transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] It was his 50th anniversary of the priesthood, and they had a big, thousands of people came to celebrate in Vegas, and they called me, and they said, would you speak at this?
Speaker 2:
[00:09] Oh, I mean, that's just like...
Speaker 1:
[00:11] So I had a painting made of Father Bill to celebrate the occasion, and I had it on an easel, and I had a sheet hanging over it. I was gonna reveal it. And I talked about our relationship, and I made fun of him, and bishops were there. And then I revealed the painting, and it's a nude painting of him sitting on a stool.
Speaker 3:
[00:43] This episode is brought to you by Shipt and Chase Home Lending. Hey, Niche. Hi, Craig.
Speaker 4:
[00:51] How are you?
Speaker 3:
[00:52] That's a good jacket. Have you worn that before?
Speaker 4:
[00:54] I wore this to the Christmas party. I haven't worn it on an episode yet.
Speaker 3:
[00:59] That's cool.
Speaker 4:
[01:01] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[01:01] It's cool on all fronts. The color is good. It feels smooth. Now, can you get that in other colors?
Speaker 4:
[01:07] Yes, I have this in a different. I have a couple of these.
Speaker 1:
[01:10] All right.
Speaker 3:
[01:12] I'll break them out later on.
Speaker 1:
[01:13] Go on with your bad self.
Speaker 3:
[01:15] Fly boy, fly boy. So what's new and exciting in Craig Robinson land?
Speaker 4:
[01:20] Not much. No, not much.
Speaker 3:
[01:24] Man, you're boring.
Speaker 4:
[01:26] You know, I will say, so this trip to LA has been great. Now the sun's back out, but I've been, I've been cramped up, cooped up. And this is a time when I really enjoy having my Airbnb be close because it was pouring rain the last couple of days. So getting here without getting my outfits soaked is easy.
Speaker 3:
[01:57] We were just talking about how many Airbnbs do you think you've stayed in since we launched IMO? Because you, you, you get around.
Speaker 4:
[02:09] I do. And so we've, I tried to figure it out. We've done 40 episodes, but you can't, you don't do one per episode. So you figure on average, we've done four or five.
Speaker 3:
[02:20] How many total tapings have we done in the last year team?
Speaker 4:
[02:24] And I'd say about 10 tapings.
Speaker 3:
[02:29] Separate tapings.
Speaker 4:
[02:30] Because once we started doing this, then I was just in my own personal life, I was doing Airbnb.
Speaker 3:
[02:36] Airbnb for all your travel, your trips, the things with the boys.
Speaker 4:
[02:39] The boys, all of that stuff. So I would say since last August, so a year ago, August, probably 2025.
Speaker 3:
[02:51] But it has been a great year one, a season one. And we are looking forward to a great season two with Airbnb, our partnership. We love it, love them, love the team of people who come with it, which is always a big part of it. Of course, Brian Chesky, the founder, the CEO, the big head honcho is a dear, dear friend and someone that I love and respect dearly. But that's no bias. I think if he ran a janky company, we wouldn't be using them. But he just so happened.
Speaker 4:
[03:22] You've been using janky a lot lately.
Speaker 3:
[03:24] I'm really loving the word janky. It applies to so much, especially these days. There's a lot of jankiness happening around the world. But Airbnb doesn't fall into that category of janky.
Speaker 4:
[03:36] Yes, no.
Speaker 3:
[03:37] So, speaking of janky. No, I'm just joking.
Speaker 4:
[03:41] Oh, no, that's not right.
Speaker 3:
[03:44] Our guest this episode.
Speaker 4:
[03:47] We are very excited about our next guest. And I want to tell a little brief story before we bring him out, because this whole time, we were talking about how both of us have been on his show. That's never happened, right?
Speaker 3:
[04:07] No, because no one invites you on their show.
Speaker 4:
[04:09] Nobody invites me anywhere. But when I did my book tour back in 2010, he invited me on. But my wife Kelly swore, who knows everything, swore that I wasn't on the Jimmy Kimmel show.
Speaker 3:
[04:22] She thought it was the other Craig Robinson.
Speaker 4:
[04:25] I don't know what she thought. But I was like, who would forget being on Jimmy Kimmel's show? I mean, the green room aspect of his show, the music.
Speaker 3:
[04:36] It's a good green room.
Speaker 4:
[04:38] It was a real memorable vibe, as my kids would say. It was a vibe. It was drinks and food and music.
Speaker 3:
[04:48] Strippers. No, there weren't strippers. That was only with me, right, Jimmy? The male strippers. I didn't tell Barack.
Speaker 4:
[04:56] But we were, you know, and I'm sure Jimmy wouldn't have remembered if I was on, he would remember if you were on. So we were doing some. So Crystal was doing some research and found out right before we came on.
Speaker 3:
[05:10] That you were right.
Speaker 4:
[05:11] I was right.
Speaker 3:
[05:12] Yeah, I would like to thank you for forgetting.
Speaker 4:
[05:14] I can't wait to get home.
Speaker 3:
[05:15] Okay, right. And tell Kelly that she was wrong. Well, let's properly introduce Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 4:
[05:22] Yes, let's do that. Jimmy Kimmel serves as host and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Speaker 3:
[05:29] Do do do.
Speaker 4:
[05:30] Which has become a fixture of late night television over the past 23 years. In addition to his show, he is an accomplished producer and award-winning host, leading numerous hit shows, specials and major award shows. And you know a dude is hot when you got all of that.
Speaker 3:
[05:51] Oh, he's just hot because he's got those cute jeans on.
Speaker 4:
[05:55] Welcome, Jimmy. Come on in.
Speaker 3:
[05:57] All right, Jimmy. See, look how cute his jeans are.
Speaker 1:
[06:01] Good. I'm cute.
Speaker 4:
[06:02] I'm good to see you, man.
Speaker 1:
[06:03] How are you? Turn about.
Speaker 3:
[06:05] Fair play. Look. Looky here.
Speaker 1:
[06:07] I'm excited to be here. And thank you for saying my jeans are cute. I fretted over them before I came. My wife made me change.
Speaker 3:
[06:14] Tell her.
Speaker 1:
[06:15] She did.
Speaker 3:
[06:15] Did she really?
Speaker 4:
[06:16] Where is she? Why didn't she come?
Speaker 1:
[06:19] She's back with the kids at the house, but she told me, she said, looked at me, she said, when in doubt, just wear solids. And so I did. I went with solids. And I very much remember you being on the show. I remember it quite well. I remember we talked about coaching. We talked about your book. We talked about. So tell Kelly, you know what? I don't always remember if people have been on the show or not. Sometimes it gets blurred. But I definitely remember that.
Speaker 4:
[06:44] Thank you. Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1:
[06:46] The weird, the thing that you might want to be concerned about is the fact that she doesn't remember.
Speaker 3:
[06:49] That's the thing. And Kelly, his wife remembers everything.
Speaker 1:
[06:54] Except me.
Speaker 3:
[06:55] No. Maybe she didn't remember him.
Speaker 4:
[06:58] Well, you know what it was. What? That was one of the shows where I came alone. Usually she would come with me. But I think I flew down. I was in Oregon at the time. So I flew down.
Speaker 1:
[07:09] It may have been a blind spot caused by jealous rage.
Speaker 3:
[07:12] That's right.
Speaker 1:
[07:13] That's right.
Speaker 4:
[07:13] There you go.
Speaker 3:
[07:15] We were asking, so you're not sure when this is going to air, but right now you guys are on a week hiatus.
Speaker 1:
[07:21] We're on break. Yeah, right now.
Speaker 3:
[07:22] Yeah. Yeah. How does that work? I mean, it feels like this talk show thing is pretty grueling.
Speaker 1:
[07:29] It is. It's grueling.
Speaker 3:
[07:32] So what's the week break feel like? Are you chilling?
Speaker 1:
[07:37] It feels brief. Actually, we rented an Airbnb in Phoenix.
Speaker 3:
[07:42] Really?
Speaker 1:
[07:43] We rented, we went to visit our friends there. I have a friend named Chris Bianco. He's a great pizza chef. I think you've had his pizza.
Speaker 3:
[07:49] Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
[07:51] And we rented a beautiful house. He brought his kids over. They came and stayed and he got this El Camino restored. It took four years to get it restored. It was his 60th birthday present. We all chipped in for this. It took four years again. He's had it for six weeks. We're about to get in the car to go to his pizza place. He accidentally stepped on the, I don't know what exactly happened, but let's just say the car wound up in the Airbnb. We took out half the garage of the Airbnb.
Speaker 3:
[08:25] Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:
[08:26] They were very nice about it though.
Speaker 3:
[08:28] They said, no problem. Did he trash the car?
Speaker 1:
[08:33] The car is trashed, our rental car was trashed. It was like a video game type scenario.
Speaker 3:
[08:39] Oh no, he was so excited.
Speaker 1:
[08:41] Yeah, he was. It was sad. It was sad.
Speaker 3:
[08:43] It is so sad.
Speaker 1:
[08:45] But I told him, we're going to look back and laugh at this.
Speaker 4:
[08:48] So tell me this, did it have the old-fashioned gear shift that was on the side where you had to...
Speaker 1:
[08:52] No, it had the... It was down... I know this because I drove it shortly before he drove it into the house.
Speaker 3:
[08:59] And it's so good.
Speaker 1:
[09:00] And I remember thinking, this car is too fast. It's like, it's too responsive, you know? It's a little bit dangerous.
Speaker 3:
[09:06] Yeah, but it has to be in the right gear.
Speaker 1:
[09:08] It does. That's one of the things that we learned.
Speaker 4:
[09:10] Yeah, so if you're in drive and should be in reverse, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 3:
[09:15] So when that happens to your friend, are you laughing at him? Are you sort of like, aw buddy?
Speaker 1:
[09:21] You know, I felt bad for him. I did. I mean, when something like that happens and then there's that moment of release where you realize, okay, nobody's hurt and something ridiculous has just happened, I did have the urge to laugh, but I fought it. I helped him.
Speaker 3:
[09:39] We are laughing now.
Speaker 1:
[09:42] He's probably still not laughing, but you know.
Speaker 3:
[09:45] But maybe by the time this airs.
Speaker 1:
[09:46] Maybe. Doubtful, but maybe.
Speaker 3:
[09:48] Were the kids in the car?
Speaker 1:
[09:50] The kids were in our rental car and then the other group of kids were in the other car. We had three cars and we managed to destroy two of them. We'll get the other one later.
Speaker 3:
[10:02] So did you get pizza at least?
Speaker 1:
[10:07] We did go for pizza afterwards.
Speaker 3:
[10:09] Because kids don't care. They're like, well, we thought we were getting pizza.
Speaker 1:
[10:12] It is funny because there was no discussion of not getting pizza afterwards. There was not even a moment of that. We couldn't close the garage door of the house and we just left.
Speaker 3:
[10:24] So that's what you do on your break. Yeah, no wonder it didn't feel long. You were dealing with crisis.
Speaker 1:
[10:30] We took the kids to Vegas. We had a lot of fun in Vegas.
Speaker 3:
[10:32] So your kid, the little ones. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:
[10:35] Little ones. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[10:36] So what do you do with little ones in Vegas? We used to take the girls. We were campaigning in Vegas a lot and they loved Vegas.
Speaker 1:
[10:44] Kids love. There's a lot of fun stuff.
Speaker 3:
[10:46] Which I told them to stop saying out loud. You know, they're like 10 and Malia is like, we love Vegas. We love staying at the Wynn. And I was like, you know what? Don't say that out loud.
Speaker 4:
[10:57] It's made to attract little kids and old ladies like our mom.
Speaker 1:
[11:01] Kids like Black Jack. They love video poker. We took them to see the Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil show. We went to see the Wizard of Oz at the Sphere.
Speaker 4:
[11:11] Wasn't that great?
Speaker 1:
[11:12] Really great.
Speaker 3:
[11:12] How long has that been there?
Speaker 1:
[11:14] I think a long time because it's doing very well. Yeah, that was fun. I took my Aunt Chippy along. She lives in Vegas. So we picked her up and brought her to the show. We went to a place called Omega Mart, which is part of this Meow Wolf franchise. It's these visual experiences. It's very interesting. It's really fun. I think there's one in Dallas, one in Phoenix, one in Denver or something. It was a lot of fun. Kids loved it. And they got to stay in a room, a Vegas room. It looks like Liberace died in it. That kind of thing.
Speaker 3:
[11:49] Do you let them get in the minibar? Because that can break you.
Speaker 1:
[11:52] We did not. You know what, I don't think they even knew the minibar was there.
Speaker 3:
[11:57] My kids knew. Oh, they did, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[11:59] I can't even imagine what my dad would have done if we had gone, even opened the door of a minibar. When we were kids, the only vacation we ever took was, when we lived in Brooklyn, we would go to Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And then when we lived in Vegas, we would drive to LA to go to Disneyland or whatever. And it was always very stressful. The car always broke down. It was just a matter of whether we made it halfway or not. We'd be towed to California or towed back home. Those are the worst vacations. When you get towed back home, everybody's like, my dad's mad. Everyone's quiet because we don't want them to get madder. But we would stay at motels and we had a little dog, Fluffy, and never even considered leaving Fluffy with someone. It wasn't even something that we thought of.
Speaker 3:
[12:51] People back then wouldn't have taken somebody's dog.
Speaker 1:
[12:53] I mean, my aunt and uncle would have. They had a dog. I don't know why we didn't, but we took Fluffy and then it was $2.50 extra to have a dog in your motel room. Of course, my dad didn't want to pay that. So we would smuggle Fluffy into the room. And then, you know, we'd be at Disneyland all day. We'd leave the dog, Fluffy, and thinking, we always got charged at $2.50. It was like, we never got away with it. I don't know why he went along with it.
Speaker 3:
[13:17] He thought, he's like, let's just see.
Speaker 1:
[13:19] Let's just see. Do not disturb on the room so the maids didn't come.
Speaker 3:
[13:22] Don't clean.
Speaker 4:
[13:23] Fluffy's not going to bark all day long.
Speaker 3:
[13:26] So Vegas, you were born in Brooklyn and moved to Vegas what age?
Speaker 1:
[13:32] Nine years old.
Speaker 3:
[13:33] You were nine.
Speaker 4:
[13:34] So what prompted your move?
Speaker 1:
[13:37] I just loved love to gamble and what prompted our move was my uncle Frank was a cop in New York for 20 years. And then he decided at age 40, he was going to retire from the police force. Pension was coming and he decided I'm going to move to we're going to move to Florida. That was their plan. They're going to move to Florida like everybody from New York does. They got to Florida. They put a small deposit on a house, $100 on like a house that was going to be built in a subdivision. They're staying with friends and in the backyard, the friends had a pool. There was an alligator in the pool backyard. My aunt Chippy looked out, she goes, I didn't raise three daughters to have a meeting by a goddamn alligator.
Speaker 3:
[14:21] I'm with aunt Chippy.
Speaker 1:
[14:22] And that was that for Florida.
Speaker 3:
[14:24] That would be it for me too. I've said this before.
Speaker 1:
[14:27] It's a reasonable fear.
Speaker 3:
[14:29] Any place where an alligator could be in your backyard, it's like, I don't like mice in the house. I told Barack, can you imagine what I would do if I saw an alligator? I'd be like your aunt Chippy. It's like, everybody, we're out tonight.
Speaker 1:
[14:47] They lost $100. They went back to Brooklyn. They made a new plan. My uncle Frank had heard that if you were a police officer, you could get a job as a security guard at one of the casinos. He got a job at the Frontier in Las Vegas. And then after a year at the Frontier, which is kind of a shabby hotel, he got a job at Caesar's Palace. And because he was Italian, they almost always put the Italian guys on Frank Sinatra as part of his security detail. And I think word got out and we're like, we heard like Uncle Frank's now Frank Sinatra's bodyguard. And we had to get out there. So my grandparents were with them and we just moved to rejoin the family in Las Vegas. My aunt Chippy is still there, 86 years old.
Speaker 4:
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Speaker 3:
[20:52] What did your parents, did both of your parents work? What did your dad do when he got to...
Speaker 1:
[20:57] My mom raised us, and my dad worked for a company that Howard Hughes owned called Sumo Corporation. We still don't know what it was that he did. I think he tried to explain it to us a couple of times, and it was either too complicated or too boring. Probably both. He worked, somehow he worked in management information systems. I'm not sure what that is.
Speaker 4:
[21:18] I remember that's what they used to call IT.
Speaker 1:
[21:21] Is that right?
Speaker 4:
[21:22] Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:
[21:23] My dad was an IT guy?
Speaker 3:
[21:26] He was a genius.
Speaker 1:
[21:28] He's not a genius. But he did somehow run these systems that ran the slot machines at the casinos, and they would set the odds on the... That's as much as I know.
Speaker 3:
[21:41] Oh, that's plenty. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1:
[21:43] Sometimes he would just clock in and go bowling, and then have someone clock out for him.
Speaker 3:
[21:47] Did you know that for a fact?
Speaker 1:
[21:49] I found that out a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3:
[21:51] Oh, God. How many of you siblings do you have?
Speaker 1:
[21:55] I have a sister and a brother. I'm the oldest. My sister's three years younger, and my brother is nine years younger.
Speaker 3:
[22:01] Are you the typical oldest brother? Are you the protector? Are you the... Were you beaten up?
Speaker 1:
[22:08] I tortured them. Yes, yes. I beat them. I did all the things that you're supposed to do. Did you really? Psychological torture. But also, I'm so much older than my brother. I was kind of like a brother uncle to him, really. Yeah, yeah. So, he was like almost like, it was like having another parent as far as I was concerned with him, so. But yeah, my brother works as a director and a writer. He works on South Park. He's a writer on South Park. And my sister...
Speaker 3:
[22:39] So, you're the reason why South Park is... I have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1:
[22:44] My sister is a comedian, a stand-up comic.
Speaker 3:
[22:46] That's wild. And you said she came to stand-up comedy late in life.
Speaker 1:
[22:51] Yeah, she decided about maybe like 13 years ago that she wanted to be a stand-up comic, and everybody was like, what?
Speaker 3:
[22:58] What did she do before that?
Speaker 1:
[22:59] She was just working in regular jobs in an office and decided she wanted to do it and stuck with it. And now she does it for a living.
Speaker 3:
[23:08] Wow. That's great. What's her brand of humor?
Speaker 1:
[23:13] Observation, her life, being a mom and things she notices, I guess, yeah. I mean, I think that's what you'd call it.
Speaker 3:
[23:20] Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[23:22] Management information services, she does. But yeah, and my parents are alive and full of hijinks at all times, there's always something funny going on. And yeah, everybody's doing all right.
Speaker 4:
[23:38] And was it always that way? Like when you were growing up, was it just like practical jokes and jokes around the table? What was it like growing up in your house?
Speaker 1:
[23:47] Very funny. Everyone's funny in our family. Literally everyone in the family is funny. The least funny person in our family would be the funniest person in most families.
Speaker 4:
[23:56] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[23:56] And yes, I started, my love of practical jokes really began with my Aunt Chippy. She is my muse when it comes to that. And I carry that into my adult life. Our most recent mega prank on Aunt Chippy was we put her in a Waymo, you know, the driver of this vehicle.
Speaker 3:
[24:15] And how old is she?
Speaker 1:
[24:17] She is, she was 85 at the time. Now she's 86. We put her in the car. We pretended we had an actor playing a limo driver and picked her up at the airport. He said, would you mind I have to run in and use the bathroom? She's like, yeah, go ahead. Close the door. The car drives off, limo driver. And the rest you should just watch on YouTube because it's, I couldn't possibly explain how funny it is.
Speaker 4:
[24:43] She's 85, Jimmy.
Speaker 1:
[24:45] You know what I did? She has three daughters, my cousins. And before we did this, I wrote them and I said, listen, I have this idea, but I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know what's going to happen. I guess it could potentially kill your mother. What do you think? I want to get your permission. The three of them answered yes before I barely even, I don't think I even hit send. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. So that's how it goes in our family. No mercy.
Speaker 3:
[25:12] Oh my gosh, I got to see that. That's on YouTube.
Speaker 1:
[25:15] But I started by blowing up her cigarettes. She's a world-class smoker. She loves Marlboro Reds. She's been smoking. She's like a dragon ever since I was a kid, you know. And I would get these cigarette loads. You remember those?
Speaker 4:
[25:30] Yeah, absolutely. We tried that on our dad when we were little.
Speaker 3:
[25:34] We tried a bunch of stuff to make them stop smoking.
Speaker 4:
[25:36] To make them quit smoking.
Speaker 1:
[25:37] That's not why I did it.
Speaker 4:
[25:38] I know, I know. I got figured.
Speaker 1:
[25:40] In fact, I was like, please don't ever stop. But, I would load them, I'd get them in her, I didn't go buy cigarettes when I was like 14. I'd pull the clear plastic wrapping off as carefully as I could. I'd load the whole pack of cigarettes, then seal it back up and use double stick scotch tape to put it back. Then I'd just leave it sitting somewhere and she'd think she got one over on me. She took the pack of cigarettes. And the next day I get a call from work, you little bastard. She'd be playing the video poker machines and just tobacco would go everywhere. Those things are the best.
Speaker 4:
[26:18] Michelle, man. We did that to our dad and almost got in trouble.
Speaker 3:
[26:22] It was more we were dipping the tips in hot sauce.
Speaker 4:
[26:26] No, you dipped the tips in hot sauce. I put one of those exploding things in his cigarette once and it exploded. The beauty of the whole thing is when it explodes, the tobacco goes everywhere, but you're left with a cigarette in your mouth and it's bent.
Speaker 1:
[26:44] You are absolutely right.
Speaker 4:
[26:45] It's bent from the explosion. It's just like a cartoon.
Speaker 1:
[26:48] If you get lucky and they take a hard drag, there will be tatters. You just have this confetti coming out of your mouth. I buy them on eBay now and they still work. You can't really find them new, but you can find them old.
Speaker 4:
[27:07] And so going to school, did you get in trouble a lot at school doing stuff like that?
Speaker 1:
[27:12] A little bit. Yeah. My teachers either loved me or wanted to kill me. There was no in between really. It was either they got it and they appreciated some jokes, but I had situations in my life. Actually, when I hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner, you were there and actually we sat next to each other at that event. I told a story about my history teacher, Mr. Mills, at Clark High School in Las Vegas. George Mills was his name. He was like a big, tough, I think he was a Marine and a good teacher. A really good teacher was an advanced level class, but he did not like any screwing around in class. And finally, and I just never stopped. Finally, he said to me, he did one of the worst things anybody ever did to me. He said, here's how this is going to go. You get, you tell one more joke and I fail you. You get an F. And you know, I wanted to have good grades. And so this was a problem, you know. And the class objected and the class spoke up in my defense, which was great, right? Yeah. And they said, hey, come on, whatever he goes. And he says, all right, you get one joke a week.
Speaker 3:
[28:25] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[28:25] Which is worse than no jokes, because I'm sitting there all week. I usually wait till Friday. And you know, if it doesn't go over, it will ruin my whole week. I have to wait, you know, like I'd be stood. So I have to pick my spot and make sure I slid a good one in. And when it would happen, he'd look at he'd turn a glare at me. And I go, I just give him like one joke a week. And he'd be like, all right. But he did actually pull me outside the class once. And he said, listen, you're a funny guy. You're a smart kid. But if you keep screwing around, you're never going to get anywhere in life.
Speaker 3:
[29:00] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[29:01] And that's how I closed my White House Correspondents Dinner speech where I said, eat it Mills, wherever you are. And in his obituary, this story is written. And they asked him about, and I guess he remembered me and he thought it was a funny story.
Speaker 3:
[29:18] So you guess he remembered you, huh?
Speaker 1:
[29:20] Yeah, he did. He remembered me. You never know, right? I mean, there's a lot of students, but he remembered me.
Speaker 3:
[29:26] Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. What do you remember most about your childhood in Vegas? I know that you had some pretty good friends and, you know, and you, you with your friends and your family, there's a loyalty. I mean, it's like you, you, you go on to people and they stay with you forever.
Speaker 1:
[29:50] Yeah. Is it loyalty or just no one else wants us around? I don't know.
Speaker 3:
[29:54] I think it's deep love and loyalty.
Speaker 1:
[29:56] Oh yeah. I have a lot of family and friends working at the show. Um, I, you know, I had a great childhood. I really did. I grew up in a real, um, middle, lower middle class neighborhood. Most of my, uh, friends' parents were dealers or, um, my best friend's dad was a room service butler at Caesars Palace who worked with Sammy Davis Jr. and Bill Cosby and these, you know, these great stars of the day. And he is now in my band. Um, and his son was my band leader.
Speaker 3:
[30:27] Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I know where you, where you are with that.
Speaker 1:
[30:32] Yeah. He passed away.
Speaker 3:
[30:33] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[30:35] So when, when did you say, okay, maybe I can make a living out of this stuff?
Speaker 1:
[30:42] You know, I always wanted to be an artist, like a cartoonist when I was a kid. And I never even, I didn't know anybody in show business. It wasn't like, you know, even growing up in Las Vegas, like there was this lounge singer named Perfecto who used to come over to my Aunt Chippy's house sometimes. And that was about as close as we got to show business. Yeah, Perfecto, Perfecto and Motion was the name of it. And then there was another guy named Lovelace Watkins who somehow my aunt and uncle befriended. But, you know, it wasn't something that I ever even imagined doing until I got on the radio. You know, that's really what I read. I loved David Letterman and I read that David Letterman started in radio. And then I worked with a kid at a clothing store who said, hey, you're funny, you should be on the radio. He was on the college radio station. I was like, oh, I'd love to be on the radio. And I just kind of moved away from drawing and all that stuff that I was doing. And I got a real thrill out of being on the radio. I remember my first, the first time I hosted a radio show was in high school. I was on the college radio station. And they just said to me, yeah, we'll give you a show on Sunday night for a half hour, you find somebody and interview them. You know, it was just like this really. And I found this guy who found a guest in the Yellow Pages. He was the hairstylist of the stars. And I brought him in. I want to know what stars hair he'd style. Turned out it was only one star. And that star was John Davidson from That's Incredible. You remember that guy?
Speaker 3:
[32:18] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[32:21] We spent a full half hour talking about John Davidson's hair, which included a big white spot that was like a skunk. He had like a skunk type white spot on his hair. And it was fun. And I went home and my Aunt Chippy was over the house smoking.
Speaker 3:
[32:34] Of course.
Speaker 1:
[32:35] She and my mother had listened. My parents had listened to it and they were so excited. And you know, being raised in this loud Italian family, just being listened to, it was a big deal. And I think that was...
Speaker 3:
[32:49] Getting a word in edgewise.
Speaker 1:
[32:51] Yeah. Just the fact that they sat around presumably quietly and listened to me for a half an hour was... I was so excited by it. And that's all I really wanted to do from there on.
Speaker 3:
[33:04] Wow.
Speaker 1:
[33:05] It's been this shocking.
Speaker 3:
[33:06] Did you finish college?
Speaker 1:
[33:08] I didn't. No, I was at UNLV for a year. And then my whole family moved. My dad lost his job. We moved to Phoenix. I went to Arizona State and got a job in Seattle doing morning radio before I graduated, which by the way, never would have happened. Yeah. I see before I graduated as if I would have graduated. It was... That was not really... I was only going to school to avoid getting thrown out of the house. That was... My parents had no idea how much they were wasting on my education.
Speaker 3:
[33:41] So, what was this first job in morning radio?
Speaker 1:
[33:44] It was in Seattle at a radio station called KZOK. That was my first paying job. I had a lot of jobs like calling in and doing character bits, but none of them paid. But my first paying job was at KZOK. I did a show with a friend called... His name was Kent Voss. The show was called the Me and Him Show. He was me, I was him. And we were on air every morning and we loved it. We got fired 10 months into our one-year contract.
Speaker 3:
[34:15] What happened? What did you do?
Speaker 1:
[34:17] I just...
Speaker 4:
[34:19] Yeah, what did you blow up?
Speaker 1:
[34:21] I wasn't very diplomatic at the time. I was 20 and everyone at the station was... The median age was probably 45, you know. It was a classic rock station. I had never heard most of the songs that were being played, you know. Like it wasn't... It just wasn't the place I was supposed to be. And they figured that out a lot quicker than I did. And they sent me back home. And it was heartbreaking. It really was like one of the worst times of my life. Really? Yeah, because I felt like I was on top of the world. I got this job that I wanted. And I was like, we're going to live in Seattle forever. And this is going to be our town. We're going to be on the radio here. And then the next thing I knew was like, OK, grab your stuff from your desk and go home and don't come back. Which is weird.
Speaker 3:
[35:09] It's like no notice.
Speaker 4:
[35:10] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[35:10] You've never been fired, obviously.
Speaker 3:
[35:13] I don't think I have.
Speaker 1:
[35:14] Have you been fired?
Speaker 4:
[35:16] I'm a coach.
Speaker 1:
[35:16] Yeah, that's part of it.
Speaker 4:
[35:20] Yeah, it is an empty feeling.
Speaker 1:
[35:22] Isn't it? Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[35:24] Even when they owe you stuff, it's still like, oh, what am I going to do? Does it bother anyone else that when they go on a trip, their house is just sitting there, totally unused and unwatched? I'll call up my relatives and ask, hey, anyone wanna come stay at my place while I'm gone? No, no takers, missed opportunity. That's why I love the idea of becoming a host with Airbnb. It's a great way to make sure your home is used and appreciated while you're off on that pizza tour of Chicago or whatever you've got planned. It's especially relevant because this summer, the FIFA World Cup is bringing fans from all over the world into cities across the United States. People will be traveling and looking for a place to stay while they catch the games. It's a practical way to make a little extra money while your place would otherwise be empty. If you've ever thought about hosting, this summer is a great time as we welcome FIFA World Cup fans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.
Speaker 1:
[36:48] And how about the people? Now, that's the thing that really disappointed me more than anything. These people that you think are your friends, who you just suddenly don't ever hear from. It's like you have something contagious, and they don't want any part of it.
Speaker 3:
[37:00] It's like you used to be funny, but now you stink.
Speaker 1:
[37:04] Yeah, like it really is. And I got fired a lot of times.
Speaker 4:
[37:08] And that's what I was going to say. You're like a coach. You get hired to get fired. How did you deal with those kinds of setbacks?
Speaker 1:
[37:17] I was always very determined. I always had a lot of confidence in myself. I felt that what we were doing was funny. I really liked my partners on the air. We felt, you know, that was nice having a teammate. Being fired with another person is easier than being fired on your own. Yeah. We started a classic rock station. I went to a top 40 station from there. Then it was what they call a hot AC, which is like upbeat adult contemporary. Then to another top 40 station. And finally, I wound up at K-Rock in LA, which is an alternative rock station. And that was kind of where, that was where I was supposed to be. I didn't get fired there.
Speaker 3:
[37:57] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[37:57] I fit in well at that station.
Speaker 3:
[37:59] What do you think you were learning as you were going through this period in your life that prepared you for your ultimate shine?
Speaker 1:
[38:09] Well, I think it was a little bit like the karate kids in some ways, the wax on wax off. I was, like when I was at K-Rock here in LA, I was the sports guy and I wrote all the comedy bits for the show. And I did a bunch of character voices. So I did six sports casts a morning every half hour, and I wrote all the comedy bits. And then I would sometimes be on the air as well. So it was just nonstop writing, write, deliver, write, deliver, write, deliver, and just in a row. And so I learned to write quickly and to write and to just turn things around in a furious way. Yeah. Which has been great for me because I have to sit down and hash out a nine page monologue every night. And but that learning experience just little by little, taking on more and more and more and having those deadlines, which is something I have to this day. I never have writer's block because I just don't have time for it. Like I can't even, I don't even understand what it is. I just keep going and going and going. And at the end of the night, the show's over and you're on to the next one. And there's something terrible about that. It just disappears. You put as much work into it as you want and then it's gone. But there's also something great about it because you're constantly creating, you're constantly coming up with stuff. And that I like.
Speaker 4:
[39:37] I would love to hear, Jimmy, about your getting your late night gig. Like, tell me about that process.
Speaker 1:
[39:47] It's a disappointing story. And it goes like this. I was told that ABC wanted to meet me about a Thursday night variety show. I was hosting a show called The Man Show on Comedy Central at the time. I was also picking football games on Fox NFL Sunday. I was like their odds maker or whatever you want to call it. So, I was asked to come in for a meeting, and I was not interested in doing... One of the weird things I did is even at my most desperate times, I would say no to things, which turned out to be a great... I wasn't doing it as a strategy, but it turned out to be a great strategy, because people would drive them crazy. And then they'd keep offering me things until... I did a game show called Win Ben Stein's Money, and it was like, I think, the fourth thing this producer, Michael Davies, had offered me. And each time, I was the sports guy. I was making $60,000 a year.
Speaker 3:
[40:45] Like, what are you turning down stuff for?
Speaker 1:
[40:46] The idea that I was turning down TV shows was genuinely ridiculous. Until he told me about this show, Win Ben Stein's Money, I was like, oh, that sounds funny. And he explained the premise of the game show, and I was like, oh, and then it turned out to be a hit, and it led to everything else I did on TV. But I was, my manager is a guy named James Babydoll-Dixon. His other clients are John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who came along later. And John was going to be hired as the late night talk show host at ABC. He had had conversations with them. They decided that they wanted to hire him. And then at the last minute, this producer, Michael Davies, who years later is now working at ABC, suggests to the guy, Lloyd Braun, who's running the company, that he'd look at a tape of me. And he said, oh, the guy from the football. And he's like, yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, all right. So they looked at a tape and they were like, you know what, we're a very, this is a very blue collar network. At the time, like, according to Jim was there like number one show or whatever. And for whatever reason, they decided they were going to hire me, but they didn't want to tell me that's why they're interviewing me, because I had the same manager as the guy they had already essentially offered the job to. So I go in under false pretenses. We spend the whole interview talking about David Letterman, never discussed a late night talk show. I go home, I get a call the next day saying hey they want to hire you to host a late night talk show. They never even offered me the job. They told me I had the job. They're like, congratulations, you're going to be hosting a late night talk show. I was like, what? I am? Okay.
Speaker 4:
[42:33] They knew about your strategy of saying no, so they made it so you couldn't say no.
Speaker 1:
[42:37] I don't think they knew anything about me. It was a period of maybe 36 hours. And they decided to give me the job and they gave me the job. And years later, I asked Bob Iger, I was like, because I still to this day think they made a mistake. I would have, 100 times out of 100, I would have hired Jon Stewart for that job. And I said to Bob, I was like, why did you, what is it that you saw in me that made you guys pick me over Jon Stewart? And he said, you were a lot cheaper. By the way, I was not kidding.
Speaker 3:
[43:12] No, no, Bob would not kid about that.
Speaker 1:
[43:15] And that's how I wound up on the air. 23 years later, here I am.
Speaker 3:
[43:19] Just cheap, that's all.
Speaker 1:
[43:21] The discount host.
Speaker 3:
[43:22] That's right, that's right. What did it feel like making that transition?
Speaker 1:
[43:27] Terrifying.
Speaker 3:
[43:28] Really? Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[43:30] Terrifying. Relentless. I mean, the show was live at that time. And that means, and the show was on at midnight. It was on at 12.05 following Nightline. 12.05 to 1.05, which in LA time means 10:05 p.m. to 11:05 p.m. No. Yes. No, 9.05. Sorry. 9.05, 10.05. So every night, I was not done with work, like officially, until 10.30 at night. I had just gone through a divorce. I had my kids three days a week. I had my older kids three days a week by myself. I had this show five days a week. We had no structure in place. Staff that 80% of them had never done anything like this before, had no idea what they were doing. A host who had no idea what he was doing. I had bunk beds in my office, so my kids could sleep after school, come and they'd hang out with me. And then they'd sleep until I picked them up and put them in the car and drive them home and then take them to school in the morning and start over again. And we had no guests. We just really, it was a very, very difficult startup. And it went on like that for years. And in fact, like the first six months, and I hired all my friends, all my relatives. There was a lot of writing on this, right? And I was hoping that ABC would cancel the show.
Speaker 3:
[45:03] It's like, please put me out of my misery. I really was.
Speaker 1:
[45:05] Because then it wouldn't have been my, what are you going to do? I'm not quitting, but I wasn't going to quit. But I would have welcomed the sweet release of Death at that time. And it never came. And no matter how hard I tried, it never came.
Speaker 3:
[45:22] Just kept hanging on. What do you think it was that kept it going? Was it the time slot? Was it luck? Was it bad luck?
Speaker 1:
[45:31] I think it's, well, somehow we managed to get OK ratings, which I think is probably the number one reason that it stayed on the air. Because if they weren't making money, you know, whatever.
Speaker 3:
[45:42] They're not doing you any favors.
Speaker 1:
[45:44] We did OK, even though the whole time they told us we were not doing OK and we're losing money and all this kind of stuff. But I think more than anything is I'm just bullish and I just kept... I had a good friend named Alex Wallou, who was the president of ABC at the time. And he said at my 20 year anniversary, he said, You know what? You just kept pushing that rock up the hill. This was just an act of sheer willpower more than anything. And it probably was, it really... I just kept at it and kept doing it because I kept remembering what my life was like before it and how I would have a job for 10 months and lose it. And I wanted to just... I wanted to do everything in my power to keep it going. And if that way, if it didn't keep going, I would be okay. I would be able to make peace with that. Because, you know, there's not a big... There's not a huge afterlife for talk show hosts, especially back then. Now there is. Now somebody like Conan has got this entirely different career. But back then, you were gone. That was it. You were done. Maybe you'd get a game show if you were lucky.
Speaker 3:
[46:59] How were your kids in the midst of... Because you have the two older kids. How were they? Because I didn't realize that you were single dadding it through it as well.
Speaker 1:
[47:09] They were... At that time, my daughter was... My daughter, Katie, was 10 and my son was 8. My son, Kevin, was 8.
Speaker 3:
[47:18] They were little.
Speaker 1:
[47:19] Yeah, they were little. They were almost exactly the age that my younger kids are now.
Speaker 3:
[47:24] Yeah. What do they remember about that time? Or do they remember anything about that?
Speaker 1:
[47:30] My son, Kevin, works at the show now, so he's still in the bunk bed. He's 6'5, but he's still in the bunk bed. They remember... You know, it's a great question. I'd like to ask them what they remember. But they kind of had the run of the place, you know? And there were a lot of snacks. I'm sure that was a big thing that they remember. But we had our family traditions just took place at the show. I'd get my son a bean and cheese burrito from Paquito Moss. My daughter would get penne marinara from the Italian restaurant across the street. We'd do the homework. I'd be writing a monologue and helping them with their homework. It was just a weird mix of home. I was in a dressing room that had no windows. Just a very strange situation. But what are you going to do? That's how you just have to do it.
Speaker 3:
[48:22] Yeah, yeah, what did your daughter do?
Speaker 1:
[48:26] My daughter is an artist, my oldest daughter. Her name is Katie Kimmel. You can find her on Instagram. She's a very successful ceramics artist. She makes really clever, whimsical sculptures. And she has a pop-up store at the Row in downtown LA.
Speaker 3:
[48:44] Nice.
Speaker 1:
[48:45] And she has a baby as well. So I am a grandfather.
Speaker 3:
[48:48] Welcome.
Speaker 1:
[48:49] Thank you.
Speaker 3:
[48:49] What do they call you? Pop pop?
Speaker 1:
[48:51] Well, she is only eight months old, so she calls me nothing right now. And my dad is papa, so I'm not getting that. So I just, I'm going with grandpa. I know it's weird, but I'm going to hope for just grandpa.
Speaker 4:
[49:05] So any tips on working with family? Because this is our first go-around. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
[49:10] Well, I think it might be harder with you guys because you're playing the same role here, whereas, you know, I'm in charge, you know. Although that's not great and that has its downside, but I'm fortunate and maybe it's by design that I only hire relatives who set the best possible example for as far as working hard goes, as far as not complaining goes, as far as doing what needs to be done. They know that they have to be in the top 10 percent, as far as that stuff goes. So and I've been fortunate. I've had a couple of unfortunate situations. I've had to fire relatives. I've had to scold my uncle. I had to call him into my office and lecture him.
Speaker 4:
[50:04] Yeah, that was the uncle.
Speaker 3:
[50:07] And then how was Christmas after that?
Speaker 1:
[50:09] Well, he got over it quickly, but, you know, my uncle Frank used to be, he was a security guard on the show alongside Guillermo, who's my sidekick now. But Uncle Frank was my first sidekick. And he was the one we followed out to Las Vegas who worked for Frank Sinatra. And he was a character. He was just an offbeat, funny, dense man who you could pull anything over on him. And he's just, he's very hard to explain. I think the best way to explain him is he once sat in a room and had an hour long conversation with Kermit the Frog, never acknowledging that it was a puppet talking about dating and food and places to go and things to do. And it's just an unbelievable...
Speaker 3:
[51:01] Is that on YouTube?
Speaker 1:
[51:01] It is. Yeah, yeah. It's just unbelievable.
Speaker 3:
[51:04] I had so much to do after this.
Speaker 1:
[51:08] The guy doing Kermit was like, I don't know what's going on here. Is this a joke on me?
Speaker 3:
[51:16] So why did he get fired?
Speaker 1:
[51:19] Oh, I didn't fire him.
Speaker 3:
[51:20] Oh, and he wasn't one of the ones. Oh, you had a talking to.
Speaker 4:
[51:24] He got called into the office.
Speaker 3:
[51:26] Yeah, so what did he get called? Can you say or is it a private matter?
Speaker 1:
[51:29] No, it wasn't anything bad. It was just like kind of refusing to do, like picking and choosing what he did and did not want to do, which, you know, like part of the fun when somebody is, you know, a stooge, for lack of a better term, is you put them in situations they don't necessarily want to be in. And he didn't want to be in it. And then he became like a star, you know, and then he's like, I'm not going to do that. And I'm like, yeah, you are going to do that.
Speaker 3:
[51:56] You are still a stooge. You're a star, but you're a stooge.
Speaker 1:
[51:59] We need you to do all the things, not just the fun ones. Yeah. So, but yeah, he was funny and he really helped get me through a lot of rocky times from a comedy standpoint, because I knew I could always turn to him and get a, he would say something crazy, you know.
Speaker 3:
[52:30] So when did you meet Molly?
Speaker 1:
[52:33] Molly started working at the show, I think about a year into it, and she wanted to be a writer, and she became the writer's assistant. She did that for, I think, a couple of years, two, three years, and she would write jokes on the side, and I'd look at the jokes, and then it just became apparent that her jokes were so strong that I needed to hire her as a writer. And I hired her as a writer, and she was great, and then she became the head writer when our head writer left. And then, I think it was a couple of years after that that we started dating.
Speaker 3:
[53:06] Yeah, and Molly is everybody's favorite person.
Speaker 4:
[53:09] Wait, let's back up a minute. So it was a couple of years after you made her head writer that you started dating?
Speaker 1:
[53:16] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[53:16] When did you start thinking she was interesting?
Speaker 1:
[53:21] I know it always sounds like phony or whatever, but when I was dating, I was dating comedian Sarah Silverman. I don't have that kind of brain.
Speaker 3:
[53:32] You're monogamous.
Speaker 4:
[53:33] So you had a girlfriend at the time.
Speaker 1:
[53:34] I had a girlfriend and then she had a boyfriend as well. And I also just, you know, the idea of dating somebody at work wasn't necessarily a plan I had. But when I broke up with my girlfriend, I just, like, you know, you get in that period, you're like, I'm not going to go out, you know. It was a fairly high-profile relationship, whatever. I'm just going to hang. So I would just hang out at the show after work. We'd just hang out, a group of us. And Molly was part of that group. There were like 10 of us and we'd hang out every night. And then we had a lot in common. And she knew it was a terrible idea for us to date and went ahead and did it anyway. I was much more cavalier about the whole thing. I was like, it'll be fine.
Speaker 3:
[54:20] You're like, I'm the boss. It'll be okay.
Speaker 1:
[54:23] It'll be okay for me. But I also went from a 13-year marriage to an eight-year relationship to dating Molly. So I've never been in a situation where I've been like dating. I've never had anything like that. You weren't on the apps. Yeah, there weren't even apps at the time.
Speaker 4:
[54:48] So you said earlier, you don't know what writer's block is. You don't get writer's block. You just used to cranking out stuff. Yeah. Have you ever cranked out anything where you're like, oh, I'm nervous about doing this?
Speaker 1:
[55:01] Oh, every day.
Speaker 4:
[55:04] Really?
Speaker 1:
[55:05] Yeah, but I tend to lean into those things. If something makes me nervous, I have to be talked out of it in a serious way. I'm always more relaxed about it. And really, that's why I was fired from all those other jobs, is because I always thought, oh, they'll think this is funny.
Speaker 3:
[55:23] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[55:25] I was like, oh, they'll think this is funny. They're like, oh, I don't think they're going to think it's funny.
Speaker 3:
[55:29] It's like, you're fired.
Speaker 1:
[55:33] I'll give you an example of something terrible I did.
Speaker 3:
[55:35] Please, yes.
Speaker 1:
[55:36] This was today.
Speaker 3:
[55:37] Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:
[55:39] Today is Ash Wednesday, right?
Speaker 4:
[55:40] Right.
Speaker 3:
[55:41] Oh, I forgot about that.
Speaker 4:
[55:43] You forgot about that?
Speaker 3:
[55:44] Okay, anyway, because we've been in this building all day.
Speaker 1:
[55:48] So my friend, comedian John Mulaney, texted me and Stephen Colbert and said, you guys have you guys wearing, you have ashes, um, you know, we're all Catholic. You guys have your ashes today. And Stephen sends back a picture of of himself and he's got a looks like it looks like he got hit with a charcoal briquette, you know? And then I am like kind of looking at the picture and I think, oh, this is, you know, this is a funny how, what a mess this priest made on this thing. And I go into the bathroom and I get a, um, a pastel and I draw a penis on my forehead. And I texted, I'm like, I guess my priest thinks he's funny, you know? And I thought, oh, maybe I'll put that on Instagram. And, uh, yeah, no, that got, my wife was like, no, you're not.
Speaker 3:
[56:41] Don't do that. Say, but if it were up to you, it would have been sin, sin, sin.
Speaker 1:
[56:46] Left to my own devices.
Speaker 3:
[56:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[56:48] I probably would have done that. And now in a way I got, you know what? I kind of got what I needed because I did tell the story.
Speaker 3:
[56:59] And we're not laughing, everyone.
Speaker 1:
[57:01] I even sent it to my priest growing up, Father Bill Kenny. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. And I sent him the picture and I said, Father Bill, I went to church this morning and let me know if you think this is appropriate, what the priest said. And then I sent him the picture on the penis on my head. And he says, you need an exorcism.
Speaker 3:
[57:27] And you crack yourself up.
Speaker 1:
[57:29] I love, you know, my other straight man growing up, besides my Aunt Chippy, who was my, you know, why I would torture, was my priest, Father Bill.
Speaker 3:
[57:38] Oh no.
Speaker 1:
[57:39] Who I've been friends with since I was a kid, you know? But there's no better, there's no, there's no one who can be more, who gets more, you get more shock value out of than the priest from your church. And he had a great sense of humor. So he always started funny, but I do crazy stuff in front of the other and even at his, it was his 50th anniversary of the priesthood and they had a big, thousands of people came to celebrate in Vegas and they called me and they said, would you speak at this? Yes, I would.
Speaker 2:
[58:10] I mean, that's just like.
Speaker 1:
[58:12] So I had a painting made of Father Bill to celebrate the occasion. And I had it on an easel and I had a sheet hanging over it. I was gonna reveal it. And I gave my, you know, I talked about our relationship and I made fun of him. And it was bishops were there. And then I revealed the painting and it's a nude painting of him sitting on a stool covering himself in just the right spots. It was just great. It was really, really like I love when I'm doing the same things I was doing when I was 14.
Speaker 4:
[58:55] It's like you're just a kid.
Speaker 3:
[58:59] Oh, so how does it feel that you have probably unintentionally entered into this space in comedy where you are, you know, you become a truth teller. And, you know, and there are times when, you know, you've had to go serious and even go dark. It's so completely, I shouldn't say dark, but just go real. How is that transition felt for you? Because at heart, you're a prankster, you know? You know, you're a morning show, radio guy, you know? But here we are in these times, and you have so bravely and boldly used your platform to speak truth to power, as they would say.
Speaker 1:
[59:48] Well, thank you. I don't think of it as bravely. Boldly maybe would be a good description. But to me, it just seems obvious and unavoidable. And I don't see that. I just can't imagine on those nights talking about anything other than what we are talking about. And I give a lot of credit to my colleagues for doing the same thing. I think it would be embarrassing if we didn't talk about this stuff. It would be shameful. Not that I think everyone has a responsibility to speak out, whatever, if you're comfortable doing that. But my job, I've always said since the very beginning, even when I was on the radio, is to talk about what is going on in people's lives and what is going on if you're doing local radio in your town and if you're doing a national television show in your country. And these are things that I take very seriously and of course I like to, I love telling jokes, I love being funny, I love when the audience laughs. There's nothing that's more exciting to me than that. But well-rounded human beings don't behave that way. And to say that, well, your job is this, it makes me, I bristle at that because first of all, don't tell me what my job is. I don't tell you what your job is. My job is whatever I decide my job is, whatever my employer allows me to do. That's what my job is. And comedians have been doing this for a long time. So true. And from my generation, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, it just shows a great deal of ignorance when it comes to comedy to say, well, Johnny Carson didn't do this. Like, well, first of all, we're living in a different time. And secondly, how do you know Johnny Carson wouldn't do it? I bet Johnny Carson would talk about it. I bet Johnny Carson would be absolutely mortified by what's going on. And I do think that he would probably have a greater impact than any of us do. But I don't love those nights. I feel uncomfortable. I get emotional. I lose control sometimes of my emotions, which is embarrassing to me. But I just feel like I wrestle with myself throughout the day and I go, am I going to talk about this? Am I going to talk about this? Am I going to talk about this? And then I just go, yeah, of course you have to talk about this. You might not want to, but you have to. And that's it.
Speaker 3:
[62:34] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[62:35] I wish we didn't have to do it. I hope there's a day that we don't anymore. We can just go back to fun.
Speaker 3:
[62:41] It would be nice. It would be nice.
Speaker 4:
[62:44] Do you worry that comedians will censor themselves in this environment?
Speaker 1:
[62:53] I think, what worries me most is when comedians warp their sensibilities for whatever reason. Do people censor themselves? I don't know. Do television networks censor themselves? Absolutely. Have they always censored themselves? Yes, but for different reasons. I was listening to you guys talk to Henry Winkler, and ABC wouldn't let him wear his leather jacket unless he was riding a motorcycle.
Speaker 3:
[63:24] That's right.
Speaker 1:
[63:26] I mean, how quaint is that? Like, leather jackets or some kind of political statement. Entryway to gang membership.
Speaker 3:
[63:35] If you look at it, you'll go blind.
Speaker 1:
[63:38] But I do think that there are people who are pretending to be something other than what they are in search of an audience. And it's especially sad to me. It's especially sad to me because you look at some of these comics and maybe they're not doing so great. And they, you know, I'm going to pick up this MAGA torch. And maybe people will support me just because of that.
Speaker 3:
[64:10] Well, it's important for people to know that for some of these folks, this is a game. This is a hustle, you know.
Speaker 1:
[64:19] More than you would think. I would bet.
Speaker 3:
[64:22] Because there's a lot, you know, we saw it in the White House, you know, especially around the holidays when there would be a set of people who would demonize my husband on TV and then be in line for a picture with their grandchildren, you know, essentially saying, my granddaughter loves you. And, you know, and it's like, if you believe the things that you believe, if I believe this about someone, I wouldn't be in the line. I wouldn't be in the house. You know, so there's a lot of winking and nodding that goes on. It's like, you know, and I think that is, does a disservice to the people who are following people. It's like, oh, do you, how much do you believe in this, you know, stuff you're spewing? Because if you don't believe it, don't play with people's lives like that.
Speaker 1:
[65:15] Yeah, it's hard to, on some levels it's hard to understand, on others it's easy to understand, because when it comes to how people make their money, they seem willing to compromise in a lot of ways. And I think I get a little more backlash than someone who maybe, like John Stewart, who kind of came out of the shoot of Very Outspoken Liberal, because I didn't talk about politics, and because it wasn't really part of my act, it wasn't really something I wasn't particularly interested in.
Speaker 3:
[65:54] You were putting bombs in cigarettes and sending on shippy off with a...
Speaker 1:
[65:59] I was doing sports jokes and this kind of stuff, and I'm hosting the man show, which people were like, why you've betrayed us? I'm like, no, I've always been like this. My parents are... Of course, that's how it starts. Whatever your parents are, usually that's what you are. And my parents are very liberal people, very, very, very liberal people. And I always have been. I've never voted for a Republican in my life. Just always been of this mindset. And I think people were just shocked to hear it because you assume somebody you like thinks like you. And I don't mind if people think differently. I have some very close friends who think very differently. And I'm okay with that. I understand that people have different life experiences and believe things. I personally believed certain things to be true for a long time in my life and realized that they weren't. And just you have to allow for that. And lately, I posted something on Instagram about some of these primarily podcasters who now are having second thoughts about who they endorsed for president. And I'm grateful to them for being honest and admitting that they were mistaken. It happens almost never.
Speaker 3:
[67:29] Right, that people admit when they're wrong.
Speaker 1:
[67:31] It's the cardinal rule of MAGA is to never admit when you are wrong. And I can't think, first of all, it's the opposite of Christianity. I mean, it's the basis of the whole faith is asking for forgiveness. And that seems to be cast aside. But I welcome those people. I don't think there's any way forward if we don't. That's what I think. And I've heard people that I have a great deal of respect for, with whom I'm on the same page, whatever you want to say, who go, oh no, they must be punished for their sins. I disagree.
Speaker 4:
[68:09] What makes you excited about the future of comedy?
Speaker 1:
[68:14] I love the niche aspect to comedy now, where you can, like our announcer on our show, Lou, Lou Wilson, he does a show that's very popular on the internet about Dungeons and Dragons. And it's like a funny internet show about Dungeons and Dragons. And he can do it and he can get an audience and he makes money from it. And it's amazing to me because even when I was coming up, in order, you had to first get on the radio, which is like basically, how do you get on the radio if you're not on the radio? You just have to hang around, you just have to annoy them until they put you on a little bit. And then they put you on a little more and then hopefully you get better. But now, you can open up your computer, you could do a whole show for your friends or for nobody, whatever. And then if it's good, usually it catches on. And I think that's a lot of fun. And a lot of people see that as like the end of comedy as a business, but I think it's great. I mean, I think you'll see a lot more people doing it. Maybe not for as much money, but you be able to, if you're good, you can make a living and really only talk about what you want to talk about.
Speaker 3:
[69:33] And there are so many funny people out there. I mean, it's like, you know, I get funny things sent to me because I try not to be on social media a lot, but I could spend the day just cracking up about people.
Speaker 1:
[69:47] I love that too. You know that when you get a video that's funny and it's somebody you've never seen before, that thousands of other people are also sending that video around. And that's just something, it's one of the few good things, I think, about social media that, you know, we forget, I think sometimes that there are also good things and it is one of the good things, is that exposure and just even those reps you get as, you know, when you're 15, you get to be on, you get to do a show every day. I think like in 40 years, we're going to have like some incredibly developed talents that are very unique and very unusual. And I like that.
Speaker 4:
[70:28] Who are some of the younger guys that you see coming along that excite you? Can you say without?
Speaker 1:
[70:36] Without like thinking too hard? You know, that's always, I always get nervous because I will go home and go, Oh, I forgot about him.
Speaker 4:
[70:44] He's going to kill me.
Speaker 1:
[70:47] We had a comic named May Martin on the show last week, who was very, very funny. And that's one of the great things about my job is sometimes I can see people and I can put them on television if I want to, you know.
Speaker 3:
[71:05] But we've got a listener question too.
Speaker 1:
[71:07] We do.
Speaker 4:
[71:08] We always have a listener question that we can offer some advice to some one of our listeners.
Speaker 2:
[71:15] Hi, my name is Andrea. I'm a mom of three year old twin girls and their one year old baby brother. And I have a full time job while my husband stays at home with the kids. He has the harder job by a thousand miles. I have a drive to be with my kids through their various phases, but being the sole breadwinner, I'm really only present on weekends and at bedtime. I know people, including you, say this time goes so quickly, so savor every moment. I also know that you raised your kids during what was probably the most stressful and public facing period of your lives. All that to say, I try to stay present and I'm also trying to parent myself first to show a good example to the kids when I am there. Can you give me a little guidance on prioritizing when to stay present, what to be there for and what I shouldn't worry so much about so that my kids feel like their mom is both their foundation and a successful person to emulate? I want to be focused on the parts of parenthood that my kids can reflect on positively once they're out in the world being their spicy selves. Thanks and I love your vibe.
Speaker 1:
[72:19] Well, number one, Andrea, your husband comes first, no matter what. He... Oh, sorry, I'm talking to Molly.
Speaker 4:
[72:30] We were ready for that one.
Speaker 1:
[72:34] Well, that's a tough one, especially for women, because there's these presumptions that you... I guarantee you if the roles were reversed there, it'd be like, wow, what a great dad he is. He wouldn't be writing. He wouldn't be writing in like, how can I be more present? He'd be like, I'm with these kids all weekend, and sometimes at night. But it does seem like we're now, as adults, expected to... I know we still have 24 hours in the day. Now, I'm just comparing it, as we all do, to what our parents did, right? There's still only 24 hours in the day, and now we're expected to do so many more things. And I don't know why that is. I don't know if we've learned that we need to, or if it's pressure that we feel from others. I don't know what advice I would give, other than, you're doing your best, just do your best. I mean, and that has to be enough, because you have to be at work all day, every day. And even just to, hopefully, the dad's doing a good job, right? And if he's doing a good job, which I don't know, it sounded like she thinks he's doing a good job.
Speaker 3:
[73:51] She wasn't complaining. Who would have heard about it?
Speaker 1:
[73:53] Let him do his job. You do your job, and then you do as much of the job together as you can. And release that guilt. My wife, we have this conversation too. She's like, I feel like I'm not doing enough at work. I'm not doing enough for the kids. I'm not doing enough at home. And of course, I'm always full of wisdom. She says this the other day, I'm like, what am I? All I think of is, what can I say to get out of this room without causing an incident? And what I did was, I touched her on the face and I said, you're doing a great job. You're doing everything you can and that's all you can do. And I walked right out of the room. And I was so pleased with myself. Yeah, I mean, even just like me recounting this, I'm feeling a surge of pride in the way I handle it like you would in a movie.
Speaker 3:
[74:51] And scene.
Speaker 1:
[74:53] And there he goes, off to work.
Speaker 3:
[74:55] What a great man. What a great man.
Speaker 1:
[75:01] It's hard, right?
Speaker 3:
[75:02] Yeah, yeah. But I do think you're right, Jimmy. I mean, the one thing I would say to Andrea is, really try not to parent from guilt because I think that's more damaging than how much time you are or are not spending. Like if you try to replace your time with the wrong things, like being more lenient or, you know, always being the fun parent or, you know, if your guilt is preventing you from creating the kind of boundaries and all of that, that to me is the thing that winds up hurting kids is that they're raised by a mother that feels guilty. So they, they learn to play on that guilt and that may not be that. That is not the best thing for them. So I learned that my kids react to the schedule the way I react to it, the way Barack reacts to it. Right. We learned that in the White House. So we started going, OK, yeah, we live in the White House. It's really no big deal. It's just this isn't about you. Just go to school. Yes, you have security, but, you know, that's just the state of life. You're fine. You know, this isn't about you. What your dad does isn't about you. And all you have to do is take care of your business. You know, and I found that with them having their regular routine and their lives on track, the older they get, that's really what they care about. You know, but if there's something that they can count on, like this is the time I have with my mom and it's good time, you know, so that you're not, so that she's not using the guilt, the time just being guilty, that she's still showing up, her full self for the time that she has.
Speaker 1:
[76:49] This is so much better than my advice to Andrea. Yesterday, we were at lunch and this place has a gift shop as well. And so we're waiting for the food and I'm sitting with my daughter, Jane, and my wife is in the gift shop with Billy. And Jane goes into the gift shop and they come back and they're having a negotiation. Jane wants a jelly cat. These are these stuffed animals that are very popular and they make different ones. And she's like, mom, I just want... And Molly said, well, you know, your birthday's in July and you should put that on your birthday list then if you want it. But we're not buying a jelly cat right now. And they go back and she, my daughter's relentless, you know. She's going on and she's like, but I did this and that. And she's like, no, Jane, I said no, you know, whatever. And I'm sitting there and watching the whole thing and finally I go, I'll buy it for you.
Speaker 4:
[77:47] Oh, Jimmy.
Speaker 1:
[77:50] And they both started cracking up. I just said, I'm just going to be the worst parent imaginable.
Speaker 3:
[77:57] We're going to end this jelly cat issue, it's yours.
Speaker 1:
[78:01] I'll buy it for you.
Speaker 3:
[78:02] It's yours, it's yours too.
Speaker 1:
[78:05] And it was such an antisocial act that, but I did buy it for her ultimately. And no lessons were learned.
Speaker 3:
[78:16] And none whatsoever. You just screwed Molly. That's all you did.
Speaker 1:
[78:21] So brazenly though that I felt it was okay.
Speaker 3:
[78:24] You totally ran over, you backed over Molly and then drove back over her. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:
[78:32] Good luck, Andrea.
Speaker 3:
[78:33] Yeah. Yeah. You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. Well, this has been great.
Speaker 1:
[78:40] Yeah. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:
[78:42] Yeah. What's next on the Jimmy Kimmel train?
Speaker 1:
[78:45] Let's see. I have an appointment with my ENT on Friday. Is that interesting? You know, we're off for the rest of the week. I will rest up and then go right back at it.
Speaker 3:
[79:01] Go right back at it.
Speaker 1:
[79:02] Right back into the mess.
Speaker 3:
[79:03] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[79:04] And it is a mess.
Speaker 3:
[79:06] It's a mess, but you handle it beautifully.
Speaker 1:
[79:08] Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3:
[79:09] You really do.
Speaker 1:
[79:11] I finally handle something beautifully in my life.
Speaker 3:
[79:14] Yeah. Well, you've got this one down.
Speaker 4:
[79:16] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[79:16] It's fun.
Speaker 4:
[79:16] You've got this one down. It's fun watching you.
Speaker 3:
[79:18] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[79:19] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[79:19] And thank you for gracing us, you know. Turnabout. Finally. How did it feel being on the other side of the interview chair?
Speaker 1:
[79:27] It's fun, actually. You know, I like talking to you guys. I love the brother-sister dynamic. I could probably ask you 10,000 questions about that just to start with. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[79:37] One day we'll both be on.
Speaker 1:
[79:39] Yeah, that would be fun.
Speaker 4:
[79:40] That would be funny.
Speaker 1:
[79:41] Maybe on like National Siblings Day or something like that would be nice.
Speaker 3:
[79:45] And we could play a joke on Craig.
Speaker 1:
[79:47] Oh, well, we'll just shh.
Speaker 3:
[79:50] But he'll forget about it by the time we do.
Speaker 1:
[79:52] You could just both do something to Aunt Chippy.
Speaker 3:
[79:55] Oh, great.
Speaker 2:
[79:56] Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:
[79:58] No, no.
Speaker 4:
[79:59] Because I do not want to be responsible for any kind of accident.
Speaker 3:
[80:02] It's like, I don't know.
Speaker 1:
[80:04] Listen, I'm going to kill her eventually. Might as well go out, you know, on an A level.
Speaker 3:
[80:14] Oh, Jimmy, thank you so much. Everything you're doing, we love you. Thank you.
Speaker 4:
[80:19] Love you so much.
Speaker 1:
[80:20] Thank you guys.