Yes. Hello, my name is Triempty Insult, comic Dog. And I'm very proud to be Mark Marin's friend. Very proud indeed. How have you been?

You look good. I'm feeling neurotic. I've been feeling a little.

Neurotic lately. Are we good? We're good. Are we good? We're good. That's your sketch phrase. I love you. Wait a minute. You're not the markman.

I'm Conan. My name is Conan.

Conan O'Donogh. Yes. The guy I carried on my back for how many years ago?

It was at least ten. It was a decade.

It was about 10. It was.

About.

10. Yeah, I peaked around 2009. Let me see here. Let me change my note six. I'll come on. Give me nine. At least.

Give me nine. Okay, 2009.

If you average between six and the Wiener Circle sketch, it comes out in 2009.

Very nice. Okay.

Starting over. My name is Triomphe, the insult, comic dog, and I'm proud to be Conan O'Brien's friend. And like most of his friends, I'm not real.

You.

Say because everybody pretend. No, Conan, honestly, I've known this guy for years. I'm one of those people who gets to proudly say that I knew you at the very beginning, and here I am at what is clearly the end. No, it's great. No, you got the pod. And now look at you. You're on satellite radio. Satellite radio, the wave of.

The past.

Serious accent. The abandoned mall of the entertainment industry. No, it all makes total sense. It's like that old saying, Why get your milk for free when you could rent the cow for $21.99 a month? Serious subscription. Yes. No, no, I kid. I kid. I really do kid. You kid. Now, Conan O'Brien needs a friend. What a great title. I just have to ask, why start the show now instead of in middle school when it could have made a difference? Imagine having friends back then. I know. Imagine what it would have been like. No, I do love the new show. I love the banter and the way you've managed. I am so impressed. The way you've managed to abuse your staff in a very way that the audience thinks is ironic is just very impressive.

So impressive.

Now listen, folks, he's a complicated man. Complicated man. The comedian with a dark side. You're like Paliachi, the clown. And that's just for how much makeup you have on. What the fuck? This guy, Conan, is in the makeup chair longer than Jim Carey as the Grinch. No, I kid. I can't. You haven't aged. You've grown. You've evolved. Yes. Back when Conan started, guys, he would nervously talk over all his guests. But here it is, 30 years later, and now he talks over them with total confidence. I love this man. I love this man. Conan gave me a career. He gave me a career back then. He helped me grow up. He also helped me through some very hard times, like when I walked in on him naked in his dressing room. Red pubes. Conversation. I'm staring into the face of raggedy Andy. Anyway, on a happier note, Sona. Everyone loves Sona, the pride of Little Armenia. I think I might be part Romanian or Pomeranian. Either way, I have a hairy back. I can't. That's a stereotype. Terrible. That is an unfair stereotype. Not all Armenia have hairy backs. There's Romanian toddlers up to six months, no hair.

Let's be honest, though. Let's be honest. All of us, all of us owe Conan so much. Conan made me a star. Conan made Sona a star. And Conan made Matt somewhat recognizable in the Glendale Public Library. Seriously, he can't walk into that library without at least one person wondering where they know him from.

Honestly, I have no offense. Love everyone in this room, even the gray haired guy in the back. I'm so honored to be here and so honored to be on this incredible podcast. Let's walk me to.

Poop on you!

(jodi) 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 were going to be friends. I can tell that we are going to be friends.

I.

Can tell that we are.

Going to be friends.

Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Sauna Mousessian joining me. How are you, Sauna? I am. I'm joining. That's very nice. Okay. You're not talking to a lawyer here. It's all okay. And, of course, Matt Gordley. How are you, Matt? I am Matt Gordley. Yes, I have many questions. I did want to bring up something right away. There's a little bit of business. I don't usually do that. Usually, we just chit-chat, and we say stuff, and we find our way. But I have an agenda today. As you guys know, I have a channel over on SiriusXM. And what's fun is that SiriusXM said, Do well by us, kid, and we'll move you up the dial. I was at 1:06. Yeah? And I was like, I'm at 1:06 now, but I want to move on up. Well, guess what? They've moved me up. If you're in your car, if you have access to SiriusXM anywhere, or if you're on the SiriusXM app and you say, Man, I'm Jones for some classic Conan. Which I often say that myself. That's how sick I am. I'll be alone in. I'm Jones and myself. You can check me out on 1:04.

I moved up two notches. All right. Yes. Congrats. Thanks. It's now, and we decided let's just call it what it is. It was Team Coco. Let's call it Conor O'Brien Radio. That's what it is. It's Conor O'Brien Radio. It's on 1:04. This is a way that you can listen to me. It's all the stuff from 30 years of television, but also the podcast plays there, too. Oh, right. Yeah. And recipes. There's no recipes. I shouldn't have said that. That's a lie, and I'll get in trouble for that. But a lot of fun stuff is going to be on there. But a new thing we're going to be doing also is I'm going to take some live calls.

From anyone?

From anybody in the world. Live? Yeah. This is like without a net. Yes, without a net. People can ask you anything? Anything they want. And here's the best part. I'm not wearing clothes as I take the questions. Sorry, you said that's the best part. That's confusing. Oh, I'm sorry. The worst and most inappropriate part is that I'm not wearing clothes when I ask questions. You can't tell it's radio, but I just want that mental image in everyone's head. I have not taken care of myself. And so that should be in there, too. I mean, really, I wasn't starting off with anything great, but man. Oh, poor, Eduardo. I'm a mental- I'm a mental- Yeah. No, Eduardo was horrified. Eduardo got those X-men shades. That's right. Like cyclops? Yeah. He wore a whole cyclops thing so he wouldn't have to see my naked body. I don't think you understand how those work.

You nerd. He's the nerd. I'm the nerd.

I'm going to go home. I'm filled with shame, Liza. What happened? I made the wrong reference to the X-men. Apparently, cyclops's helmet does not work as shit.

Anyway. It controls his laser eyes.

That's right. Not a helmet. That goes without saying. What is it? Are you an X-men expert too? It's not a helmet. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just his glasses, but he controls the lasers that come out of his eyes.

I'm thinking of who's the guy? Magneto. Thank you. That's the helmet. Thank you. Don't just look at me that way. She knows. Are there a whole... They should do things occasionally where they can't find Magneto and then they go in the kitchen and he's stuck to the refrigerator and his legs are kicking. That's not how it works. You don't know how his power works. What do you mean? He would control the refrigerator.

The.

Refrigerator sticks to him. The refrigerator doesn't control him. No, I love the idea that he's just about to do something really cool and then he gets too close to the refrigerator and and then someone comes by and puts a to-do list on him. Buy milk, get more ham.

He's like, God damn it.

You have to know.

These things. What if someone calls your radio.

Station and asks you about X- Men stuff? What if Ian McKen- Well, I will just... Oh, well, first of all, yeah, that's true. Ian McKen, my call. I could just say, I'm sorry, sir, McKen. I'm familiar with your other work, but not this stuff you phone in just for the big check. That I'm not too familiar with. But, Sir, the Royal Shakespeare Theater, I'd watch you any day. Anyway, that's my I think I forget where we were going with this. Your call-in show. Your call-in show. It's a call-in show, and it's just going to be like this. Except instead of you two show-biz phonies, it's real people. Real humans. Wait a week, we should call in. I want to call in. Real people with souls. You probably have forgotten what that looked like. Sony, you sold your soul to the devil long ago to get this sweet Conan gig. What's that.

Say about you, though?

You sold your soul to a long time ago. I sure did. Yeah. To BBC. Oh. Yeah. Hundreds of dollars in return.

Have you recorded one of these yet?

Yeah.

Oh, cool. Was it fun?

It was fun. It was really good. Okay. Mr. Bruce, you were there? I was there, and you have the power to take the channel live and do these shows when you want. Yeah, it's really fun. What? You're getting him that power? What I'm finding is that SiriusXM foolishly, it's like they gave a kid with SiriusADD a go-kart that can go 900 miles an hour. Oh, man. And then they gave him some cocaine. That's what it feels like. Not that SXM would ever do anything like that. It's terrible. But that's how it feels, is I get to go live and just talk to people anytime I want. The first one's available on-demand. What's the phone number? Why you keep asking me things I don't know the answer to?

Because I want to see you scramble.

Okay. They were like- What's the molecular weight of strontium? Just curious, do you have that with you? Why did you bring up Magneto and Cyclops when.

You don't know anything about.

The two? I know about some of the X men. Not enough to reference them correctly. Look, I don't know a lot about the X men. I know that there's a wolfereen. Yeah, what bones he got? He's got bones made of something real hard. Then I know he can't go through TSA at the airport without causing a real fuss. Magneto is always getting stuck to a refrigerator, which emasculates him at the worst time. Cyclops keeps killing his optometrist accidentally. Now, what seems to be the if you.

Wrote an X- Men movie, it would.

Be the most boring movie. No, it'd be really fun. Ithat would be pretty funny. This is my X- Men movie. But anyway, this is the foolishness that you can hear on Conan O'Brien Radio 104 on your SXM dial. Check it out because it's a lot of fun to do. We should probably move on because we have a singular show today. This show is very important to me. You're going to love it, but it has personal importance to me because my guest is one of the great writers, one of the great comedy writers of all time. He's also a comedian. He wrote on Saturday Night Live. While I was there, we wrote a lot of things together, but he was a force to be reckoned with. He was also the first head writer on late night with Conan O'Brien and really helped us get launched. And his DNA is such a part of what we've managed to do, unless you're not a fan, in which case you can blame him. Either way, he's just been such an important part of my life. He's also the mastermind behind Triomphe the Insult, comic Dog. And his new movie, Leo, is now streaming on Netflix.

I'm more than thrilled he's here today. He's a friend, and this conversation has special meaning for me. Robert Smygle, welcome. This is going to be a shock to people, but I don't think I've seen you whenever we've done that.

All these times.

We've done it? All the times we've done it, I look at the puppet and what I see is the top of your curly hair. From the very beginning, I wouldn't see you, so tosee you. So to see you, it was even the same with the clutch cargoes. I wouldn't see you. I would see just the lips. But right now, watching you do it was like a revelation to me.

And also- Seeing what? How much I enjoy it?

Well, I always knew how much you enjoyed it.

But that was- And the giggling from the excess and giggling. I think, Sess and giggling. Yes.

Because that's crazy to me that I haven't seen.

You do it. That is so weird. Yeah. Because I'm always- Everybody else has.

Now, try them, please. But to see you do it-.

Right, I'm always.

Behind you. Yeah, it was like, There's no Santa Claus now.

You've ruined it for the children.

There's so much to talk about, but we got to start with the dog. We just have to. It was the first thing that I loved about the dog, and it's still the thing I love the most about the dog are the eyes. I know. The eyes of the dog.

They're just dead and crazy at.

The same time. Yes, everything. The writing has always been spectacular.

A lot of writers help.

Me always. The voice was always a crazy choice. We should tell people the origin story because it came out of this thing we were doing on the show, which was a talent show. The idea was maybe this talent show and we'll use whatever we have to do.

To pretend-It all came out of this insane directive we created for the show. And that was a mantra that I drove the writers crazy with, which was just like, We're not going to do any found humor. I was obsessed with, We're not going to copy Dave Letterman, because we worship this guy. Even when we were at Saturday Night Live, we secretly knew that Dave's show was the coolest show on TV. And as much as I loved Conan and believed in him, I just thought nobody can do stuff that Dave's doing, including remotes, which shows what a shitty producer I was. I was like, Conan can't do remotes because Dave doesn't. And I've seen Pat Sayjack do it. And Pat Sayjack is as good as Conan, and you.

Can fail. And who can follow Sayjack?

If Sayjack can't do it, how can my best friend do it? It's impossible. No, I.

Was- But we had, because I remember even before the show started, we would talk a lot about... Almost like we had these rules. And a lot of it was there was a... Don't do anything that Dave had done, but also I didn't think that was this big a worry because we both loved cartoons too much.

No, we were naturally suited to what we wanted to do.

We naturally wanted to do very silly, strange things that were... But even when we used to do actual items and it was the first piece we ever did on the show, which was our shot across the bow, because Jay would do the thing where he'd go, Oh, and I see this here. It was just real ads from Sears and Robuck and this-.

And in fairness, that was small town news from Dave. Yeah. Jay borrowed- He borrowed it. I borrowed it. I just borrowed it. It's all fine. Dave can have it back. We can have it back. He can't do The Tonight Show. But he can have it back anytime he wants.

He can have.

It anytime he wants.

I love doing Jays. I let Dave invented headlines all of a sudden. Dave invented- Sorry. He did. No, you do it. You do it because I'm whatever.

But that was the first bit we did. And yeah, Lauren really wanted that on the first show. Yeah, Lauren Michaels. Yeah, Lauren Michaels from television.

And now from everything. I'm everywhere. I make clothes.

I'm right here. I have a body, I'm right here.

Do you have my leisure suit?

Conan, do you really want to go with those sneakers? He's on the way to go.

I want to take people back in time to when I first met you would be 1988, the very beginning of 1988. My writing partner, Greg Daniels, and I get hired to come in to work at SNL. We're petrified. And I remembered finding there was just this natural thing where I gravitated towards you and Bob Odenkirk, who's now the Jacques clon Vendem.

I always knew. We always knew.

We always knew that guy. That guy is going to- That guy is going to have a John Wick franchise.

He's going to have a stuntman.

And then we started naturally just all goofing around together. And then I think the thing that was really life-changing for me is that you, a few years before, had done a show in Chicago, a stage show, and the Writers Strike hit. And you and Odenkirk were talking and you said, Hey, we might go to Chicago and do a stage show with sketches that are too weird to get on SNL. Right. And then you guys asked me, Would I come along? I was thrilled. I had a 1973 Plymouth Valiant that I flew to L. A. Hill, which is where my car was, and I drove my car to Chicago by myself. And the car kept overheating like it's that old movie Dual. It would overheat on Hills and I would have to pull it over. And by the way, I think he was driving also a similar car. Was he? I would pull it over and the steam would and then it would calm down. And I had things of water and I would pour him in. And I made my way to Chicago. And that changed things for me because I thought, I love this.

I love working with these guys. I love that we're doing a stage show in Chicago. I loved that summer. The whole thing.

Was magical. Yeah, no, I still feel like my years in Chicago before I even got Saturday Night Live are professionally in some way, the happiest years of my whole life. Just being in total control of your own show. And just I love the city of Chicago, too, obviously. But yeah, I know we loved you so much when we met you. You're such a funny guy. And Bob and I, I thought I was going to get fired from Saturday Night Live in the summer of '86. I did one season at SNL, and I just barely hung on. Franken called me over the summer. Oh, Franken. It's not looking good. I don't know. Just a lot of people. It was a hard year. And you know who really was funny? Swartzwell. I can't remember what he wrote. Anyway, I'm sorry. It's just... Yeah. So... But then Lauren called me in at the last minute. But Odenkirk and I were developing a sketch show that summer. We were going to call it Sketchcom 90 or something. And that's where I first had the idea for the year 2000, Sketch, which we ended up doing on Happy Happy Good Show.

We did it in Chicago in 1988. Yeah. Two years later. And we would all stand there and in the year 2000, and then we would make these insane predictions about what was then the future.

Yes. It was all based on this Jetsons concept in the 60s that kids grew up with, which was the idea that the space age is coming by the year 2000. They had so much mystique. And then as we got closer to the year 2000, it was quite clear that it was going to be very disappointing.

Well, then the awkward thing was doing it still. I mean, late night, we never... Late night, despite everyone's predictions, kept going and going and going and lasted and actually started worked. And then we were doing it. And then it is the year 2000. And the year 2004. And we kept thinking, do we need to change in the distant future? And I said, No. It's just got to still be in the year 2000.

It's so funny that.

It never changed. And then it's like in 2006, I'm like, It's time to look into the future all the way to the year 2000. But it's a good problem to have. So we did that show together. The one thing I remembered is feeling very much like you could finish my sentence and I could finish your sentence.

I only connected with a few writers in my years there. Really connected in different ways. Dana was one of them, Dana Carvy, and as a performer, almost, because I love doing silly voices and impressions. And so we've had a lot of musical impression sketches like McGlocklin and Regis and things like that and Johnny Carson. And then Conan, I connected in a completely different way. We had this... We just saw people from a distance and we were able to reduce everybody to a cartoon.

Yes. Because over the years, people have said your biggest comedic influences. And it's so cool to say, Well, I would watch old clips of Ernie Kovacs. And it's like, No, it's not true. Nothing inspired me more than Warner Brothers cartoons. Oh, good. The idea of anything can be alive, which then Paul Rubens used so brilliantly in Pewee's Playhouse. Oh, yeah. The idea that everything Cher is Cherry. Yes.

But- Anthropomorphise. This is a thing I've done a thousand times in comedy, and I can never pronounce it.

Anthropomorphise.

Anthropomorphise. Even the word anthropomorphise can be a character.

Hi.

I'm Anthropomorphise. What's up, Anthropomorphise? But you-.

Why are you so damn hard to pronounce?

That's just me, I guess. What's up?

But.

We… Flash forward, I go into the Simpsons, and then, and it's too hard to explain, but all these crazy things happen. It's really the equivalent of me being in a cornfield and getting hit by a meteor. But all these things happen where suddenly they say, Hey, you're going to replace David Letterman, the guy you idolize, who I said many times cannot be replaced. I said it's impossible to replace him, so I pity the guy who replaces him. I'm on record saying that. I was.

Salivating to replace him. We had totally different dreams because he was hired to produce this show. But his dream was not that. Like you say, you did Happy Happy Good Show, and you were always the funniest guy in the room at SNL. I was more like broody Tom Johnovich, just brooding writer. My hero was like, Syinvestor, Pat Weaver, the guy who created the Today show and the Tonight show. I think.

That's the saddest thing I've ever heard anybody say.

I was a pathetic nerd.

Blairei don't understand.

Did you have a big poster of Pat Weaver?

I do understand. He understands. I know I would go to the Museum of Broadcasting or whatever, Radio and television, and revel in these old Dave Garraway talking to a chimp on the Today Show in the 50s.

But what was interesting is they said to me, Okay, you're going to do this. I said it then, I say it now. I said, I can do this if I do it with Robert. I said, I can do this if I do it with Robert Smygle, but I can't do it if it's not with Robert Smygle. I don't.

Think I ever heard that. I know you told me you wanted me to.

Do it. I know. I didn't tell you I wanted you to do it. I said, You have to do it. And then I remembered there was stuff about, Well, Robert's contract, we're not sure. And I.

Was- Oh, Lord, just didn't.

Want me to leave. No, I know, but I was yelling at NBC. Give him, take stuff from me and give it to me. We have to do this together because I knew then I had a shot. And it's true. Don't get self-conscious because I'm complimenting you. Take the paper away.

That's my job. We had very.

Little time to put the show together. I mean, it stuns me now that I think by the time I was done doing the affiliate dance and everything, I think it was June and the show had to be on the air in September 13th of 1993. It's June. And there's just a big empty space where Dave's studio was. And we had no writers. We had nothing. But I knew Robert and I will just start, we'll go. And we worked our at... We didn't sleep. We worked like crazy all summer long. It was the best.

It was my dream job and I was working with you. I was just like the best guy I could work with. I have to confess, when he first told me, and you know this, you remember the conversation I'm sure, When you first told me Lauren wants me to audition, there was a part of me that was scared... Like I was-.

Hey, guess what? Me too. But I'll remember this very clearly. You were like, Gee, I don't know, because.

If- That's a hard way to break into show business.

That's what I said to you. It's going to be hard for anybody. The only person it wouldn't have been hard for is, I think, Gary Sandling. Gary Sandling was a name they were very on. And if he had done and it would have been absolutely brilliant from day one because he's Gary Sandling. But everyone else would have taken some knocks for not being Dave. But I was going to take a lot of knocks because complete unknown and no experience. I remember so clearly, I remember where I was. I was living in this little apartment on Wetherly. In this tiny little nook, I had a phone and a phone machine back when you had a phone machine. I'm talking to you and you're saying, Yeah, they're thinking maybe I should audition because they're looking for the right person. Lawrence said, He's got a look and maybe. He's a look and he's very polite and he's got the hair and the funny first name. Maybe that's a thing. And he'll be cheap. Oh, trust me. You'll get him for nothing. And so.

They- My salary, non-negotiable. Just because I'm saying you're going to save money on him, not me.

I remember talking to you, and you were, rightly- I was shumbly. You were shumbly. You were saying, Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't. And then in the background, I heard a Charlie Brown parent voice go. And I said, What was that? And you said, Well, that was Michelle, your wife. And not wife at the time, girlfriend at the time, I think. And she said, Wow! And I said, What's she saying? And she's saying, and you said, Michelle said, He's got nothing to lose. Right. Then you said, Huh, I think that's true. Why not? And then, of course, I thought, Yeah, I guess I could be a national joke. But that.

Was the fear.

The first year. The fear was the first year was, who's the famous national joke?

I have to say also that... So then I did hesitate a tiny bit. It was like a few hours. I was like, Wow, man, I don't know, man, if he can do it. He's never been on TV. And then I just thought to myself, We both love performing. And I got to do a few things on weekend update. And Conan was already with The Simpsons. And I just remembered like, This guy helped me for hours with my stupid weekend update feature, Moron's Perspective. I'm like, I'm hesitating? It's the fucking asshole. I called you back and I was like, Yeah. I mean, this is my buddy.

But then I never once celebrated. I end up, I audition, they think about it, and then they give it to me and never, I was always scared and always filled with the sense of responsibility. And here it is now, over 30 years later, and I have never once... I don't think I celebrate anything. But I just was always like, Well, see. We'll see. And still now I'm 60 and I'm going, We'll see. Oh, boy. We'll see how it happens. But I think it was appropriate not to celebrate getting that show because it was not like getting cast in an amazing role. It felt to me in a very Catholic way like, This is a test and you're going to have to walk through hell. And then that's what happened.

That is what happened. But I remember. So then he had that audition, which was incredible. And then I asked him about it and he said, Well, I had nothing to lose. And he was in front of, I don't know how many people were in that room.

I don't know. It was a tiny- It was a tiny- No, it was a good size, like 100 people maybe.

And he interviewed Jason, Alexander, and Mimi Rogers, and his Mimi Rogers interview was just professional, hysterical. And then I just turned on a dime. I was like, This guy is going to be enormous. And then he was so funny and hilarious when we assembled Writers, we all got incredibly overconfident. We're like, Everybody's going to have a Pompadour within six months. I really believe this. I was like, Everybody's going to want to have long, skinny pants. I was positive.

Everyone's going to want to have ambivalent, ambiguous gender. It was a good thing, though. He was a guy, but also he's a little.

Bit of a girl. For his, he stayed nervous, but the rest of us were so confident. And it was great because it made us try everything. We were fearless. We tried every idea, and obviously some went to shit. But still, the proudest achievement of my whole career, easily, is how much stuff we did generate.

If you look at the first two years, that's the thing that I'm stunned. Well, if you looked at the first three weeks-.

There's so much material that you did forever on The Late Night show.

We did the Clutch Cargo in the year 2000, the actual items. There's so many things. But then we kept- Building on that. -we never stopped trying to try new things. I remembered people used to, who were in the business would say, I remembered even David Letterman saying, That's insane. Because we were basically trying to do Saturday night live every night, which is impossible. And then finally you could smell the smoke of the gears grinding. Yes. People going insane. No one's sleeping.

It's funny because I think I've told you this story. A lot of it stemmed from people on the staff who just didn't believe in us. Some people really believed. Like Frank's back there and Paula. But then in 1999 or 2009, I visited the Fallon set. Because back then when we did it, people were like, Which every night live we're doing over here. I visited the Fallon set and everybody was like, all perky and happy. They were doing really ambitious shit. When he first started in late at NYU, they were doing all these detailed film pieces. Literally, crew members said to me, It's like every night's life. They were super excited about it because Jimmy had been on television for 10 years. It's interesting you said that. One thing I wanted to bring up was last year we lost one of the most important people that ever worked on the show.

Bill Toll. Yes, Bill Toll was a legendary prop master who looked, just to see if you want a visual, Bill Toll started with us and was with us for years and years and years and years. And Bill Toll looked like a Nordic God. I mean, very tall, incredible build, incredibly handsome face. And then we started using him in sketches, so you could look him up.

Yeah, later on, yeah. He did very funny.

Sketches on TV as well. But long white hair and he looked like you could put him in a Thore costume and he could say, You trespass here. I mean, he had that amazing look.

Yeah, and a deep voice, too.

But he would do.

Anything- He would do anything. And at that point in the show, sometimes it felt like we were almost at war because there were people on the staff who just were like, Why are we doing this fucking key screen behind the band or whatever weird thing we were trying. We were trying all this weird stuff. We were trying all this stuff. And then there were people like Frank who would do anything and think of idea. I got something for Alex Rocko. You're going to love it. Whatever. I remember I'll just tell one quick Bill story. We won the the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994. And so I have this idea that I have like a dancing or running around Stanley Cup, like a live Stanley. It was anthropomorphized.

Yeah, the Stanley Cup has come to life and is dancing around in our city.

And of course, because I was a big baby, I wanted a giant Stanley Cup but to have tidy YTS visible at the bottom. So the legs are really cute, but he's wearing tidy YTS and it's disturbing. But I had this idea literally at 2:00 in the morning and Brian Leach from The Rangers was going to be on the show the next day. And so I call, and the writers were all there laughing about this, and I called the wardrobe department and was like, What the fuck are you talking about?

That's not going to happen. You can't do that. Then I called Bill Tull and he's like, Okay, yeah. You want me to build a whole thing? Okay. So it's like, How many levels are there? And it's like, three in the morning. And so he gets right to work. And then the only thing that he can't figure out is the Stanley Cup has like this bowl, this big silver bowl on top. So Bill Tull calls the Rainbow Room, finds out that they have a silver bowl. He goes up.

There- Which is, by the way, for anyone who doesn't know, one of the most swanky-Lanky. Yes. Like, incredible elite places. Rich people have their weddings in the Rainbow Room. So he goes to the Rainbow.

He goes to the Rainbow. You guys got a Silver Bull. I need it for a guy wearing underwear, a Stanley Cup thing. And so the guy gets the manager of the place. I'm like, Well, we need that bull. Listen, what can I do? How can I get the silver bull? Literally, the guy says, Well, there's a hot security guard downstairs, and if you can get me her number, set me up so I can call her, I'll give you the bull. He goes down to the ground floor. Of course he does. Talks to the security guard lady, says there's a guy in the rainbow room, and he gets the number. He goes back upstairs and comes back with the bowl. This is like I got no sleep. The whole point is that like-.

That was the spirit of.

The show. That was the spirit of the show. Chalemi is here another.

Long time. I call Chills the warrior because he's still... I shoot things now. I'm in different countries for this thing I'm doing for HBO Max. Yeah, he's another one. And who's there? Chills, he was there. Yeah, he gets it. But one of the things was really, I'll say this and then we have so much to talk about. I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. We were always... This is just going to have to be a seven-hour episode. But this is what I remember about Bill Toll was we needed some crazy-looking thing that basically was going to look like an animal skeleton, but it had a clock for a head or something. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And so at rehearsal, they reveal this thing and it looks perfect. And I'm like, Wow, how did you fake this animal skeleton? And Bill's like, Oh, yeah, I was. I went upstate New York. I knew a guy who, he has a farm and he told me where all the animals are buried. So he went out at night with a shovel and dug around until he found a dead sheep and he dug up all the bones and reassembled it.

For the prop. Just beyond belief.

I mean, literally, he's a goof in the night. The giant moon behind him and a silhouette of him digging and then assembling bones. And then.

He just talks about this matter of fact, Leon. It's the best episode of Inside Conan. You should listen to it. Bill and his partner, John Rau. And the whole point is that it was such a struggle that first year. It was the best job, the most exciting job I ever had, but it was such a struggle. The network doubting us.

You know what I remembered very clearly? If there are five things you need to have a successful television show, meaning the networks behind you, the critics like you, the numbers are strong, and then a couple of things. We had none of those things. We had absolutely... I remembered sitting around going, Let's see, what are the things you need? And then making a list of the five and going, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope.

All we had was a great show. We did have a great host.

And a great sidekick. You know it was really nice was that we made it to that first summer and suddenly colleges got out. And all of a sudden we had these audiences that were fine. And if we did something really funny, they would laugh. But it was always touch and go. And then suddenly I walked out, it would have been June of 1994 after this slog, this crazy slog, which started the summer before and went all the way into the following. So it was a solid year of no sleeping, always worrying. People on the street telling me to drop dead.

Oh, my God.

Those.

Were network executives. I thought it was bad for him.

They were worried I didn't get the message.

It'll make him stronger. It's okay.

He's over there. He's in Central Park South. Get him. Thanks, Lauren. No problem. It'll toughen him up. Now, about my money.

My getaway car needs a better driver.

But I remember that walking out one day to do the warm-up, because I would do the warm-up before the show, and I came out to do the warm-up. The minute the crowd saw me, they were, Yes! Whoa! I was looking behind me like, Is Jerry Seinfeld standing behind me? What's happening?

This was really spectacular. You know what else is interesting? All these people who were criticizing you, I realize now they were not the audience. But they were loving it. Well, we did have Dave, who came on to the show. Yeah, Dave came on the show. That was the biggest thing that ever happened.

Yeah, that was February of '94. That was huge.

Yes. He said it backstage, and then he said it to your face, which is what really mattered on television, how great the show was. And that changed a lot of, took a lot of pressure off the network. But the last thing I want to say about Bill, just in general-.

Bill Toe.

-bill Toe. Just that for people who work on a show like this or any movie set, you could have the opinion that my job is not that important. There's a finite amount of effect that I can have on a show. But it's not true. If people are supportive of the creative people at the top and they give off that vibe that they believe in you and that they'll do anything for you like Bill and other people from that staff, it makes an.

Enormous difference. Yeah. And I'd say, and not to embarrass him because I know he's right outside because he still works with us. But Jason Cialemi, who you mentioned, is the same person who started with us as an intern. But I swear to God, if Jason thought it was... If he sensed that it was important for us doing something comedically, whether it's now for the podcast or for a travel show I'm doing for HBO, Max, whatever, and it involved him getting.

Shot at. It's just Max now. Yeah. Oh, the program.

Okay, whatever. I like to throw the HBO in to let people.

Know- That it's actually quality. That it's not pornography.

When you just say Max, people think, Oh, well, it's people fucking. So I can.

Whack off to this?

Yeah.

I've never been able to whack off to Kona. This is exciting. He's really evolved, like they say.

His porn is so creative. All the furniture in the room is talking, too. The guy and the girl are going at it. And then the couch is like, Yeah, what a schlong. Quiet, couchy, I'm losing my concentration.

I like that porn with Anthra and Fomarifax. Wow, he's really.

Giving it to her. Shut up, alarm clock.

The pizza is watching.

The pizza is rubbing its pepperoni nipples.

Oh, I love it.

A.

New meaning to the word.

Food porn.

Yeah, exactly.

But if Jason thought it was important, and I was just with him, we were shooting in South America, and he's like, I think if he thought this was important to me or somehow important to the comedy, but it involved him running across a firing line where actual being shot, he would do it, which is my point is that he's stupid. He's a moron. He's complete. My point is that it's-He.

Makes you… The last day I was on the show, I had to give a speech, which was painful as can be because I loved the show so much, and I remember saying I thanked everybody, and I said there are people in this room who have said, Conan and I have inspired them to do great work. I just wanted to tell everybody you inspired us. And that's really true. A guy like Jason, a guy like Bill- So many people who- They have your back, and it makes all the difference in the world.

And I do think in light of it's a great message too, that people in the light of all these strikes and everything and people say, Well, it just comes down to commerce and money. And yes, is money part of it? Of course it is. But when you see the level of... When people get excited creatively and then other people around them, whether it's people working cameras, pulling cables, but they're excited too, and they're going the extra mile to make it happen-.

Makes such a difference.

-and then it becomes a religious experience in a weird way. It becomes spiritual and you're making something and then you get the money.

And you don't share.

It with anybody. And then that's last.

Now you're making me think about Jason's predecessor, Mr. Jordan Slansky, who I always credit, triumph remotes wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Jordan. Because the first time we did one, we were never going to get it.

Let me back it up just a little before, which is, you triumph comes out of this sketch doing on the show, and you come in with this dog whose talent is he's an insult comic. Yes. And then I think what we have to do, which I have to give you credit for, two things. The choice of the puppet is exceptional. Like I say, the fact that the puppet has a realistic face, but the eyes are dead. And so he says these jokes and stares. And I think not unlike why I often found Norm McDonald so funny is Norm could make his eyes go dead and just stare at you after he said a joke. And I do think that Triomphe has that... I look into those puppet eyes and I can watch it forever. But the other thing is the voice. Because anybody else doing it who had that idea of, Oh, yeah, it's a dog who's an insult comic, would have done Borch Belt.

Hey, you over there.

What are you? Suck. Armenia. Hey, what? I mean, is that even a country? Sounds like a tiny diarrhea. What? That's a good one. All right, that's pretty good. No, don't write it down. Yeah, that's really good. Armenia, diarrhea. You don't have to write it down. But anyway, what I'm saying is that's what anybody else would have done. Robert is the only person I know who would have done, I think it's an old Russian Jewish woman. Am I correct?

I had grandparents that were first-generation immigrants who escaped Russia and they actually emigrated to China first.

They'd be so proud of what you've done. We must escape persecution. So, Robert, to turn us.

Into a- Future generations may be able to watch to witness a realistic looking puppet have sex with a live animal on television. And she's like, Oh, yes. What is this television? Well, it's going to be a thing starting with Milton Berle.

They're trying to kill us. But if we can.

Escape.

Then one, maybe.

One of our- Grandchildren.

-our.

Grandchildren will turn.

Us into.

A horny puppet. I have to credit my wife because she's the one who... I found triumph on this rack of whimsical puppets that were when we were shooting, when we were newlyweds and we were hunting for furniture at a country store and we saw this. And the puppet was so funny to me, these dog puppets. And there was a sheep and a cat. So I immediately put on one of the dog puppets, sniffed her ass with it in the room, in the furniture store. And of course, she found it funny because she's the perfect woman for me. And then she surprised me in February, two months later, after we were married with seven of these puppets. And that's what gave me the idea for this Westminster thing. And Dave was having Westminster dogs run up and down the aisles of the Ed Sullivan Theater. Very Dave, very found humor. And I was like- Our version of that. Our version is make it up. Yeah. So that's-.

Well, so I remember that. And then I remember early on, before they were remotes, we'd have guests on and Triomphe would roast them.

We would always- It's like catharsis for.

The audience. Yeah. So Triomphe would be over behind this little stand. And I would have interviewed the guest already, and then they go after the guest. And I'll never forget, guests would say yes to it not knowing what it was. Exactly. Simon Cowell is on. It's the height of-.

The first couple of years of.

American- Maybe the first year of American- He was.

Like the biggest thing.

He was huge. He wasAnd he comes on the show and we said, Do you mind? And he went, Oh, no, please, whatever it is you chaps do, go ahead. I'll just be here with my too tight T-shirt. And so you're ripping into him and he's watching. And then when it's over, I say, We'll take a break. We'll be right back. And he turns to me and he's covered in sweat. He was covered in sweat and he said, That was rough. Like a guy who had just been beaten with a stick.

It's so funny. Then later I saw him afterward and I was like, Was that okay? And hes he had come to understand by then. He was like, No, this would be good for me in some way. Would be able to show that I can laugh at.

My son. And blood came out of his tear with blood in it. But then you go to do a remote Westminster Dog show. And, of course, I think Cilemi goes.

With you. No, the first one was Jordan. It was Jordan. And we couldn't get in first because apparently Andy had done something at Westminster that they didn't like. So they weren't going to let us in. And I was like, Okay, I guess we'll never do it. And if I'd never done it, maybe I would have never done a remote because that was the obvious one to do. Sweeney suggested, Why don't you go to West Minster and hit on these dogs? Hump real dogs.

Yeah, because I've been doing it on the show, but here's all these dogs, and I loved it. So then Jordan creates this scam. He printed out all these fake NBA passes. He broke the law. He broke the law, and he figured out a side entrance, and he said, It's not technically deception because we actually are NBA employees. It was very Jordan rationalization. But we got in and it's all because of him that these remotes exist.

We tip our cap now to a man I professionally loathe. I've made a career, a fifth career out of being irritated by Jordan Slansky. But no, in real life, he saved the day. Then remotes come fast and furious and then the iconic crazy Star Wars remote where there's not... It was all still, again, before the Internet, like things couldn't go viral. But I remember the night we played that, the audience screaming and going wild and thinking, There's only some way this can be replayed for everybody throughout all time. And fortunately, now there is.

No, but actually, it was the first thing on the show that did, because before YouTube, there was something called I-film. Blairet will know this because he's a pathetic nerd, right? Yes, that's true. Okay, that is why everybody even knew it back then. It was the first thing on the show that was put on I-film or whatever it was called. It was the happiest experience I ever had doing try because everybody was like, I don't really like making people unhappy. I know it's good television, sometimes, especially if it's like a person nobody likes, but it's so much more fun. These guys were fans of You and they knew who Triomphe was. It was like they wanted to meet triumph. It was like when I met Don Rickel.

What makes it so nice is that, because I'm the same way if I think I've hurt someone's feelings, I don't sleep for like two days. I think they really got, you know. And so I'm just saying that to appear nice. But you must never sleep. I sleep like a baby.

No, you know how he solved that? It was like an aversion therapy. He decided to be mean to everybody. And that way he got numb to it.

Yeah, my son, I'm just everybody. But I think the magic of that was all the people in line who you're making fun of for being never seeing a woman or which button do you push to have your mother come pick you up, whatever. Andrew Secunday.

Gave me that line. They're all.

Loving it. That's the key. And they're just delighted and now they're.

Part of history. They're like the funniest straight men that you could ask for. And the fact that they're enjoying it just made it like just a mutual pooper and poopy. United as one.

It's just beautiful. It's a beautiful thing when pooper and poopy.

Come together. It's just beautiful. It's a.

Beautiful thing when poop and.

Poop come together. It's just so many... Beautiful. I mean, this is the thing where it gets tricky because I could reminis with you about all of this for maybe 15 hours, and we would only scratch the surface. But I just want to make sure that I get in here that I state that you've gone on. We worked together all those years, and then we've continued to work together. We come back together, we work. We just did. I mean, one of the highlights of my recent life was you and I wrote Hans and Frans, musical together with Dana Carvy and Kevin Neyland. Then it just got lost to time because it was never made. And of course, foolishly, we wrote it so that Schwarzenegger, rather than being a cameo, is in nine tenths of the movie. It was the best. But it was nice to see that come around. You've been doing all this amazing work and comedy for all these years. But I have to celebrate that Leo, you wrote this movie, Leo, and it's an Adam Sandler animated film. I saw it the other night and I was completely blown away. It is obviously funny, which I knew it would be, but it's also so sweet and so nuanced and has a great message.

I thought, Well, this is a classic. Then I think yesterday I was told that it's the biggest animated hit already that Netflix has ever had. It's a complete smash. I was practically crying. I'm so happy for you and for Adam. I wrote both of you guys. Adam's lawyer got it.

Sandy Warnick got it. I don't know. I think we got a red line this thing. Let me give it a look to.

The.

Lawyers and then we're in there.

He was really funny because he ended up calling me after I wrote it. Sandy Warnick? No, not Sandy Warnick. But Adam, after I told him, I texted him and I said, Robert, I'm so happy for Robert. I'm so happy for you. It's so well done. And he calls me up and he was asking me about how my kids are doing and stuff like that. And then he was doing this whole riff because my son is very gifted at computers and he loves computer engineering. So he's looking at a lot of engineering schools and a lot of super scientific schools. And Adam was saying, Coney, I'll write him a letter. Those people love me. And I went as a joke. And I was like, It's okay, Adam. He's like.

It's already done.

I took care of it, buddy. I'm going to send it to every engineering school. And I'm saying, No, Adam. Preemptively.

No.

Adam. He's like, These are my people. I was crying. I was laughing so hard. Don't worry, Cody. He's going to.

Be great. Oh, he's.

The best. Yeah, he's the best. God damn. It's so funny because the voice he does in this for Leo is so unique.

It's Bernie.

Yes, it's Bernie Brilstein, the famous manager that we all knew and worked with. What I do know is people don't understand that in animation, the voice is everything. The voice is more important than the actual animation because it's the soul of who the person is, I think, in a lot of ways. And that voice that he does is so unique and it really works beautifully.

Yeah, it's cranky and warm at the same time. Yeah. It's funny because when I had written it and we were about to do a table read and I had told him a couple of days early, I'm seeing a Peter Falk thing. And then right before the read-through, he says, Hey, buddy, I think I want to do Bernie. I was like, Oh, okay, go for it. And then he killed it with the Bernie. And it was just a great instinct. It's very funny because Bernie, I taught him years ago, he's never been fucking null. When we fucking... When we cast Alf, remember during Look Well? So Bernie was an executive producer of Look Well because Conan was with Brilstein.

Let me back up because sometimes we go fast and I want to bring people up to speed. But Robert came to me once when we were at SNL and he said, because we both love the 60s series, Batman. Adam West. And he said to me, I have this idea. We've got to do something with Adam West. And we started talking about it. And he was saying maybe he's an out-of-work actor, but he solves crimes. Still thinks he can solve crime. But because he made these shows, he thinks he can solve crime. So you and I sat down and pretty quickly wrote this script, and we called the guy, Ty Lookwell.

And then we- And that was your name.

Yeah, it was great. And then we go on this quest to get Adam West to do it, and he does it. We make it. That's a whole saga in and of itself because no one wanted us to make it, the network. But then finally- Tartikov got it. But Brandon Tartikov said I get it. But then he left immediately andor something. Oh, no.

So anyway- And Lauren's getaway. Anyway.

And so we make this pilot and we deliver it to the network. And you and I were so excited because we're on SNL. This is a bunch of years before late night. We really think this is our ticket to the top. We love it. We think it's really ahead of its time. It's so cool. And Bernie, because you can do the voice, but I'll never forget this. We're over at Bernie Brilstein's company. He's this big guy. Looks like he's a Jewish Santa Claus.

Santa Claus, cowardly lion.

Yeah, Santa Claus, cowardly lion. He wears all black because he thinks it's slimming.

Slimming. It's fucking slimming.

So anyway, we're in his office, and he's telling us this thing is going to go through the roof.

Adam is going to test through.

That fucking roof. It's going to be huge. It's going to be big. It's going to... And he's in the midst of this long rant about how he knows show business, he knows TV, and this thing is going to go all the way, and you guys have to start figuring out now which mansions you want to live in Beverly Hills. He's going on and on and on when his assistant says a phone call from the network, Bernie goes, Put it through.

Rick.

Ludwin. Rick, so they put it through, and all we can hear is Bernie's side of it. So Robert and I are just flying high, and he gets on the phone, and the first thing he goes, What?

What the fuck?

And then he starts sabotage. This is the best. Because he also managed Warren Michaels. And Warren Michaels had two projects, Look Well, because he was… And he also had a Jack Andy pilot based on Tune-Sys, the cat. It was a collection of Jack Handy sketches, and Tune-Sys was the glue to it. And so Rick Ludwin is telling Bernie that- Yeah, yeah. Look, well, I didn't test terrific with our crew, and that's fucking insane. Adam, this is a fucking genius fucking script. And then what do you fucking say? Tune-sys? Yeah, we're thinking of Tuntis might make it. Tuntis might make the September schedule. Are you fucking kidding me? That thing is going to fucking tank. You're going to put that thing on.

And that's his client, too. It's also his client. It's also his client.

But Bernie didn't have, but Burlstein gray wasn't producing Tuntis. Well, it doesn't matter.

It's Lawrence's. Lawrence's big meal ticket, and he's like.

I don't know.

I don't know. I can't find.

His ass.

With three hands. But anyway, the point is you and I are sitting there, these kids, and all we hear is- What?

What?

The first thing he said was, It's the first thing you screamed after lunch?

People are digesting. I never.

Forget sitting there listening to that.

Fucking Sue Mangers told me this 45 years ago. You fucking idiots have no fucking clue.

I saw you today for the first time in person since Leo came out, and I felt emotional because I'm so happy for you. You're my friend. But also, I was saying you and I have collaborated on so much stuff, and there's a lot of noise out there, and I'm very proud of the stuff we've worked on together. But I saw this thing and I thought, Oh, this is going to be a movie that kids are watching and with their parents because it's really funny. They're going to be watching it like 50 years from now. I don't know how. They'll be putting drops in their eyes and watching you. Yeah, maybe. But no, I think it's lasting. I think it's a classic. That's amazing. And I was just delighted. Just really delighted for you because, Jesus, you know you deserve it.

Thank you. It feels like the first thing I've ever done that everyone agreed on at the same time. Our show was amazing, and we loved it more than anything. And there was an audience that got it. I've had, and then little segments that I've done, like the cartoons on SNL, but any independent project that I've done, even the ones that were successful, like the Zohan or Hotel, Transylvia, it wasn't a critical success. This is like everything.

Everyone's coming together.

Yeah, it's never happened to me in my whole career. So it's just weird. But I love it and I'm very excited and I'm very happy. And I really stuck my eye. And it's four years. And it's four years.

It'syou've been working this for four years. I wrote this script. You've been telling me about it, and I've been saying, Enough with the talking.

Where is it? I know. It was maddening. I would go on Zoom meetings because first you animate it to black and white drawings and animatics. -and we tested it, and it did great. And it's like, great, now do the whole thing over. And that was the creative process, working with board artists. Now you're converting the whole thing to 3D. And it's almost like, okay, we just want it to be as good as the animatic now. We've made most of the creative decisions, and it's just so technical. And sometimes there'd be Zoom meetings where my other two directors, like my notes were usually about acting, and they'd be like, Leo's tail, it has a little bump. It's off model and shit like that. And I would literally, just to be sane, I would mute myself on the Zoom and start making animal noises. What do you think, cow? I would send it to friends with like, they would hear the meeting in the background. The cow doesn't like the idea.

Sorry. The other thing I should point out is you write the music in this. There's a lot of really great songs in it. Oh, that's nice. But it was fun for me because you and I, one thing we always had in common was we always wanted sketches to turn into songs. I know. And so we thought sketches should have a theme song. So when we were working on Mr. Short-turn memory.

That was the.

First- We wanted it to have a song.

And Lauren was like, Can't it just be? Because Don Pardo for years would just be, I know another episode of Short-Turn memory, man. We literally said, Can't it just be another episode of...

We were like, No, it has to be. And Odenkirk and Greg Daniel were working on this too, but we wanted we're like, No, no, it has to be a song, Mr. Short-term memory. He shouldn't have sat under that pear tree. And it's Tom Hax sitting under a pear tree and a pear drops and hits him on the head. Now he has no memory.

He'll frustrate you so, but he'll never.

Know because he's missed his.

Short term. It was one of those things. It was like the first one. Yeah, I love the elegance of that first line, but then that became like a plague on the show. Everybody started putting gingles at the top of every character.

Everything had.

To have a gingle. Everything had a gingle. But yes, naturally, I would have to... The biggest thrill of this movie on some level is just the balls to write songs and music. I was so scared to do it on one hand, but then I knew a composer, this brilliant composer, David Yasbeck. I can't even play a musical instrument. I just sang these into garage band. And then I sent them to him and I was like, Did these suck? And he was like, No, they don't suck. And I was like, Oh, God.

The song at the end with all the children saying how.

Old they are- Oh, When I was 10?

Yeah. That's beautiful. -and then it blends into the next age.

Thank you. It was amazing. Yeah, that's my favorite. Andyeah, I love it because it's funny. It starts out really funny because the premise is like probably an old peanuts premise, like a kid thinking, Oh, back when I was seven, things were... You have no idea what you're looking. But I just love the lyrics are very silly at first. We all gave left milk for Santa Claus. My mom was not in menopause and that thing. It's all very heartfelt and they're in a spotlight. And then it turns at one point, one girl is reminiscing about her grandfather and my Durables are still alive. It's still funny. And then another kid says, I didn't care that people died, which is something that's based on something I experienced with my son, Rowie, who's also in the movie, he plays the whatever kid, the allergy kid. Oh, God. The drone kid. But anyway.

That's such a great. I love the drone.

Oh, the drone is amazing.

When he goes full Bridget Jones and starts eating the chocolate ice cream.

I love that. Thank you. But so Rowie, when my dad passed away, my kids used to laugh at the idea of death. I don't know if you have a similar, but my kids all do. Well, you get over the shock and then it's like, oh, I don't realize how funny it is. After your own parents die. No. No. So, Rowe, they were like, Death, man. What is that all about? And they'd giggle about how weird it is when they were four. And then my dad passed away when they were eight and he had a long illness and a beautiful long life. So the part of me was relieved. But the thing that really made me cry was hearing Rowe experience it and cry. He was crying really hard. I was with my mom, and so I spoke to him on the phone. I realized that not only is he crying because he adored his grandfather, but because he's taking in this reality. That part gets me every time. That's when I get emotional when I hear that song.

Well, it's an absolutely beautiful movie. It's nice when it all comes together. I'm looking at this. Leo has had this crazy 34.6 million views in its first six days.

I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a lot.

That's the biggest debut ever for a Netflix animated film. That's nice. As long as you have a big piece of the merch, you're okay.

Oops.

Somehow I do. Lauren.

Somewhere in Maine.

Somewhere in Maine. A blueberry farm just got a little bigger.

Yeah, it's a blueberry.

Farm, right? Yeah, he has a massive blueberry farm. You know the... And also this is like we have to do it because we all do Lauren voices and make Lauren jokes, but you and I would be completely unknown to everybody if it weren't for Lauren Michael.

Without a doubt.

We love him to death. We love him to death. But we love doing his voice.

We love doing his voice.

The blueberry. And then he has a giant blueberry farm in Maine.

Wait a minute.

So it's like- You know the-The Blue.

Berries, we don't sell the Blue Berries because they're ripe. We sell them because it's 11:30 on Saturday night.

Well, Robert, I should probably wrap this up, but there's going to be a part two at some point. Yes, please. But thank you for doing this. Thank you. I love you. You changed my life.

You're the best.

You keep changing it, ruining it, but also making it better.

Making and then changing it back.

Yeah. Fixing, smashing.

And then making it- Enjoy. I want you to be happy. You should be. I can't believe you could even say that you're still nervous. You are-.

I'm not nervous.

But that's like, I'm so happy for you because I think it's… Can I take two seconds to just remember? Okay, so I remember that summer, Conan would do these practice shows 1993, I'm talking again, and Dino, a couple of writers would be out there and there's no audience. And Conan would just be so fucking funny, just relaxed on stage. There was a part of me that was like, Why do we have to have an audience? Why do we even have to have an audience? It's just going to get in the way. He figured it out and obviously had an amazing career on late-night television. But this show is everything that you are. It's so amazing. We get to see how smart you are and thoughtful and spontaneously funny. I'm over the moon for you. You have this and how popular it is. I know.

You're happy. I know. No, I am. I'm very blessed. Anyway, love you. Everyone has already seen Leo twice by these metrics, but go… Everyone go see it nine times and congratulations. Thank you.

Mazel. Thank you. Mazel. Mazel! I'm filled with Mazel.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam O'Sessian, and Matt Gordley. Produced by me, Matt Gordley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, nick Leau, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Year Wolf. Themed song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

Our supervising producer is Aaron Blaert, and our Associate Talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Additional production support by Mars Mellnik, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Bautista, and Rick Kohn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan?

Call.

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