Curious About Hollywood and Comedy? Rob Schneider Spill The Tea!

Rob Schneider joins us for a fun, honest conversation about stand-up comedy, Hollywood, and the weird moments that shape a career. What starts with a goofy fan story quickly turns into a behind-the-scenes look at how comedy really works.

We talk about the grind of stand-up, the pressure of live crowds, and how one unforgettable SNL moment changed everything. Rob also shares what he learned from comedy legends like Richard Pryor, why timing matters more than people think, and how jokes evolve once you’re actually on stage.

We also get into cancel culture, hecklers, crowds walking out mid-show, and the split-second decisions comedians make to save a room. Plus, the blunt advice from Jay Leno that completely changed how Rob approached getting better fast.

If you love comedy, Hollywood stories, and hearing how great performers actually think, this episode delivers.

Transcript

Welcome And Radio Show Spin-Off

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show. I'm really nervous to talk to you. Don't be nervous. Don't be nervous. I gotta tell you my my Rob Schneider like uh map of my life. So uh I've been in radio, I've been on the air since 1996 on the radio. Okay, but I started like in 1991, I started like 19, 91, 92, and I was an intern in San Diego. I went to San Diego State and I was an intern in a radio station, and I was the little guy in the totem pole. And freaking uh, you know, uh the Richmeister was the biggest thing that ever happened. Like I was 20, 21, that bit was on Saturday Night Live, I'm watching Saturday Night Live all the time. I'm the guy making copies all the time. Okay, right? So it's like I'm walking down the hallway.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Johnny, Jester, yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

All right, yeah, no man. Yeah, so I'm doing that. There's this guy. I wasn't on the radio. So I remember telling the afternoon DJ, the radio station was called 91X, and I said, Have you guys seen this bit? And and he does this whole thing on Sting, Sting, Stingling, right? And they're like, Yeah, what is it? So I get it on VHS, I played for him, and they say, Can you pull it? I pull it and I put it on a cart. Oh, yeah, the cart across the carts. I put it in the radio station, and every time on this alternative radio station, they played The Police or Sting, that clip would play into the song every time. And I felt like such a part of the radio station. So anyway, that's start that was 19. What was that? 92, 93?

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Yeah, yeah, 91, 92.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah. So I crazy, right? So then I'm now officially this huge Rob Schneider fan. So I'm dating this woman over here who's now my wife, and we take our first couple's trip somewhere, and we go to San Francisco. And my dad is a tour guide. And my dad's like, if you go to San Francisco, you gotta go to this place called the Stinking Rose. You gotta go to the Stinking Rose, right? Very touristy. Yeah, master place. I'm like, okay. So we go to the Stinkin' Rose. Her and I are sitting there at a table, and I look, and there you are at the bar. You're sitting at standing at the bar, you had a white coat, it was very Elvis in themed coat at the bar, and I just stared at you the whole dinner. And she was like, Go talk to him. Like, I can't, I can't talk to him. I'm just gonna stare at him. So anyway, I stared at you in 1992.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Oh, you should have come up, man. That would have been would have been fun. We could have compared uh pictures now.

Becoming A Rob Schneider Superfan

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, right. I haven't changed a lick. No, man, you look great. No, now they're watching your videos. You've been lifting, you're like, I'm working out, man. Yeah, something different? Yes. You never worked out before?

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Yeah, I just want to stay, as they say, this side of the dirt. You know, you have these kids who are working out with you, come on, man, lift. Hey, I don't want to get ripped. I just want to stay alive, you know. And then like, but it's uh it's been good. I'm I'm digging it. I mean, I'm having more fun now than ever. Really? Yeah, it's just so weird. Maybe the pressure's off, you know, at this point. I mean, if you haven't achieved something by by the time you're 60, what you want to do, it's come on.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

That's enough. Figure out how you're gonna uh you're gonna die, die and still eating and sleeping indoors. Uh, but yeah, no, I'm enjoying that. It's just it's like a renaissance, I guess. I guess because of the the counterculture uh revolution that's happening against all the woke crazy shit. Oh, yeah, has created a, you know, a nice little uh I mean uh in some ways it's it's you have to have something to every you know, kids need something to rebel against. And this is like a rebellion against the rebellion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

I don't remember you back in the day being so political.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

I wasn't. I could care less. I could care less. I want nothing to do with it. I want to absolutely I don't want to talk about politics. I don't want to talk about how crazy the left is. I don't want to talk, but when you have little kids, you know, and you're in Cal and you live in California, like I used to live in California, you know, he's dangerous in public school, you know, in the morning you drop off a girl, in the afternoon you pick up a boy. You know, at a certain point, uh politics affects you. The idea, like I know that I have a friend of mine. He's very, you know, he just texted me yesterday. And um, he's a really great comedian, a terrific actor, too. And uh he was just doing an interview and he's like, uh, I don't want to talk about politics. I'm an actor. I'm gonna talk about politics. I don't want to get involved. It's like, who wants to get involved? I guess there are boys that are competing against girls in sports, you know, trying to get into the locker room, just saying they're and they get to keep their dick. That's the best part, John. They say, he's like, hey, hey, you know, it's like, no, you all you have to do is say you're a girl, and then you're in the girls' locker room, checking out all the girls showering that would want nothing to do with you. That's a good they didn't have that option when I was a kid. So at a certain point, politics gets involved with you, you know. I mean, you have to, I mean, at a certain point, it's the road you drive on, it's the air you breathe, it's the food you eat. I mean, God knows they've been poisoning us, poisoning us with the food and things. That's why, you know, Bobby Kennedy and I, you know, we're friends, you know, because he's you know, he's trying to, you know, 42% on the American public is gratingly old bees.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah, I saw you at the Maha thing before back in the day.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

I don't know if he's seen me do that, but I think he may have.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

I don't think he's seeing, but I saw you, I saw you at the Maha thing where he was speaking at here a couple years ago and a half ago. I was probably too scared to do that impression.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

But I was watching and saying, You see him talking and uh and I go, is he choking or is he talking? You know, but God bless him. He he that was a flu shot, supposedly he had a bad reaction to it. That's what happened?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah. Well, no wonder he's so anti-sike um um his sister has the same voice.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

The sister who doesn't his own family turned against him. That's how that's how that's how powerful Pharma is. Yeah, right? And how powerful the Democratic Party is. I know, and then his own sister's like, I can't believe it. I wouldn't trust my either, uh and the whole shit, you know, as Kurt Mesker says. She got kicked in the deep, she got kicked in the throat by the deep state, too.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

You know, you kind of sound like um uh on Golden Pond Lady when you were doing uh she was different, Johnny J.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

She was more about that, you know. He has which is a lot less reliable. You know, it just comes from a different place. And but I I do that, and I, you know, and I love the guy.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

But um Oh, he's got a good sense of humor. I hope so. We'll send him this clip.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

I know. He's he's a great man, he's doing great things for this country. I'm proud to know him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Wait, let me go more over my Rob Schneider history. Oh, guys. I have more. Yes, I have more. Okay. So you don't get involved in Hitler.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Hit three gets involved in you. You don't get involved in Polyneth, Polly thinks he gives involved. I'm gonna get involved.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Okay, tell my Jay Leno story later. Oh, good. I want to hear, I'd love to. I got a I got a Jay Leno story for you, too. I was alone with him one time backstage, supposed to bring him out on stage. Yeah, I hope you fans well, this story. You know what he did? How he talked to me? He talked, I go, dude, I think you're great. He goes, Thanks, guys. And I was like, guys, it was just me. He kept talking to me like if I was playing.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yeah, thanks. Because he probably gets that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah, I know, right?

Aging Better And Speaking Up

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Then now he was like, I love he's got two spots. Yeah, he thinks he's a penny. Then he goes down here. Those are his two spots. He's managed a 60-year career off of the only two spots. That's right, right? Best comedian of his generation. You think you you you think that? I know so. Yeah. I've seen it before. I was at the end of it. But his the the you know, but by the time he transitioned into um not a girl, but a talk show host.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Oh, back in the day when he's doing stand-up.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

David Letterman, and they those two weren't getting along for years. Um, you know, he Dave would say, without any um quantification, that uh Jay Lennon was the best uh stand-up of his generation. Wow. That's his generation, and he's right.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Is Jay your favorite stand-up?

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Uh no, it's he's a it's a stylistic thing. There's guys I like that are different, different styles. I love Mitch Hedberg, but I couldn't do that. And I like, you know, Chappelle and Norm McDonald. I couldn't do that. But so I do my own thing, character work, you know, uh with stories. Character work with stories, and I like to write jokes, but to do it just to do a constant monologue uh, you know, to be a um a monologist only, I I just think there are people that would be better at it than me.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

So you wouldn't do uh your own talk show like like Bill Maher's doing?

Richard Pryor And The Craft

SPEAKER_03 8:12

No, I know I know, but I'm talking about just the just the the art of stand-up. Right, you know, just doing characters and playing and doing different nationalities and playing and acting out the stuff, and the audience gets into the rhythm that I'm gonna be acting out stuff and then they watch it. I tell stories within the stories, there's different characters that go back and forth. It's like it's it should be like a one-man show. Yeah, which is really what it is. And yeah, it's more interesting than just doing, I think, well, for me to as a performer than just doing a monologue type jokes, even though I tried that and I did that. I just to do that only. It's good to do a couple and mix it up. It's like a movie, you know, or like a song. A song isn't like, you know, a uh a Tibetan chant of just one note. Even a Tibetan chant, they break it up to make it interesting, right? So you have a song, you got a chorus, you have a you know, then you have a bridge, and you have a second chorus, and it's slightly different. So the key changes, it's different notes. So it's the same thing in in uh in any artistic endeavor is you want to have uh different notes played. And so you you try to do stuff. So there is stuff that you know from Richard Pryor, we're all stealing from all these all these years later. There are guys stealing from prior, they don't even know they're stealing from prior because they're stealing from the guy who stole from the guy who's gonna be around. You're right. I noticed that a lot. But it's good, but you know, I got to meet Richard once. And well, I mean, I got to tell him, I said, hey man. First of all, he was in the building. I was a Saturday Night Live. You remind me to tell remind me the story that the finish the Jay Leno story and then also um Football Williams story, which is you know, I'll tell you that's that that's the guy who smashed Reginald Denny's head. Never told that story either. But uh Regidon. Right, yeah. The guy the guy who threw a brick at his head and almost killed him. Yeah, did fucking basically did take years off his life. His head was never the same, you know. His head used to be this, and then it was like that. You know, terrible guy. Anyway, uh those those are the stories I'll tell you. So what was his name? Richard Pryor, Sunday Night Like. So Prior, I heard, you know, I was a s I was a writer Saturday Night Live, about the same time making copies was.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

And uh about 92 or something, 91, maybe late 91. And um, I heard, you know, somebody's hey, Richard Pryor's in the building. And it's like, what? What? What building? Where in this building? He said, Yeah, he's doing Donnie. He said, holy shit. So, you know, because I'm on Saturday Night Live, they let me go wherever I want. Right. So I ran down to the, you know, to the where we're on the seventh floor 17 where the writers are. I ran down to get to um eight, the eighth floor. I'm sorry, sixth floor. We were sho we shot um uh HC was where we shot Saturday Night Live studio on the eighth floor. And Donnie, he was on the sixth floor, which uh, you know, that's where uh Letterman.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, Phil Hartman used to do great Donny.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

Yeah, he was he was great, but but anyway, so nobody even remembers. Donnie who's the guy, he was the guy would go in the audience, he was the guy really, really changed, you know, he was an interesting guy and and and brilliant. So anyway, I go in and they go, you know, because I'm I'm on Saturday Night Live, I get to go right through and they go, Hey, Mr. Science Security's like, and I go, is Pryor? Is Richard in there? And he said, uh, Mr. Pryor? And I go, yeah, yeah. So fuck him, I'm in. So I just I just open the door and he's sitting in the chair, kind of like this, like oh, he was already sick. He this is 91, so this is like not that long after in Live on the Sunset Strip. Oh, great movie, you know, and then there was the early one, the purple with the purple shirt, which is like Oh, that's that's Richard Pryor live. That was that was the that's the greatest one ever. I think it's the greatest comedy special of all time. There's there'll never be a better one. Um so anyway, so I run it and I go, Mr. Pryor. Man, you're the greatest of all time. You are the greatest. The greatest. We're all stealing from you. I said and I said to him, because that's you know, I had some time to think on the way down. What can I say to Mr. Pryor to be impressive? And I said, You are the statue, I'm statue of David of stand-up comedy. You're it. True. There's only one of those. And I said, That's stand-up. I said that because I knew about uh a little bit about that, because they filmed that, they decided to film that original. Do you mean the the basically the print? We're all uh a seragraph or lithograph. The original print of stand-up comedy filmed comedy specials is the Richard Pryor special in Long Beach. That is the original, we're all prints.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

I had that saved on my phone right now.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

We're all we're like copies of copies of copies. And even at our best, even the way that it's shot and everything. Not that they can be shot that differently.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

He's got the long cord, he's walking about the sweaty armpits.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Well, here's here's the thing about live audience, you know, let me right there, camera guy, still that same great shot. That was only decided to be shot um nine days before. There was a guy who was Sarge, what's his name? Who's the producer of uh the first Richard Pryor one? And it was like Sarge something. He was this African-American producer, like an incredible guy, and he just finaggled away to get it. Okay. And Patty LaBelle opened the show. They don't even show that in the movie, right? So they don't have to pay for the rights to the music. But I'm telling you, that is amazing. So I said to him, I said, that's the greatest stand-up special. We're all stealing from you. You're the statue of David. I mean, I was rearing off all rolling off all this. And uh he looked at me, he looked at me like you should have seen that shit six months later. I'm just starting to figure that shit out. And I was like, I totally believed him. I bet you it was fucking better. So that's how amazing it was. He was just so I was just working that shit out, and I was like, holy crap, you're right. So as stand-ups, the lesson there 30 years later, geez, 35 years later, is that you still working it out. Right. Like I found myself bringing up a couple of pieces. People like, well, I had a friend of mine come and said, I really love that one Korean barbecue thing you do. And I went like, yeah, okay. Because it's a fun, acted piece. And I said, I'll make it even crazier for him tonight. So I'll just I act it out. The Korean barbecue thing is um, you know, one of my bits that I think is pretty good because they get to act it out, you know. And I said, Korean, Koreans, hardworking people. Hard, and I do a whole thing about the Korean, how they're they're just better at math than we are. And like at the dry cleaner, you know, you you never bring your receipt to the dry cleaner. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

They're like, oh nah, yeah, yeah. Your name or Johnny Jones, yeah, you live at 1434. That's a Chinese accent, but that's a very but anyway. And if you live and die, you'll have a wife named Mary. You brought in a full sweatshirt, two pair of pants, your wife had a spring dress with a stain at the crotch. I don't ask no questions, you know, Mr. Johnny. You do, you no problem. You know, it's fully no, we don't take no cash only, no credit card, no, no. Just go down by any, but that's a callback to another joke.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

So anyway, that's that's like that's what I've come up with that that's really kind of fun to do, but you act it out, right? And so, like the the um the bit that you that I've I've you know, that I thought it was an old bit, it's done. Yeah, I kind of I brought it back. So I bring about no, so that's a new bit because I wanted to introduce this bit. Right. And so then I did uh so that was the thing I added for my friend who came to the show that night.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Did you just do it all up here or do you break the stuff?

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Well, I kind of had the idea, and then you play on stage. The pressure of being on stage to get laughs, the potential for like, you know, even even Jerry Seinfeld says, I don't care how famous you are. You get two minutes, three tops, then you better be funny. And if you're not funny, they're gonna know. And and so he's he is right. No, you do.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

The other bit you did, the I really didn't mean it. Oh shit. Lou Morton and I wrote that. Freaking hilarious. What are you doing? Hey man, I'm just writing a song.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

The guy who only told the truth through um through music. Yeah, that they put that up first because that was a monster bit. That was very much like Monty Python. That was the the the Jeff Goldblum, the guy, you know, you guys look that up on your own time. Uh, the um the street musician sketch on Saturday Night Live. They and I was never like the the guy over there, but they put they said, well, that's a killer bit. We're putting that up first. Yeah. That murdered those me and Jeffrey Goldblum. That was a good one. I'm very proud of that. Um But you did it a few times, too, didn't it? Wasn't just one. No, no, no, no, that was it. Just one. Just one and done. One and done, baby. That's all. You don't need to do too many.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Wow, because you know, I mean, I mean, uh this motherfucker. You gotta do more than one time. The Richmeister was more than once.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Oh, yeah, yeah, I did that. But no, that was just one, one and done. Like, I did I only did like two of the the guys. Wait, what an impact that made, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

You put your weed in there. But for me to remember that, that's one time. What is it?

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Something that makes you laugh, you know, especially when you're young. There's like, it's like food.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

But there's no other bits like that on Star Night Live.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Well, music has music like comedy, comedy like music, has an emotional memory attached to it. So it's just like a really good food, or when you're with your parents at Christmas and they let you stay up late and you fall asleep on the big, you know, on the sofa and you wake up and it's like, oh, this is the most exciting night ever. There's an emotional memory attached to that.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Yeah, you're right.

Building Bits On Stage Pressure

SPEAKER_03 16:30

And so it's the same thing in comedy if you remember, and you always kind of that's what's kind of cute to me. Um, when people come up and like Mr. Schneider, they turn into kids. And these are like 30-year-olds now who watch, I saw your movie, and I was and they turn back into that, into that they remember when they were a kid. Yeah. So I mean, that way, so that's special, you know. And I don't take it lightly. I mean, I mean, I'm mature enough now to not like like I'm eating, excuse me. Um I'm should can you just you know, none of them?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

So I should have said hi to you back in Sneaking Rose. I just you would you would have given me that time.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

It's very Asian, too, to be long-suffering, as far as you know, you just put up with a lot of stuff, you know, like Filipinos. They don't talk, my my mom Filipino, they don't talk about themselves. You never hear that, like, you know what else we did today? We went to the store and then we gave money to the poor because we're such good people. No, they never talk about themselves. They what every time you go to my relative's house, they just look at you.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

So, Robbie, tell me about your what are you doing now, Robbie?

SPEAKER_03 17:22

It's just such a gentle, beautiful thing. There are such beautiful people, and at the same time, extremely violent. It's just my mom, the nicest lady, she's a kindergarten teacher for 25 years. What I remember, her throwing ashtrays at us. Anything she can find. Like, eh, that's when people used to smoke.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

You're half Filipino, half half Jewish. So I'm half Dutch, half Mexican. Oh, really? Somebody visited some place. My mother's very dog.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

I have to come back to Mexico City. This is the greatest experience. Fantastic. That's exactly what it is. Incredible! Mexico City, baby.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

I'm the Nibbiquito. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

I didn't mean to be doing your parents.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

No, but you weren't doing my parents. That's you're actually doing my parents doing it. They were doing it. I remember I remember some Dutch words. Do you know any Dutch? I just cuss words, but I speak fluid Spanish. But you do you just speak flu Spanish? This is my first language. I was my mama. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Okay, yeah. Chutver Dammer, you know that. The Dutch way of saying good morning is the best good morning because it does wake you up. What's the way? The old Dutch way of saying. How do they say it? I'm up. I don't need any coffee. Which is similar. It's Germanic, because you know, Guten Morgen is German. Calm. Guten Morgen. Guten Morchach would be and the Guten Morch would be the that's the Dutch, the old Dutch.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was my just to let you know how also starstruck I am with you. Last year I was MCing this event in South Carolina, and the uh with for these gurus, these monks or whatever, and it was online with like 100,000 people. And the lady running it, her husband was the director of Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

Oh shit. And she's Mike uh Bigelow.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Mike Bigelow, right? Because his last name was Bigelow. She thinks that's why they got the job. You remember that's the lady, the lady that you talked to that sells stuff to have.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

He definitely got uh he definitely got our attention. Yeah, he was very good, very good commercial director. Yeah, that's what she said. Very good. Yeah, it's very good. Very good.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

So I was like, so it's like I have this Rob Schneider storyline in my life. Whereas my wife saw you about five or six years ago. I I I think girls' trip, she would go see you at Wild Horse Pass and got to go backstage and meet you, and she said she gave you a bit. Right? What was the bit?

SPEAKER_05 19:36

Well, I said you should do some stuff on um uh menopause?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

On memory loss, we're like our we're going through the other girls trip with this one entire show.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

You're a comedian, you're a man, talk about menopause. You should do a killer, huh?

SPEAKER_05 19:57

Well, for some reason it came into context of what you said that night.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

And I was like, oh, she should be talking about 50-year-old men. He should be talking about menopause. Rob Schneider, his new comedy expert.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Menopause. He used to live in California, he knows what it is.

Getting To SNL And Mentors

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Good lord. Well, I'm sorry, I have not worked on that bit. Oh, you'll have to like my Korean stuff instead. Yeah. How did it go?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

How did it go from how did you get to Shine Alive? And I say that because my background before I got on radio is uh I I was actually I wanted to write for Shine Alive.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

And Dennis Miller is the one who who really was the one who, you know, told Lauren Michaels. He also told David Letterman about me. And he said, you know, it was really I mean, if Dennis Miller, one of the great monologists and great political humorous satirists we've ever had, still great, by the way. He is not only just a great comedian, and if he he should be known also not just as one of the best comics ever, ever.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Really, though.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

But and had his own style, very unique voice. And stand-up, very few unique voices. Dennis Miller is one of them. So much so that Dana Carmi can actually do an impression of him. So we're doing an impression of Dana's impression.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Uh but he also, one of the things he should be remembered for is how generous he was as an artist for other comedians. Very few people. I mean, like Tony Hinchcliffe's one of them, and you know, Joe Rogan is another great supporter of stand-up comedies. You know, Dave Chappelle's a great supporter of stand-up comedy. You know, Adam Sandler's an amazing supporter of stand-ups and and comedians. Um but this was uh particularly Dennis Miller, David Spade, Adam Sandler, and I. He's the one responsible for us getting us out of the house.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

He saw you guys somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

He saw us and he he he's the one who pushed it. He's the guy. He he's the these three guys, these are the guys. He's the guy who did it.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

But what got you to get on stage for the first time? What was it? Buddies tell you you're funny?

SPEAKER_03 21:47

Well, you know, uh, I remember just being uncomfortable as a kid because my mother was Filipino, and so she understood, she had great timing for laughing.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

Like, what does it mean? What does it mean?

SPEAKER_03 21:57

Marvin, what does it mean? So but she Great timing. So making them laugh was like a big deal. And I was like, they had other kids, and there's other things going on, brother and sister, and things. So there's other. And then uh, you know, one of my first jokes was like, you know, I was five kids in the family. I'm the youngest. My parents, by that time, they're like, you know, they lose one. It's not a big side. Rob, here's what the here's the car keys, here's what the alcohol is. You do whatever you have to do. Nobody cares about the other. That's kind of like you first, you know, you start to talk about yourself, and then you're always looking for comedy. Where is it? Where's the comedy? I gotta look, I gotta look in it. You'll always look in it. It's right in front of you. It's your mom. It's the it's your clock. You know, the the clock radio. It's the oh, we used to have clock radio. And it's the your car. It's you it's the words that you use. And so, like, my brother called me in the morning one time. I was first at a stand-up. And uh at the time, he was surfing. And uh, we were I'd surf in like the all summer 1983, every day surfing. And at the summer, it was like the greatest summer of my life. It was just every day, no responsibilities, still living at home, just you know, 19, get up, surf. You know, I think I had a job at like the gas station, at a job as junior college, the same place that Robin Williams went. It was honestly one of the most beautiful summers of my life, just getting up and just going surfing and ever. But by 1984, the next summer, I was like, I gotta concentrate. If you want to make it as a stand-up, and I've been 20, and then like, whoa, and I got on, you know, uh it started getting on stage and I started killing with this. And it's I said, okay, I gotta take this seriously. So then you gotta stay up. You get this four or five places that do comedy, and there's some, there's like three legit comedy clubs. There was the Holy City Zoo, which is the place we always ended up at the end of the night. It's basically a bar with 60 seats, 40 of those standing. So, I mean, it was, and then there's the other cafe, and um then there was um True Cop Cobbs Pub. This is San Francisco. And so you gotta get on stage and say, you know, I gotta take it seriously. So I'm up, but you're up till three o'clock in the morning, right? And you gotta get up and then like, you know, you do you wake up at noon, whatever. My brother calls me at like nine, and I just I went to sleep like maybe five, four hours before that. And he no, yeah, not it was like literally before nine, like eight o'clock. It's like just like I feel like I just went to bed. And he says, he said, dude, dude. And we're like, what, what, what? You alright? I thought, like, is that okay? What's happening? Dude, dude, you gotta come down to Pedro, you gotta come down to Pedro Point, man. And I go, why, why was it? This man, the waves, it's meant, it's nuts. Roundhouse is great, old man's is great. There's a surf location, you know, and it's like the there's the famous Taco Bell that was right on the right on the beach. Before they just closed down, dude, dude. Did he close? Fuck. Anyway, uh, dude, dude, you're gonna come. And I went like, I just woke up, man. I'm tired. He said, like, dude, dude, dude. And I and then he and then we're like, I'm not, no, I'm not going.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Dude. Dude, oh yeah, the dude failed.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

And then I was like, did he just say dude three different ways? And I was like, and then I thought about that. I went and I went and go out, I literally drink a pot of coffee. I'm back to drinking a pot of coffee again today. And I went to the coffee shop and I said, he just, it's like he just used the word dude three different ways. Like, and I said, you know, I spent a lot of my summers because my my mom's Filipino, my dad, her dad lived in Hawaii, so we just go to Hawaii and almost get killed, beaten up by Hawaiians. And like I remember like the word aloha. I was like, you know, you can use it in a lot of different ways. So it was a perfect thing for me to go like California. The word dude is like the in California is like the word aloha in Hawaii. You know, aloha does more than just one meaning. You know, you can use it to say hi, you know, you can use it, you know, I love you, whatever. And so I said, dude, it's like the Polynesian word aloha, it has more than just one meaning. You can use it to say hi to somebody, like, dude, dude, you can get it get somebody's attention, dude, dude. But it can also, but its most important meaning is you blew it, dude, dude. And then I said, you could also mean are you in the closet with a knife? Dude, dude? Yeah, anyway, so it just fucking killed. I remember it was like it was the greatest gift, yeah. The greatest gift my brother ever gave me was just like, holy shit. And so it was just these kind of things. So, you know, and when I was a kid, so I was uncomfortable around other kids, slightly different, so I would talk, you know, a little more stilted, and I was shy, and they would just laugh. And I remember thinking, you know, by the time I was fifth grade, I'm like, I'm either gonna fight this my whole life or I'm gonna go with it. Right. And so I said, I'm gonna go with it. So and then my comedy was a big deal. My dad loved had comedy albums more than music albums, and he really loved music, he had a lot of musicality, played a lot of instruments. And then um by the time, you know, Chee Chin Chong and then, you know Steve Martin. Steve Martin, by the time, you know, uh Blazing Saddles was I saw that and you know on Spectrovision. Remember that? Oh, yeah. SpectreVision in a ho in in a hotel room in Hawaii, and um they had a special deal when that first Sheraton Waikiki opened up, it was like a special deal if you get your tickets ahead of time. So my dad was always getting deals, so he got the, you know, so we got to stay on the Waikiki beach, man. At the Sheraton when it was brand new, Sheraton Waikiki. Oh, just there three days ago.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Really? Yeah, my son graduated from from college there three days ago. But go ahead, go ahead, Spectre Vision.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

So uh so and then Blazing Saddles was on. Throw out your hands, stick out your hips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don Delouise? That's the greatest. Oh, all right. I mean, that I mean, I just peed my pants laughing. I mean, I just thought I'm like, that's what I want to do. He wasn't in it. He's in that one. No, he won, he wanted to be in it. He stayed for a couple of weeks, he stayed for two weeks. Leave on Clevon Little. Cleveland Little. Who was great?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

That's right, right.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

But prior to he was great. I couldn't say prior would be better. Cleavon Little was amazing. Yeah, Slim Pickens. He's uh Slim Pickman, one one of the great, you know, one of the great actors of all time. And you who know he would play comedy so perfect. Right. These guys know, man. Do you give him the chance? So anyway, and of course, Harvey Corman. Harvey Cormann Corman. Uh it was supposed to be Gene Wilder was supposed to be, everybody knows this. Gene Wilder was supposed to be the mayor, and he wanted the better role was the uh was the gunslinger alcoholic. But there was a guy he hired, and it was literally, I think, too drunk, and they fired they he had to he couldn't do the job. So, and then um, you know, Gene Wilder.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

My friends called me Jim. Is that what or is that Cisco Kidd? But you can call me Jim. Cisco Kid, yeah. Cisco, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:16

You could call me Jim.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yeah. It's just just unbelievable. But anyway, okay, so they were. So Dennis Miller sees you. I mean, we had this. If somebody calls you, you fly to New York.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

It's like there Robin Williams was so talented that they said there's gotta be other guys up here like that. When they're making them up here, that's how talented he was. When Robin Williams, when he did it little, I mean, literally, when he did Mork and Mindy, the last episode of Mork and Mindy, 80 million people watched that. There's never been, I mean, I think there might have even been a hundred million the last episode of that first season. Everybody thought that was funny. Anybody said it wasn't funny, they're lying. That was the funniest. One of my favorite shows of the world. And he was from there. And he's from some well, he was born in, like I think, Detroit, but from San Francisco. He used to be at the comedy. We used to see him at the Holy Z zoo all the time. Wow. And I'm proud of myself that I never bugged him. I never asked him because everybody was always bugging him and asking him stuff, you know. And last night, he was kind enough to come see my um, I was uh doing a practice, and he came, I see the practice up in Northern California. And um, I was doing a practice before I was doing my you know first comedy special. And um, and uh he's such a such a sweetheart. He and he said, her, I got and he he you know how you got your killer ending, especially this is my first comedy special. And um uh and I've been practice, and I knew it, and that that was the ending, and he performed it in front of me, my own bit, way funnier than I did. And I was like, holy shit, this guy's a genius. And then um, so so people from Hollywood thought, well, there's gotta be others that look at Rob Moon. And so there was nobody like him. Then there's another, there was one other guy who was like the most talented guy to I think to ever come out of San Francisco was Dana Carvey. Oh, the most talented comic to ever come out. I mean, just pure, unbelievably powerful, just uh a massive talent. There was nobody, I mean, we knew we were good.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Other kids Joe Biden is hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Well, we'd watch him, he's still amazing, right? But we would watch him and we knew we were good, and we knew we were gonna make it at some level. We knew. But we look at Dana and go, we're good, but yeah, we can't do that. Right. And it was just a different, he was so so we knew he was gonna make it. And he was so he's such a generous guy. I remember one time we went to LA together and he was he had some TV shows. They didn't know how to use him. You got these guys, these gigantic talents, just like, you know, I mean, Jim Carrey auditioned for Saturday Night Live and didn't get it.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

He didn't get it. I I auditioned for Un Living Color and I didn't get it. He ended up getting on Living Color, which is the greatest thing that ever happened to him. And then I audited, and then up because of Dennis Miller, we got on Saturday Night Live, you know. I got I got that audition, blah, blah, blah. So you're a writer. Writer. Right. All right. What am I gonna do to get on here?

SPEAKER_00 30:48

But what I was saying is so so they pick you, you you also're going to New York and you don't, I mean, you've never done this before, since you're not.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

No, no, they the audition, the audition was out here. And then by the time you at some point you go to New York. Yeah, and then I had to go to New York. That's when I got nervous because I took it really seriously.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

You get a roommate? Do you never been there? When I lived in New York, well, um you show up to work the first day, you share.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

There's not, there's not, they don't pay you a lot. It's late night TV didn't pay a lot. I remember it was like 750 bucks a show. Or a week. It turned out to be 750 a week. It's like 1,550 bucks uh, I think the first year. So it's like it's not a lot of money to meet girls with, you know what I'm saying? You're not taking girls to the Russian tea room. So you just mention ideas, you're putting it. 750. I think it was 750 every two weeks. Wow. So it was like 1500 a month. That's what we got. Start. So it's like, I'll take it. Are you kidding me? I'd pay to be on that. It's the greatest thing ever. But I forgot what we were talking about before this getting to Dennis. So we're talking about Denner. Oh, we're talking about Dana Carvey. So Dana Carvey was like, Whoa, this guy. The greatest gift, you know, you have a great comedian like that, and and he's a friend. He was like, you don't have to let people know how hungry you are. You can keep that in. And it's like, what a great little gem. You know, you don't have people how hungry you are to make it. And then I remember he was on this show in NBC, which he was playing like a motorcycle cop, you know, like a motorcycle where they're driving around. And it's like, what a misuse of such a gigantic talent. This guy who does so many characters before Star Night Live? Yeah, this is like like this is the most, you know, powerful stand-up. He would blow out a room. Right. You couldn't follow him. He was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Anyway, you still talk to him in air?

Blacklists Then Cancel Culture Now

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Yeah, he's just he's the greatest guy. He doesn't David Spade and him have a really nice bucket. So anyway, he was kind enough to he went with me. He took me to LA. And uh, and you know, he's lived uh down there, and he's like the king of San Francisco at the time, you know, and he got a place in LA, an apartment, and he had a house up in San Francisco, and I went, Man, you got two places. That's amazing. How you man, that's you made it, you know. And uh he was telling me that uh it's a struggle, and I was like, You're the most talented guy I know. And I'm like, wow, if it's a struggle for this guy, if Hollywood doesn't know how to figure this out yet, then what am I worried about? This is the most talented guy, and he's having that's how tough show business is relax, you'll find a place. And you did, and yeah, and you you kind of find it and do it, but you know, I mean, you know, the the great cancel culture and the weird, it was kind of like in the 1950s, there was the blacklisting of of actors right and communists, and it lasted for a few years. I believe that 53, by the time 54 came in, that was the congressional hearings where Bobby Kennedy, uh Robert Kennedy Sr. was uh Joe McCarthy's guy. He was a real tough cookie. So anyway, they turns out, now that you think about it, I think they blacklisted the right people back then. They were going at least going after communism. If you see the woke resurgence that's happened, that's you know, to me, that's just communism repackaged, you know, to make it sound like it's nicer. But but I think that, you know, the the idea that there was infiltration, I thought that was exaggerated. I know that they did wrongly destroy people's careers, and that was obviously wrong. And thankfully, an actor, Kirk Douglas, really is the one who ended the blacklisting by by, you know, when he accepted the Academy Award in '59 for Spartacus, producing Spartacus. Uh, he, you know, Dalton Trimby, uh, Trimbo, Trumbo, Dalton Trombo, was he acknowledged that he's the guy who really wrote it because he was blacklisted, not able to write. But it's like, you know, if you're looking, if you're a producer, you don't care the political affiliation. They do now. No, then you want to get the best person you can get. And Dalton Trumby was was a fantastic screenwriter.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

No, I remember your bit, you do the bit about uh the United Airlines diversity is our number one. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

Well, that's just I mean, it's a joke. It's not even a joke. Well, I know. It's just, you know, the idea, you know, of like, you know, this guy Steve Kirby, he's still the CEO of United. I don't know how. That's how you fail upwards, or you just you're just shitty enough, where or also you're just so politically uh attuned enough that you're unfirable. And that's this guy. And he was saying, you know, for all the pilots coming in, for the this is like three years ago now, he said, for all the new pilots coming in, our main focus is going to be diversity in, you know, for women and people of color. I said, What are you talking about? You want to get the best pilots you can get. And that's what the joke, it's just it's barely a joke. It's just like, you know what? I, you know, uh, every time I fly, I just, you know, I'm so sick and tired of hearing these, you know, finding out it's a white pilot, you know, so sick of these white pilots landing and and and taking off safely. I want something, I want diversity. I want to make it and say that, you know, it's just it's it's very but about three years ago, that was a solid joke. Yeah, there wasn't as much, you know, there was there wasn't there, there was no the people, you know. My favorite thing is when like these asshole leftists go, like, it's so easy to right-wing grip. It's like, shut up. You want a grift. Go, you can just, there weren't even Donald Trump jokes. There's still not even Donald Trump jokes. All the late night hosts are all their all their stuff is interchangeable. It's not jokes. It literally is like, you know, just just going after Trump and the audience, like, yay, like seals, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Would you take it clapping in their own political echo chamber? Like, I feel like you could do the be like Bill Maher show.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

I would hope. Um, I would hope I wouldn't have to cut to people laughing sitting next to me. That's my favorite part of his show. He says a joke, and then they cut to some political or some New York Times guy going like this. This guy, he's still got it. You know, I like if I ever, you know, he doesn't ask me on that show again. You know, it's just all you've been on the show before? Yeah, I used to be on all the time.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

I'm politically correct. Oh, that's 25 years ago. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

But now it's at HBO, you know, HBO is still a woke shithole. Right. It's just this. They have the CNN, you know. I know Larry Ellison bought it.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Hopefully, he can, you know, you know, kind of resuscitate the objectivity, you know, back out of it. Get it out.

Hecklers Walkouts And Pandemic Shows

SPEAKER_00 36:48

You get tons of hate be subjective. You get tons of hate. I mean, I would think because you're so yes, you've got to be.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

But but I mean, you you you can't you can't look at that stuff, you know. Because you don't have the death threats you're gonna you look at and go, no, well, that's a death threat. Maybe I should call somebody. I mean, you know, the um you gotta take it seriously. They do murder, the leftists do murder people that uh they don't agree with. And 26% of uh young people seem to think violence is okay to silence other people. I remember being in Portland, Oregon. I got a police officer armed with uh with a bulletproof vest, nine feet on that side on the stage. Nine feet on that side is another police officer, bulletproof vest, gun right there. You don't think that was a tense fucking night? That was a tense night. The audience comes in like, well, shit's gonna happen now.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

But they're your fans, so they gotta they rolled with it, right? They loved it. What about hecklers? You ever had any of those still?

SPEAKER_03 37:43

You know what? I mean, yeah, sometimes. I mean, I you know, it was really interesting to me, like you know, I'm not comparing myself to you know to uh Sam, you know, the great Sam Kinison. But I remember Sam being outrageous in like 85, 86, and he was like, he was the biggest comedian. I mean, as Norm McDonald said, he did the last truly original voice in stand-up comedy, Sam Kinison. He was a different animal.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Screaming, yelling.

SPEAKER_03 38:09

He was his own thing, but it was his original voice. No one was doing that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

I mean, there's guys that were great, but like Sam was a he's one of those supernovas for comedy.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

I agree with you.

SPEAKER_03 38:19

So anyway, so I went to go see Sam at the Cobbs pub. And uh I was dating a dancer at the time because that's why you get into show business. It's like I know I'm five foot five on a good day, and uh you know, I'm not rich. I don't know. I wouldn't say I'm exactly uh, you know, uh you know, um Brad Pitt. I'm gonna have to be uh funny and famous if I'm gonna up upgrade the uh the the the women pedestal. You know, and at the time, you know, so anyway. Um I like women. I I I make it no no no um no bones about that. So anyway, so I so I'm dating the we're going out with this dancer, and um uh she and I said, Well, you know, we gotta go see Sam Kennison, he's this amazing comedian, blah blah blah. And we go see him. I was dying laughing. She was just offended by everything. And I remember it was early in his in his act where um people like literally second row table got up and walked out for something they considered beyond the pale. And and they made like a public statement of it. And I was like, that seems a bit planned, didn't it? And um, and I remember like I'm like, I hope I don't have to leave because I noticed she wasn't laughing, and I was so so Pee-Whipped. I did leave. Oh I'm such a pussy.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

But you got laid that night?

SPEAKER_03 39:52

I don't remember exactly. I don't want to those days are all, I mean, good lord. Um, but uh anyway, so I remember that and cut to many, many, mini, mini, me during the pandemic, when they were, you know, it was very all some some states were open, some states were closed, whatever. But I said, I'm gonna work because I knew I can't, yeah. By that time I was on to Big Pharma. I knew they were full of shit, and I knew that their goal was to get everybody to have vaccine passports. There, you know, there's no liability. It's the only drug, if you die, you can you don't get to sue them. If you crash in your car, you get to sue. If your wheel falls off and there's some defective on that, you could sue the tire company. But if God forbid, you you get a um COVID-19 thing and you, you know, like that Buffalo Bills guy we weren't allowed to talk about. Right. It was an accident. He hit him with his helmet. Of course, he died. You know, so what? Yeah, don't talk about it. Don't say the V-word.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

So is that why you moved here?

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Yeah. But what was I saying before that? I'm sorry, I'm just losing.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

You're talking about hecklers and you're talking about people coming after you. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

So cut to during the pandemic, I'm performing in someplace. And then I didn't realize Omaha had like, you know, a liberal bend to it. I swear, I lost 30 people. Just boom, got a boom, got out of there. I was sorry, I was making fun of COVID and and some other stuff, and and liberals and uh leftists and the the uh the masks or whatever, and they fucking got up. Wow. And they left. And I was like, and it was like what was happening. That was a lot. That got my attention.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

So you're on you're on and you see them get up and you just keep going, or do you acknowledge the leaders?

SPEAKER_03 41:28

That's gonna be more interesting than the joke you're about to tell, isn't it? We always have to go with what's happening right then. What's so real to the audience? We got to suspend disbelief that I'm gonna tell jokes. So I, you know, you always start off like you're not telling a joke, and then you, you know, you get a joke. The next thing you know, they get on your rhythm and blah, blah, blah, blah. However, if something happens, it's more real than anything that you could just jump in. It's there's gonna be a misstep there. Right. And they're gonna, the suspension of disbelief has been suspended. Now they do believe what's happening. So you have to deal with that and then you know, machinate your way back in. So at the time I was um working with John Cleese, who wrote a movie with my friend Monty Franklin, terrific Australian comedian, um, called um uh called The Great Emu War. And we're gonna I believe it, I think we're gonna finally make that movie now in November. Oh, right on basically about the these birds that that were destroying the wheat fields of you know, out in Western Australia, and so they get the army to go kill them. Anyway, the birds outsmart the guys. And they I swear they win. If you look up world conflicts and you go like Great Emu War, you go World War II, you know, the Axis powers of uh lose, you know, or whatever. I think Axis powers is a second world war, but like you know, the Allies win, you know, you know, Ottoman and Empire, First World War, England wins, France, and so you go like Australia, 1932, emus, combatants, emus, and Australian army winner emus.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Reminds me of that movie Homps. You ever seen Homps? With Slim Slimpickens. No, it was a little bit more.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

So so the um so John Cleese, I called him, I go, like, so that was the share, young man. And I said, No, um, um, he said, it was a I mean, well, there's an an incident happened, and he said, Oh, the story's gonna about to get more interesting, isn't it? And I said, Yeah, well, I said about 30 people walk out, and I said, and he laughed, and he was like, Oh, I said, I just think, you know, they if they would have listened to the whole show and he said, Rob, I think you should give a warning before your performances. Something like, if you are extremely sensitive, if hearing some hearing an opinion other than your own may cause your emotional collapse, then this may not be the show for you. And so I've you know, was you know, adding a bit more crass than John Cleese would ever go. I do an introduction. And I I did it for years after that, and it seemed to um what do you say? At least give a warning. I I basically give that, except without the the Cambridge accent, Cambridge uh University.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Do you have any any of your power? Especially Saturday Night Live, they're so left. Are they accepting of you or do uh any of them say that? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

I mean, I don't keep a lot of pals from those times. But with those times where people weren't really a they were apolitical or they always lean left because they were poor. I'm not poor, dirt poor. I mean, most of the people on Saturday Live traditionally came from upper middle class. Yeah, but like you said, none of those people were poor.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

I saw you do you open for Sandler or wrapped with Sandler at his Netflix special.

Full Circle Moments And New Projects

SPEAKER_03 44:24

No, I mean, no, Sandler, I mean, the the but those guys, we weren't, you know, political. If anything, you just make fun of the party in power. Right. Back then, you know, I remember getting, you know, people very getting angry because we were Chelsea Clinton, you know, one of the actresses played Chelsea Clinton. And they're like, How dare you make fun of children? You know, it's before we were deplorable. So anyway, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, David Spade and I, Dana Carvey. Spade's from here. Yeah, yeah, Spade. He's one of the reasons I moved here. Is he still live?

SPEAKER_04 44:52

Buddy. How is it? Buddy, it's good, buddy. Gets hot in the summer, but my mom's still there, and he calls me. Can my mom come to your shop? You think for tickets?

SPEAKER_00 45:03

So, but he's one of my best friends. Okay, wait, so let me let me finish my my Rob Schneider timeline. I still have more. I didn't mean interrupt. No, no, no, no. I like it. It's it's been interoven throughout the interview. No. So then cut to a couple weeks ago. Oh, good lord. My friend, my partner, Rich, because I do a radio show, John Jane Rich. Rich, his wife has a wedding venue. Yes. And you showed up at the wedding venue for some wedding, and she took a picture with you, and I was like, Oh my god, Rob Schneider.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Rob Gentile and his lovely wife, Tara.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Then the next day, freaking Joe Polish texts me a link of you and him at his ghost town. Jeez, that was the next day. Yeah, and I'm like, what the heck? I go, Rob, and then fine, and then I was I texted Tyler, our producer, I said, Could you please? I would love, and I feel like this cool full circle moment in my life. Oh, that's cool, man. From uh making copies to here you are sitting in front of me in my podcast, interviewing you by the way.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

I feel the same way for starting my live, just sitting in somebody's basement. Yeah, the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

No. So how about Joe Polish? What a character that guy is, right?

SPEAKER_03 45:58

I've never met anybody like him. Me neither. He's he's like the Oz except for real. Yeah. Hit me up on this captain. Here we go. And now we're in a ghost town. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

There could be silver underneath the he's a magician. We should send him a video when we're done here. Because he's he's hey, the Jay Leno story.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Yeah, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

What was the other one too? There's Jay Leno, and there was another one. You said Jay Leno, and you said the guy with the brick over Denny Um. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

Let's end on those two.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

With the Jay Leno story. It's funny because I was I was telling my our uh our our COO of Friendly Fire Media. And by the way, we have Friendly Fire Media. That's we're making content here. We have some shows coming out. We'll be announcing that. Our little podcast that we're gonna be doing, emulating what you do, young man, um, is gonna be called The Ugly American. And we're gonna it's me and Andrew Doyle, the great um comedian and journalist from the UK, GB News. And um our um for nonprofit, that's Friendly Fire Studio that was already taken. Uh the uh You Can Do It Foundation, which also we're we're uh we make um you know traditional family value, good stuff, and we we um we you know we make um some documentaries and some good stuff and free speech, and it's a good organization that people want to go to. Uh YcDI dot org.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

You can do it foundation.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

You can do it and then uh we get involved.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

How many movies have you said that in?

SPEAKER_03 47:30

Gosh, too many. Right, tons.

Jay Leno’s Rule For Making It

SPEAKER_04 47:32

Maybe ten or so. So anyway, so the Jay Leno was telling us I was telling Eric this. Uh, you know, the Jay Leno, he thing about Jay is uh, you know, we think about doing him. You can't do too much, you gotta just do you know something fades off, like what Jay?

SPEAKER_03 47:46

Yeah, anyway, throw that thing. But honestly, one of the nicest and the most generous comedians you can imagine. I was a young man in 1984. Literally, there was a um terrific uh, you know, the manager who was who was the manager of all the guys at the time. Uh Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone, uh the who's who of San Francisco comedy. And there was a scene back then. And this this um this guy was you know the manager. Uh Bob, I'm so embarrassed, I'm blanking on his name right now. Oh, he's gonna hate me. Anyway, so um he said, Um Jay Leno's in town, you're gonna pick him up at the airport, have a sign, and um drive him to uh the radio station so he could promote the gig in San Francisco, and then drive him um to his gig in San Jose. I said, absolutely. And he said, just make sure your car is clean, make sure you have a Thomas Guide. No internet back then.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Thomas Guide.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

So Thomas Guide? And I said, I knew you know, and I know the bear like the back of my hand. 15. I had a car, get me into San Francisco. So I knew my way around. And we used to go to Chinatown every every Sunday until there was a shooting, a gangland shooting. My mother died, we're never going to Chinatown ever again. We never went back. So sad. We used to go every Sunday, same Chinese restaurant. It was like the dragon, tea dragon or whatever it's called, the dragon, whatever. Um, so anyway, so I pick up Jay at the airport, you know, my sign, Jay Leno. Hey, Ken, how are you doing? Kate anyway, no. We go to the radio station in San Francisco, and then he said, Hey, come on, hey, come on, so I'm sitting in there. And um the the guy's an asshole to him. Just a dick. A local radio guy, just a complete utter dick. And I'm like, Well, does this happen all the time? Yeah, you know, he got to kind of deal with it. He's and he ended up editing this piece of Jay Leno. Never told the story before. He ends up editing this piece of Jay Leno, and he literally puts in, like, so Jay, you're performing at a place, and he has another guy going, oh, you got one of those uh SM balls in your mouth, Jay. I'm telling you, this guy was a C-word. And so Jay and I are driving down, you know, later we we drive driving around San Francisco after that, and we're listening to the radio, you know, because they delayed it 10 minutes. He's he added this stuff into it that was never there. This guy was a jerk. And Jay was like, eh, just turn it off, you know. And he said, Um, yeah, no, you know any good Chinese restaurants? I said, Mr. Leno, I know the best Chinese restaurant. So let's go with lunchtime, you know, anyway. And so, um, you know, there was a Chinese restaurant, it was a really fancy Chinese restaurant. Like my dad, we go there, hey, the movie stars, and you know, Cary Grant would go there. You know, when uh President Ford came to town, that's where he ate, and that kind of thing. Right. So, but we didn't go there. We went to the places. This place is just this guy's even better, and it's not as expensive. That's you know, my dad, that was his rationale for not taking us to the best place. So I said, that's that's the best Chinese version. I like to go, you know. So come on in and eat. What do you want to mean? Thin in the car, come on, come and eat. Wait, you want me to eat by myself? Come on in, you know. So it's such a kind guy. And um, we're sitting there and he said, What's gonna get here? He said, Well, General Sounds chicken is pretty good. Yeah, Jenny was good shit. You know your shit. You know your shit.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

So anyway, he said, So you comedian? He finally asked after like several hours. Are you comedian? I said, Yes, sir. How much time you got? His second question. How much time you got? I said, about eight minutes.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

He said, Good. You know how I ask a lot of comedians, how much time you got? I got two hours. I got two hours, I can do two hours, 45 minutes. I said, Who wants to hear two hours of comedy? Who wants to hear two hours of comedy? You either have 20 minutes that kills all the time. He said, You either have um five minutes that kills every time, everywhere you go, every time out, or you have nothing.

SPEAKER_04 51:36

All you need to be a star in LA is 20 minutes. That's all you need to be a star. 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

Woo! I worked the next six months on five minutes. Wow. And I and literally the next like six months later, after that, I was on uh the David Letterman show with that five minutes. That's all I had.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

They asked me to do the show again. I was I I it wasn't as good.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

But you know what's interesting? Was that the dude bit too? Was that in the first time?

SPEAKER_03 52:06

I did that the first one, yeah. But you know what's interesting though? Was they asked me to do the show and the manager was um he said say no. It's because David Letterman asked me to do it, and they said, say no. Why? And I went like, why? That's what I that's my dream. And I said, because you know, six months you're gonna be way, you're gonna be better, and uh it's not gonna make a difference. Six months in show business means nothing except you getting better, and no one says no to them, so they're gonna go crazy for you. By the time you do it, it's gonna be like a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

Did you say no?

SPEAKER_03 52:34

I said, Okay, no. They called me, they called me, they called me, and I finally did it. And by the time I did it, it was like, you know, I'll never forget it. But uh, because that was my big break in show business. And Dennis Miller's the one who was backstage basically holding my hand saying, You're gonna be great, kid. And um, he was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

So um Do those clips exist on YouTube?

SPEAKER_03 52:55

You could see it, yeah. Oh, I'd love to see it. So um, but anyway, that was before they mic the audience. You really had to kill back then. Seriously. Yeah, they did not mic the audience, you had to be to really murder to get to hear that. And um, but yeah, so that was uh that was a life changer.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

What about the uh Denny story? How was that?

SPEAKER_03 53:12

Oh, so so uh anyway, so the Jay Leno. No, that's oh I I thought you were done.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

I'm not sure. No, no, no. Hey man, sorry no one. You don't even know where this is going. No, I don't. I thought that you didn't even know you just you killed the letter man. That's a great idea. You don't even know. No, you killed it.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

You didn't even do so um anyway, so that that's that's yours. That's this is yours. This is this I'm just go back to the Chinese restaurant. Right. We're back at the Chinese restaurant, okay? Okay, you with me. General South Chicken. It's before. I went ahead. Oh, coming back.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Bring it back.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

We're back at the Chinese restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

You're at dinner, you're a kid. Anyway, though.

SPEAKER_03 53:43

You know what they're doing? And so and then he goes and they performs that night. And then a year and then he killed, murdered, like like 2,500 people. Like, yeah, that was the craziest. I mean, since uh Steve Martin, I saw him when I was like 13, and it's like that was like most incredible thing, 2,500 people. And then this guy murdered in a different way, but more cerebral, you know, because he was very silly in the greatest comedy. I love Steve Martin. Steve Martin was it the Wild and most people got into comedy because of that.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Was it Wild and Crazy Guy? Wild and crazy guy. Let's get started. Wild and crazy guy. That whole era.

SPEAKER_03 54:14

Yeah, yeah. So uh, but and Jay had, you know, and he murdered, and he was a different level of a different, a different stylistically, more monologists, more storytelling, stuff like that. And Steve Martin was a rock star. I mean, he was like he was like the Beatles of comedy. So anyway, that was pretty phenomenal. So then I started diving into it. I really worked on the time and you know the stuff. Now back then they used to have this comedy thing where it was like a like a magazine, like made of paper, but like it's like a newspaper. But it was in all the comedy clubs, and there was a thing called Comedy USA, which is small magazine. First time I ever saw uh the cover, first time I ever saw Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, they were on the cover of that back in the 80s, like 86. It's like, oh, these are the guys that are gonna be huge. And everybody said, Oh, these are the guys, look out for these guys. And so um, and so anyway, so if you were a comedian of note and if you had money and you were playing in places, you would get a full-page ad and you'd spend like a thousand dollars. Can you imagine spending a thousand dollars? I would make 200 a week, you know, as a comedy comedian, whatever. This guy, this guy's a thousand dollars for an ad, you know. Right. But if you were a big comedian, you did that and you sold out all the blah blah blah, yeah, I'll be performing at you know, at Stanley's or whatever, Mr. Biller Keys or Mr. Blah, blah, blah, and I'll be playing at this theater, whatever. And so he would take this ahead, and you say, holy shit, this guy's working every every day of the month, whatever. And so what happened was um he would show up to do uh uh he'd get off the plane, show up, and um they they would a guy would be there with the bag, the guy, producer of the show from the theater, say, Mr. Leonardo, here's the twenty-five thousand dollars cash you wanted. He said, What what are you talking about? You you called to ask, you said you wanted twenty-five.

SPEAKER_04 55:55

What happened was somebody was finding out where he was playing, and he would call ahead and pretend to be Jay and go, Hey, yeah, he's a Jay, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be playing the your your theater this week. I just want you to know when you pick me up at the airport, you're gonna have$25,000 in cash in a bag. Okay? Just make sure you have it in the paper bag. Just have it, make sure it at the airport.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

Otherwise, I'm not doing the show. What? Yeah, you want me to do the show?

SPEAKER_04 56:18

I'm not gonna do a show if you don't have the cash.

SPEAKER_03 56:19

So we'd show up at the airport and they go, Mr. Lennon, here's the cash you wanted.

SPEAKER_04 56:22

And he says, What do you mean cash you wanted? What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_03 56:26

It's$25,000 in a paper bag.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

I never said that. What do you wouldn't hear that? That's the crazy thing in everything.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

Anyway, so anyway, he go to the next place. The guy would come with a paper bag. And he goes, What is when what do you do? Well, you said you know you wanted$25,000 in paper bag. I didn't say anything. What the hell is going on in here? And so he figured it out that it's gotta be somebody who knows the schedule. Right. So he he called the schedule a couple of shows, you know, a couple of weeks ahead. Hey, some guy called and said to Jay, get his number.

SPEAKER_04 56:58

And you give me that fucking number.

SPEAKER_03 57:01

So we found out who the guy was. It was a comedian from Minnesota who will remain nameless. And so uh just fucking with him. Yeah, but in a mean way. And just fucking so Jay was like, okay, you know what? So he calls um he calls the comedy magic store, which he plays every Sunday, by the way. Still, I mean, he's still a monster. Jay's still unbelievable. He's you know, consistently an amazing guy and a amazing comedian. And so he calls the comedy magic store.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

Listen, there's this comedian blah blah blah from Minnesota. If he ever calls up everything we still, let me know. Let me know.

SPEAKER_03 57:36

So Jim McCully was the um back then the Tonight Show still, you know, you get on the Tonight Show, you are in show business, you headline, that's it. You've made the you're you know, blah, blah, blah. So he used to, and Jim McCul, Jim McCully was the guy's name. That was the comedy producer. If you killed there and he reckoned Johnny, this is the guy he got on.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 57:56

This was the guy. So the guy from Minnesota gets an audition to perform for Jim McCully. He's gonna come see him at the Comedy Magic Club. So uh, you know, the manager kind of managed, hey yeah, the comedian you said from Minnesota. He said, okay, fine. And so he goes down there that night. Before the comedian goes up and does his five minutes of his audition, his big audition, Jay says, uh, let me go up and do some time. So he bumps the guy. He goes up, and this is Jay Leno with the peak of his fucking power. Remember him on Letterman? Like, what's your beef, Jay? I tell you my beef, Dave. I tell you one thing. And he would murder for five minutes. Just murder and was selling out these places. This is that, you know, monster, best comedian of his generation.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

He goes up, does 45 minutes before this young comedian from Minnesota, 45, blows out the room. People are exhausted, they're alive, they're crawling out of there, they can't believe it.

SPEAKER_03 58:56

And uh, and then this guy goes, he said, All right, that's good. Then he goes up and say, Okay, have a good day. And the guy eats it, and that was it. That was it, he's gone. Back to Minnesota, did not get the tonight show. But isn't that a great fucking story? Isn't that a good one?

SPEAKER_00 59:11

That's about, you know, revenge weight.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Well, yeah. I mean, and also, you know, like Jay, who is just a tremendous guy and tremendously generous, fantastic guy. Um, to all the comedians, he was just amazing. Uh so but that lesson, though, like even for him, I'm gonna get this guy.

SPEAKER_00 59:31

But since then, obviously, you know, when you made it and you're doing your thing, have you talked to Jay about remember when I picked you up at the airport? No, uh, no. No, I call him once in a while. To let him know that you picked him up at the airport with a sign when you were freeing. I don't know.

Hollywood Controversy And Future Films

SPEAKER_03 59:44

He's so many comedians picked him up. I don't know if you remember. But he was nice enough. A year later, this is how nice Jay Leno is. A year later, he had me open for him in San Francisco and and had a motorcycle I used to drive on stage with, had me get on the back of it at the end of the show and drive off together. Wow. This guy, I'm telling you, yeah, how what a lucky guy I was. Yeah. You know, I mean, all the greats were uh sincerely, even to this day, have been like when I was trying to figure out how to do stand-up again, after I uh Hollywood took a pass on me for a while. Um, I learned how to do stand-up again. I had to learn and get back at it, you know, literally.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Did you think Hollywood took a pass on you because of your political stuff?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

I I think like, you know, that they don't want any controversy at all. I mean, in their to their credit, they just want a guy and they just don't want to have to deal with it in anybody. Like, you know, they they still I think they're getting over it now. And I think the woke stuff went too far. And I think most people realize, you know, women do not have dicks. So, like, stop talking.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

The the girl from Survivor on your on a movie, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:41

Yeah, right? Colleen, yeah, Colleen Haskell. Wonder what happened to her. Well, I mean, she she's a beautiful young uh movie was young actress that was called the animal, yeah. Oh, the animal, that's right. The producer of the movie had a big crush on her, so that's oh, really? Because she was like she was like the biggest she was lovely, she did good, she did good. And I, you know, she could have gone on to do more stuff. You have to want it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Yeah, that's you're right. You know, with with all the success of like, you know, right now, like Devil Will's Prada 2 is out and that's 20 years old. Would you do a Deuce Bigelow three?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

I'm getting in shape for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

Yeah, but why not? If they paid me enough, yeah, I probably would. If it's funny, well, don't you write it? Wouldn't you be one of the writers?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:15

Yeah, I mean, but you gotta have the guys, whatever. We're gonna do some other films that uh up here. I'm gonna start making a few more movies, not too many, to be honest with you. I really want to spend as much time as I can with my kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

Another grown-ups?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:26

But um, we're doing another grown-ups this summer. Oh, no way. Yeah. So I'll be flying out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Uh like you've already seen the script and everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:33

And yes. So we'll see. It's it's fun. So I'm I'm excited about it. And uh Adam's bringing the band back together, and we're all getting old. So, you know, it's like trying to get all of us, like, you know, Chris Rock and David Spade.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:46

Baddy, I don't know, buddy. It's like a long flight from my back, buddy. I don't know. Like somebody's gonna have to carry me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

And I went, uh, and then you know, getting Kevin James and and Chris Rock, who can do anything he wants, and then um, you know, what a great class of Starting Out Alive guys that you were with, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

They were pretty damn good. I think we hold up as a good class.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

Were you there with Bob Odenkirk was there too?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:07

Yeah, Bob Odenkirk is turned, you know, turned out this amazing action star. Who would have thought of that?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

I just had him in the studio not that long ago, and you let me see that movie he just made. Yeah, he's terrific. Where Fonzi gets blown away in the first 10 minutes and you see it? Oh, it's a great movie. It's a great movie. He's terrific. So, what's the Denny story?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

Denny, Reginald Denny.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

Reginald Denny, yeah. You said you had the story about Reginald Denny.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:27

You know his nickname. Well, do you know the guy who threw the brick at him?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

No, I know Reginald Denny, but I don't know who threw the brick at him. I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:32

No, this is during the LA riots in '92.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

Pulled him out of the semi?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

This guy who didn't run over people, who decided to stop because I'm not going to run over anybody with my semi, which I can easily do. Right. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stop the car. Stop this gigantic 18-wheeler. And then they fucking pull him out and beat the shit out of him. And the guy, this human monster throws a brick at his skull while he's laying down on the floor. That guy's name was Football Williams. I mean, just uh just not a good person. Yeah. Just this is this is a person who does not value human life at all. Right. Right. Anyway, so Katsu. Same place where um I don't mean to smile. After that heavy moment that we had to be shared together. You liked it, right? I did. You believed it? Good. I believe it. I believed it. And I was the one saying it. I'm all in. So um, so anyway, I'm down. I don't know why, but there's rehearsals. It's like a Thursday. We rehearse on Thursdays. And um the guy who had his head smashed in, Reginald Denny from the LA riots in '92. Remember all the Koreans? Like, fuck you, motherfucker. Don't you come motherfucking mind?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:51

Fuck you, motherfucker.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

You know, those guys, those guys. That was the air. That's what I remember the moment. I mean, hey, good for you. Anyway, so that's the time. So I heard, and then Donahue, I said, that guy got his head smashed in with the guy who smashed his head in. They're both going on Donahue together. I said, what? Why is that guy out anyway? And then why how is that guy still alive? And he would, he used to have a normal head, and then after the brick, it was like that, and he was still alive. And he forgave the guy and like and was just wanted peace. And like, just another another level of human being, like Erica Kirk is just another level. Like, how, what? God bless you. You know, Erica Kirk forgiving Charlie Kirk's murder, like just another level of of unbelievable of Christianity in a true reflecting of Christ's light. So anyway, and I'm this this thing, I'm like, they're talking, he's forgiving her. He's forgiving him. What was this? Like, ah, you know, and I said, This guy's a monster. Um this is Norm McDonald's favorite story of mine, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:56

Okay, so it's gonna go dark.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:58

He he uh he gotta tell me the football uh hey Robbie, tell me that uh football uh football Williams story, tell him again. You know, he used to love me. So anyway, so I'm there I'm watching this this monster, this animal. And I was like, how the guy, I mean, it's dangerous, he's even in the studio. He's a guy who doesn't care about human life. He threw a brick at another human being's skull, you know. Not in defense. So I'm watching, I says, This is crazy shit. So anyway, they go to commercial and um and I gotta go take a leak, so I'm taking a leak in the urinal, you know. And this you know, this is the big urinals at the studio, you know, the eighth floor. It's a bunch of urinals, you know. Anyway, I'm taking a leak and I look over. Football Williams is pissing right next to me. And I was like, Hey, you that funny dude, copy machine, dude. And I and I looked over and I'm like, not such a bad guy. Not such a bad guy. I mean he can't be. I mean he had his reason. What are you gonna do? Clearly he's got a good sense of humor. Seems like a nice guy. What am I worried about? That other, you know, vanity, man. That says a lot, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

I never had you tell that story about De Niro.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:13

Not a bad guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

Not doing that. No, no, but that's where you were. No, don't tell it, but I know it, where you were just all excited knew your name.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

I just gave you two fucking new ones. Those are good. You wanted me to do another one.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

I don't want you to do another one.

Gratitude Final Laughs And Goodbye

SPEAKER_05 1:06:23

I gave you so much I gave to you. And you want more. I'm a fan. I do. Keep sucking me back in. They keep wanting more.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

Al Pacino. I gave you some good ones. No, dude. I'm so grateful you came in. You pushed it. I did. By the way, another full circle. Then I saw you at Charlie Kirk's funeral. I was there too. Oh man. Now we end on a sad note.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:46

You did. You did all that. I did.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:48

I gave you a good out. You did. You gave me a good out. We can always.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:50

You gave you a perfectly good out.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

It was great.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:52

I handed it to you in your hand. And you took it and you smashed it in my face. You son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Thank you, Rob. Thanks, brother. And then you're doing stand-up.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:05

I'm never doing this again. I will promote you. I'm never doing this again. Never. One. That's it. That's it. I gave you best stories.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

It was great. I'm gonna chop them on. I feel like you stole from me. What I take. I should have, I should have saved those for my own. Why? Those were great! Oh, oh those are originals, those are originals, I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:23

Yeah. No, those are good. Thank you. No, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show.