Jimmy Kimmel

Transcript

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Speaker 2 I don't think of it as courage. I think of it as just obvious.
I think of it as having really no choice but to talk about these things.

Speaker 2 Welcome back to Everybody Knows Your Name. If you've been paying any attention to the news this month, you probably have an opinion about today's guest, Jimmy Kimmel, and his recent suspension.

Speaker 2 We recorded this episode six days before he was taken off the air for courageously speaking his mind. Personally, I'm grateful he's back on TV where he belongs.

Speaker 2 Whether you think he's a hero, like I do, or disagree with him, what's indisputable is that Jimmy is a Hall of Fame broadcast talent.

Speaker 2 Since 2003, he's been the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, making him the longest-serving current late-night host on television.

Speaker 2 An incredible streak and one we shouldn't take for granted if we've learned anything from these events. Just a lovely, generous gentleman.

Speaker 2 And I'm thrilled he took the time to come straight from his show to record ours. Jimmy Kimmel, everyone.

Speaker 2 Are you a cook? Oh, yeah, I cook. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Italian. Oh, that's one of the things.
Grill, I grill, I barbecue, I cook Italian. I am most things.

Speaker 2 And are you the cook or Molly? I am the cook in the house. Yeah.
I make breakfast.

Speaker 2 I'm like a short order cook every morning.

Speaker 2 I make waffles. I make pancakes.
I make eggs. Everybody wants something different every day.
And so I'm in there making it. I make the dog eggs every morning.
And yeah, I make all the meals.

Speaker 2 I do breakfast.

Speaker 2 I do dogs. Well, Mary.
would say correctly that she chips in on all of these, but I love making breakfast. I love bringing coffee to Mary in the morning.
I love feeding feeding the dog.

Speaker 2 And I'm great at lunches. I'm great at opening up the refrigerator and finding something and making something good out of what.
That's what I like to do also. I'm not a dinner guy.
Not a dinner guy.

Speaker 2 I'm not a cook. I love the challenge.
I love like an 11.30, boy, I'm hungry type of situation. But that's you.
Wait, 11.30. At night, you know, it's like my wife will get hungry.

Speaker 2 Maybe we've been out and it's been too long since we ate. She's like, I'm hungry.
And I'm like, let me figure something out.

Speaker 2 I go in the cabinets and I'll usually put together some kind of, I always have like a chicken broth in the refrigerator. And from there, I can always put some kind of pasta together.

Speaker 2 I'll add a little bit of tomatoes, some garlic, some

Speaker 2 little tiny Didalini pasta. Maybe I'll go out in the garden and get some kale or something and put it in there.
Maybe I'll mix a little bit of,

Speaker 2 I'll mix an egg in with some polenta or semolina and drizzle it into the soup and make kind of an Italian egg drop soup.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I get very serious. I don't get around.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Did you notice that when you said at 11.30, I went, you mean lunch?

Speaker 2 At 11.30, I've been asleep for at least two and a half hours. Yeah.
Your life is so different.

Speaker 2 I don't stay up that late typically, but on the weekends, like if we go out or something like that, yeah, we're usually up till midnight. But you just came from work.
I did.

Speaker 2 I just came from work, just did the show. Sean Penn was on the show.
Oh, wow. This kid, Owen Cooper, was on the show.
And I was thinking about you.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to tell you why I was thinking about you.

Speaker 2 Because this kid Owen Cooper, and by now we'll know, he seems likely to win the Emmy for best supporting actor in a limited series for adolescence on Netflix. And

Speaker 2 the kid who has the youngest person ever to win the Emmy, do you know who that is?

Speaker 2 No. You worked with her in a TV movie called Something for Amelia or something about Amelia.
Something about Amelia. Amelia.
Yes. Wow.
Now, she won the Emmy for that when she was 14 years old.

Speaker 2 And so I was just looking through the research and looking at it. And I saw you and I noted that I looked up the plot of this TV movie.
Something about Amelia. Yeah.
I played the incestuous. Father.

Speaker 2 You played the incestuous father. And I started thinking about this.
I'm like, oh, yeah, Cheers is already on the air. It's a big hit.
You're Sam Malone, everybody's favorite guy.

Speaker 2 And somebody comes to you and says, We'd like you to play a man who rapes his daughter. And you're like, oh, that would be great.

Speaker 2 Let me correct you. He was very loving.
Sorry.

Speaker 2 Yes, no, it was horrible.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no,

Speaker 2 it was so well done. Glenn Close was in it.
Yeah. Is that what sold you, or did you sell her? Randa Haynes was the director, an amazing director.
Glenn Close, a really thoughtful script so that

Speaker 2 it wasn't exploitive in any way. Did you feel like it was a risk, like that maybe I shouldn't do this? No,

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 I was more actor at that point than TV star kind of thing. I was still going

Speaker 2 to be with Glenn Close

Speaker 2 and a really good script. He was a playwright.
The guy wrote it in New York. So everything about it was perfect.
It was so well done.

Speaker 2 I will toot their horn that laws were changed around the world as a result of that show. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah.
I mean, literally one Scandinavian country reconvened parliament the next day.

Speaker 2 No more fucking your kids. No.

Speaker 2 Oh, see, you just, you just hung my face on that phrase.

Speaker 2 Roxanne is all. Yes, that's right.
Okay. Youngest Emmy winner.
Right. So, so as as I was preparing for this, you know, as the actor, you know, what if, what if, what if?

Speaker 2 And you could, and I spoke to people who had not committed incest, but people who had worked with those people or tried to talk with them.

Speaker 2 And everybody told me that it was such a taboo that you could understand

Speaker 2 people's motivation right up until the line that they crossed. And then.
then they're goners. You can't get anything real from them.

Speaker 2 But Ted the actor was going, you know, trying to get there.

Speaker 2 And I, most I could come up with is just tell the truth, don't be bad acting so that people can discount the story and say, well, that's not me. That's not, you know.

Speaker 2 So then, flash forward

Speaker 2 to,

Speaker 2 we were out in Malibu and we had a house that was next to Steve McQueen's son. And Steve McQueen's son, I'm blanking, I'm sorry on his name,

Speaker 2 would have young, beautiful people all over on the weekends, his part of the beach. And I was on a balcony looking down and I was,

Speaker 2 this was before I met Mary. This was, you know, whatever, 40 years ago.
And I looked down, I went, wow. Oh, my God, look at that girl.
Oh, my God, she's gorgeous.

Speaker 2 Cut later walking down on the beach. And that gorgeous girl came running up to me and said, hi, Ted, it's Roxanna Zahl.
And I flushed with so much shame.

Speaker 2 I went, I now understand what I was trying to ask. This was many years later.

Speaker 2 40 years later.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Shame.

Speaker 2 Wow. That's what I think they call that full circle.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 That's, yeah. Yeah.
Well, I was impressed. I was impressed because that seemed ballsy to me.
But now that I hear your story, it seems more actor-y than anything. Yeah.
There was. So

Speaker 2 I just can't fathom your day. What time do you go to work? I go, I don't go to, it's my day is regimented, and every like 15-minute period is accounted for.

Speaker 2 So I wake up, I will make the family breakfast. Right.
I then

Speaker 2 exercise a couple of times a week. I then will go through the written material that's emailed.
Time to make it, please, by the clock now. I get up at 6:45.

Speaker 2 We get the kids off to school.

Speaker 2 I go to the gym. I then go to my email.
I look at about 30 pages of jokes and material, scripts. That has been written by Molly and company.
All writers.

Speaker 2 I whittle it down to about five pages. I rewrite stuff.
I send it to them. We then have a segment producers meeting over Zoom.
We talk about the guests that night. I drive into work.
What time?

Speaker 2 At 11.15. I go to rehearsal at 11.30.
We have rehearsal. We go up to my office.
Rehearsal means going to whatever skits or bits or the monologue. And the monologue.

Speaker 2 And looking at about 30 clips from the news and deciding which ones we're going to use. We figure out what order we're going to put them in for the monologue.

Speaker 2 And then I work with two other writers and we write the monologue for the night. I put makeup on.
I go downstairs.

Speaker 2 Somebody makes the mistake of turning on CNN and going, oh, shit.

Speaker 2 And then if something happens,

Speaker 2 we start over again. And the truth is, it's a huge pain in the ass, but it's fun.

Speaker 2 It's fun because

Speaker 2 you're suddenly in a race against time to get these jokes on the air. And if it's a big, you know, Trump does crazy stuff and you're like, well, we can't not have this in the show.

Speaker 2 And also the East Coast shows will not get that stuff a lot of times because they've taped earlier than we have. So it gives us a little advantage.
So we really want to make the most of it.

Speaker 2 And we try to. And then we put the show on, we tape it, and I go home.
Now, your wife, Molly, she does work there, right? She works as an executive producer and writer.

Speaker 2 Yeah, head writer, executive producer. Does that mean she has to go in earlier than you? No, no.
She goes in. In fact, I'm there more than she is.
Yeah. Yeah.
She goes home a little earlier than me.

Speaker 2 She watches the monologue and goes home. Okay.
I have to just stop and say in our household, Molly and you, I'll get to you in a second, but Molly is like

Speaker 2 heroic. And

Speaker 2 I think she did a, I don't know that this is true,

Speaker 2 but at the Oscars,

Speaker 2 when you all had the

Speaker 2 previous Oscar winners

Speaker 2 present or not present, but just

Speaker 2 right, when she was executive producing the Oscars.

Speaker 2 Every nominee would be talked about by a previous Oscar winner in that category.

Speaker 2 So I do believe, and Mary does, that Molly said, oh, let's get Mary to introduce Emily because they're great friends. That is absolutely true.
Emily. Well, it meant so much to Mary.
Oh, how nice.

Speaker 2 Hugely. And I don't know if Mary's had the opportunity to thank Molly directly, but this is us thanking Molly.
I will indirectly. Pass that along.
Please. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I think Molly talked to Emily and said,

Speaker 2 who do you really have a relationship with? And she said, oh, great, Mary. Perfect.
All right. Let's do it.
She's She's still heroic.

Speaker 2 And what I loved about that, Oscar, that was the first time that happened.

Speaker 2 I do believe. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I think it is. But what it made us all in the audience feel was a sense of community.

Speaker 2 It wasn't just, oh, someone, you're going to have a winner and you're going to have a bunch of losers in the next few minutes. No, you're going to understand that all of these amazing actors are,

Speaker 2 you know, celebrated by all of us in the room as opposed opposed to holding your breath to see who wins?

Speaker 2 It's interesting that you say that because I have like similar, but maybe the converse of that in some ways.

Speaker 2 The roasts, like, you know how the roasts used to be so much fun and you'd see these, you know, these Don Rickles and Bob Newhart and these people who are friends, Martin, Milton Burl roasting each other.

Speaker 2 And then it was like that, I think, when the roasts revived at the end of the 90s and like, you know, early 2000s. But then they became such a, it became like a business thing.

Speaker 2 And you'd have these roasts with these subjects of the roast being roasted by people they they'd never even met because they were just booking the show.

Speaker 2 And it just, that's when I was like, you know what, I don't want to do these anymore.

Speaker 2 Um, and I think maybe they've come back around to only using people who know each other, but it's weird when like they just go out and get, you know,

Speaker 2 somebody, some comedian or some actor who's famous and they know is a good name to have on on the bill to roast somebody that they've never met before.

Speaker 2 They don't have license to do that, really. Yeah, there's no chemistry.
There's no relationship there.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like there was.
I love our community and I love that you were part of that bringing that back. That was pretty cool.
Well, thank you.

Speaker 2 And I just have to say, because I was driving over here and I was thinking about this and

Speaker 2 I try to... like remember the opportunity to sit here and talk to you for an hour is very exciting to me.
And if you told me this when I was like 17 years old, I don't even know.

Speaker 2 I don't think I would be able to complete my life. Like, I'd be, first of all, I'd be telling everybody, you know,

Speaker 2 in about 40 years, I'm going to be sitting with Ted Dancing in a room and just chatting about stuff. And it is exciting to me because you really are one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 And I will also say that we have recently.

Speaker 2 started binge-watching the good place with our kids. Yeah.
And we love it. And it's so, so good.
And you're so great. And Mike, sure.
It's so good. Amazing, right? Yeah.
Okay. This is embarrassing.

Speaker 2 That meant a lot to me.

Speaker 2 I soaked it up and I'm good. Thanks.
Okay, good. That's the way to do it.
It's nice to see you.

Speaker 2 It is funny because I know that, like, some for some, for me, anyway, sometimes, and I have friends who host podcasts, and I have people that I admire who, if they ask me to be on, I'll come and do it.

Speaker 2 And it's fun because you get to have a real conversation.

Speaker 2 I mean, of course, there are people listening, so it's a little different than the conversation we might have alone, but you really get to have, I mean, and there's nobody bringing food and there's none of that stuff that clutters the mind when you do.

Speaker 2 And I like that. My first time I really spoke to Conan was on his podcast, and we had a great conversation, and we've become friends since then.

Speaker 2 I don't know if this is true for you, but I don't hang out with guys. You don't? No, I have great work relationships.

Speaker 2 I love going to work and and hanging out with friends and doing something together. And I love them and I will love them forever.
And so it is a relationship.

Speaker 2 But, you know, do you want to go have a beer?

Speaker 2 No, I want to go home to marry, you know, to be honest. And

Speaker 2 this is wonderful.

Speaker 2 I think maybe you mentioned this to me when we were talking about the podcast on the show, that one of the reasons you were doing it is because you don't get to see Woody Harrelson anymore. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Still don't, by the way.

Speaker 2 You see that little sign, Ted Danson and Woody Harrel. Sometimes we're thinking about crossing that off and saying rarely.
Yeah, because, you know, Woody's all over the place.

Speaker 2 He doesn't like to be pinned down. But he's also working nonstop.
He's working wonderfully. He is working a lot.
Woody and I are friendly. Woody came over to my house once.

Speaker 2 And this was, this is really one of the funniest things that ever happened to me, I have to say. And Woody's stories.
I like to cook, as I mentioned. And I know Woody is a vegan.

Speaker 2 And so I was prepared for that. And it was Woody and Owen Wilson were coming over.
And it was the afternoon. It was a rare, like, afternoon visit.
And I was like, you know what? I got a pizza oven.

Speaker 2 I'm going to make these guys some pizzas. So I fire up the pizza oven.
And they come over and they're a lot of fun. They're immediately competing with each other.

Speaker 2 Very competitive. It just, you know,

Speaker 2 it's really like, it's remarkable. They're like children, adults, you know.
And

Speaker 2 Woody is talking to my wife. And I'm out in the backyard cooking.
And he says, Hey,

Speaker 2 do you mind? What's the address? I want to order dominoes.

Speaker 2 And Molly says, This is Woody. It is Woody.
And Molly says,

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 And he said, Yeah, I just want to, I want to

Speaker 2 give me the address. I can order dominoes.
And she says, Listen,

Speaker 2 I just have to tell you, Jimmy's going to be really upset if you order dominoes. He's very serious about his pizza.
And, you know, he's been, he's cooking for you.

Speaker 2 And Woody and Owen like looked at each other like, he's going to, well, he's going to be upset. They didn't understand at all.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Turned out they wanted to order the game dominoes, somebody to bring a game of dominoes over.

Speaker 2 And that this is like pre-Instacart. So even the idea of ordering a game was alien to us.
And luckily, it turned out to just be that. But you were making the vegan,

Speaker 2 he's past vegan. He's in the air.
Yeah, then I learned that he wasn't even eating bread, but I think just to be courteous,

Speaker 2 he did eat some of it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know what he eats, but he manages to find something.

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Speaker 2 I have a prank going at work right now, and I feel comfortable sharing this with you because by the time

Speaker 2 that guy or girl won't ever listen to this podcast, is that what you're saying? No, but by the time you put this out, I think it will be over.

Speaker 2 It's getting close to being over already, but we got these two guys at our show,

Speaker 2 both writers, Danny and Josh, and they're very good good friends. Danny's kind of a snappy dresser.

Speaker 2 He's a ska kid, and he's, you know, he wears, he puts a lot of thought into his dress. Josh does not.
And Josh got promoted.

Speaker 2 And Danny said, you know, Josh, maybe you want to start dressing a little nicer. And Josh was offended by this, and but Danny stuck with it.

Speaker 2 And he said, you know, it's like, well, I should dress like you. And he's like, oh, no, but, you know, just start, you know, look like an adult rather than a college kid, you know.

Speaker 2 So So now I spent the next couple of months

Speaker 2 studying Danny's clothing and purchasing every item of clothing that he owns, duplicating it, ordering it, stockpiling it. I go away for the summer.
We come back for the summer.

Speaker 2 And now we get a tip every morning of what Danny's wearing to work. And Josh wears the identical outfit.

Speaker 2 And we're on day three of this now. And Danny has lost his mind.
Total innocence. He knows he's been pranked, but not.

Speaker 2 He is certain that I'm behind this somehow. And he's threatened to sue.
And he's become very paranoid, accusing various people in his life of being in on it.

Speaker 2 He cannot understand what's going on and how we know what he's wearing.

Speaker 2 We're looking at his ring cam is the real answer.

Speaker 2 As he exits? As he exits his office. It's a scramble to get it all at some point.
It is a scramble. Well, no, because we were storing it all in my dressing room at the office.

Speaker 2 So he comes into work and he chains into whatever Danny's wearing that day.

Speaker 2 And then we converge at rehearsal and Danny looks at Josh, who sits next to me on stage and goes, what the fuck is going on here? That's great.

Speaker 2 It's real psychological warfare.

Speaker 2 It's kind of a win-win because Josh gets new outfits and Danny learns not to trust people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 We have fun.

Speaker 2 You're good friends with John Krasinski. If you

Speaker 2 know what? Honestly, that 11.30 at night meal thing was mostly for John, who lived across the street from me for a long time.

Speaker 2 And he would come over every once in a while and go, you got anything to eat? And I'd be like, like he was my son. I'd be like, sit down at the counter.
I pull out the garlic and start cooking.

Speaker 2 I love him. I miss him too.
Haven't seen him for a while. Did he ever tell you the George Clooney?

Speaker 2 We'll get off this kick in a minute, George Clooney, the definition of crazy fans, this is the topic of this story. Yeah.

Speaker 2 He's making leatherheads with George.

Speaker 2 And they're in a small town somewhere in the south or something. And they've kind of taken over Main Street as their, you know, want-to-do movie companies.
And it's lunch.

Speaker 2 They have blocked

Speaker 2 the traffic and they call lunch and George is being walked over by, you know, I don't know, security or something back to his trailer. This is all starting to happen in the same moment.

Speaker 2 John's across the street, starting to walk to catering, and they release traffic. And that moment then takes place wherever George is walking, da-da-da-da-da.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 a car, a lady, a soccer mom,

Speaker 2 normal,

Speaker 2 you know, maybe in a SUV,

Speaker 2 drives by and sees George and screams, George,

Speaker 2 opens the door, runs around towards George, is tackled or restrained by, I mean, because she's really over the top by security. She's not put the car in, you know, park.

Speaker 2 So the car is still driving down the street with the door open. Some smart, fast-thinking A-D

Speaker 2 runs after the car, leaps into the moving car, slams the brake on, turns around, and there's a baby in the baby seat in the back of this car.

Speaker 2 That's how crazed that woman was

Speaker 2 to see George Clooney, that she ran out of a moving car with her child still in the backseat. Isn't that the most astounding kind of fan story?

Speaker 2 And it wasn't like John was the baby or anything like that. It wasn't just the witness.
Yeah. I think George Clooney has that effect on people.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Although that child should be taken away from that woman.
I mean, no matter how much she loved George Clooney. It would have been interesting to describe, hear her conversation with her husband.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Wow.
That's crazy. Yeah, I don't get anything like that.
I've never had that.

Speaker 2 Nor I. No.
Okay, my turn.

Speaker 2 Mary and I talk about you a lot. Oh.
When we watch and see you,

Speaker 2 you are very funny. Thank you.
You are very funny. You're very real and approachable and genuine.
Whether you are or not, you've certainly come across that way.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the courage you have when you share your personal life, your sadnesses, your things, and

Speaker 2 that makes you so accessible. And then the courage you have to take on things that are just wrong.

Speaker 2 And people,

Speaker 2 some of us, you know, are trying to look the other way. And you look directly at it and you go after it, whether it's this administration or what.

Speaker 2 And that courage is really admirable. I really admire you.
Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
I don't think of it as courage. I think of it as just obvious.

Speaker 2 I think of it as having really no choice but to talk about these things and to say these things.

Speaker 2 You know, just the way I was brought up, I think it makes perfect sense. It especially bothers me being brought up Catholic in a very in a very positive Catholic environment that

Speaker 2 Christianity is something else has been co-opted and perverted in such a way. And that

Speaker 2 I find especially upsetting. And that

Speaker 2 I think about

Speaker 2 what Jesus would think of this stuff.

Speaker 2 And I mean, it seems pretty plain that

Speaker 2 he wouldn't think it's great, that he wouldn't approve of

Speaker 2 nannies being yanked out of the park and thrust into a van to be returned to their home countries because their paperwork is not in order.

Speaker 2 That just all really seems very obvious to me. And I think that it is to almost, I think it is to most people, but it's become this us versus them.

Speaker 2 It's come almost like sports where I root for the red team and you root for the blue team and everything the blue team does is good and everything the red team does is bad and vice versa. And

Speaker 2 I just sometimes I hope and

Speaker 2 maybe foolishly that it will resonate with at least those people who don't have their minds completely made up.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I keep asking people sometimes on this podcast, you know,

Speaker 2 how's your heart? How are you dealing with this? I mean, it feels like you have

Speaker 2 a platform to draw attention to it and do it in a humorous way.

Speaker 2 So that must relieve some of the pressure on your heart, but it still just feels like, and I don't know whether my I don't know what to do is reminiscent of other people who've let things go too long around the world throughout history.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden we're in a really bad place. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know what to do either. But I think we start by acknowledging the truth.
And,

Speaker 2 you know, it's interesting when you know people, when you get to know people, like, for instance, like

Speaker 2 when Ellen came on television,

Speaker 2 most people in the Midwest,

Speaker 2 I shouldn't say this, but a lot of people who are watching that show in the Midwest maybe didn't know somebody who was openly gay, right? Right.

Speaker 2 And so they

Speaker 2 are against gay marriage. They see it as, you know, against their religion or whatever, for whatever reason.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they're against it. But then they get to know somebody like Ellen and they go, well, she seems okay.

Speaker 2 And then they say, well, now I feel like I have a friend who's, or, you know, one of their children comes out and they suddenly have a different perspective on that.

Speaker 2 It's, it seems like the perspective, this like, we've got to stop. the immigrants are coming from places that don't have a lot of them.

Speaker 2 You know, I mean, I know for me and living here in LA for the last 30 something years,

Speaker 2 I know a lot of people who came to this country illegally, if you want to call it that, and

Speaker 2 who are great people and who not only are they not a drain on our society, they're contributing a great deal to our society.

Speaker 2 I mean, even if you look at this issue selfishly, which I think a lot of people do, you know, even if you look at it selfishly, it does not make sense to kick these people out.

Speaker 2 Besides the fact that it's just like, how can you go to church on Sunday and think this is okay to do to these families, to do to these people, and to be so cold about it? And

Speaker 2 for there to be, no, listen, okay, I get it.

Speaker 2 There's, there are things, you know, I would understand if I'm an immigrant who followed all the rules and came into this country and, you know, jumped through all the hoops, that I might be somewhat resentful of somebody who, you know, snuck in in some way or whatever.

Speaker 2 But,

Speaker 2 you know, people are just looking for better lives. They're just trying to improve their lives for their families, for themselves.
They come here, they work hard.

Speaker 2 They, whether you want to believe it or not, they are paying taxes. You know, everything that they buy is taxed.
And anybody who's not paying them in the proper way

Speaker 2 is part of the, the, you know, of whatever the problem is.

Speaker 2 It's like, if you choose not to pay regular income tax, you you know social security tax to your employees or whatever, you have no right to say you need to be out of this country.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's just, it's hypocritical. It's

Speaker 2 anti-everything that I personally believe. It's heartless.
It's cruel. More than anything, it's just cruel.
And I just don't.

Speaker 2 And it has nothing to do with, I mean, does immigration need to be fixed? Yes.

Speaker 2 And there was an attempt to do that in the Senate. Yeah.
And then it was stopped because that wouldn't be good politics.

Speaker 2 So it has nothing to do with trying to fix the problem. Clearly there's an issue, but it isn't about fixing it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And since when are we so, since when are Americans, I thought we don't follow the rules, like, you know, a gumption and you figure out a way to make it and you figure out a way to do this.

Speaker 2 And you, you know, this is part of our personality as a country.

Speaker 2 And what could be better than these people who really want to work, work, who want to send money to their families, who want their children to be born in this country and to be educated and to have a better life and to contribute.

Speaker 2 What's bad about that? I just don't get it.

Speaker 2 I just don't get it. It just seems mean.
It's just mean. And here we are.
And here we are. And

Speaker 2 it's going to pick up again. And you go, what can I do? And, you know, and boy, I admire these people who

Speaker 2 will be out there and they see this happening and they intervene and they and they

Speaker 2 do their best to protect these less, these vulnerable people, their neighbors and whatever. I really admire that.

Speaker 2 But then they get arrested and then they have to deal with this. And it's just

Speaker 2 really, you know, this idea that like

Speaker 2 states' rights are,

Speaker 2 you know, conservative ideal that the states have, you know, can make their own decisions. It seems it's very, they cherry pick that

Speaker 2 a lot. And, you know, it's like, hey, listen, you know what? I think if you polled Californians,

Speaker 2 we want these people in our country, in our state. You know, we want them here.
They are, we have positive experiences with them. We want them here.
It doesn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 2 No, right. And then I look at myself and go, and

Speaker 2 what are you going to do? You know? Yeah. Yeah.
Well, it's tough. You know,

Speaker 2 I think, well, I think we've, I think we've both done our best to make sure the right people were in charge, and we didn't win, unfortunately. I don't feel like we've done nothing.

Speaker 2 I think that's the most important thing you can do is make sure there are decent people running your neighborhood, your city, your state, and your country. And

Speaker 2 I think we do a pretty good job of that in California, but on a national level, we seem to have screwed that up. And now most Americans, I think, would agree.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think that, you know, if you were to believe these polls,

Speaker 2 I don't think people are happy with the way things are going. I don't think anybody ever imagined when he talked about

Speaker 2 sending these criminals. I mean, everybody's like, yes, if they're in MSN, MS-13, yes, of course they shouldn't be here.
They shouldn't be committing crimes in this country. But now we're like,

Speaker 2 you know, penalizing nannies. Yeah.
You know, it's sick.

Speaker 2 I should be asking Stephen, not you, but how did that go down?

Speaker 2 I kind of peripherally

Speaker 2 heard about him being, you know, let go of and whatever amount of time is left.

Speaker 2 Walk me through that.

Speaker 2 Can you? I mean, somebody. I mean, I can tell you what I guess.
You know, I don't think anybody will ever know what the

Speaker 2 quid pro-crow kind of thing. We don't know it for sure, but I do know.

Speaker 2 I mean, what I do know for sure is that some of the information that has been released by the people who let him go can't possibly be true. There's no way he's losing $40 million a year.

Speaker 2 There's no way it's even close to that. I know how the finances of late night television shows work, and it's just ridiculous.
It doesn't make any sense at all. So,

Speaker 2 when you hear things that are obviously lies, you have to assume that there are more lies behind it

Speaker 2 right yeah and that's what i i mean that's what i think i'm gonna go on a show when we do publicity for um a man on the inside coming up second season

Speaker 2 and i probably uh i discovered that i'm we're related

Speaker 2 you are we're distant cousins wow yeah do you have you ever watched uh finding your roots i've been on it yeah sure yeah yeah well you know how at the end they say you are you know,

Speaker 2 scientifically. I could see that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You guys have a similar

Speaker 2 similar spirit, I think. Yeah.
I'm a little slower. He's the fast joke.
I'm the slow joke. Do you know who I found out was my cousin on that show? Who? Martha Stewart.
I love that. Have you?

Speaker 2 Have you been together?

Speaker 2 You mean, what do you mean by that? Have we been together? No. Have you had the opportunity to tell her that? You know, it's funny.

Speaker 2 I was on her show, the show she did with Snoop Dogg, the cooking show. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I told them, I said, listen, this is something that I learned on finding my roots. And it was not, it did not make the episode.
It was on the cutting room floor.

Speaker 2 And I'd like to tell Martha, I want to surprise her with this information when I come out. And I said, so please don't tell her.
But I, you know, I want this to be a surprise.

Speaker 2 And they were like, okay, absolutely. I was like, don't, because, you know, I just don't tell her.
Okay.

Speaker 2 We will not tell her. Segment producer brings me out.
I step on stage. He goes, so I hear we're cousins.
And I look over. The segment producer is just off stage.
And I look over.

Speaker 2 I just shoot an icy glare. I was like, yeah, yes, we are.
Anyway.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's funny because my mother, like when Martha Stewart became a phenomenon in like the 80s, my mom couldn't get enough of it.

Speaker 2 Like my mom was like making her own scotch tape, you know, that kind of stuff. She was, you know, really into it.
And I was like, oh, my mother with this, Martha Stewart, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 And then come to realize she's, through my mom, related to Martha Stewart. So there might be something running through our blood that makes us interested in this sort of stuff.

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Speaker 2 You were an Arizona boy for a while. I did.
I went to Arizona State. I lived in Tucson as well.
Arizona State, what is that? Tempe? That's in Tempe. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was a flagstaff kid. Yeah.
Would you go to NAU or you just grew up there? No, I just grew up there. Yeah.
Wow. Hey, I don't know.
I don't know too many people.

Speaker 2 I have some friends from Flag, as we call it.

Speaker 2 Did you go up to ski ever up in the state? No, I'm not really a skier, but I would go up to visit my friends at NAU. Yeah.

Speaker 2 A friend named Daryl Brown, who let me when he was in college, I like to draw. You know, I was going to be an artist when I was in college.
And And he said, yeah, will you draw all over my room?

Speaker 2 And so I drew all over all of the walls of his room. I put cartoons on the whole thing.
And him and his roommates, they loved it. And they had it for like three years.

Speaker 2 And then when they had to move out of there, I think he said they had to put like six coats of primer over it to get, you know, to be able to rent the place out again. And what were you doing then?

Speaker 2 Were you, did you know that you wanted to be, you know, a radio host? Yeah, you know what? I did. I, I, I, when I was in high school, I was working a clothing store called Miller's Outpost.

Speaker 2 Do you remember that story? Yes.

Speaker 2 And there was this other kid who worked there, and he worked at the college radio station, K-U-N-V, in Las Vegas. And he said,

Speaker 2 you know, you're funny. You should, you should come be on the radio.
And I was like, oh, I'd love to be on the radio. And at the time, I loved Howard Stern.

Speaker 2 My uncle would send me cassette tapes of Howard, and I'd listen to them. And I said, I'd really love to be on the radio.
So he set me up with a meeting with the program director. And the guy hired me.

Speaker 2 He said, what I want you to do is find local

Speaker 2 people who were well-known in the area and make fun of them. And I was like, okay, that sounds great.

Speaker 2 So I would call people who did local commercials, you know, these guys and have them on the show and lightly goof on them.

Speaker 2 And the first time I did it, I found this guy named Fred, who was a used car dealer in the area. And he'd say, if I can finance him and I will, I can finance you.
You know, that was this big tagline.

Speaker 2 So I had him on and, you know, we had a funny interview. And then I went home and my mom and my dad and my aunt Chippy were all like sitting in the kitchen.

Speaker 2 I walked in, they all clapped, you know, and I was like, wow, this is really, this is something. Like, you know, I grew up in a very loud family where everyone was talking at once all the time.

Speaker 2 And I think it was just like, oh, somebody's listening. Now, this is a way for them to listen to me, like to actually have their undivided attention.
And I fell in absolute love with that.

Speaker 2 I mean, still to this day, like going into a radio station is very exciting to me. And I just, I started meeting like local diss jockeys and they would put me on the air here and there.

Speaker 2 And I wound up getting a radio show in Seattle with one of those local disc jockeys. He said, I got a job doing a morning show in Seattle.
Do you want to come with me and be my sidekick?

Speaker 2 And I went up there. It was called the Me and Him Show.
It was, he'd say, I'm me, he's him. Let's go to the phones.
And we, you know, did this morning radio show, and I was in love with it.

Speaker 2 And I, I, I, that's what I did until I wound up on television.

Speaker 2 And David Letterman. David Letterman.
Huge for you, right? And he started in radio. That was also part of why I was interested in it.
Yeah, there's nobody.

Speaker 2 Why? What is it about? Everybody says this, especially in your line of work that they, he was. At my age too.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because Johnny Carson was such a fixture in our lives and so beloved, not just by parents, but by everyone. Right.
Right.

Speaker 2 And it just seemed like that was Johnny Carson. That's the, you know, when you're late at night, that's the greatest thing you could ever have.

Speaker 2 And then this guy comes on afterwards and he's just doing like this weird version of the show. And I remember thinking like, this is from me.
This is, I, I found it.

Speaker 2 Whatever I was looking for, I didn't even know, but I found it here on this show.

Speaker 2 And the first person I ever talked about, like, I think the first month I watched Letterman, I didn't mention it to anyone, nobody. I just stay up late and I was transfixed.
And I mentioned it.

Speaker 2 My, my grandfather, actually, I went over to my grandpa's house and he goes, You ever watch this guy, Letterman?

Speaker 2 My grandfather would stay up till like four o'clock in the morning, watching TV and working on art projects. And I was like, Yes,

Speaker 2 you are you watching? watching? He's like, yeah. And we bonded over this love of Dave.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 it became like a thing. Like it's, you know, I had late night with David Letterman.

Speaker 2 Like the chemistry book was my book cover. My license plate on my first car said late L8 night.
And I never thought like I want to be a late night talk show host.

Speaker 2 I never imagined there would be other late night talk show hosts other than Johnny and Dave. You know, this is before everybody started getting talk shows.
And

Speaker 2 I never even thought about being a right. Like, it never occurred to me that you could be a right.
If I'd ever had that thought even one time, that would have been my goal. But it never came to me.

Speaker 2 And I didn't know anybody in show business. You know, I didn't, you know, we weren't from a show business family.
And I, you know, didn't have any connections or really no plan for college.

Speaker 2 College was like the 13th grade for me.

Speaker 2 You know, I was a good student in high school, but, you know, like in August after I graduated, it's like, so I guess I'll go to UNLV, you know, and they're like, yeah.

Speaker 2 And I went to UNLV for a year and followed by Arizona State and got involved in radio. And the way I wound up on television, I never intended to be on television.

Speaker 2 I would have been perfectly happy being on the radio. But I was on in LA.
I was on this radio station, K-Rock, with these guys, Kevin and Bean, and they were very popular.

Speaker 2 And people would listen to the show who were producing TV shows. And from time to time, I would get a call like, hey, you're funny.
Do you want to come audition for this or that or whatever?

Speaker 2 And I, you know, I was always looking for a little extra money. I made no money.
So I would say, yeah. And I wound up on a game show called Win Ben Stein's Money.
Right. I remember that.

Speaker 2 On Comedy Central. Wow.
That's the funny that, you know, and

Speaker 2 that was it. That's how it started for me.
Your show now.

Speaker 2 What was that moment when somebody came to you and said, do you want to do this? Well, it was the same guy who hired me for Win Ben Stein's Money, like eight years later, Michael Davies.

Speaker 2 he was uh an executive at abc he's the producer of who wants to be a millionaire which i now host i know he's a uh you know he's he's just a guy who recognized my talent when i was young and he said um

Speaker 2 he went to lloyd braun who i think you know who's the president of abc at the time and he said to lloyd listen um

Speaker 2 I got this guy. I know you're looking for a late night show, which none of us knew.
Who was in that slot?

Speaker 2 No one. No one.
No one really. Nightline was in the slot.
And then Bill Maher's show, Politically Incorrect, followed it.

Speaker 2 And then Bill Maher wound up upsetting all the affiliates and they wanted him off the air. But the truth of the matter is, I think Bill likes to

Speaker 2 say he was, you know, he was sacrificed in the way that Colbert. But the truth of the matter is they'd offered that slot to Letterman already, you know, and Letterman said no, he went to CBS instead.

Speaker 2 So they were in the market for something in that slot. They wanted

Speaker 2 a traditional late-night talk show in that slot, which nobody knew.

Speaker 2 They were almost about to hire Jon Stewart.

Speaker 2 And John and I have the same manager, James Baby Dahl Dixon. And James was about to close this deal for John to host the show.
And Michael said, I want you to watch a tape of this other guy.

Speaker 2 And Lloyd watched the tape and he was like, I think this might be the guy. And he brought the tape to Bob Iger.

Speaker 2 And iger said yeah i think this might be the guy and um they called me in for a meeting under false pretenses because they couldn't did you know any anything of this was going on i didn't know any of it i knew none of it and they called me in and they said that they wanted to meet with me about a thursday night variety show which i was not interested in and they said uh come on meet the president of abc i went in we never talked about me doing a show he just asked me a bunch of questions about Letterman, and we talked about Letterman for like 90 minutes.

Speaker 2 And then he decided that I was going to host the show. And I found out about it because

Speaker 2 my wife happened to be friends with his secretary, who was married to my partner on the air, Adam Corolla. And she called and said, Hey, they're going to offer Jimmy the late night talk show at ABC.

Speaker 2 She's like, They're going to offer you the late night talk show at ABC. I was like, What late night talk show at ABC? There's no late night talk show there.

Speaker 2 But it was a very strange thing because John and I had the same manager. Now he's in the difficult position of having to tell John, like, you're not going to ABC, but Jimmy is going to ABC.

Speaker 2 And, you know,

Speaker 2 that was a mistake, by the way. They definitely should hire John if I'm in that position.
There's no question I hired John 100 times out of 100.

Speaker 2 But they, I think the Bob later said, Bob Iger, I said, like, what, you know, what was it? Well, why?

Speaker 2 This is quite a leap that you guys made. I was, you know, I was on the man show.
I was doing football picks on Fox NFL Sunday. Like, what was it? And he goes, well, you were cheaper.

Speaker 2 And everybody laughed, but I knew he wasn't kidding. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So that's, you know, just it's sometimes it pays to be cheaper.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 you had, you were handed, did somebody

Speaker 2 a very smart producer come along and guide you?

Speaker 2 How did you put together that first night?

Speaker 2 We screwed everything up. The first night was,

Speaker 2 we thought we did well, but looking back, I mean, like my vision of hell, like when I watch The Good Place, I think my vision of hell is being forced to watch my first year of shows

Speaker 2 because it

Speaker 2 is just as painful as anything could get for me. It took us a long time.
to figure it out. And we're very fortunate to get a long time to figure it out.
And somehow we wound up getting good ratings.

Speaker 2 I still don't know how that was, but they were good enough to keep us on the air, even though I was causing trouble once every like two and a half months, some major thing was happening.

Speaker 2 Came out of your mouth, you know, yeah, yeah, something that came out of my mouth, you know, and

Speaker 2 caused the whole thing. And, you know, it was like just tumultuous.
And the show was live at the time. You know, the first few years, first couple of years we were on live.

Speaker 2 We kept the title, Jimmy Kimmel Live, even though the show's not live because we don't want to change everything.

Speaker 2 Didn't you, I read something that some guy, I can't remember the actor's name who was so filthy or whatever, uh, that they put in that delay.

Speaker 2 The actor's name was Thomas Jane, and we had a delay, but he cursed so many times that he, you know, the delay only works once and then it's got to catch up.

Speaker 2 He cursed so many times that the affiliate said this show is either going to be on tape or it's not going to be on, and uh, yeah, and so we were forced to.

Speaker 2 And then we said, Okay, but we want the show to be as timely as possible.

Speaker 2 So instead of taping from 9 05 p.m to 10 05 p.m which is what we did we're going to tape from 8 05 p.m to 9 05 p.m this is on the on the west coast of course and um and then the show will start airing the moment that we rewrap the show so it was essentially live because we had no time to edit right but we could bleep if we needed to they could bleep Yeah,

Speaker 2 you have bleepers right standards of practice this year bleep. And we kept them very busy at that time.

Speaker 2 Obviously, you did look back at that first year. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you recognize likable Jimmy? Or were you

Speaker 2 nice Jimmy? I think that's all I had. But see, no, that's a big thing.
It is a big thing. Yeah.
It's probably the most important. Yeah.
Yeah. You're a nice man.

Speaker 2 I think also there was an element of people feeling sorry for me and like kind of rooting for me because I seemed to be dying on television.

Speaker 2 He's a nice kid. Like, all right, let's give him a chance.
He's drowning. Yeah.
And your parents, were they just crazily, happily happy for you? It's weird for me because my dad at that time was

Speaker 2 the age I am right now. Oh, wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I now try to imagine like one of my kids

Speaker 2 launching something like that and how I just, I don't know. They never seemed that nervous.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 Somehow I bamboozled them into thinking that I knew what I was doing, but I didn't know what I was doing. And I would pray that they canceled the show sometimes.

Speaker 2 I didn't want to quit because I didn't want to disappoint all the many people who worked for me, but I couldn't. I was just, I couldn't do it anymore.

Speaker 2 It was just like we didn't have guests many times. Now, keep in mind, this show was on, you know, we go on the air live at midnight at 12.05.

Speaker 2 And there were times where it was 5.30 in the afternoon and we didn't have guests for that night's show. And I would just have to pick up the phone and call my friends.

Speaker 2 And, like, that's not how you go into a show, you know, like you can't operate that way. Cause this wasn't an institution that I inherited.
This was just a time slot that we filled, you know.

Speaker 2 And so I would have to, you know, sometimes we'd have the same guests on, like, you know, on a Wednesday and then again the next Tuesday, you know, because we just needed somebody.

Speaker 2 And they were my friends or my girlfriend, Sarah Silverman.

Speaker 2 I asked her to come on a lot and i love her yeah and uh you know we we just we just go david allen greer adam carolla kathy griffin anthony anderson they were just on over and over and over again god bless them because i needed them yeah and they were always ready at a moment's notice to come on and and eventually it's stay it's you know eventually it stabilized and um and we figured out how to do it and you start building like running bits which help

Speaker 2 helps keep you afloat and all these things that we didn't have.

Speaker 2 How did Frank?

Speaker 2 My Uncle Frank? How did my uncle Frank come into being? So my uncle Frank is my uncle.

Speaker 2 He was actually divorced from my aunt Chippy, who's my mom's sister. And I always thought he was a character.
And he was always just this funny presence in my life.

Speaker 2 He was a policeman in New York for 20 years. And then he retired.
They decided they were going to move to Florida. They went to Florida.
They stayed with some friends. They put a deposit on a house.

Speaker 2 They went back to the friend's house. They looked out in the backyard and there was an alligator in the swimming pool.
And my aunt Chippy, we were living in Brooklyn at the time.

Speaker 2 My aunt Chippy said, I didn't raise three daughters to have them eaten by a fucking alligator.

Speaker 2 And they decided they lost the deposit and decided to move to Las Vegas, where he got a job as a security guard first at the Frontier Hotel and then later at Caesar's Palace. He became

Speaker 2 the Italian security guards at Caesar's Palace would almost automatically get assigned to Frank Sinatra.

Speaker 2 Was that back then? Yeah, back then. Oh, wonderful.
Yeah, this is like 1975, probably. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 he got assigned to Frank Sinatra. And my grandparents lived there with them.
They moved out there with them. And, you know, our family's very close.

Speaker 2 It was only a matter of time before we followed them out there. And we did follow them out there in 1977.

Speaker 2 And it was a great place to grow up it was exciting and i but i realized my uncle frank was this character i mean he's just like like fun like he's this old man even when he was young you know and um i started putting him on the radio when i was on the radio like if we do a show if we go back to new york and do the show he'd move back to new york i'd put him on and my i remember my co-founder was sure if other people would find him as funny as i did but kevin and bean my co-workers just couldn't get enough of him you know they was like this guy is unbelievable So when I started doing the show, I knew I would need support.

Speaker 2 I knew I would need people to go to. And I called myself.
He was Dave One there? Yeah, he was there at Dave One.

Speaker 2 I called him. I said, I want you to move out to L.A.

Speaker 2 He's living in New York working at St. Patrick's Cathedral as a security guard.
I said, I want you to move to L.A.

Speaker 2 and I want you to be a security guard on my show. And he's like, he didn't understand what I was talking about.
He didn't understand that he was going to be on the air. He just didn't get any.

Speaker 2 He just didn't know what I was talking about. He was kind of open to it, but somewhat reluctant.
And what really clinched the deal was he found out that the bank where he had a checking account had a

Speaker 2 branch near the apartment my cousin had found for him. So he's like, okay, is he going to want to transfer his bank account?

Speaker 2 He moved to L.A.

Speaker 2 And he was a hit immediately. He was like, people loved him immediately.
He was

Speaker 2 funny, right? I did. I probably was trying to look hip like I knew or something.
But the first time I went out of my way to greet him as I came in or something.

Speaker 2 But from then on, he was so genuinely nice to me. He was a very nice guy.

Speaker 2 I'm sure he was nice to literally everybody. He was like an ambassador.
He only arrested six people in 20 years.

Speaker 2 He would just tell them like he didn't want to arrest people. He would say like,

Speaker 2 you know, don't do this again. Get out of here.
One of the arrests was by accident because the

Speaker 2 guy had stolen a lamp from a store and he was running out with the lamp. And my Uncle Frank happened to be, it happened to be on his beat.
And he's like, stop, stop with that lamp. And the guy

Speaker 2 froze. And he goes, he goes, drop the lamp and get out of here.
And the guy wouldn't run because he thought my uncle Frank was going to shoot him.

Speaker 2 And my Uncle Frank's like, he was forced to arrest the guy.

Speaker 2 Never gave a ticket. He had rules.
This was New York, too. New York.
He'd say, I never give a ticket to a

Speaker 2 woman, never give a ticket to a parent, never give a ticket. And by the end of his list of qualifications, there was nobody that got a ticket.
It was like, never give a ticket to anybody driving.

Speaker 2 You know, it's like, it was crazy. So he was a character and

Speaker 2 he was loved immediately by everyone. Everybody.
And then he was joined by Guillermo, who is my security guard now, who I adore. Who is

Speaker 2 also uh treasure very funny very funny and genuinely funny i mean people don't even realize how funny he is like he does impersonations of everybody we work with like and they're they're hilarious or like guillermo's version of our standards and practice guy guillermo's version you know you name how did you find guillermo he was in the parking lot god sent him to me He was in the parking lot.

Speaker 2 Our announcer, Dickie, and our warm-up guy, Don,

Speaker 2 knew him from just mingling, you know, as they didn't have a lot of work to do in the day so they'd chit-chat with guillermo and they're like this guy's funny you know and um guillermo would sleep in our announcer's car while he was supposed to be working he'd say hey leave leave the keys and he would take a nap while he's supposed to be guarding the parking lot during the show because everybody's in watching the show so he'd sleep there and they tricked him one day i got a new car and um dickie and don are like hey we want to check out the car give us the keys so i give him the keys i'm like i'll be down in five minutes they go down and they say to Guillermo, like, hey, come sit in Jimmy's new car, check it out.

Speaker 2 He doesn't know I'm coming down. I come down, there's this guy, a security guard that I've never seen because he's from the other lot, sitting in my car.
I go, what's going on?

Speaker 2 And he looks terrified, you know. And I look at him and like, he's terrified.
And I was like, there's something funny happening here. I don't know what.

Speaker 2 And they're dying, laughing because, you know, they've done this. And

Speaker 2 I had a bit

Speaker 2 that we were going to do on the show where Michael Jackson's chef was selling a cookbook. He'd written a cookbook and he was a Latino guy and we were going to do bit.

Speaker 2 And I said, well, let's get that security guard to play the chef. And it was a live bit and Guillermo comes on the air and he is so terrified because he's obviously never been on television before.

Speaker 2 He's white as a sheet and he's just terrified and everybody's dying laughing. The name of the book was The Way You Make My Meals, you know, after the Michael Jackson, The Way You Make Me Feel.

Speaker 2 And he's trying to deliver his lines. And it's, I remember thinking, I remember this so vividly thinking during the bit,

Speaker 2 this guy's going to be on a lot. Like, this is the first time we've seen this guy.
He's going to be on the show all the time. And now it's, you know, 23 years later and he's on the show every year.

Speaker 2 Boy, his life changed. It did, yeah.
Hugely. Rightfully so.
It did. I watched a bit

Speaker 2 on YouTube this afternoon of him going down that plastic,

Speaker 2 clear plastic slide on the 80th or 90th floor. He's very afraid of heights and every once in a while we have him confront his fears.
Yes. But he was very funny.

Speaker 2 You know, it's funny with him because we do have him confront his fears sometimes. And they say once you confront your fears, then, you know, you're not afraid.
He's still just as afraid.

Speaker 2 Maybe even more now. He doesn't like snakes.
He doesn't like heights. He doesn't like, once we put him on a diving board on the show Wipeout, they have like a diving board.

Speaker 2 It's 25 feet in the air or something.

Speaker 2 he climbs reluctantly it's hours it took for them to convince him to get up there he climbs up he goes out on the diving board he lays down on the diving board he's like i can't move and hours go by we're like jump off the board he will not move he won't climb down he's just laying on his diving board it was insane but he's great he's uh really like become one of my best friends.

Speaker 2 You know, it's cool is to hear about your family and

Speaker 2 how much clearly they meant to you and you to them and all of that. I think that's what you create, too, on your show.
I think that's one of the things that comes across is you are family.

Speaker 2 You appreciate family. You understand.

Speaker 2 You literally have it visually for all of us to see.

Speaker 2 I have a great family. Yeah, they always say this show is like a family honor.
Our show is, yes, literally.

Speaker 2 a family. And like when my uncle Frank died, there were so many stories about how involved he was in almost everyone at our show's lives.
I mean, like he knew everything about them and it was crazy.

Speaker 2 And like, I didn't even realize it until we spent like four hours eulogizing him, how involved he was in it, because he was just there every day, and he like cared about people.

Speaker 2 And PAs would drive him home, and he was just like, just such a character. Like,

Speaker 2 we all went to a wedding of one of our writer's assistants at the time. And it was downtown L.A.
And Uncle Frank was excited because he was going to take the train, and he was always on time, always

Speaker 2 more than on time, hours early. I mean, just like, and he wanted to take the train downtown to go to this wedding.

Speaker 2 So he takes the train, and he tells me the story because I drove there, and he tells me the story. He says, I'm on the train, and he sees this man in a wheelchair.
And

Speaker 2 the guy's in a wheelchair, and he's sitting on the train with a cup. My Uncle Frank gets out $10, and he walks over to him and he puts the money in the guy's cup.

Speaker 2 And the guy looks up at him and goes, that's my coffee.

Speaker 2 Guy was not homeless. He was just in the wheelchair.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm sorry. Buy yourself a new coffee.

Speaker 2 At the end of the week, my uncle Frank,

Speaker 2 at the beginning of the week, he would take $200 out of the ATM, exactly $200. At the end of the week, he wanted to have no dollars in his wallet and start over with a fresh $200.

Speaker 2 And so whatever he had left, which was often, you know, $147,

Speaker 2 he would just give out to people. He would just give to people on the street, people at the show, you know, low-paid workers, you know, whatever.
Just hand out one. Wow.
Kind of an angel.

Speaker 2 Yeah, really a character.

Speaker 2 Who's left in your, I hate to put it that way. Oh, my Aunt Chippy is one of the funniest people in the world.
My cousin Sal works on the the show.

Speaker 2 My brother, my cousin Mickey, my aunt Chippy, who is an unbelievable character, and we pull pranks on her. I've been doing stuff to her since I was a little boy, really.

Speaker 2 Like, really since I was loading her cigarettes, putting little explosives in her cigarettes when I was like 12, you know, and it continues. Now I have like budgets to really.

Speaker 2 Do I don't know, maybe you've seen, but it's a pretty popular prank.

Speaker 2 Something I've been working I worked on for years. I got a Waymo

Speaker 2 and I had an actor playing the driver, you know, those cars, driverless cars, uh, pick her up at the airport. Now, she doesn't know about a driverless car, you know.

Speaker 2 So, um, I have the driver come, he opens her door, he gets her in the car. He says, Will you excuse me? I have to go use the restaurant.
She's like, Yeah, go ahead, you know, whatever.

Speaker 2 Closes the door, and off goes the car with no driver. And she goes, Why she is going just absolutely for sure.

Speaker 2 Cameras mounting everyone,

Speaker 2 Customer service reps, you know, coming over the speaker. She's just screaming and just doesn't know what is going on.

Speaker 2 And that, to me, is when I'm at my happiest. It really is.
It's my happiest. Does it take time for her to forgive you or no?

Speaker 2 She, you know what, we're in a perpetual, she will never forgive me for all this stuff, but she loves me. That's what's most important.

Speaker 2 That's so cool. Yeah, I love doing stuff.
There once we did, we had when her daughter, my cousin Mickey, was pregnant.

Speaker 2 she'd never seen a sonogram before because Mickey is the first of her daughters to have a baby and she just never seen it. And so Mickey said, do you want to come?

Speaker 2 see my sonogram she's like yeah i'd love to you know whatever she's not seen this technology she doesn't know anything about technology you know so we made we had a whole fake we set up a whole fake sonogram thing we had a monitor with like videos in there and like she was looking at this fetus and she's you know tearing up and then the fetus starts doing jumping jacks and then the fetus starts doing karate and giving her the middle finger.

Speaker 2 And she's just like, she's going nuts. Then the fetus is me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we do a lot of fun stuff with her. Yeah.
Can I ask you how Billy is? Billy's great. Thank you for asking.
He is my son, Billy, is eight years old now.

Speaker 2 He's had three open heart surgeries and one arthroscopic surgery. We don't think he'll need any more surgeries, which is great.
And he's just one of the funniest, weirdest little people.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's just like non-stop. I know everyone thinks their kids are funny, but like I go to school and everybody's like,

Speaker 2 this kid is really funny.

Speaker 2 You know, my dad, who's seen a lot of like, you know, grandkids and whatever, he goes, this one's the weirdest one.

Speaker 2 And I'm a grandfather now. I have a three-month-old granddaughter.
From

Speaker 2 my oldest daughter, had a baby, which she told us she was not going to have any kids. She's not interested in having kids.

Speaker 2 And I was disappointed, but I'm like, okay, well, you know, that's, that's your decision. And then she came over with one of those little printouts of

Speaker 2 fetus. And I, it took me like a good four minutes to,

Speaker 2 you know, to digest it and to figure out what was going on. So now Billy is an eight-year-old uncle, Uncle Billy.
Well, he likes to be called Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill has to be called Uncle Bill.

Speaker 2 In every other scenario, he's Billy. Well, as far as his uncleship, he is Bill.
That's great. We don't know why, but it's funny.
And how old is your

Speaker 2 granddaughter? Daughter is her name's Patty, and she's three months old. And

Speaker 2 she's super cute. And yeah, very exciting.
Yeah. I have an 11-year-old daughter, Jane, who's

Speaker 2 funny. And my son, Kevin, who's who will be 32 any day now.
And he's great. I have great kids.
I'm lucky. Yeah.
And the older ones adore the younger ones. They do, and vice versa.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I know.
It's like something. I didn't think about it that, you know, I didn't think about that part of it.
But it's really, yes, very special. We went on a trip just recently, just got back.

Speaker 2 There were nine of us,

Speaker 2 just kids, their mates, and four grandkids, flew to go see Charlie McDowell and his wife Lily, who were in Paris because she's shooting Emily in Paris.

Speaker 2 Nice. And it was, there were like 11 of us, the table.
We're about to take a trip like that. 17 of us

Speaker 2 were going to Ireland for my dad's 80th birthday, all going to spend time with our Irish family, my dad's family, who he tracked down on ancestry.com and got in touch with. And

Speaker 2 now has become very close with. Every weekend,

Speaker 2 we have Irish cousins visiting L.A. It's like every weekend someone is at their house visiting and they just get such a kick out of it.

Speaker 2 And they live on like the land that our family lived on in the 1700s. Oh, wow.
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow. That's amazing.
I've never been there, so I'm excited.

Speaker 2 Did you trace back with Skip Gates

Speaker 2 back to that family? Oh, yes. Yes, I did.
You should take that with you so they can see it. Yeah, well, I've shared it all with them already.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're, we've, you know, it's, it's, uh the internet has changed that. You know, it's like you really can have just you can be in close contact with people who live 5,000 miles away.
Amazing.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm so grateful for you to come and talk to me. You're so sweet to be here after a full day's work.

Speaker 2 I think I actually asked you if I could be on the show, right? They didn't tell me that. Well, I told you they like me to be scared and nervous.

Speaker 2 I asked you when I said I didn't ask you to offered myself up. And then it was a long time.
I was like, oh man, he doesn't want me on the show. So I was grateful.

Speaker 2 I just can't fathom. I don't know you that well personally, but I'm a great admirer of yours and your, not just your work as an actor, but you as a human being.

Speaker 2 You see, and Mary, you guys seem to be great people. And everyone I know that knows you confirms that enthusiastically.
Including my friends, John and Emily. John and Emily.

Speaker 2 My former across the street neighbors, John and Emily. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Who I adore as well. This seems like a good note to go on.
Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. Why not? Thank you.
Thank you. Please, please, please pass on our respect to your wife.
I will do that. She'll be very happy to hear it.
For real.

Speaker 2 Hopefully, I won't forget it on my 11-minute drive home. I'll call her.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Huge thanks to Jimmy Kimmel for making time for us. You can catch him on Jimmy Kimmel Live week nights on ABC at 11.35 p.m.
Eastern Standard Time. I hope we can count on that for years to come.

Speaker 2 That's all for our show this week. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco.

Speaker 2 If you enjoyed this episode, send it to someone you love. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you're of a mind.

Speaker 2 If you like watching your podcasts, all our full-length episodes are on YouTube.

Speaker 2 Visit youtube.com slash teamcoco.

Speaker 2 See you next time.

Speaker 2 Where everybody knows your name.

Speaker 4 You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Liao.

Speaker 4 Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is is our supervising producer.
Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Speaker 4 Research by Alyssa Grahl. Talent Booking by Paula Davis and Jane Batista.
Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.