
12:08
I would never do that in real life, but
12:10
it was so much fun to be an asshole. It's
12:12
called acting, Conan. No, it's not in my part. I
12:15
don't think I can act my way out of a paper
12:17
bag, but it was really fun to do that. It was
12:19
so much fun. But you know, some people would not allow
12:21
themselves to be that character because
12:24
they want to be likable and, you know, they don't...
12:27
It was funny with Ted Danson, Ted
12:29
didn't know for a very long time that he
12:31
was the cat. Yeah. You know,
12:33
because that's not his character. No, no. I
12:36
mean, everybody loves Ted Danson. And Larry
12:38
made him the asshole. Mm-hmm. You
12:40
know, and he was not aware of it
12:42
in the beginning that he was the asshole.
12:44
But then he's really good at it. Yeah,
12:46
he's great at it. I don't know if
12:48
you agree with this, but you seem to
12:50
me like somebody who... You know, the question
12:52
obviously you probably get all the time is
12:54
where does Suzy Essman start and Suzy Green
12:56
begin? Because you've been
12:59
so brilliant at being so
13:01
vulgar and being so
13:03
angry at Jeff,
13:06
Garland's character, and
13:08
Larry David, and just furious with everyone and
13:10
letting it fly. And sometimes when someone's that
13:13
good at it, I think that's because they
13:15
don't get to be that way in their
13:17
everyday life. So this is a release. Yeah,
13:19
it is. I mean, I don't walk around
13:21
treating people that way. And talking about people
13:24
pleasing, I see when people stop me in
13:26
the street, because I live in New York, so I'm in
13:28
the street. And I actually ran into you
13:30
in New York recently. I was going to talk about this. Yeah,
13:33
when they stop me in the street, I
13:35
see that they're visibly disappointed when
13:38
I'm gracious. I see
13:40
their faces just fall. They're
13:42
just so disappointed when I'm
13:44
gracious and kind. Because they
13:47
want you to call them a fuck face
13:49
or something. Yeah, exactly. And I actually don't
13:51
do that in real life. Surprise, surprise. It's
13:55
called acting. It's a character. But
13:57
yeah, it's tremendously releasing. And I've been a
14:00
little bit nervous. I would go home after
14:02
a screaming scene, which is almost all of
14:04
them, and I would sleep really well that
14:06
night because it was like a primal scream.
14:08
Yes, it's funny because I know that your
14:10
parents, your dad,
14:12
an oncologist, my dad's a
14:15
microbiologist, your mom taught at
14:17
Sarah Lawrence, my mom's a
14:20
lawyer, very well-educated people, and
14:22
we weren't even show business adjacent. We were
14:25
a million miles from show business, and
14:27
it was very important that everybody hide their
14:29
anger. You know what I mean? So
14:31
we could be, you could use guilt and you
14:34
could use sarcasm, but there was
14:36
a lot of attempts to hide anger and
14:38
displeasure. And then I found when I got
14:40
into comedy that being able to
14:42
just, if I shared an office
14:44
with Bob Odenkirk, and I could just
14:46
go to town on him. Yeah, it's
14:48
so much fun. It was fun, and
14:50
it's this miraculous thing where you're playing,
14:52
so no one gets hurt. No one
14:54
gets hurt. And then, you
14:56
know, scream and yell at Larry, and whatever,
14:59
or Jeff, whoever, and then it's cut, and
15:01
it's like, all right, why do you want
15:03
to have dinner? You know, it's just completely,
15:05
nobody gets hurt. That's the beauty of it.
15:07
I say that all the time. You scream,
15:09
you yell, fuck you, and you're an asshole,
15:11
but, and nobody gets hurt. No, I think
15:13
that's something that's kind of magical.
15:15
We do this all the
15:17
time, where I'll go back
15:20
and forth with Sona, and
15:22
if I ever thought for a second, if someone
15:25
later on said, Sona's feelings got a little bit
15:27
hurt, I would not sleep probably for five days.
15:29
Right, right, right. But you're so good at it,
15:31
though. That's why it might be who you really
15:33
are, and then this is the facade. This is
15:36
the facade. But I have to take issue with
15:38
something you just said. I'm not an actor. It's
15:41
bullshit. Okay. Because
15:43
you were on, every day you did
15:45
a TV show. Oh, that's true. And,
15:48
you know, you're delivering monologues, you're doing
15:50
sketches. What do you think
15:52
it is? It's not like, you know, you're not, you're
15:55
not mamma-streepe. Well,
15:58
goddamn it. Neither is she. Susie,
16:00
I was certain. Wow,
16:02
Meryl Streep is at Meryl Streep. She'll
16:05
be crushed. I would say to Larry all the time,
16:07
I think Larry's a great actor. And I think he's
16:09
just gotten better and better over the years. And I
16:11
would tell him that and he was like, oh, I'm
16:14
not an actor, I don't act. Yes,
16:16
he is acting. That's not who he is in
16:18
real life. Right. You know? I
16:20
guess what I'm saying is I know
16:22
that if I had to go out on stage and
16:26
have a very emotionally raw moment
16:28
with somebody and weep and
16:30
tell them I love them or
16:32
more. Well, that's masturbatory, that kind
16:34
of acting. That's not acting. That's.
16:38
How did you know I cry when I masturbate? When
16:43
I masturbate, I'm just like, oh God. I
16:47
love you. I
16:49
think everybody probably assumed that about you.
16:51
I just don't. But
16:54
that, I mean, that's one kind of acting.
16:56
Right. No, no, I understand. I
16:58
think you're right. It's not good
17:01
to say I'm not this,
17:03
I'm not that. It's all those
17:05
years, almost three decades of doing
17:07
the talk show. I do think
17:10
the one thing I got very good at
17:12
was sometimes because you're doing a volume business,
17:14
you're interviewing someone who you're not, you're talking
17:16
to three people a night, five nights a
17:18
week. There's some dollars in there. There's some
17:20
dollars in there. There's some people
17:22
who maybe you didn't really excited to
17:24
talk to. I would work on, no,
17:26
no, everybody's. You'd fake it. Fake
17:29
it and also convince myself. I
17:31
am interested in this 26 year
17:33
old actor from
17:35
the WB show that I've never watched. Who has
17:37
nothing to say of interest. I'm sorry. It's always
17:40
a 26 year old actor from a WB show.
17:43
I'm thinking of one person. No,
17:46
so you could say, well, you were a performer,
17:48
but you were acting. Right. Acting
17:51
is pretending. It's what it is. I'm
17:53
gonna tell you that, I don't think these guys know
17:55
this, but not long ago, I'm in New York City
17:58
and I sit down. and I'm
18:01
in an outdoor cafe, I think on the Upper
18:03
West side. No, it was East side. Oh, East
18:05
side. Upper East side. I'm
18:08
no longer allowed on the Upper
18:10
West until the charges are dropped.
18:12
But, no, it's a long story.
18:14
Sona, please. Zae Bars has banned
18:16
him. Yeah. I
18:18
stole an everything bagel. And
18:20
they don't mind if you steal an onion
18:23
bagel, but when you steal an everything bagel,
18:25
that's like crossing a line of fire.
18:27
There's a lot of stuff on me. But
18:29
I was sitting there and we ran into
18:32
each other and this was my visceral response
18:35
was, God, I love
18:37
Susie S. Minh. She's such a real
18:39
person. You are a real person. Some
18:42
people in the business kind of calcify a
18:44
little bit. You are so emotionally available. You
18:47
are so nice. And so we
18:49
part company and I immediately text Paula
18:51
Davis, who you were hanging out with
18:53
beforehand. And I said, we have to
18:55
get Susie S. Minh on the podcast.
18:57
And of course she texts right back,
18:59
I love Susie S. Minh. But
19:03
that is the effect I think you have
19:05
on people. Thank you, that's nice. But
19:08
it's so funny that you've, what most people
19:10
know you're from, even you've been successful and
19:12
you've been in comedy. And I mean,
19:14
you did Carson in 1989. I
19:17
say, it was not good by the way. It didn't go
19:19
well? No, it didn't go well. What happened? Tell me about
19:21
it. Well, I went on, I
19:23
was on a series on NBC called Baby Boom.
19:28
It was a takeoff of the movie
19:30
that had been with Diane Keaton only
19:32
Kate Jackson was playing the main character.
19:34
I was her secretary. So they had
19:36
me on as like the young NBC
19:38
ingenue. And I was
19:41
a comic and he didn't know I was a
19:43
comic. And I think I was a little bit
19:45
too blue for him or too. I
19:47
looked in his eye and I grew up on
19:50
Carson. I mean, I'm older than all of you.
19:52
Combined, I think, maybe not
19:54
Aaron. But. That's
19:58
true. That's very true. Aaron
20:00
Blair, it's so young. How old are you,
20:03
David? Well,
20:05
he grew up on Carson Daily. Yeah, Carson Daily.
20:07
Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
20:09
but this is, you know, like when I was a
20:12
kid, I used to set the alarm to wake up
20:14
because we didn't have VHS or DVR or any of
20:16
that crap. Right. And just, you
20:18
know, I would set the alarm if it was Jonathan
20:20
Winters or Rickles or, you know, that was... Sure. Yes.
20:24
So to be on the show and yet he was nothing
20:26
like I looked at his eyes and it was just ice
20:28
cold. Yeah. And
20:30
I had no rapport with him. And David
20:33
Steinberg was the guest that night next to
20:35
me who then became my friend because he
20:37
directed so many curbs. But he was incredibly
20:39
kind and gracious to me. But it was,
20:41
I was never so scared in my life.
20:43
I remember going on, there was no moisture
20:45
in my life, in my mouth. And
20:49
it was just really scary and it
20:51
didn't go well. I've always heard that
20:53
he was and got
20:56
to meet him a couple of times that
20:59
he was quite different from what you saw
21:01
on television. Yes. And some
21:03
people are very good at projecting warmth and then they're
21:05
quite shy, you know, off
21:08
camera. And then I've talked about this
21:10
before because you can go through show businesses and say, it's
21:12
almost like there are two types of
21:15
comedian. There's, you know, Steve Martin. When
21:18
you meet Steve Martin, I love
21:20
him and I've become very friendly with
21:22
him. But when I first
21:24
met him, when I was a writer at
21:26
SNL, I was expecting the Steve Martin that
21:28
I idolized when I was in grade
21:31
school and high school. He's quiet,
21:33
he's guarded, he's very serious. And
21:36
you know, he's like a surgeon who's going to get
21:39
ready to do a very big operation. And
21:41
then you meet Marty Short and Marty Short will do
21:43
45 minutes. So
21:45
I very quickly realized, oh, I'm the
21:47
Marty Short type. But also
21:49
I will say in my defense, I'm,
21:52
and sometimes- Well, what's better than making people laugh? I
21:54
love it. Yeah. And
21:56
I'll leave, sometimes I'll leave and I'll say
21:59
to my wife. Liza, I'll say, man, I
22:01
really killed in there. And
22:03
she will say, it was a room full
22:05
of third graders. You
22:07
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22:10
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it means a business doing
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I don't understand. But then I
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place to be, to be. Does
26:53
your wife laugh at you? She does. Yeah.
26:56
Thank God, because I think there are times where
26:58
definitely she's looking at me and I think she
27:00
knows California is a 50-50 state. She
27:04
knows she's financially set. We
27:06
remind her all the time. Yeah, they're always
27:08
reminding her. But then I'll say
27:10
something and she'll laugh and I'll think, okay, I
27:12
think we're good for another day. Is she funny?
27:14
Yes, she's very funny and very, she can be
27:17
very funny on her own, but also very dry.
27:20
And kind of like, uh-huh, that's great. Yeah,
27:22
that's really funny. Let's wrap it up, let's
27:24
go. I saw Bob Newhart
27:26
and Jenny, his wife, came to
27:28
our house once. She's since passed,
27:30
but she was so funny
27:32
on her own, but also so great
27:34
with Bob Newhart. And then
27:36
Bob was telling a story and
27:39
it was getting late. And then she just said,
27:41
all right, Newhart, let's wrap it up. And
27:44
I thought, wow, she's like, Liza,
27:46
I love this. This is what we need.
27:48
We need partners who- Who know how to
27:50
control you. Control us. Yes,
27:53
boundaries. Shut it down. What
27:55
about your- Jimmy? Yeah,
27:57
Jimmy. Jimmy has a great sense of humor.
28:00
and can make me laugh, but he's not
28:02
funny. He's funny in a different way, like
28:04
what you were saying. And,
28:06
you know, I never understand these two
28:09
comic couples. Oh, God no. Oh,
28:11
please, I never dated a comic. To me,
28:13
that would be a nightmare. I've
28:15
seen them, they exist. They're out
28:17
there? They are out there. They're
28:19
out there. Does it work? Have you seen
28:21
a comedy couple where it works? I stay
28:24
away from them because they scare me. I'm
28:26
not that close with them. So like, I'm gonna hit him, I'm gonna
28:28
move. The other one's like, yeah, well, I didn't have
28:30
any to do. But people will say to my
28:32
husband all the time, is she funny at home? Or they'll ask,
28:34
does she scream and yell at you? It was, what
28:37
kind of stupid question is that? Like I
28:39
walk around acting like Susie Green and dressed
28:42
like her and screaming at him and kicking
28:44
him the fuck out of the house. What
28:46
kind of marriage would that be? It's fiction.
28:48
You know what I love? I
28:50
love you yelling at Larry, but
28:52
I think because I came up
28:54
with Jeff Garland and we shared an apartment
28:56
back in Chicago in the day. That whole
28:58
concept is just- We've known each other forever.
29:01
So I took particular joy when you
29:03
would go after Jeff. You fat fuck.
29:06
And I would just be, I would be
29:08
crying laughing. But you know, Larry kind of
29:10
saved me. As the seasons went on,
29:12
he would save me more and more for him.
29:15
Less and less for Jeff. Like,
29:17
you know, relish that. The man
29:19
loves to be yelled and screamed at.
29:22
I mean, loves it. He like lives
29:25
for it. Also, he knows there's this
29:27
great secret. I mean, who did it better
29:29
than we're going way back there? But I talk
29:32
about this sometimes, Jack Benny. And
29:34
even, and Carson did it so well. What I learned a
29:36
long time ago, you can get big
29:38
laughs by just- The method. Right,
29:40
reacting and looking a little sad
29:43
and downtrodden when
29:45
it's appropriate. And so Larry's so
29:47
good at when he's being eviscerated
29:49
the way his face falls. And
29:53
the way he just tested to, and
29:55
I think also Jeff Garland would just
29:57
look, oh God, I'm just, I just
29:59
have to take it. because I just
30:01
got downtrodden. I got busted. Susie
30:03
knows. Well, they did such stupid shit
30:05
too. You know, it's like
30:08
people would ask me questions. Is it
30:10
hard to get that angry? No, he's
30:12
stealing my kid's doll's head. He's stealing
30:14
my kid's dog. He's getting her drunk.
30:17
He's getting us kicked out of a
30:19
country club. He's stealing a salad dressing
30:21
recipe. It's not like a big method
30:24
acting thing I gotta do. You
30:26
just have to be in the scene and it's like,
30:29
look what these fucking assholes are doing now. Did
30:34
you, I talked about how
30:36
your parents are, you know, academics
30:39
and professionals. Intellectuals.
30:42
And I know you had a
30:44
great grandfather who was like a, is this
30:46
right, a great grandfather, a great grandfather who
30:49
was a very respected silent film actor, is
30:51
that right? Yes, yeah, he was
30:53
my great grandfather. He was actually the empresario
30:55
of the Russian Grand Opera Company. Oh my
30:57
God. Yeah, there's a whole story. But they
31:00
were crazy. They were like these crazy, and
31:02
then he was in Yiddish theater when he
31:04
came to New York and he was in
31:06
silent films with Lon Channy. He was in
31:08
a few silent films. Yeah. I'm curious. But
31:11
I never knew him. He died before I was born. Before
31:13
I was murdered. Yeah, well he
31:16
was murdered. He was hit
31:18
by young- What? I just threw that
31:20
out there. I know. Well he wasn't
31:22
murdered, but he was hit by a
31:24
car of drunk drivers. Oh, that's terrible.
31:27
I have to say, I always, reflexively, if someone
31:29
says and then they die, I always said, or
31:31
was murdered. Some people were murdered, calling him. And
31:33
you know what, like a third of the time,
31:35
I get more after that. They go, they were.
31:38
I guess that was involuntary manslaughter, not murder. Well,
31:40
we're not judges here. We don't have to- I
31:43
think that's what it is. Oh, thank you.
31:45
Thank you, Judge. Oh, you're welcome. I'm
31:48
an intellectual. Yes, I know. But
31:51
did your parents accept your
31:54
career? Did they accept- No. No.
31:57
So what was their attitude? Well, first of all, I was- I
32:00
suffered from benign neglect. They never really knew.
32:02
They didn't really have that much hope for
32:04
me in any way, shape, or form, or
32:06
interest. And I had, my
32:09
older brother and sister were, you know, problem
32:11
children, so I just kind of flew under
32:14
the radar and did whatever I want. And
32:16
when I told them I was gonna be
32:18
a comic, they were just, mm, you know.
32:21
But then once I was successful, it
32:23
wasn't once their friends recognized
32:25
that I was successful, then they
32:28
were okay with it. So it's
32:30
interesting, you were doing standup comedy
32:33
in this time where notoriously,
32:35
I mean, things have changed so
32:37
much for the better, but notoriously
32:39
difficult for women. For women, yes.
32:42
I mean, difficult isn't even the
32:44
word, but almost a societal
32:46
sense of, it's
32:49
really funny when a guy gets up there, but
32:51
there's almost a different lens that goes up when
32:53
a woman gets on stage, which is, I mean,
32:55
I even saw it with my own
32:58
mother who, wonderful person, but
33:00
the generation she came from, if
33:02
I was behaving like a fool and being
33:05
a wise guy, she thought it was really
33:07
funny. And if my sister started to do
33:09
it, I could see her tense up. That's
33:11
not lady life. That's not lady life. Yeah,
33:13
and especially the anger. I mean, not that
33:15
my standup wasn't angry, but the Susie Green
33:17
character, you know, I mean, you're much
33:20
younger, Sona, so I don't know if you were
33:22
brought up this way, but I was brought up,
33:24
you do not show anger as a female. You
33:26
have to be a nice little lady, you know? So
33:29
I have women who feel, I feel
33:31
as though Susie gives them permission to
33:34
embrace their anger in a certain way,
33:36
but standup in the 80s was very,
33:38
very difficult, and I kind of was
33:41
breaking a little bit of a mold
33:43
there. The women who came
33:45
before me, which you could name on
33:47
one hand, you know, Joan, Phyllis, Todi,
33:49
couple of others, Jean Carroll, I
33:52
felt as though they all had to
33:54
be self-deprecating or the audience would not
33:56
accept them. Right. You know,
33:58
Phyllis dressed up in the crazy outfit. Todie
34:00
was obese. Joan was just talking about how
34:02
my thighs and I'm so ugly and she
34:04
wasn't. She was adorable. But it
34:07
was almost as though they had to be that way.
34:09
And I didn't connect to that. I didn't want to
34:11
do that at all, that kind of material. Were you
34:13
doing stand-up at the same time as Joy Behar? Well,
34:15
yeah. Joy and I came up together. You guys came
34:17
up together. So you could
34:19
bond over that. Yes. And she was actually very
34:22
influential to me. I just got off
34:24
the phone with her. She's still my bestie. Because
34:26
I saw what she was doing on stage,
34:28
which she was just exactly like she was
34:30
off stage. But heightened, of course, it's always
34:33
heightened. But she was just like... First
34:35
time I saw her, I was like, oh, I
34:37
see. It's just like I'm sitting around the kitchen
34:39
table with my girlfriends. And women at that time,
34:41
I don't know if it's still the case, would
34:43
be funny around their girlfriends, but not around the
34:45
boys. I
34:48
remember my father telling me that when
34:50
you're around men, just listen to them.
34:52
Don't talk too much and have so
34:55
many opinions. Just listen to what they're
34:57
saying. And I was like, what are you fucking kidding me?
35:03
I'm sorry, but your father's describing a
35:06
golden era. Oh, no. No. You
35:10
know, and then I'm
35:14
sorry. I have not experienced that.
35:16
I've never seen
35:19
that. I want to go back
35:21
to that time and have someone listen to me. It's
35:23
not going to happen. Not going to happen. I
35:26
would talk about, you know, I was talking about sex.
35:28
I was talking about whatever was going on in my
35:30
life. I was dating younger guys. And
35:32
now women talk about that all the time, but
35:35
it was not really happening when
35:37
I was talking about it. And what I would
35:39
find with, you know, at the time, the Friars
35:41
Club existed and I would do all these benefits
35:43
with the old guys, the old Starkers, the Allen
35:46
Kings and those guys. And I was so confusing
35:48
to them because they would, you know, I was
35:50
cute and, you know, and they would look at
35:52
me and they didn't know whether they wanted to
35:55
fuck me or laugh at me. They were so
35:57
confused by it, these old guys. Right. I
36:00
did a show with Alan King in Atlantic City and he
36:02
was the host. And this is
36:04
how he introduced me. He goes, in
36:06
my day, all the broads who were
36:09
funny had something wrong with them. Martha
36:11
Ray had a big mouth. Todie Fields
36:13
was fat. But this broad is pretty
36:15
and funny. Please welcome Susie Essman. Jesus
36:18
Christ. That was the intro. That
36:20
was the intro. Oh, my God. It
36:23
was a different generation. Get this! Call
36:26
Rip, please, believe it or not. She's
36:29
funny and you don't want to throw up when
36:32
you look at it. This broad, you know, you
36:35
had to make your bones with those guys.
36:37
Yeah. But I mean, God bless you. What
36:40
do you think gave you the I'm just
36:43
going to say it, the nerve for anyone to get up
36:45
on stage and do that is one thing. But for a
36:48
woman at that time, what's
36:50
driving you, do you think? What made you
36:52
what gave you the chutzpah? He's an old
36:54
Irish term. I still don't
36:56
know. Yeah. What what all
36:59
I know is I was coming out of
37:01
a very dark place in my life. I
37:03
had no other alternatives. I was unhappy. I
37:06
was lost. And I there was
37:08
like this woman I needed to become that
37:10
I didn't know what it was. But I
37:12
knew that there was she was there. And
37:14
I started doing stand up, which was friends
37:16
kind of forced me to do it because
37:18
I was funny. And after about
37:21
a month, I was like, OK, this is what
37:23
I was born to do. And then I just
37:25
was just focused and just moved forward. But it
37:27
wasn't easy. You know, they wouldn't put more than
37:29
one woman on a lineup in those days. It
37:32
would just be male, male, male, one woman. You
37:34
couldn't have two. So you tried
37:36
not to be competitive with the other women because
37:38
you were all always fighting for spots. Right. But,
37:41
you know, it was hard. This is more of a
37:43
process question. But were you someone who sat down and
37:45
worked out what your routine is going to be? Now
37:47
you went up there. Did you find it on stage?
37:50
Yes, I would find it in the
37:53
most terrifying way. I would have, you
37:55
know, premises and ideas, but I would
37:57
find the punch line with the gun
37:59
to my head. head on stage. And
38:02
it's one of the reasons I don't do it anymore. It's too terrifying
38:06
but that's how I would work. And then I
38:08
would try to do it the Jerry Seinfeld way
38:10
of sitting and writing bits. And then I would
38:12
try to do it, okay, I'm going to start
38:14
with this material and set up a
38:16
whole. And it was so boring to me. I
38:18
had to be all over the place, which ended
38:20
up serving me well because I became an improviser
38:23
and then I got the part on curb to
38:25
improvise. But after I would set a
38:27
routine, I was able to do it that way.
38:29
But to write it, I would have to find
38:31
it on stage. Which is
38:33
terrifying. Yeah. I guess I'm comfortable
38:36
in this middle ground where I
38:38
love to prepare. I
38:40
need to prepare, especially for there are certain
38:42
things where you really have to prepare. Well,
38:45
you would do a monologue every night. But
38:47
I always found that I enjoyed the fucking
38:49
around between the jokes more
38:51
than the jokes. I'll do the jokes, but
38:53
the jokes were just a lily pad to
38:55
get me to, I could jump
38:58
off the lily pad and then swim around. I loved,
39:01
if a joke didn't work, I
39:03
loved acknowledging what just happened. I
39:06
can hear my own heart beating right now. And then the
39:08
crowd would be like, oh my God, he noticed. But this
39:10
is why I always like doing your show. Because
39:13
there was that, you do certain talk
39:15
shows and they pre-interview you and what
39:17
bits do you want to do. And
39:19
I don't like working. I like to
39:21
just show up and we, you know.
39:24
It's good to have. Unless you're a
39:26
WB store that's 26 years old. And
39:28
you know who you are. He waited
39:32
on me three days ago. He
39:35
did. Does the WB still exist? No, it was
39:37
the CW and then it doesn't exist. It's still
39:39
there, I think. Yeah, could you guys clarify exactly
39:41
how this whole transition happened? I mean, that was
39:44
pretty much it. Are you doing a joke? Yeah,
39:46
I was doing a little bit of a bit.
39:49
I don't care.
39:52
Susie's giving me the strength to really shout
39:54
at both of you. Go ahead, baby. Go
39:56
fuck those fuck faces. Um,
40:01
but yeah, because but you're you're by nature
40:03
an improviser, but when you're doing a television
40:05
show you have to have the material Yes
40:07
Yeah, you'd have to have the material but
40:09
I guess what i've found over the years
40:13
Is I like to have ideas when I
40:15
go out there? But then when
40:17
we do these live podcasts when we get to
40:19
the end I just talk to the audience and
40:21
sometimes that'll go on for like 40 minutes Yeah,
40:24
and they're the biggest laughs of the night Yeah,
40:26
because i'm having so much fun and i'm
40:29
you know, there's a seat empty next to
40:31
somebody and i'm like, well, wait a minute
40:33
What happened to this? Oh, she couldn't make
40:35
it. Well, where is she call her and
40:37
it's just I love that. Yeah, it's called
40:39
creativity I
40:41
call it desperation Just
40:43
fill time Yeah, there's also natural
40:46
curiosity about how the who's on the other end of
40:48
the phone It's why it's why when I when I
40:50
used to do standup, I used to work the room
40:52
Yeah, because it was much more interesting than what I
40:54
had to say, right? People will tell
40:56
you the most intimate details of their life
40:58
too, which is fascinating. I've always been fascinated
41:01
I want to say I think 95 of my close friends are
41:04
jewish And
41:07
always have been and I grew
41:09
up so irish catholic, but i've
41:11
always gravitated You're the 12th
41:13
tribe, you know, like well exactly i'm i'm
41:15
trying to figure out I feel such a
41:18
kinship With jewish people the
41:20
thing i'm most envious of is the
41:22
food because I think really yeah, i'm
41:24
not the itallians No, no, i'm
41:26
talking about the irish the itallians have amazing food.
41:29
Yeah, but um, let's leave the itallians out of
41:31
this for right now Because
41:33
man do they get my goat I'm
41:36
talking about like the irish. We have a
41:38
we have nobody says let's get takeout irish.
41:40
No That's
41:42
a potato in a bag Although
41:45
conan I was in ireland for the
41:47
first time this past the fall last
41:49
september And the food was fantastic
41:51
in doublin a lot of great
41:53
food Well, it changed they there was a
41:55
culinary boom and a lot of the great
41:58
chefs started going to doublin I
42:00
think in the late 80s, 90s. So they
42:02
have amazing restaurants, but all I ever want
42:04
to do is go to a deli. Yeah.
42:07
My favorite meals are, corned
42:09
beef sandwich, just all of
42:12
it, latkes, potato pancakes, cream soda. Yes,
42:15
the test. Do you like gefilte fish? Yeah, I'm
42:17
okay with gefilte fish. All right, there you go.
42:19
Then you are a Jew. I'm
42:21
a Jew. I have now anointed you. Thank
42:24
you. But when I was in Ireland, I
42:26
felt an incredibly, and I loved being, I
42:28
just loved it. It was one of my
42:30
favorite places I've ever been. I felt an
42:33
incredible affinity with the Irish. Yeah. I think
42:35
it's an oppressed group. I mean, I felt
42:37
that about them. They had been so oppressed
42:39
by the Brits for so many years, and
42:42
I just felt that sense of being a
42:45
part of an oppressed group. I always
42:47
thought it was interesting when I started
42:49
to learn more about Irish
42:51
history and that there was
42:53
literally getting conquered and conquered and conquered and
42:56
not having a say in your own life.
42:58
Like you're going to work this land, you
43:00
don't own the land. Because there's no agency,
43:02
what you do is you find these different
43:04
ways to rebel. I think it's
43:06
true of a lot of oppressed groups.
43:08
They figure out this other way, and
43:10
they figure out whether through music or
43:12
comedy, writing,
43:15
the Irish bent
43:17
and twisted the language. You get James Joyce
43:19
because it's almost this like, fuck you, we're
43:21
going to do it this way. Right. But
43:23
the Irish, there's a lot of Irish poets
43:25
as well, and playwrights. I think
43:27
that they also have that in common
43:30
with the Jews is the use of
43:32
language. It's a very verbal culture.
43:34
It's very fascinating to me. I know
43:36
a lot of people have talked about
43:38
this sort of similarity, but I've always
43:41
found that that's the way I gravitated.
43:45
Well, we'll accept you. As
43:47
long as I get the food. As
43:49
long as I get the food, did you
43:51
have these, I want to say stereotypical Jewish
43:53
cuisine growing up? My mother was
43:56
like the worst cook in the entire
43:58
world. Oh God, she was so bad.
44:00
She was horrible. And
44:02
my mother was also hygienically not, you
44:04
know, up to par. What?
44:07
You know, so none of us ever wanted to eat her. I always
44:09
felt like she was doing munch-housing by proxy and
44:11
trying to kill us all. You know? Because that's
44:14
what it felt like. But, yeah, she
44:16
was not, uh... You didn't want to eat her
44:18
food, trust me. Okay. Okay. So you didn't grow
44:20
up around the giant great meals that, you know...
44:23
No. No, but my father used to take us down to the Lower East
44:25
Side all the time. We would go
44:27
to Ratner's Deli and Katz's Deli and, you
44:29
know, and we would go to the Epstein's
44:33
and the Bronx and get fresh bagels and all of
44:36
that stuff. My friend, when I was
44:38
in, uh... Well, you know him well,
44:40
Sona, but when I was in college, uh, met
44:43
this guy who would become really great friends, Rodman Flender, and
44:45
he would take me... He grew
44:47
up in Hell's Kitchen, and he would just... He
44:49
would always take me to... There was like 35
44:51
delis that were great, and
44:53
he knew where they all were, and he would
44:55
take me there and tell me what to get,
44:57
and he made me matzah-bri once, and I was
44:59
like... Oh, matzah-bri. I love matzah-bri. I
45:02
live for matzah-bri. Well, you gotta have
45:04
Rodman Flender's matzah-bri. Okay. Light me over.
45:07
Shout-out to Rodman. What's up? What is it? Matzah-bri
45:10
is... It's matzah that's egged.
45:13
It's like matzah French toast. Oh, that's cool. It's
45:16
so delicious. Ah, what's up?
45:18
Can you tell Rodman to come make some? Where
45:21
is Rodman now? Rodman right now is in New York, but
45:23
he'll be back here soon. He goes... He's
45:25
sort of bicoastal now. What does he do? Director,
45:30
and I mean, just... He's a brilliant
45:32
guy, very funny, but mostly directing. He's directed
45:34
a lot of television. He's directed film, directed
45:37
documentaries. I'm glad he's getting a shout-out. Yeah,
45:39
I love Rodman. You love Rodman. I
45:41
do. I just do. I told you you love him. I didn't ask
45:43
you. I know. You just said it, but
45:45
I do. But I don't
45:47
like you forcing it on me. And you're
45:49
gonna love his matzah-bri, whether you want to or not. See,
45:51
now I'm not gonna like him. No, you are. Because you're
45:54
telling me to like him. Okay. There's no way not to
45:56
like matzah-bri. Okay. I like breakfast roast. It's one of the...
45:58
There you go. And I love matzah. Although, I had a-
46:01
It's a win-win. I had a
46:03
matzah the other day that was
46:05
so devoid of moisture that I thought my
46:07
head was going to implode. Someone
46:10
handed me a matzah, and I like matzah,
46:12
but this matzah for some reason, it had
46:14
no nothing and I
46:17
put it in my mouth and it sucked
46:19
the marrow out of my bones. Oh, God.
46:21
What was this? It was like
46:23
a death matzah cookie. I don't know. I'm
46:26
just saying, have you ever heard of ever had
46:28
a matzah that really just- I've never had a
46:30
death matzah cookie. I'm
46:32
not denying your experience, but I've
46:34
never had it. I'm
46:37
convinced it's out there. Now
46:39
it's become my nessie. I swear I
46:41
saw it and everyone's like, there's no,
46:43
no, we've never seen it. My father
46:46
used to eat, in the morning he
46:48
would have herring, like pickled herring. Ugh,
46:50
that's gross to me. My
46:52
dad, I don't know, I mean, such an
46:54
Irish guy, but he would have borscht. Really?
46:57
Like little cured fishes and stuff that
46:59
really, I mean, borscht just
47:01
looked disgusting to me. It
47:03
looked like he was having a bowl of blood and
47:06
then chewing on some oily fish. And
47:08
then he'd, you know, and he was always very
47:10
fussy about it. You can imagine my dad just
47:12
having, and then a little cup of something else
47:14
that was gross, some liver. Sorry,
47:18
I'll have a little minced liver and then I'll
47:20
put a little oily fish in my mouth and
47:22
then I'll drink this blood juice. He's
47:24
just eating. Borscht is good too. Sorry,
47:28
it is. I'm so quiet. I
47:30
know, it is, I'm sorry, it's delicious. Adam,
47:32
how do you feel about borscht? Just bringing
47:34
him into the conversation. I do love matzo
47:36
brite though. Oh, there you go. Everybody knows
47:38
matzo brite. And I was thinking when you
47:40
said that you had the dry matzo, isn't
47:43
by definition it's dry, there's no moisture in
47:45
it anyway. That's what I'm thinking too. But
47:47
this was something else in it. There was
47:49
something that sucked moisture out. It deprived me
47:51
of moisture. I went blind because all
47:54
of the liquid in my eye went down into the
47:56
matzo and I couldn't see
47:58
for three days. music.
48:01
I'm an
48:04
idiot. This group.
48:06
I know we're so
48:08
stupid. Susie regrets coming
48:11
so... Conan O'Brien.
48:13
So Curb's
48:16
over now. You're gonna miss that. Yeah,
48:19
I will. But you know, I
48:21
mean everything's got to come to an end. I mean
48:23
it's just we had an amazing run for
48:25
24 years, but I'll miss it. I
48:27
won't ever... Larry would tell me this all the
48:29
time. You'll never do anything that's funny again. Well,
48:31
he's right. He can't say that. Well, yeah, he can.
48:34
You can't say it if your name's
48:37
in the show. He's Larry David and he can say
48:39
it. I guess he can, but it seems... It doesn't
48:41
seem right. I'm gonna have a bone to pick with
48:43
Larry now. You know what? He'll never do anything as
48:46
funny as this Conan podcast. Never! Good luck to you.
48:48
But the reason why he's right is because
48:50
I can't imagine anything else that I would
48:52
do that I would have as much creative
48:54
input. Yes. You're given a script and how
48:57
many times have I gotten a script that
48:59
like make it funny when it's not? But
49:02
if Larry wrote it, it would have been. But I
49:04
got to write all my own
49:07
lines. I got to create the
49:09
character. And being in
49:11
a creative collaboration with him, I'll
49:14
never have anything like that again. I
49:16
also think that between
49:19
when the pilot for that show was
49:21
made and now comedy
49:24
changed a lot in a good
49:26
way. We got
49:28
away from proscenium comedy sitcoms
49:31
and we got away from laugh tracks and
49:33
we got away from some of the phoniness.
49:36
And so the comedy that you guys were
49:38
doing in the early curbs, there's nothing to
49:40
indicate. I mean, the office was doing this
49:42
too. You know, the British office and then
49:45
the American office. They were letting
49:47
awkward moments play as awkward. And
49:49
let them sit. Let them sit.
49:52
And they were establishing
49:54
natural rhythms. And I think there's a
49:56
whole generation that now looks
49:59
at that. that's what comedy is
50:01
supposed to be. So if
50:03
you now show a 22 year old, a
50:08
person walks in and, hey, what's
50:10
going on? Laugh
50:13
track. And, oh, who's this kooky guy? And
50:15
then a kid puts his, a little kid
50:17
puts his fist on his, and says like,
50:19
well, if you two get a divorce, I'll
50:22
be the one that gets custody. And it's
50:24
like, we now all know, no
50:27
one will accept that. Nor
50:29
should they. And it was of its
50:31
time, I'm not criticizing that. It was, you know, it's
50:33
what we grew up on. And some of them were
50:36
brilliant. You know, I
50:38
mean, I grew up with some brilliant
50:40
sitcoms out there, some crap, but some
50:42
brilliant ones too. But yeah, I mean,
50:44
look, comedy is a reflection as it
50:47
should be of the culture. One
50:50
of the things that Curb has done, which
50:52
I think is remarkable, it is not given
50:54
into any kind of political correctness
50:57
in any way. And how
50:59
we get away with it on that
51:01
show is remarkable, given the environment that
51:03
we're in. Something that occurred to me is, there's
51:06
just this general knowledge that
51:09
no one's getting an apology from Larry
51:11
David. In a good
51:13
way, meaning he is going
51:15
to irritate everyone. In-
51:18
Equal opportunity, irritator. Equal opportunity, irritator. And
51:20
that he's not gonna be caught in a
51:22
moment where he has to then go in
51:24
on camera and say, you know, we did
51:26
a thing, and I apologize. Because
51:29
he was, first
51:31
of all, he always put himself down. That's
51:33
right. So his character was always the one
51:35
who loses. He sticks his finger in his own
51:37
eye. He sticks his finger in
51:39
his own eye. And also, so
51:41
there's not malice there. And then
51:44
there's also a genuine, let's explore
51:46
why these different tropes freak people
51:48
out so much and do it
51:51
in an equal way. And I think that's
51:53
why there was just this general acceptance of
51:55
yes, this show can do that. And
51:57
he's also saying what people want to say.
52:00
But they can't. You know, like I was looking at a scene
52:02
the other day where he goes
52:05
up to a couple that have an
52:07
adopted Chinese baby. And he says, does
52:09
the kid have a proclivity for chopsticks?
52:12
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I
52:15
mean, who else is going to do
52:17
that? But Larry. Right. And it's hilarious.
52:19
And he's not saying it's right. He's saying- He's
52:21
not saying it's right. And, but you know, you
52:23
kind of wonder. Yeah. He's,
52:26
I do think
52:28
it's healthy when great things come to
52:30
an end, you know? There's, it can't
52:32
last forever. Yeah. And also it needs
52:35
to, it needs to whatever, transmogrify, transform.
52:37
You need to go do the next
52:39
thing. Right. You know, so
52:42
it's, it's very liberating people. And the episodes
52:44
are there. Everyone can watch and rewatch and
52:46
rewatch. And there's a lot of them. There's 121 of them. And,
52:51
you know, we're all getting old, you know? It's
52:53
like, I think what Larry felt like and he's
52:55
going to be 77 in July. How
52:59
long could he act like this ridiculousness
53:01
that he acts in that character, you
53:03
know? I mean, I think he just felt
53:05
that. It just, especially after Richard died
53:07
too. It really felt like it was
53:10
just over. I can't imagine doing
53:12
this show without Louis. I just can't imagine
53:14
it. But it feels, it
53:16
doesn't feel sad to me as much as
53:18
I feel and not to be
53:20
Pollyanna. I just feel so grateful to have
53:23
done it. Yes. I feel that
53:25
way about so many things. So you just finished something
53:27
huge, you know? How many, 30 years
53:29
you did? Yeah,
53:31
I think it was 28 years we did the show, did
53:34
one show or another, but I did late night, over and
53:36
over. And then I have
53:38
loved the last three years because I
53:40
love doing the podcast. I love doing
53:42
the travel shows. I'm a male model
53:44
now. It all gives me, well, it's
53:46
possible. It's not true though.
53:48
Well, I know, but there's a possibility. Who gives
53:50
a shit, David? It feels true. David, once you're
53:53
shut, thank you. What are you, the voice of
53:55
reason over here? That's why I'm here. Shut the
53:57
fuck up, David. Fuck it. Susie, come after. After
54:00
David hopping, you fuck. Yeah,
54:02
fuck you, David. Happy to be
54:05
here? You
54:08
sit in so rarely and you sit in
54:10
and suddenly he gets, you're
54:12
just getting blasted. Susie
54:14
Aspen turns to you, what? Shut
54:18
up. But things do come to
54:20
an end. And everything is
54:22
not forever. Marriages end, whatever,
54:24
people die. No, no, we'll
54:26
die. No, I'm not gonna die. Can't
54:30
die, not gonna happen. My
54:32
ego's too big. There's such quiet in the
54:34
room after you said that. I don't care. Okay. Nothing,
54:36
I'm not going anywhere, see? You're a ticking
54:38
time bomb, honestly. It's a shock
54:40
you made it this far. Keep eating the deli,
54:42
Conan. I'm eating the Jewish deli food. Me too,
54:45
it's a deli. I
54:47
am so happy that I ran into
54:49
you in the city and I meant
54:52
what I said. You're a lovely person
54:54
and so much, it's effortless to talk
54:56
to you. And you're
54:58
hilarious, as you know. As are you.
55:01
Well, thank you. And we
55:03
have to have Susie back. Yeah. You
55:05
have to come back. And can I just say,
55:07
on behalf being HUS, I am welcoming you into
55:10
the tribe. Thank you. You will probably-
55:12
The royal will be over next week. Oh
55:14
my God. This has got a lot of... I've
55:18
been to many brices and my favorite joke to
55:21
do was to say, because they always cater them
55:23
to go like, this calamari's terrific and the person
55:25
running it would go, we don't have calamari. And
55:27
I go, ooh. It
55:31
was the shtick I did, but I
55:33
accidentally ate the foreskin. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
55:35
yeah, yeah. I know, Sona looked at
55:37
me with horror, but I did that
55:39
shtick at nine different brices. It killed
55:41
every time. I can't believe I
55:44
looked at you with horror about a
55:46
eating foreskin joke. Oh, come on. Sorry.
55:49
And there's a single one? What? Because
55:51
the calamari, is there one? There's one
55:54
on the plate? The guy just got confused. It was
55:56
a multiple break. Yeah. Or
55:58
the guy didn't get enough. It's the first chop.
56:00
Oh, he did multiple chops. Yeah, the moi didn't get
56:02
enough on the first chop, so he had to keep going
56:05
back. It's so barbaric when you
56:07
think about it. And then
56:09
we're all there and you hear a baby shrieking. And
56:11
then they eat white fish. Suddenly we're eating white fish and then
56:13
the occasional calamari. Yay!
56:16
Don't double dip. Thanks for having me. I win. I
56:19
win. All right, Susie Essman, go with
56:22
God. Thank you for being here. And
56:24
I love you. My pleasure. Anytime.
56:38
Now, Sona, you and your friends just went on a pretty
56:40
cool trip. Tell me about it. Where'd you
56:42
go? We did. We went to Palm
56:44
Springs and we got an Airbnb. And so we had the house
56:46
to ourselves, which was really nice. So we were just
56:48
at your house the other day. I hung out with your kids.
56:50
We had a fun time. I think one of them bit me.
56:53
But I probably deserved it. I
56:56
was noticing your house is really nice. Would you ever
56:58
Airbnb your house? I would. I actually would.
57:00
For some extra cash if nobody was there. Yeah.
57:03
Or maybe if Tack was there. If
57:06
your husband was there, you'd Airbnb the house without telling
57:08
him. Why not? Well, your house is
57:10
very nice. I think people would enjoy it. Yeah. And
57:12
you can make some extra money. That's right. It's
57:15
a great idea. When you're away, your home
57:17
can be an Airbnb. Your home might be
57:19
worth more than you think. Find out how
57:21
much at airbnb.com/host. You
57:33
know, I want to call out the biggest villain I
57:35
know. You know, I'm very particular about the pens that
57:37
I use. Yes. Well,
57:40
people love to take them. And
57:42
then I'll see like Mike Sweeney, our
57:44
head writer, producer, I'll see him later on.
57:46
He's got like nine of them in his
57:48
pocket. Mike, those are mine. And he's like,
57:50
well, I think they're mine. That
57:53
does make him a villain. Yeah. Well,
57:56
I want to say to Mike Sweeney, how do you sleep at
57:58
night? Yeah. I don't want to say to him, but
58:01
I already know the answer he'd probably give me. Mattress
58:04
firm. Yeah, cause Sweeney
58:06
loves mattress firm. Mattress firm will
58:08
find you the right bed with their wide
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selection of quality mattresses at every price. Yes,
58:12
even those who don't deserve to rest, like
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58:17
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it happen from mattress firm. See
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58:53
Hey, I heard you met someone special. What
58:56
the? Yep, I
58:59
did. I'm leaving my wife and
59:01
I'm moving in with Monica. That's
59:05
your intro to this? Yeah, and I'm sticking by
59:07
it. Okay. Couple of, not that
59:09
long ago, like two and a half, three
59:11
weeks ago, I leave them in New
59:14
York and I get a text message from the
59:16
very funny comedian Jim Gaffigan. And
59:18
it says, can I call you? Which,
59:22
you know, I know Jim, but it's not like we
59:24
talk a lot or anything. So that, I was a
59:26
little freaked out in the moment. You thought you're in
59:28
trouble or something. Oh, I thought he said, can I
59:30
call you? And then your mind races. And I thought
59:34
maybe Jim needs money. You
59:38
know, what's going on? Did I
59:40
do something? So I call
59:42
him and he basically says
59:45
that the Vatican is interested in
59:47
inviting a bunch of comedians to
59:51
meet with the Pope. So Jim Gaffigan
59:53
was one of the point people
59:55
because he is a good Catholic
59:57
fellow. Stephen Colbert also, was
1:00:00
calling people. So the next thing I know, I think,
1:00:03
well, you have this chance to go
1:00:05
to the Vatican, meet the Pope. This
1:00:07
sounds cool. So I say,
1:00:10
well, I'm in, we gotta do
1:00:12
this, let's go. How much advance notice did you
1:00:14
have? Not a lot, couple of weeks, but not
1:00:16
much. So maybe two and a half,
1:00:18
maybe three weeks, maybe three weeks, maybe- But
1:00:20
you don't need to prep, you just show up. Yeah,
1:00:23
exactly. Every time I've met the Pope,
1:00:25
I haven't prepared. And so anyway,
1:00:29
we get ourselves to Rome. My
1:00:32
wife and I, my son came along as well.
1:00:34
It was fun because we all had kind of
1:00:37
a dinner the night before we got to hang
1:00:39
out, a bunch of us, not all of us,
1:00:41
but a bunch of us, which
1:00:43
was just nice to get to hang with
1:00:45
some of these people and talk about what
1:00:47
is gonna happen. But then the next day
1:00:49
we show up and they said,
1:00:51
be there really early. And I'm
1:00:54
mentioning things that I'm sure Stephen will
1:00:56
have talked about this, and you know,
1:00:58
but my experience was the first thing they said
1:01:00
is be at the Vatican at 6 45. And
1:01:03
I'm like, AM? AM, and I said, 6 45, no. And
1:01:09
also I think the sense I got is
1:01:11
that this Pope gets up really early and
1:01:15
that's immediately, cause I've toyed with the idea
1:01:17
of being Pope. No, okay.
1:01:20
This killed it immediately. He
1:01:22
works out probably in the morning. I think
1:01:24
he works out. I think he's riding his
1:01:26
bicycle all around Rome. He
1:01:29
goes to the market to see which fish is in. In
1:01:35
his Pope hat, yeah. And so
1:01:39
he's, you know, whatever. He's
1:01:41
up really early. And I think we were
1:01:43
not the first thing in his day, other
1:01:45
stuff had already happened. So we all show
1:01:47
up, they take us into the Vatican. And
1:01:50
I mean, I think people know
1:01:53
this by now, but Whoopi Goldberg,
1:01:55
Julia Louis Dreyfus, Stephen Colbert, Tignataro,
1:01:58
David Sedaris. Jimmie
1:02:01
Fallon, myself, Chris Rock,
1:02:03
Mike Birbiglia, Steven
1:02:06
Merchant, who's hilarious. Steven Merchant was there and I
1:02:08
identify with him because he's like six, seven and
1:02:10
mostly leg. And so
1:02:12
we fought each other with our legs, which
1:02:14
was fun. And then the Pope broke it up. Knock
1:02:17
it off with the legs. Got
1:02:19
it out, you two. So
1:02:21
they bring us into this room and then- Is
1:02:24
he even Italian? Yeah, no, you know what it is? He's
1:02:27
from Argentina, but he speaks Italian because
1:02:29
I think he grew up speaking Italian.
1:02:31
So it's okay. It sounds- It's okay
1:02:33
to slander him that way. I'm not
1:02:35
slandering him. I'm doing an impression of what
1:02:38
he sounds like. It was like, I'm making a
1:02:40
pizza pie in Argentina. And so anyway- It's
1:02:42
a mi Mario. It's a mi Mario. And
1:02:44
I was born in Buenos Aires. But
1:02:47
anyway, the Swiss
1:02:50
cards come in. That was the craziest thing.
1:02:52
Swiss cards come in wearing these multi-colored uniforms
1:02:55
that you've seen, yellow and purple. And they
1:02:57
do this whole choreographed thing, which I don't
1:02:59
think was taped or anything, where they have
1:03:01
these long, and
1:03:04
of course Colbert knew the name. He's so Catholic. Is
1:03:06
it a Halbert or a Pike? Yes, Halbert, yeah. I
1:03:08
didn't know the name. And he was like, well, of
1:03:10
course they've got their Halberts. And I was like, how
1:03:12
did you know that? I thought a Halbert was a
1:03:14
nut you could eat. And that's
1:03:16
a Filbert. Anyway, they come in
1:03:18
and they start, they do this
1:03:20
whole choreographed thing with their Halberts,
1:03:22
these basically long sticks that have
1:03:24
like an axe head at the
1:03:26
end. And then all
1:03:29
these dignitaries come in and you're looking
1:03:31
at, some people are wearing these really
1:03:33
elaborate costumes and there are people with
1:03:36
vestments and there are people that are wearing all kinds
1:03:38
of metallic, there's all these chains around their neck. One
1:03:40
guy looked like a sommelier. He
1:03:42
wasn't a sommelier, but he has that thing
1:03:44
where they have a spoon around there. You just see all these
1:03:46
people coming in and out. And then the Pope
1:03:49
comes in and sits down and
1:03:53
he spoke to us in Italian, but they gave us
1:03:55
the text of it. It was really quite lovely what
1:03:57
he said. He talked about how humor brings
1:03:59
people together. and the
1:04:02
importance of it. And it was
1:04:04
very well-written and
1:04:06
very thoughtful, and I thought
1:04:08
kind of interesting. And then you
1:04:10
get in a line and you shake the Pope's hand.
1:04:13
That is very brief, I have to tell you.
1:04:15
And there's no moment, you
1:04:17
know, I never had
1:04:19
any illusions about this, but there might've
1:04:22
been the occasional celebrity there, comedian
1:04:24
who thought the Pope will go like, now
1:04:26
you. He might know
1:04:28
Whoopi, I think, from Sister Act.
1:04:30
Oh, right. But it's
1:04:33
not, yeah. Why, just because she was a nun?
1:04:35
I think, no, and also Whoopi's, I mean, Whoopi's
1:04:37
so iconic, she's been around for a long time,
1:04:39
but I don't think, I had no, not for
1:04:41
a second that I ever think he's gonna go
1:04:43
like, Conan, it's
1:04:45
a good to see, you know, you come
1:04:48
out and you did the thing with the
1:04:50
strings on your hips. The dance, do it
1:04:53
now, do it now, yeah, yeah, that's it.
1:04:55
I never thought, and so it's a quick handshake.
1:04:57
What did you guys exchange any words? I thought
1:04:59
I saw footage of you saying something to him.
1:05:01
I said to him, it's called
1:05:03
Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, and you can get it. Oh no,
1:05:05
oh yeah, I get that call. You're gonna love Matt and
1:05:08
Sona. Yeah. I'm already a fan of them. Yeah, and
1:05:10
I, yeah, and I said, you know,
1:05:15
if it's not Miller Lite, you
1:05:18
know. Nice. Yeah, I did, I mentioned Miller
1:05:21
Lite really quickly, and he went, you know, it's
1:05:23
good, it's not so filling, but it tastes great.
1:05:27
74 calories, or 94 calories. Yeah,
1:05:30
he said, 94 calories? I said, yeah, that's how
1:05:32
it is. And then the Pope said,
1:05:34
and this is a quote, you can see
1:05:36
he's talking, he gets really animated once, when he goes, you
1:05:38
know what, I'm hanging out with my fellas, you know, my
1:05:40
guys. And we're sitting around
1:05:42
and we're shooting the shit, you know, and I went,
1:05:45
yeah, and people were saying, and
1:05:47
he said, your holiness, maybe you should move, and I said,
1:05:49
he's like, no, no, no, it's finally,
1:05:51
I talked to a guy about Militine. But
1:05:54
I'm hanging with my guys, and you crack open
1:05:56
a cold one, and it's like, what is
1:05:58
it, 90, I'm gonna get it. It's like 94 calories. And
1:06:02
I went, jeez, that's really it. And he's like, if
1:06:04
it's not me, then I don't want it. It's
1:06:07
a lot of shit. And I'm like, what am
1:06:10
I gonna have? Some other competing beer? No. And
1:06:13
I'm like, you're starting to sound like triumph of the inside
1:06:15
comic dog. And he goes, yes, yes. Cool,
1:06:17
you suck. So anyway, then
1:06:19
you move on. And then this, I
1:06:22
hope he doesn't get mad at me
1:06:26
for saying this, but I thought it was just a very cool moment.
1:06:29
We sit down, but there's comics from all over the
1:06:31
world and there's a lot of people still filing up.
1:06:34
And our moment's over and there's a long
1:06:36
line. And so we're all sitting there and
1:06:39
Chris Rock is sitting right in front of me. And
1:06:41
I noticed that he has these little earbuds
1:06:43
in and I'm like, he's
1:06:45
listening to something. What's he listening to
1:06:47
something? And I lean over his shoulder
1:06:50
and we're in this beautiful,
1:06:52
gorgeous space with this. I
1:06:54
don't know if it's from the 1500s or this 16. And
1:06:57
it's just like filled with these gorgeous murals
1:07:00
and it's very, everyone's wearing these elaborate
1:07:02
costumes. And we've just had this, we're
1:07:04
meeting this man who's the leader
1:07:07
of this very massive church
1:07:09
all over the world. And you're thinking about
1:07:11
all the significance of it. And I lean
1:07:14
over and I look at Chris as
1:07:16
holding his iPhone in his lap.
1:07:19
And I see that he's listening to the
1:07:21
soundtrack just straight out of Compton. I'm
1:07:25
not kidding. And so I nudge
1:07:27
him and he looks at me and
1:07:29
I point down, really like, really? And
1:07:31
he takes one earbud out and he goes, I
1:07:34
like the juxtaposition. Yeah, I
1:07:36
do too. Between being here
1:07:38
and listening to the straight out of Compton soundtrack.
1:07:40
And I'm like, that's cool. I like that. How
1:07:42
do you think that they chose, was
1:07:45
there a hundred precisely or how many people got
1:07:47
to go, how many comics? Was there a committee
1:07:49
that decided who these people would be? I don't
1:07:51
know how it all worked. I don't know much.
1:07:53
I know that I believe,
1:07:58
when they looked at the final list. from
1:08:00
America, I don't know how many of us there were, but
1:08:02
maybe 15 from America,
1:08:06
something like that. You look at the
1:08:08
list and I don't know how they
1:08:10
came up with those names,
1:08:12
but you look at the list and then
1:08:14
you'd be like, oh, I mean, England, it
1:08:17
was only Stephen
1:08:20
Merchant, I believe. And you're
1:08:22
like, huh, you know, so there were people who
1:08:24
weren't there, I know it's because they were asked
1:08:26
but couldn't come or who knows, I don't know.
1:08:28
But then you look at the different countries and
1:08:31
there were people from Germany, I know this
1:08:33
is a comedian from Switzerland and this is
1:08:35
a comedian from, and then Italy, tons of
1:08:37
comics from Italy. But I have to say,
1:08:39
I was raised very Catholic and my
1:08:42
parents are very Catholic. And so there
1:08:44
was a lot of meaning in going to
1:08:46
Vatican and I did get, they
1:08:48
give you a rosary that's blessed by the Pope, which I'm
1:08:50
gonna give to my mom. Oh. Well,
1:08:53
I'm gonna give her the actual one. It's gonna sell
1:08:55
it to, yeah, gonna sell it. No,
1:08:57
what I was gonna do is I'm gonna keep the real
1:08:59
one and say this was blessed by the Pope. Oh, man.
1:09:02
And so I'll give that to my mom. But I have
1:09:04
to say, one of the most meaningful
1:09:06
things to me was meeting
1:09:09
all these comedians from around the
1:09:11
world. Some of them are standups, some
1:09:13
of them are talk show hosts, some
1:09:15
of them are improvisers. And
1:09:18
I loved
1:09:20
that because there was something
1:09:22
sweet about it. Like we're all
1:09:24
in this kooky, I don't know,
1:09:26
we're on this weird profession. We've
1:09:29
all got something wrong with us, I'm sure. And
1:09:31
we were all together in this beautiful
1:09:34
room. And so I took
1:09:36
a lot of selfies with people
1:09:38
from different countries, met
1:09:40
a lot of comedians from all
1:09:43
over the globe. And
1:09:45
I thought, oh, this might be the part
1:09:48
of this that is getting to me the
1:09:50
most. I thought that was really neat.
1:09:53
And I did, I mean, there were people that were saying like
1:09:55
say hi to Sona and Matt. And I'm like,
1:09:57
what? Who? The Pope? No, not
1:09:59
the Pope. No, the Pope was like, delts on
1:10:01
the mat, it's meal time. I'm
1:10:04
like, please, Pontiff, can we
1:10:07
let this go? No, no, it's just that it doesn't
1:10:09
fill you up. When
1:10:12
I'm sitting with my bishops and we've had
1:10:14
a hard day and I want to relax,
1:10:16
I like to crackle. Hey, we gotta get
1:10:18
paid for this now. I did a riff.
1:10:21
Man, they're getting this for free. But
1:10:23
anyway, it was remarkable. It
1:10:27
was kind of a remarkable thing. And I have to say
1:10:29
in my career, my favorite thing
1:10:31
is when I just pop up places I
1:10:33
shouldn't be. And this was definitely a place
1:10:35
I shouldn't be. And I'm always
1:10:37
looking for those moments where, there's
1:10:40
like a couple of years ago when I
1:10:42
was asked to do something
1:10:44
for the Nobel committee, like some kind
1:10:46
of show. And then they
1:10:48
said, and you can come to the Nobel
1:10:50
Peace Prize, which
1:10:53
is done in a very small room. And I
1:10:55
sat there with James and other guys and my
1:10:57
camera crew and we quickly put suits on them.
1:11:01
And these guys, I don't think James had ever
1:11:04
been in his suit before. And we're all sitting
1:11:06
there like practically in the front row watching someone
1:11:08
get the Nobel Peace Prize. And
1:11:11
people watching it on C-SPAN or wherever they watch
1:11:13
these things, it would be like panting across the
1:11:15
room. And I had people say like, what? Why
1:11:18
are you there? You're the Forrest Gump. Yeah,
1:11:21
I know. My favorite thing is to be
1:11:23
the goofy Forrest Gump that's showing
1:11:25
up places I shouldn't be. But anyway, my
1:11:28
thanks to the Vatican for having
1:11:30
me. And that was quite
1:11:32
an experience. And yeah,
1:11:35
that's all I got. God bless
1:11:37
you. You know
1:11:40
what? That now means more to me than anything that
1:11:42
happened. Thank you. Thank you. A
1:11:44
blessing from this Satanist right here. Conan
1:11:49
O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien,
1:11:51
Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorley, produced
1:11:54
by me, Matt Gorley. Executive produced by
1:11:56
Adam Sacks, Nick Leo, and Jeff Ross
1:11:58
at Team Coco. and Colin Anderson
1:12:01
and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song
1:12:03
by The White Stripes. Incidental music by
1:12:05
Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our
1:12:11
supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our
1:12:13
associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering
1:12:15
and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan
1:12:17
Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick.
1:12:20
Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista,
1:12:22
and Brit Khan. You can rate and
1:12:24
review this show on Apple Podcasts, and
1:12:26
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1:12:28
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1:12:31
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