Seth MacFarlane | Club Random with Bill Maher
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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Please put a bullet in my head if I'm ever at that place. Of course, you know what, you say that when you get there. It's just like, a little to the left. When you're going online to complain, you can't find Peter Griffin. You can't find Stewie. They don't exist. And so who do you yell at? I know.

I'm so, I don't usually have all these props. I'm usually very unencumbered, but I'm very verklempt that you're here. You know that. I mean, I don't see you enough. I know. You're one of those Hollywood people like me who, how do you get them to be, you work with them. Yeah. We're just that way. Anyway, let me do your plugs before. All right. Take this. There we are.

January. Oh, that's me. Yeah. Right. Okay. So we're dropping this to the 29th. The next date, that's December 30th. Oh, right. You're doing a live show with Liz Gillies at the Smith Center, which is in? Vegas. Las Vegas. Las Vegas. Yeah.

Christmas album, We Wish You the Merriest. I have your one with Little Jack Frost. Oh, you do? Of course. I should have brought you the new one. Yes, you should have. Fucking A. Well, I'll have someone send it over. Yeah, and that's with your girl. Yeah, Liz Gillies. No, no, no. Oh, you mean Nora Jones. Nora Jones. Yes, on the original, yeah. Who was so funny. Was it one or two, Ted? She was in Ted 1.

Right. I remember he says, thanks for 9-11. It's so great. Apparently, you know what I forgot too? I forgot that that line was added after the shoot as a piece of loop. Really? And God, thank God she's...

got the sense of humor she does. Well, it's so funny because you can't get mad at it because it's ignorant. Yes, exactly. So you can always, you know, there's, we're making fun of the ignorant, which it is. Exactly right. It's exactly right. The younger generation has sort of forgotten that mode of comedy. Has the show started?

Okay, great. So this is the show? Yeah. Oh, wow. There's never any... Oh, look, there's no preamble. This is what's random about it. What do you think I'm reading plugs for? This is the first time I've ever read anybody's plugs right away, but I want to tell you... Wow, this is... You're good, you're good. Don't buy it. Oh, and look, I accidentally fell into a segue. Ted, the TV series, not the movie with Nora Jones, who did not start 9-11,

No, no, not at all. It was nowhere near there. But that's why I love that joke. It's just like, it's dumb because she is, of course, not anyway. But even if she was, you know... What, involved? No, I'm not.

Muslim, right? But she's Indian. Yes. But it certainly was not the Indian. No, no, no. Wow, so it just gets even worse from here, huh? They were only in the first five minutes. Oh. Did you hear about the chick on OnlyFans who half lost her...

who lost a candy cane in her... No. How does that... How do you get a... Well, you know what OnlyFans is. I do. I do. I do. Have you ever... Yeah. World Wide Web. The World Wide Web. Have you ever... Broadband, that whole thing. Yes. Have you ever...

Ben, I have not visited OnlyFans. No, I was going to say do it. Oh, have I done OnlyFans? I'm kidding. I'm joking. I don't think you're doing OnlyFans. I mean, look, you know, you've got to be open to all career possibilities. And I would be very, very shocked if you even went on OnlyFans.

As opposed to me. Have you been on OnlyFans? As opposed to me who wouldn't know how. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of where I fall as well. Oh, come on. I need a lot of help with technology. You? Oh, yes. Oh, I thought we were buying support on that. No, no, no. At some point in my 20s, that kind of, it all went away. Like I could, when they stopped using like coaxial cables and like RCA jacks, it all went away for me.

Like, oh, I can... If you need a VCR hooked up, I'm your guy. But beyond that, I'm useless. I once went out to Snoop Dogg's car. I think this was politically incorrect, Jason. Yeah. I don't know why we were walking out together, but it was well before you could, like, smoke pot. Well, you still can't smoke pot in the halls of CBS. But it was really outrageous then. Oh, so that's a network policy. That's... Come on. It's America. We...

But he was, as we were walking out. And then we got to the parking lot, and he had an 8-track. Oh, that's great. And I said, Snoop, I mean, why do you have an 8-track? In his car. Yes. And he said, that's to keep it real, Bill. I don't really understand why that makes it realer, but. I remember my grandmother used to have an 8-track player in her car. And for whatever reason, when I was five years old, the second I would get in the car with her, I would insist that she play Eddie Arnold. Yeah.

Eddie Arnold. Eddie Arnold. There was an Eddie Arnold 8-track she had, and I had to hear it every time we were in the car. Remind me, Eddie Arnold. He was like a country singer. Yes. Wasn't he Colonel Parker's first? I think that's who Colonel Parker had before he had Elvis. That was his claim. It was Eddie Arnold? I believe so. I believe that was his claim to fame. Now that's random. They told me I had to say that once.

Well, we got it out of the way. But we appreciate twice. No. Really? No, I didn't say that. I think Eddie Arnold, as I recall, was, yes, a country star. Yeah, I think that was Colonel Parker's big client that gave him that credibility to it. Oh, God, I forgot. Ted, the TV series, drops January 11th. I cannot wait for this. Yeah, yeah.

The two Tad movies. The second one may be almost even better. But they are both just such a scream. Well, you'll enjoy this. You'll enjoy this. Of course I will. Yeah, yeah. That is just... Some of those things I've seen so many times. When they're in the sperm lab. Tom Brady. The perfect... It's like... It's a pie fight with cum. It's just... I mean, it's vaudevillian and filthy. Yeah.

No, but that is one of your genius creations, that little bear. Yeah, he turned out well. He turned out well. To Peacock and NBC's credit, they said, listen, we want this to be like the movies.

You don't have to pull anything back. We want this to be what it always is. And to their credit, they did not waver on that. Oh, no one would fuck with you at this point. No, they wouldn't. You're in that we don't fuck with them anymore stage. You're a boy genius. Which can be good and bad. You're kind of Orson Welles, Wellian-like, you know. But don't get fat. Ah, the French. Yeah, and don't... No, I think he'd already peaked by...

50. Yeah. All right, you're going to be 50, aren't you? Yeah, let's go with going to be. I can't believe it. This 24, right? Sure, yeah. Isn't that your big year? It's coming. It's coming. Oh, that's one of the things I brought. Do you remember me? I never do this on this show. Not that this is a show. But...

Do you remember me writing this, but I did a thing for Vanity Fair? They must have asked me to profile you. Wikipedia says that Seth MacFarlane is an actor, voice actor, animator, screenwriter, producer, director, and singer. And it would be great if I could just cut and paste the rest of their entry right here and go have a drink with Seth MacFarlane. He drinks Jack. Yeah, that's right. And he does not become a mean drunk, which I think says a lot about a person's character. Ha ha ha!

I've seen him in crowds and he literally suffers fools gladly. Seth was raised in Connecticut and his allegiance to the spirit of New England is genuine. You can tell his mother and father raised him right, which I find to be a delightful quality in a human being. As a boy, Seth was a girl. And I mean that in a good way. Boys are immature and unfocused, but Seth knew what he wanted to do in life when he was two. By five, he understood the concept of getting in the animation business.

God, did I suck your dick before or after this? At 24, he was the youngest executive producer in television ever. He's still not 40. The bastard. And he runs an empire that includes not just the Golden Goose family guy, but also American Dad, The Cleveland Show, the forthcoming Flintstones remake, A Burgeoning Career as a seriously good singer, albeit completely in the wrong decade.

And now a movie director of the soon-to-be-released Ted. Okay. Yeah. He's the Ryan Seacrest of talent. What the fuck? Anyway. It's nice when a guy can appreciate his own jokes ten years later. I... What was the context of that? Was that, this was an article or something? Obviously, Ted was about to come out. Yeah.

And so they, you know, I remember you did it for me a couple of times. That's right. In a magazine. We were kind of, I think they call that log rolling. Is that what they call it? Yes, when, you know, praise your book and then you praise mine. Yeah, exactly. It goes on a lot in literature, literary circles. Norman Mailer loves, you know, Gore Badal's latest one and Gore Badal loves Mailer.

And then this, David Mamet, he sent me this today. This is really funny. It's a Woody Woodpecker. Oh, my God. Did he draw that? Yes, he draws, he turns out these drawings. I have a number of them here. Woody Woodpecker was not actually funny. He was funny for a woodpecker. Isn't that perfect? That's perfect. I am totally, I mean, what...

I love this. God, I was obsessed when I was a kid with Woody Woodpecker. That was like my favorite cartoon. Really? Of all the cartoons in about first grade through third grade, it was like Woody Woodpecker. And then I got older and I kind of fell more into that camp. Like he's kind of... I watched no cartoons as a child. Yeah, yeah. I was very snobby about that. You were just Walter Cronkite from the second you're out of the womb. No, Seth. But...

I, for some reason, at a very young age, felt like that only film, like Superman, Three Stooges, but really no cartoon. So like the original Superman. Yeah, we're talking about like 1960 when I was four years old or something. Yeah.

There are so many great jokes about that show that I've heard from stand-ups over the years. Who does the joke about, like, he gets shot and he doesn't move. He's got his hands on his hip and the bullets ricochet. And the second the guy runs out of bullets and throws the gun, he tucks out of the way. Does he? Yeah. That's funny. Well, Jerry had the first one about a pair of glasses is a dynamite disguise.

You know, which here's tell me if you heard this. I wish God damn if I could remember the comedian's name. It's a woman in Boston. And if you're listening, ma'am, this is a very funny joke. I can't remember what her name was. Had a joke on Twitter about the intro to Superman. And it was the guy who said it's a bird. What was he so excited about?

I thought that was genius. It is genius. And that's why, you know, I'm not really the ultimate kind of observational comic. I know what you have to observe. But I still have bits, lots of bits over the years that are not that political and aren't observational. But those kind of, when you do any kind of observational and somebody gets to one like that, you go, oh, there was that diamond lying on the ground. We all missed it.

And we all just walked right past it. We all could have seen it. Yeah. That's a big one. That's a big one. That's a big, that's a precious stone. It just shows if you just hear something over and over, no matter what it is. There's still gold in them hills. Yeah. I would hate to be that kind of comic, though, where I was sort of limited to... A lot of work.

that was evergreen. Yeah. I don't mind that, you know, a lot of my material, like, I don't want to do it five years later. But yeah, especially when it's political, I mean, I'm not going to be doing Mitt Romney jokes and Sarah Palin, boy, she's a dumbass, huh? You know, it's like, yeah, that moment has passed. Right, right. Sometimes you can recycle Sarah Palin jokes as Marjorie Taylor Greene jokes. Yes, you can. And there'll be some other dumb cunt in the Republican Party who'll come along and help you up. You know, Lauren Boebert. I mean, they're not going to be...

They're not going to ever be hurting for stupid twats in that party. The problem is their brands. It's like you look at Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert. Matt Gaetz. Gaetz, is that how you pronounce it? Yes. But they're all people who, if they could make it on social media,

as like TikTokers or Instagrammers, they probably would. They basically... They're building brands. And it exists on the left too, but nowhere near as bad. No, that's very perspicacious. That's exactly what they are. It's just not seen that way because they have official jobs, but they don't do the official job of like legislating and learning about issues and that stuff. It's all this, what you're talking about. It's all the marketing. Yes, it's all becoming...

Yeah, a personality. I mean, it is almost performance art. It is. It's exactly what it is. I mean, you see... And they're good at it, is the problem. They're out to shock you. But they're not out to govern. One of the future headlines we did last Friday was Vivek Ramaswamy comes clean. I'm a performance artist. And I feel like it's almost...

That's actually one that's true. It is almost performance art, what he's doing. He was here. He's a bright guy. Yeah. But what's the motivation? I mean, at a certain point, there's emotional intelligence. The motivation is to win elections. And the means in these people's minds is that our base, our electorate,

is on this kind of level. They don't want to hear about the details. Trump says a million things, contradict, they don't care. They never take them literally. Never take them literally. They take them seriously, but not literally. Even still, even though everything that was warned about has come to pass. Roe v. Wade is gone. He didn't accept the outcome of the election. Like everything that the crazies on the left said, this is going to happen. And their right-wing friends said, no, it's not. Happened.

Yeah, well, me. So now we take him literally, yes? The people I was fighting was with other people on the left. I said all along, he's never going to concede power. And the Democrats I talked to would always laugh me off and say, you're being alarmist. And of course, he has to. And everybody, Lawrence O'Donnell and the politicians, they would just all poo-poo this idea. Yeah. So that was a fear-

by about midway through his presidency that I started to have, that this guy is not going to walk away if he loses. Does this bother you? No, no. Really? Oh, yeah. I smoke cigars in my own house. You do? Oh, yeah. You smoke cigars? Every once in a while. Why? What's in it? Once a year or so. But why? I don't get the pleasure. Well, you don't smoke the whole thing or you'll pass out. But you're not inhaling it, right? No, no, no. So if you're not inhaling it and it's not getting you high...

It's just like putting a turd in your mouth. I don't get it. That is exactly what smoking a cigar, that's certainly how you feel the next day, that you put a turd in your mouth. What are you doing? Because you just look fucking cool. Really? Yeah. If I've had a few drinks and I'm home. No, just in the mirror. If I've had a few drinks and I'm home, I'll have a cigarette now and then.

A cigarette I get because I stupidly smoked for 20 years. Did you really? Yeah. For 20 years? You didn't know that? What was your brand? I was the Barclays man. The Barclays? No, I wasn't the Barclays man, but Barclays was the brand. I've never heard of that brand. Yeah. It must have been cheap. It was like...

Rich, full flavor and cool mildness. It wasn't like super hardcore, but it wasn't like one of those super light, I don't know. Nothing bugs me about my past more than doing that, which was such a dumb idea. And smoking the Barclays. Well, just smoking because like...

Pot, if it kills me, I'll say, you know what? Not a bad trade-off because it gave me so much. Sure. Liquor even. Yeah. I mean, how many ideas? And it loosens people up, loosens you up for romance. Loosens you up for club random? Yeah.

I've known you a while, but we never... Yeah, this was only a matter of time, wasn't it? It was going to happen. We're like Mick Jagger and David Bowie. We're going to suck each other's dick. We're not even that gay. But, you know, it's just a professional courtesy thing. Oh, yeah. Come on. That's really what it is. Oh, yeah. It's like signing a W-2 form. Whatever the fuck you call it.

Yeah, it's just that, you know, I know in show business, whoever makes the least amount of money has to be the bottom. So I guess I know where I'm going. Did they still do that? I thought that went out with Abbott and Costello. What? That you make the least, I don't know, I'm just going with the bit. Oh, well, I don't know if Abbott and Costello ever got to anal sex, but...

It can get worse. Just that Christmas party. And this year, what, you didn't do it at your house? Didn't do it at my house, no. Why that change? It was always at your house. Just a lot of noise. Right. Everyone from all the shows come and be able to party. And even if I haven't seen them all year, you know, my animation director for Family Guy, I don't see the guy all year because I'm never over there. I know I'm going to see him at the Christmas party once a year.

Have a drink with them. And, you know, it's that kind of thing. So it's all a write-off. I have the same thing. We have a wrap party for real time. It was this Friday. Oh, same thing. I love it. People I don't really get to see all year who work on the show. You can spend some time, catch up, tell them how much you appreciate them and stuff. The difference with this party is I leave out the other thousand people. But that's just one show. Yeah.

What? I mean, this is a party for real time, right? Yes. Yeah. I know. This is... So we're managing a bunch of, you know... I know. But it's also, it just... There are places in that party that look just like any... Like a nightclub.

Like this place. Yeah, but this place would only fit 50 people. Yeah. But then, you know, there's family, there's friends, there's like, it starts to build up and then it becomes a thing where... There were many of those parties I went to where I could not find you and never did. Yeah, yeah. That saddens you. It should sadden you. Yeah.

I'm fine with it. I don't know. It depends on what kind of mood you're in. I'm not the person who needs to invite a thousand people to my Christmas party. But it does. You know, you invite this person and then they, if you don't invite this other person, they're going to get upset and then it starts to build and grow and grow. And then the people who are instrumental in planning the party, they have their own list. Hey, I put a lot of work into this. Can I invite you? Of course you say yes. And then it just becomes, it's just mushrooms. It just looked like a bunch of hot chicks from the club. Yeah.

They did not look like that. That was many years ago. Many years ago. You should have come this year. I don't know if all of them were as close friends. Really? Where was it? It was at the Pacific Design Center. You're kidding. Really? By the way, that's a 1% laugh. Is that your gag? Anyone outside L.A., the Pacific Design Center. But it's an enormous place.

buildings. They call it... They have multiples. It's a honeycomb. They got different sizes. They call it the blue whale. Do they really? You knew that. I didn't know that. You didn't know they call it the blue whale? No. It's blue, and apparently it's so big it gets compared to a whale. Was it at the Pacific Design? It was, yeah. Oh, it was? It was. It was actually the Pacific Design Center.

For people who don't know, it's like where they have giant conventions. We invited most of the Shriners. Exactly. Like Microsoft was here last week, and now it's Seth's Christmas party. Yeah.

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Well, people have compared you to Gatsby. Oh, okay. You know that. Sure, yeah, I've heard that. What are you saying? I'm trying to remember back to it. I know how to do this job. Reading the book in high school. Yeah. Any little tidbits that are going to be fodder for a joke and nothing's coming to me. How do you react to that? Gatsby was sort of a tragic figure, though, wasn't he?

And sort of an asshole. Yeah. You know what? People, when they say it, they mean, oh, you know, debonair guy, handsome through big parties. And that's what they're thinking. But because nobody reads the book. But I always thought the book possibly is not a great book, even though it's talked about the great Gatsby.

Because the movies that they've made of it sucked. Yeah. So how good could the book be if they keep fucking up the movie? You know what? That's the Alice in Wonderland problem, is that there's never been a good movie made of that book. And I've never read the book, but I'm like, it must be horrible because I was a kid. Did you? Yeah, I read it in college. I mean... Except for the Disney version, but other than that... Yeah. See...

I can't really trust what 19-year-old me thought. So, and I don't, I remember, I love it. What 19-year-old you guest starring on Alice, playing a cop. That was, that was 20. How old were you? Seven-year-old me. I'm watching, I'm watching reruns. Is that your camera there? Yeah. I'm watching reruns of Alice and there, this guy pops up dressed as a cop and you were very funny and you were still, you didn't seem any different. It's not like,

oh he was like this is a young guy and now he's this other guy you seemed exactly the same it's just your hair was a little darker exactly the same really yeah yeah no first of all you guys be safe out there that's your exit yes okay full of swagger okay why were you one why were you watching alice i mean why not okay what what uh what how what was was vick tabak nice

You mean you're that big a fan of the... No, it's... You were flipping around? No, I bought the DVD set because you can't find them anywhere else and I uploaded it into my system there and then I said, fuck it, I'm going to binge Alice. And there you are. I'm just shocked. The only guy on screen still alive. I'm just shocked that you have this kind of time.

And also, if you ever missed one fucking episode of my show, one minute of it, because you were watching Alex, fuck you up the ass. Really.

Okay, but can I tell you the story now? Sure. All right, so I... Where's my Wikipedia thing? I don't know my own life. No, I moved out here. I did a Tonight Show August 31st, 1982. Got invited back in November. That was big, you know, get invited back. And then, oh, we like you so much, we'd like you on the New Year's Eve show. It's like, whoa, three Tonight Show shots in just the last quarter of the year. That's so...

Of course, and I thought, well, I'm on my way. I'm going to use their ticket because poverty at that time was prevalent. I'm going to use their ticket as I would to fly out. Then I'll just move to California. So I did that. I just moved with three suitcases on their ticket and had an apartment like in two days, did the Tonight Show. And then...

People saw it. I'd got DC Cab. Oh, yeah. Mr. T. Joel Schumacher called like the next day. Would you like a part in DC? So I had like a movie and I had and then it was soon after that. That was my first TV thing. The movie hadn't come out yet. And I think it was Mindy Maron.

Mindy Marin is a big casting director. Oh, yeah. Oh, I see her name on a million movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like that's what it takes in the business. Like people think we're a bunch of clowns out here, but actually a lot of people are really good at their jobs. They're paying attention. Including the casting people. For that kind of stuff, for acting and people who have charisma. You know, there isn't. Settle down. What?

I mean, present company except. But, you know, it's a big talent to spot a big talent. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And like I really appreciate that there is somebody who is like, yeah, this is a silly little role, but there's something about this guy that could. And it's so funny that you would now say to me you were the same whatever that was reading.

It's the same thing that either infuriates people or makes them like me. And I have plenty of both. My lovely girl said to me once, because sometimes you're out and people recognize you, and she's like, everybody loves you. And I said, very deceptive, the only people who say something to you are the people who like you. When people don't like you,

They don't say anything. No, they grumble about you at their table. Exactly. So I said, here, I can prove it. She said, no. I said, I can prove it to you. I was once at a Dodger Stadium game. It was about 2005. It was soon after, pretty soon after, you know, I said the terrorists weren't cowards, which a lot of people didn't like. Lost that joke. Sure, sure. So they put my face on the jumbo screen.

And there was, you know, there was cheering and a lot of booing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a lot of booing. And I said, you know, they were booing. It was a lot of boos. And she said, no, no.

They were saying, we love you, boo. See, that's a pal. Yeah. That's so supportive. But yeah, I mean, I don't mind living with some people who don't like me. I mean, they're never people I respect, right? Right, right, right. I mean, I know they're, you know, I don't know if you have any

You certainly don't have any feuds. I don't have any feuds, no, no. I'm sure there's people who, yeah, of course. Yes, because you family guys are very sacrilegious. Yeah, yeah. I mean. But yeah, no, there's no Hollywood feuds, no, but I'm not, I don't,

you know, I'm not in the business of nightly or weekly political commentary. No, no. And, you know. Well, in a way you. And it's your face. In a way you are. But it's your face. You're out there. Oh, totally. I'm delivering the jokes through the mouths of animated characters. It's very different the way it's presented. Very different. Yes. And they, yeah, no, that's.

It's just lizard brain stuff you can't get over. It's absolutely what it is. Absolutely what it is. But, I mean, there's certainly plenty of political commentary every week on Family Guy. I mean, and I never miss. I mean, you may be over it. Yeah.

you may be over it, but your fans are not. No, I know. I know. Believe me. I'm reminded of that all the time. It's good because I can take it for granted, but I don't. The last week was particularly great about streaming and sitcoms. Yes. That run of like all the, when he names like 50 shows that begin with somebody just arriving on your doorstep.

just priceless and I admire the research that went into it. Somebody had to like compile that list. And she tries to stop him and he goes, no, no, this is Family Guy. We're doing this. We're doing all of these, all of these fucking shows. Exactly. Yeah. And then, like it was, what, The Odd Couple? I mean, it's...

It was – and I didn't doubt for a moment that they were all genuine, that they were all – I didn't recognize every one of them or remember the pilot. But that's like, yeah. But again, it's – when you're going online to complain –

You can't find Peter Griffin. You can't find Stewie. They don't exist. They're not real. Right. And so who do you yell at? It's a conglomerate of people that come. But they yell at you. No, they must. Not on Twitter? A lot. I mean, sometimes, but not like, I don't deal with it anywhere near. But you tweet a lot, right? I used to. I don't tweet as much as I used to, only because I don't see the...

Oh, good. It was a point where I was tweeting, posting. If there's a book I've read that I think people should read and do a deep dive into something, I'll post about that and maybe write a little blurb. But beyond that, I don't really...

I just feel like I'm adding to the noise. I feel like I'm watching. You're right. And it's detrimental to your mental health. Completely. No, it's already rewired all of our brains, whether we know it or not. You know, I don't watch any, like I used to watch cable news. Yeah. Quite a bit of MSNBC. Yeah. No, I don't do that either. CNN. I don't. The pandemic, I stopped. Yeah. And I never went back. Yeah. You know where I get my news on TV? TMZ.

I love DMZ. That's your only, that's. No, but I get my news from read. Yes. So do I. Okay. So do I. But television is a vast wasteland. It really is. News it is. Right. For news it is. I mean, not that you can't get it or even, I mean, the nightly news I used to watch religiously and I gave up on that because I did like bits on it. How, how it became just not like what's important. It was like, here's some cool video we have. Yeah.

On an airline, on a Southwest airline, like anything that ever happens on a plane. 24-hour news is second. That's not fucking news. Second only to social media as far as its destructive influence. Yes. 24-hour cable news. And I know Ted Turner was like, he was a philanthropist. He was a good guy. He was trying to do something. Right. Educate us, make us all more informed. It just backfired. It just became like, exactly. It just, everything in this country, it seems...

You know, going back to, I don't know, some people would say the Kennedy assassination was when the rot really started. But then, of course, that's a, you know, white way to look at it because for, you know, Kennedy was civil rights. So for people of color, that's when things started to get better. But definitely the psyche of the country changed.

Well, I don't think it's ever been lower. And yeah, and that's so funny. Like, yeah, things are shit. And then when you actually live your life...

And see people, like, I know there's a lot of poverty and stuff, but, man, there's also just a lot of people fucking bawling out there. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You mean bawling as in crying? Well, like, not, they're not that, not. Oh, bawling. Yeah, bawling. Like, well. Yeah, like. Now I'm with you. Or looking like it. Right, right, right. Or looking like it. Oh, yeah, the great lie. And they don't look like they're unhappy. Mm-hmm.

And I know there's a lot of unhappiness, but... It's so hard to tell, particularly now, particularly in 2023. It's so hard to tell what's... Social media is on the cusp of evolving into something else. I don't know what it is yet. AI? Well, yeah. Does that concern you? It does in some ways, and it doesn't in others. AI for...

enterprises like medicine, I think is going to be a wonderful thing. I could not agree more. This being almost 68 years old. Yeah. Trust me. Yeah. I'm putting all the chips on that. And I think, and I think a lot of doctors, doctors that I've spoken to seem to feel the same way that it's like AI is a tool. It's not going to replace us. It's not going to replace innovation when it comes to medicine, but it's a wonderful tool. That's going to, we're not going to have to sit there and wait forever.

for whatever the hell computations need to get done to come up with a new medicine. It's going to take three years. The AI can do it in three seconds. That's going to be... It's a very different development for an enterprise like that than it is for entertainment. Entertainment, we should be very scared. Doctors that I have blown say the same thing. I'm older. I have to be nicer to doctors. Well, I mean, listen... I'm always being very nice to them. Yeah. I mean, with that much medical care, you've got to... Cash alone won't do it. I'm telling you. Doctors. I used to have...

one doctor in my You know Rolodex or whatever we had back then. No, I got like 50. Yeah. Yeah Well, you know why because you need various opinions yes because they don't agree with each other They don't agree with each other always no no, you have to have multiple points of view I have I have someone who I pay only to be a medical researcher Really? Yes

Just a brilliant investment. Kind of go online, do their own research. Someone who's a brilliant researcher. Because first of all, you know, I know they make fun of like, you know, what do they call it? Dr. Google. Well, if you're a brilliant researcher...

Dr. Google probably knows more than your doctor. Well, if you are a doctor yourself and you're going on Google, you can call the bullshit from the facts. I don't know if you need to be a doctor. Really? Yeah, I think you could. Yes, I think lots of people... There we diverge. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Some of the best medical advice I've gotten has not been from doctors, and doctors are very often wrong. And there's a vast history of showing how wrong they are and have been about everything. But to be a doctor in the first place just requires a certain amount of... You're going into it knowing that

And that's, by the way, that's why they consult with each other. That's why they call their colleagues. There's a lot of guesswork, but it's educated guesswork. Yes. If you're not a doctor, your guess is maybe not going to be as educated as someone who is. But then why are doctors wrong about so much? Well, they write about a lot, too. Yes, but very often people who aren't doctors have been writer about things. Like what would be an example of that? I would think this country did not allow for...

natural immunity to be considered. And I know this is a subject dear to your heart. Like even if you had the disease, you still had to get a vaccine. That's powerful stupid. They don't do that in Europe.

I think they do that here. There's mandatory vaccination and grade in schools. Right, but if you already had the disease, you have natural immunity. We didn't seem to believe in that here. That was debunked, though. That's not debunked. Don't you know people who've had COVID four or five times? I do. That's not natural immunity. There's no immunity there. You've had COVID five times. Probably because you had too many vaccines.

I didn't have COVID. The vaccine gave you COVID? Well, that's certainly nothing unscientific about the fact that the vaccine, which does weaken you in order to strengthen you. Says to all vaccines. Exactly. Yeah. But while you're in a weakened state, yes. That's why so many people like me got it, did not have it while the thing was raging and I was taking zero precautions.

because i was never that afraid of it but that's anecdotal like i've had every booster and i have never had covet i get a flu shot once a year i haven't had the flu in 20 years right well i haven't eaten i don't get a flu shot okay so this is all anecdotal but but right but you know the difference between anecdotal and and statistical i do and statistically you still have a 90 better chance of not being hospitalized not dying if you're vaccinated

Well, but that's assuming all people are alike, and that is one of the giant fallacies in your way of thinking. We are not all alike. Yes, I would recommend and have recommended the COVID vaccine for the high-risk people. Like, if you're 90 or fat, get it.

Absolutely. You need it. Some people don't. But you had... Djokovic didn't need it. But you had... Aaron Rodgers didn't need it. But you had something like 1,900 kids who died of COVID during the pandemic. No, I don't think that's right. How many of them died from the vaccine? None. And the thinking there is that, well, probably most kids are not going to die from COVID, so why bother with the vaccine?

Because it's only going to be a few hundred kids, right? I don't know how many kids died. That seems very high to me. I know at one point the New York Times grossly, talking about misinformation, they had to apologize. They got it completely wrong. She reported something like 900,000 children have been hospitalized, and it was like 63,000.

So maybe those facts should be checked. Papers can get it wrong and they print retractions and you know this. But also, with COVID or from COVID? Did 1,900 children die with COVID? Yes, it's a whole different story. Okay, but take 7 million people worldwide. 7 million people worldwide who died from COVID. Like if even just a fraction of that is, and it's probably a larger fraction who died of COVID than who died with COVID. Yeah.

if even just a fraction of that is, that's still a lot of fucking people. That's a lot of fucking people. Yes, and, but what, okay, but some people. That's seven million people. Things are, and you cannot prevent that. You can though. I mean, you can prevent. At what cost? But what's the cost of getting a vaccine? What's the downside? Well, the fact that you don't even have a clue what's the cost of getting a vaccine, that you don't know the answer to that.

No, you completely want to shut your eyes to the fact that there are repercussions to all medical interventions, including a vaccine. All vaccines, they say side effects just like every medication does. You can see it in the literature. They can't write it on the magazine, so you have to dig them.

And, of course, there is a vaccine court because so many people have been injured. This is not a screed to say don't do vaccines. I'm not against doing vaccines. I'm against doing vaccines that I don't think I need. I should be able to decide that for myself inside my body. But, yes, there are pathogens that would come along that I would fight you for to get the vaccine. That's a good point. To get the vaccine. And you bring me to my next point. Don't you think that the—

the vitriol and the, the, the, just the, the aggression towards the, the, the, the, that the anti-vaccination movement, you know,

The way it souped itself up during all this, that the next time there is a pandemic, our public health system is so weakened. Yes, exactly. Because of them and their fucking misinformation that made people skeptical. The fact that everybody came out and said, if you get the vaccine, you cannot get the disease. And then, of course, that was wrong. And if you get the vaccine, you can't transmit it.

But they were learning right alongside us. I understand. You just said yourself, doctors are often wrong. They are, especially when they're researching a brand new disease. And I am not blaming them for it. I'm just saying that's why there shouldn't be the science. There's no the in science. That's what you want. You want just to be the one true opinion. No, no, no, no. That's not true at all. No, the strength of science. And you don't want to, you don't know what. The strength of science is that it has the capacity to evolve and prove itself. But just acknowledge that some, that vaccines affect people.

have ill effects on some people. They do. Again, anecdotally. Statistically, it's here and it's here. It's like, it's people, how many, 7 million people died of COVID. How many people died from the vaccine? Probably a few. I don't know what the number is, but I know it's not 7 million. If we were more judicious about who needed it versus who it might hurt,

which would not be the blanket policy of just everybody, one size fits all, then perhaps we could take down the damages from the vaccine that happened. But then why vaccinate for anything? And then take down the... Why vaccinate for measles? Why vaccinate for mumps or rubella, pertussis? Why vaccinate for any of those things? Because somebody might get hurt by the vaccine. I mean, why do those vaccines, because COVID is newer? Well, COVID is newer. Yes, but is that the only reason?

I mean, by the time you got the vaccine, I don't know if you had it, but by the time I got the vaccine, this was the most tested vaccine in the history of vaccination. Yes, I had it. Because so many people by that point had had it. It's like by the time it got into my arm, it's like, all right, I think I'm going to be okay. Okay, well, just so you know, I took one for the team. Okay, so, you know, that should go into it. I did something I did not want to do. And we don't have to talk about this all night. Am I still going to get my blowjob? Yeah.

How many guys do you think you have to blow before you're officially gay? No, really. I'm asking you. I mean, look, man, in 2023, anything goes. I mean, what time is it? Put a number on it. Huh? How many guys do you have to blow before you're officially gay? Oh, God. Can I phone a friend? Just tell me a number. Before you're official. I mean, I'd have to ask my cousin. Just say a number. Before you're officially gay. Just say a number.

A 2023 estimate or like a 2000 estimate? Yeah, today's estimate. Like pre-Bush v. Gore. I don't know. That's a tough one because you're... All right. Well, then I have a punchline. Oh, God. What do you want me to say? Oh, one. One. Okay, there we go. There we go. I'm so sorry. You set me up and it's like, God, you're such a trooper about it.

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That's the worst thing. I mean, peanuts are gross. They're fungacy and they're just, the peanuts are not a healthy food. Peanuts are gross as fuck. And I won't be sponsoring this podcast to tell you that. You don't like peanuts? Ice? Sure. And jelly is all sugar.

Yeah, you preserved yourself remarkably well for someone who likes sugar as much as you do. That's yours. Yeah. Yeah, because I haven't been in the sun since the sixth grade. That helps too. I stupidly was when I was younger and dumber and dumb.

But I thankfully, like everything in life with me, I get too late. I get up late. Everything comes late. You don't want to get married, right? Correct. You don't ever want to get married. Well, I don't. I certainly, marriage and being with somebody steadily is two different things. I certainly don't see the need to bring the federal and state government into my love life.

That's point. But it's kind of fun, though, right? You get to have the nice ceremony. You get to do the chicken dance. Many people have pointed out. A little bit softer now, a little bit louder now. You get to do all that.

Shout! That one, yeah. No, like everybody likes it. How do you know Jeff and Brenda? You know, it's all wonderful. Everybody likes a wedding. Nobody likes marriage. Not necessarily. Up to now, here's why. Oh, I just touched your foot by accident.

Yeah, that's how they... Or on purpose. That's how they signal each other. Remember Larry Craig? Do you remember that scandal? Senator Larry Craig of Idaho? No, no. He was a Republican senator, very anti-gay. Yeah. Family. Yeah. And he was doing this. They caught him doing this in the bathroom at the Minneapolis airport, which was known to be a gay...

meeting place and he said well I have a wide stance that was his excuse that his foot was halfway under the other stall where the other yes and he was a Republican Senator from Idaho Lord Larry Craig you don't remember that Senator Larry Craig no no that was like 2007 something like that Gary Condit

Gary Condit, yes. In the midst of a scandal when 9-11 happened. Who fucked the intern, but did not kill her. And no one ever talked about it again because 9-11 happened. Yes, you're right. There was this day in the Family Guy writers' room and we were all just, of course, everyone shell-shocked, just sitting there. There's just a dark pall over the whole...

You know, we were back at work for the first day since 9-11. Because of Gary Condit? No, since 9-11. Since 9-11. And one of the writers... Oh, 9-11, sure. One of the writers out of nowhere just goes... That makes more sense. He goes, you know the one person who's having a good day? Right. Gary Condit. That's right. It's like, yeah, that's true, because it just went over... Right. They just forgotten. But...

But I have been around enough guys who've had not bad marriages, but marriages that they rushed into and where they didn't. You know, like look at Clooney. Clooney's a guy who did it right. He waited until the time was right. To marry? Yeah. And he has a successful marriage.

That I can see? Well, first of all, no one knows. Let me tell you something. No one ever knows. But they're still married. Okay. But I just went through this with somebody, and I've been through it with many others, but close friends of mine, married couple, who I, and I am not a young or naive man.

would never have guessed married couples are geniuses at hiding it until it absolutely blows up because they don't, they do not want other people to think that they're not having a good time. So when they're out together, they are fucking Academy Award winners. And then it's like, and everybody goes like, what? I thought they were so happy. Meryl Streep's been living on her own for six years. They've been screaming about their happiness on Instagram. Right. I mean, what better excuse to get out of

you know going places than to be married i'm so i can't i i got you know we got the kids like i

And no one asks. Like, my married friend's like, hey, do you want to come to this thing this weekend? I can't, you know, we got the kids. And that sentence doesn't mean anything. It also works. We need to get the kids. Yeah, I know you have kids. What does that have to do with you coming out? It also works the other way. Spouses drag their partners to things they don't want to go to. Yeah. But if you're lucky, if you're lucky, I've seen this marriage as well, you're a couple in

And neither one of you wants to be there, but you know you have to go, and so you spend the whole time in the corner just shitting on people. Now those people are in love. That's the kind of marriage I want. What do you make of watching movies or shows with a romantic partner? It can tell you a lot. It's a huge part of it. Yeah, it is. Because like...

Okay. There's a certain amount of time fucking, but that's, you know, like time-wise, it's not a giant clock eater at our age. I mean, hopefully it's quality, but you know, you're not going to, you're not going to do it around the clock, you know? Okay. So then there's eating. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with me, it's like, it's like, it's like how you react to Jodie Foster's speech at the end of contact is a big one.

If that fucking hits you the way it hits me, we're going to work out this spot. Contact? Is that the one with Matthew McConaughey? Yes, yes. As a scientist? Okay, that's where it lost me. And I like him, but he just doesn't read as a scientist. No, he did not play a scientist. He played a pastor. No. Yeah. She played the scientist.

Oh, okay. Jodie Foster played the scientist. She was dating Matthew McConaughey, who played the pastor. He's a pastor? He's a pastor in the movie. No, he's good in that movie. I like him. He's good in a lot of things. She's exceptional in that movie. That's just a brilliant movie. Oh, no, there is a movie where he's a scientist. Oh, you're thinking of... It's something on another planet. We've got to go. Bruce Stiller. Yes. The crops are dying. Who can save us?

all right all right all right there was you know the thing about that movie and i i again i there's a lot i liked about that movie where that movie the thing that hooked me and puzzled me about that movie there's that there's that scene where they get out of the water planet and they have an interstellar yeah yeah and they come back up to the ship and because the time differential the time differential jesus vodka they get back up to the ship and 23 years have passed in space right

Am I remembering that correctly, guys? I mean, I don't remember. And so the guy on the ship is like, hey, it's good to have you back. And it's like, wait a minute. That's the movie. That's the whole movie. You waited for 23 years? The whole rest of the movie? Right. Like, what did you do? Did you write a book? Can you paint now? Well, did you see Passengers? Yes, I did see Passengers.

I didn't think they brought it off great. I think the actors are good. There's a lot that's entertaining and some flawed things. The premise I loved. Yeah. If people don't know. That he woke her up and kind of ruined her life because he didn't want to hang out by himself. You could have done it as a comedy. You could have. Right. That's a...

Oh, hey. Okay, here's the plot, people. So they're on a ship. We have to get off Earth because Elon was right. We've rat-fucked the planet mostly because of the yachts of the billionaires. Okay, so now we have to find another planet. It's 90 light years away.

The light years away? Yeah. Well, somewhere. No, no. I don't know how many light years away. Far. So they have to put you to sleep for 90 years. Yeah. So they put you in suspended animation. Like, how they could ever really do that? But maybe they could. OK. So one guy wakes up his fucking pod.

misfires and he's like whoa hey we're at the planet already and he looks around and he talks to the computer it's like no we got 90 years so he's like oh I'll be 120 when we get there so he spends a little time trying to get over it and he's like I'm gonna wake up the hottest day I can find on this in reality the rest of the movie she's pissed as fuck at him

Right. She's pissed as fuck. You could play this. I signed up for this thing because I wanted to go to Super Mars. But by the way, maybe that's the next Hollywood. Maybe that's a thing. We take movies that are written as dramas and you remake them. Instead of rebooting, you remake it as a comedy. I mean, many would not work that way. Yeah, but some would. But it would be a movie. No, yeah, you're not going to do Schindler's List, but you're going to take something like Passengers and...

You're not going to do Philadelphia. No. You're going to... No. What's like a go-to movie that you would watch with somebody you're dating? Oh, that part.

Seeing how much someone who's never seen something you love so much is now loving it for the first time. Yeah, that's an enormous, I mean, regardless of who you're showing it to, that's an enormous pleasure. I love that. It is. I mean, this could be like a friend of mine who I work with and I'm like, you've never seen that movie? Like, that's a great, that's a great.

joy because it's because in a weird way you take ownership of a movie right emotionally that that you love like like you take a movie like contact is one of those movies um tootsie is one of those movies like you run into somebody who hasn't seen tootsie it's like oh my god this is one of the comedy writers right holy grail right and they hold up they do hold and they and it's very good because you know the younger generation needs to understand that we're not a bunch of squares

I think they do. Oh, yeah, I do too. You know, it's in working on... Just won't admit it. And I think sometimes they will. It's like working on Ted, there was a breadth of... I mean, you talk about like a breadth of demographics. Every generation was represented on that show. And I do have to say, like, yes, the millennials take a lot of shit for...

for being super sensitive about stuff, and maybe it's true. I don't know. That's a generalization. Well, you know it's true, because they've complained about shit you do. But I'll say, it's interesting. The Gen Z people on our show were very much in line comedically with the Gen Xers. There was a lot of willingness to kind of laugh about stuff that they wouldn't necessarily laugh about in reality. They could separate...

comedy from actuality, which is a big part of it. You can joke about things that would horrify you in real life. But these are people who are working on a Seth MacFarlane project. Of course they're going to feel that way. This is not some representative slice of... I guess, but they have friends and they're people their age who they talk to and

Feel the same way according to them. Yeah, I think they do. I don't know. I think they get a bad rap, and I think it's not necessary. You know what I love about them is that they can really take a punch.

Like, whenever you say what's wrong with their generation, I've never heard one who, like, recoiled and said, we are not. No. You spend too much time on social media. I know. Yeah, there's a willing... I know. There's a self-deprecating... And look, for me, it was the same way. It's like when...

Gen X was in their 20s. It's like we were just getting pounded like you're a bunch of slackers. Like everyone was the principal from Back to the Future. You're a bunch of slackers. You'll never amount to anything. And we just heard it over and over and over. And it's like it got to be a joke. And I think there's a lot. I think we're much more similar than we are different. Yes, that's true. We certainly are both consistent.

Addicted to consumption. Yeah. That's why I get pissed when I hear these nihilists say, like, nothing works anymore. The government's broken. It's like, the government is not broken. Look who you're electing. The system works. You're putting the wrong people in it. It's like buying a Porsche and putting Diet Coke in the gas tank. Yes, it's not going to – of course it's not going to work. Right. But let's just knock it all down and – really, how many generations of people worked through this?

To build civilization. And also... And ours is the one that's going to knock it all down, really? Also, no perspective about how good they have it here. Even people who have it bad here have it way better than people who have it bad anywhere else. In a lot of places, it's mostly bad. That was... Was it Obama? I guess it was Obama who pointed out that if you...

if you died and you knew you were going to be reincarnated, but you didn't know at what period of time, what era, what race you were going to be, what country you were going to be reincarnated, where would you want to be and when would you want to be? And most people would say, yeah, here now. Right. Because that's, that's right. What a great way to put it. Yeah. And it's, and there's truth to that. A lot of truth. And it's great that he said it. Yeah. No,

No, really. And that's one thing that's terrible about our dialectic now. If we said it, and it would be no less true. Right. Something is no less true because of who says it or when they said it. I remember when I got fired after 9-11, Arianna Huffington said. I mean, if it's I'm innocent and it's Donald Trump, then yeah, it does matter who says it and when they. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay.

Yes. Wait, am I going to defend Trump? No, of course. But like I remember... I'm so glad we're not there yet. After 9-11, Arianna Huffington said, if what Bill said was true on September 10th, it's true on September 12th. And she was right. Yeah. You know. That's dead on. That's a terrible Greek accent. It's like Dracula. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Well, I don't do voices. It was a joke. I can do some impressions. Oh, can you? Yes. Have you done impressions on your show? I mean, your real show? No. No? No. What impressions do you do? Here's the cop from Alice. I can do Murray from Mary Tyler Moore's show, Gavin McLeod. Oh, really?

Okay, this is, you'll be Ted, and this is after he met this girl, he thinks wants him, and she says, and Ted says, Murray, she squeezed my hand, she squeezed my hand. Murray, she squeezed my hand, she squeezed my hand. Ted, she was probably trying to pump some blood to your brain. Wow. That's a pretty good Gavin McLeod. Yeah, that's a very good Gavin McLeod. Yeah.

You know, you don't think, you don't know me as well as you do. I guess I don't. I really don't. After all these years, yeah. My God.

But you're happy? This is just, are the cameras even still on? Is this still a show? No one's here. Would we need one? Is this wire even attached to anything? We used to go out and drink, just like for the purpose of drinking. I know. As opposed to the many other purposes of ingesting fermented drinks.

Whatever this is. Do you remember that Rolling Stone party we went to? Where was that? I don't know where it was. It was not the Pacific Design Center, I'll tell you that. But we went together, I think, in a limousine. I remember falling out of the car. We were so hammered by the time we got out. It was like a Beatles cartoon where they just flop out of the car.

I don't know. I think it was 2011 or something like that. Where would that have been? Was that the one at...

Just the fact that we were... It was one where like Jon Favreau was there and you guys got to talk. Oh, who the fuck remembers who was there? But I remember we went and, you know, just the idea of passages in life and how you become a different... You love to meet celebrities, don't you? No. Oh, not anymore. What? What are you saying? Because there was every party I've been to with you, I remember you were just like...

All right. What fun celebrities are you doing? Because I was recruiting. Oh. That's why. For Club Random? No, for my show. Yeah.

So there's another show besides? No. I mean, I stopped doing that, actually. It's all about this. Put it all into this, Bill. No, I stopped recruiting. Oh, okay. Yes, you're right. If I was in a celebrity-rich environment, I'd be like, oh, I want to get Arnold Schwarzenegger on my show. Celebrity-rich environment. It's phrased that like this is iron-rich land. Yes, and it...

worked many times. People in this business, first of all, their publicists always are protecting them from me. So it's very hard to get through the publicists many times. People don't want... Really? Yes, I'm a scary guy. They don't want to...

And I'm really not, and I can make you look better than lots of people could ever make you look. But they think it's, and they think, oh, my client is too stupid to do his show. Which in many cases would be true if you were on the panel. But I could talk to anybody one-on-one. Look at what we're doing. Yeah. No, it's true. It's true. Is that, let me ask you this. Because I remember I was on the panel.

There was a few times I was on the panel. You've got to come back and do that. I'd love to. But then I was like the guy who came out in the middle. Was that because I was too stupid when I was on the panel? No, that's because you're a celebrity. Because it's not a celebrity-driven show. We don't do that segment. What's Salman Rushdie? That's not a celebrity. No. He's an author. Come on. But we don't do that segment anymore. I don't know why. You don't? You don't do the middle? You haven't seen the show since we stopped doing that?

Wow, I thought you were my fan. I thought you used to tell me you loved my show. Oh, God. If you haven't seen the show, you've missed a lot. Yeah. Why?

Why don't you do the first show back? Great. I'm in. Count me in. Oh, good. I'm in. Sold. It should be my birthday present. It's the day before my birthday. Great. Happy birthday. I love it. It's the only time... I'll be 41. You go and you talk. You'll be 41. When is it? I think it's January 19th. Oh, yeah. It's perfect. What were you...

What were we talking about? I texted my publicist right before I came here, and funny, I didn't know. I said, is this show live or is it to tape? To tape. I think I actually said to tape. Yeah. But, you know, I would have come even if it was live.

I'm not trying to wrap things up. I'm enjoying myself. Really? Yeah. Are you serious? Yeah. Because I'll fucking sit here. What do I get? I got to be somewhere at 7.30, but that's all I got. Oh. It's only 6.30. When were you having dinner at one of the swanky restaurants where Jay Gatsby goes to like be charismatic and show people all your riz?

Isn't, which is, of course, is short for charisma. It is. Yeah. I love when the kids do that. They take something and... But, you know, but we don't tolerate za.

You having a pizza? No, I'm having a za. No, I mean. It says charisma. No, it's riz. It's no different. We didn't tolerate that. Why should we tolerate this? You know, we used to say that's hot. Yeah. They say that's fire. Oh, yeah. Yeah. See how they just completely improved on that? It's a reboot. It's just. It's a reboot. It was IP that got retooled. I would love to do a show with kids.

Like talking to kids. Like where you're dressed as a clown? No, that's on Saturday. Like, no, oh, you want to be Art Linkletter. That would be hilarious. It really would be. If you're Art Linkletter. It would be. Kids say the darndest things. Right. Look it up.

But not like, well, yes, I think all ages. Because I think it's fascinating to talk to them when they're young and also when they're old enough to really understand everything. Because a 15-year-old is not like when I was 15. I mean, I grew up in, leave it to Beaverland, and had the most, you know,

protected sort of innocent and i mean mine was 60s you know you're 70s i mean yeah i mean well america has come a long way i mean 80s but sure yeah let's go 80 well you're 74 you're born 73 see you're 50 this year sorry every time i do this i'm blocking the camera you look great by the way thank you you really do oh my god thank you i don't know how your diary jackpot

You actually look better now than you did when that was. I think sometimes people really grow into. First of all, becoming a man is a long process, like a real man. When you become a man. You know that song? Matt Monroe. Matt Monroe. The world is eager to tell you so. There's one other thing. You keep reminding me of things at the end of this that only you will appreciate.

I saw this today. I left my head off. Oh, Seth has a deep cringing disdain for anything trendy. And when I say trendy, I mean after 1960. At the Grammys last year, Seth's choice for best newcomer was Jack Jones. I don't trust those Brady kids. Jack Jones. Come on, man. Remember Jack Jones? I sure do. Sang the Love Boat. Love Boat. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Jack Jones. Remember we sang at your party? Yeah. Star. A Sinatra song that I did not know until you introduced me to it. You're welcome. Yeah. And it's so awesome. If the ladies, utterly charming. If the ladies, chicer than chic.

If her escorts must, no, I'm fucking, wear a topper at each man. This is exactly how it goes. The man of the week. If she rides around in a brand new foreign car, the chances are the lady's a star. Yeah. See, there was a part that I needed you to cover me where I can't sing because I'm not a singer and you are. No, I was there with you on J-Love. Yeah, I am.

I thought we did pretty well. We were fine. We were fine. No, we weren't. No, we were fine. No, I'm kidding.

I'm not doing the Jack Tripper thing just to... You're kidding that we're fine? No, we were good. He loved it. He loved it. He was so delighted. That also sounds like a backhanded compliment. No, no. He loved it. No, I have that photo from that night in my den. I do too. Yeah. I should have brought it in with the rest of my show and tell. Hey, you know what? It's in this camera. Yeah, exactly.

No, that way. I remember we rehearsed. Yeah. If people don't know, in 2014, I think this was, Jay was retiring, retiring, put out to pasture for the crime of being number one twice. They fired him twice for being number one.

And Jay Leno being Jay Leno, that's fine. You know, everybody's a good person. He's a very nice guy. Everybody else would have been so bitter. But he just went on and did other shows. So I said, I've got to do something for Jay. I'm on the week before he leaves. And I said, let's do Thanks for the Memories.

my guys worked on it with me we rewrote the lyrics i wish i could remember any of them but we sang thanks in tuxedos to jay leto and it was a surprise and it was a tv moment you know i'm i'm so glad i have that memory with you carson got bett middler he got us i said that when i was setting it up that's right i said i god do i have any original thoughts no no well it's the natural thought because bett middler did it but i remember i said to jay i want

I wanted to sing something, so I called Bette Midler, and the audience was like, ooh, she wouldn't take my call. So I called Seth. So we have this writer who acts. Well, you must be excited for 2024. Oh, I can't get over it. Yeah, I'm...

Why are you really... Are they mic'd, the people, your team, laughing in the bar? Are we getting like, are you going to add a laugh track? Is it going to be like Mayberry RFD? We're just funny. Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate it. We're so funny, it seeps out of rooms far away. Yeah, I just want the audience to know that it's funny, and I don't think they will if they don't hear these guys laugh. This is a podcast. We're not working. Oh, it is. We're not working to an audience. Oh, okay. I spent a fortune...

Building this place in such a way that nobody else is in the room. What what what? You see so that what did you spend on this place?

Well, the place was here, but lighting it, cameras, so that we never feel like we're being watched. Yes. And nobody else in the room. I want us to be just like we always are. My whole career has been trying to get reality onto television, which is very difficult. And I can't fully ever do it on real time. As much as I love real time the most, it's my baby, it's my children, this is my mistress.

But you can't. But, you know. What do you think about, because this is interesting, like watching, because we've been friends for a long time. And because your politics evolve and change over time. And I don't.

Issues change. I agree with you on a lot. I agree with you on a lot more than I disagree, but I do disagree with you on... And that's why you can't watch the show anymore? No, no. Because you might see something... Oh, okay, that's what it sounded like. Don't be so sensitive. That's what it sounded like. No, no, no, no. So you can watch somebody you don't agree with. Of course. Okay. Of course. I mean, God, I can watch Charlton Heston movies. Right. Well, you know, again, if you'd ever seen the show recently, I talk about this a lot. I talk about a lot the idea that...

Yes, things change. I pretty much stayed the same, old school liberal. But then people will say, you're more conservative. Well, no, actually, I didn't change. I'm the old liberal who believes that we should strive for a colorblind society. I didn't change the rules to, no, let's see color everywhere in every situation. That's what the woke do. So because I didn't follow you there doesn't mean that I changed. That changed.

I mean, I'm old school Obama like what you were talking about. That's not, that guy does not, that's what Tim Scott now sounds like and he's a Republican. Like, my story isn't possible in any other country and that kind of, you don't find that anymore on the left, on the far left. I also, I think it's a multifaceted evolution. I think social media and the rise of social media and the way it's rewired our brains has changed everything.

the way certain people on the left perceive you, whether they know it or not. I think there are things that you, boy, I'd love to pull you back over to, you know, go get the shot with me. I got it. I told you I got, but I do think there are things that, that yes, the left has, has, has changed. And I mean, if you, I'm sure you read Jonathan hate, I'm sure you read it. Love him too. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, on college campuses, the fact that there's a rejection of open debate. When I was in college, there were classes that I was in where, oh, wow, this is an uncomfortable topic. And yet I'm sure glad that I was there because it was good for my intellect and what's left of it.

And I mean, but tell me what we disagree on when you do real time and we'll try to make that the topic because I'd love to. I think I mean, look, I think we disagree on the fact that I think that the public health infrastructure, despite being absolutely inadequate prior to covid, did as good a job as they could have done before.

during COVID and it pisses me the fuck off when I see people shit on them. I see it must because you like, like steered it all the way back to that again. Like, like, but that's, but that's something we disagree. Like an old married couple that can't forget that I looked at that waitress for two seconds too long. Yeah. I'm sorry. I was ordering. What should I do? Look at the ground.

Uh, yeah, I'll have the beef stroganoff and, uh, could I get another iced tea? No, I'm just saying, you like Bonnie Franklin? She was also a redhead, you know? What's a wife to think? Oh, I can't go out on my own anymore with a...

You see, you don't want to get married. That's what it's going to be. I mean, not to you. No. But like... No, I don't want to get married to you, no. No, but I'm just... It's not the person. You did say no. It's not the person, I don't think, mostly. It's the fact that...

Anyone who sees the same person day after day after day after day, you're going to have an erosion of sensitivity and patience and, you know, things that were charming are going to be tedious at some point. Okay, but what happens when you need help taking a shit? That is the last thing I would want anyone who I ever wanted to think of me as sexy to help me with.

Right? I mean, yeah, okay. How could you ever have those two things in the same relationship? Well, I don't know. You get old enough and maybe it just becomes a necessity. What do you mean help? I didn't give a shit. I don't even know how you do it. What do you do? Stick something up my ass? I mean, I... Oh, please. I think there's a little kit you buy, right? And then, you know, you go online, you watch a YouTube instructional video.

I don't know. Listen, I'm not there yet. I mean, you're so far. You're not there yet. Even I'm far from there. That's never going to happen to me. Please put a bullet in my head if I'm ever at that place. Of course, you know what? You say that when you get there. It's just like, a little to the left. Yeah. I'm sorry. Let me move. That's when I show up at your house. Bill. I've already. Told me this day would come. Heard you've been having trouble taking a shit. But honestly, yeah.

You know, I've been already at my age, been down that road to the degree of something I heard about and went, oh, I'll never do that. Yeah, you will. I'm peeing in Morse code. And then what happens? It's three in the morning. No, but you know.

Well, I don't want to talk about it. But yeah, I mean, sometimes they got to stick some instrument up your dick or something. And it's like, you know, the thing you said, they will never put a camera up my dick. Yeah, they will. Sure they will. And you'll like it. It's just for coverage. You'll like it. We'll give you a Valium. You'll like it. Bill, we just need one more shot. Then we all get to go home. Oh, the camera loves my dick.

We're going to need a 17 here. That's a DP joke.

I don't know what... 17 is when you want something to look... I don't even know this. What is a 17? Well, there's different lenses on a camera. So, like, if maybe your dick's too narrow, they would ask for, like, a... We're going to need a 17 on this. Really? Oh, that's... Boy. Yeah. That was like cinematography humor. When I'm outside the circle of who can get this joke, that's a pretty small circle. Again, I don't think of myself as young or naive, and yet I was...

But yeah, I've never ever... I mean, if they say like, okay, we got Bill's penis, I'm going to give you a 40, then you're okay. Mamet says being a director is the best job in the world. It can be. Yeah? It would be great if the hours weren't so long. I'll bet. That's the thing that I dread. If it were an eight-hour day, you'd be like, this is a joy. But also, isn't it like, I mean, the stress of... I mean, the director is basically solving...

every problem on the movie in every department. So aren't you solving like a thousand problems a day? That's stressful. This is a great segue into something that we will agree on, is that, yes, a film director's job or a television director's job is essentially to sit there in their little chair with their name on it and to have people from every department, presumably all of whom know their jobs better than you know their jobs,

They come to you like, hey, here's 12 choices for this costume for next week. And you go, I think this one, you have a little discussion with them. They tell you what they think. Right. And generally, more often than not, you go with what they think. Right. Because they're the expert. The set designer says, we have this version and this version. Here's why I think this would work. And more often than not, you say, yeah, all right, let's go with this. Sometimes you disagree. And that's like a teeny tiny version of like what

The presidency is and why when you vote for somebody and this is this is if there's one thing I think has yet to be said about this upcoming election, because we all know it's Trump versus Biden, assuming he doesn't wind up in prison, is that you're voting for a team, that you're not voting for a person. You're electing a team and you can have a team of people who were selected for their expertise and selected for election.

their mastery of their individual piece of the puzzle or you can elect a a team that is there to say yes sire whatever you say and for me that's a no-brainer that's a no-brainer it's fdr it's hitler and i know the hitler comparisons are no good but you know and i know fdr trusted his team and hitler was a micromanager here's what i don't like about hitler sentences you never hear

uh yeah you know what i don't like what first of all okay here we go what don't you like about hitler this thing like yeah everybody else but he just he just kind of phoned it in very pretty that's what you hate the most about hitler very privileged he was like uh i mean by that point he probably done it a thousand times everybody else signing your autograph it's like hey

I remember that. Hey. I remember a family episode. Heil, yes, Heil. Okay. Family guy episode where Peter, I don't know, it was in Hitler's office. Oh, he was like Hitler's assistant. Yeah. He was tossing the gun back and forth. He's like a child in the parent's office. He's like, what are you doing, Nazi stuff? Yeah.

You remember that? Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah. I was there. I know, but you've done a lot of, how many episodes of that show? Oh, it's got to be going on late high 400s. That's. Close to 500. Yeah. I think real time is probably close to 700. Oh, yeah. I would imagine. And Politically Incorrect was over 2,000 because it was on every night.

You did that show every night? Yeah. Well, no, we had like any show. Did you do a monologue on that show? Yeah, absolutely. So how the fuck? Every night. I guess like a late night show. Remember, it was on after Nightline. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it started at 12 as opposed to 11.30 when like Leto and whoever, the other lettermen. But it did very well. Yeah. It did a great – the retention from Nightline was great.

Yeah. And Ted Koppel was no help. And they had like six minutes of commercials in between shows. They were daring people not to stay tuned. Fucking Koppel. Exactly. Oh, I could tell you this story. I

He was an asshole. Well, really? Absolutely. Because he was nightline, was very esteemed, very esteemed newsman, which he was. I give him that props. So in 1993, now they're going to put this comedy show on after me. I think he thought it was very undignified. Right.

So we had to do one promotional thing, and he was just a dick about it. Just like no help, throwing me an anchor kind of thing. Years later, he calls up. He was doing some CBS This Morning or some show like that, and he wanted me to do something. And no, I said, no, no, no. He finally got on. Can you talk to him? I said, OK. So I got on the phone, and I said, no, I'm not doing your show. You're a fucking asshole. OK. Off on the right foot. And we talk. You know, we talk.

Finally convinced me to do it. I'm like, okay. I don't want to be a grudge holder. Yeah, he comes over We were shooting it right across the way where there's a place you can great sound and that house and He walks in and the dog is barking out here park proper I walk in the first thing he says to me is Bill your dog thinks I'm a dick, too

I thought that kind of redeemed it. Yeah. You know, it was... That's an olive branch. Adam Ted Koppel. Yeah. And that's a dead-on Ted Koppel. That's a white dove. That is a dead-on Ted Koppel. No, it's not. You got Ted Koppel. You got Gavin McCloud. Godfather. Is that anything else you're holding in your bag? Rhett Butler. You do a Rhett Butler? Is it Rhett or Brett? Rhett. Rhett. You've never saw Gone With the Wind? No, you know who I was thinking of? I was thinking of...

Grace Under Fire. That's Brett Butler. Yeah. Brett Butler was the character Clark Gable. This is like the worst Abbott and Costello routine ever. The character Clark Gable. Yeah. Brett Butler. Yes. Yes. But because you're completely fucking stoned, I couldn't tell whether there was a B there or not. I don't know. And now I know that there's not. So you do a Brett Butler. I don't know who you think is stoned. So you do a Brett Butler. Let's hear that.

No, I don't think I will kiss you. Although you need kissing, and badly. So you see, my dear, you've debased yourself to no purpose. Right. Yeah, that's excellent. Why do Japanese girls taste different than all other girls? I found the cure for cancer, and I've lost it. Oh, Medicine Man.

Medicine man. Pretty good Sean Connery. Yeah, that's a damn good Sean Connery. There was a, God, again, I'm doing everybody else's bits here. My friend John Viner, writer for Family Guy, does a great bit with Sean Connery. What do you call those things that you use to start your automobile? Carcass. What do you call a dead decomposing body? Carcass. And there's one more and now I can't remember it.

But it's something to do with the Middle East. That's a pretty good Sean Connery. Yeah, well, that's me doing... I can do Marty McFly in Back to the Future. I never saw Back to the Future. What? I know. Should I? You know what this is? This is one of those things. You've got to come over to the house and we've got to watch... You've never seen Back to the Future?

Wait a second. How have you never seen Back to the Future? Go back to... Doc, how have you never seen Back to the Future? You've never seen Back to the Future? Go back to come over to the house. Is this another... How have you never seen Back to the Future? Isn't that great? I have a treat left for me. See, that's the thing. I am shocked.

It's a perfect movie. It is? It's like fucking The Sound of Music or Night of the Generals. Night of the Generals? Why? That's a great movie. Yeah, because there was a week where you were watching that on repeat and you kept saying, I watched Night of the Generals again today. I did? Yeah.

Peter O'Toole. You were watching it over and over and over. Peter O'Toole. Yeah. And we had drinks and then you said, I'm going to go home and watch Night of the Generals. I was like, you've already watched it. This is writer's embellishment. I definitely did see Night of the Generals. I was not watching it on repeat. Don't say that. People think Bill is like a binging Nazi. No, I...

You watched it more than once that week. I did not watch it more than once. You added that. I promise you I did not. What if this is the thing that broke up our friendship? I mean, after all the... Why didn't they speak for 20 years? Because there was an argument about how many times...

Bill watched Night of the Generals in one week. Nothing can break up our friendship. We're there to the end. Yeah, yeah. Because we've already been through the mill. Right. And we don't, you know, it's like... Right. Who do you think's going to die first? Well, I hope it's you.

I mean, if we're being honest, right? I mean, isn't that what we all think? I mean, when you hear about... We all hope we're going to outlive the other. Well, when you hear about someone dying, you're very sad. But if someone put a gun to your head and said, would you trade places? No. Yeah, well, no. I mean, it depends on who it is, I guess. I may have quoted this before, but I remember in the George Harrison documentary, when Roy Orbison dies, this is...

Tom Petty talking about George. Roy Orbison dies. He said, answer the phone. It's George. And his first words were, aren't you glad it's not you? Yeah. And that was Beatlesque honesty from a guy who was super spiritual, you know, who like he could have said, he's with the other gods right now and he's in a better place because Vishnu has taken him.

But no, aren't you glad? And that's, you know, look, we all love other people, but, you know, it's a... We all love other people. That's a very... True. What was it, Eric Fromm? No, that's... You can never love another person unless you learn to love the entire human race. Squeaky Fromm. Squeaky Fromm. I was thinking, can I come up with that name? And I could. Wow. Wow.

God, I guess I kind of teed that up. Yeah, Squeaky Fromm. If you can find the Venn diagram, I guess there's probably a fair amount of people who know who Eric Fromm is and who Squeaky Fromm is. Exactly. But also who get comedy. Right. Then that joke works great. That is a Venn diagram. That joke works great for those two people. Yes. My friend Chris Reed is the best for that.

He's kid from Kid and Play. Oh, sure. So he knows everything in rap culture and all that. He also knows every, he's just a voracious consumer of, so like, you know, Sinatra. Yeah. If you want to make a Sinatra, you know, Jay-Z comparison, he can, I mean, people have made that one. That's a bad example. But like, there's very few people like that who, you know, we're also in our silos, in our little like niche areas.

And that's where it gets interesting when you are, you know. Yes. And it's unfortunate because the audience is...

They limit us because, you know, I'm not going to do jokes that are only band laughs. Right, right. Once in a while. Right. Once in a while you do one for yourself and for that small group because those are probably your most rabid fans. Yeah. So it's always a mixture of, you know, stuff that's a little broader. Neither one of us, I don't think, ever gets...

very broad. That's just not our style. No, we don't have a trunk full of props. Props can be hip, but the sophistication, I like to think of us. That's adjacent. That's prop adjacent behind you. That's a joke.

Is it? This poster of the movie? No, no, the guys in the band. Oh, that's an art piece. That's worth a lot of money. Is it? Yeah, that moves. That thing... Does it? Yeah.

Does it have cameras on it? No. Have you ever turned it on during Club Random? No, it's noisy and kind of creepy because of those faces. It looks creepy even when it's off. But you could, no, I could make that band play. Really? If we wish hard enough. No, just by plugging it in. I'm telling you. Oh, you've got to plug it in? Yeah, but it's an art piece.

Not the thing on... Where does it come from? Not the big Hershey's kiss on the top. No, that's a prop from something else. That doesn't belong... It's club random. Everything is random here. Okay. That's what it is. Don't bother me with... Don't bother... Hey, man, you invited me. I know. Don't bother me. So glad you came. Took long enough. Looks like... Every week I'd be like...

What's that movie where Judy Garland is writing to dear Mr. Gable? You know that? She's writing on a headshot of Clark Gable. It's a very famous... Summer Stock. I don't know. Something like that. I thought you would know. Don't you watch those old movies? Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Back to watching movies with your partner. You've never seen Back to the Fucking Future. Right, and I've never seen Back to the Future. Here's what we've got to do. Why don't we go into your baller... This is what I'm saying. There's two things we've got to do. I want to come to your show again, but you've got to come over. I live like five minutes from you. I'm no kidding. So you've got to come over to the house. We'll pick a night, and we'll just be two men alone in the screening room watching Back to the Future. What could happen? There's nothing wrong with that.

Nothing wrong with that. And if you have a problem with that, you're the problem with society. Absolutely. I say the same thing. Yeah.

Is there something you can take so that if you are roofied, it nullifies the effect of the drug? I'm just asking. Sometimes there are drugs that contradict, and I'm just thinking it might be a good idea. No, I remember being in that room, and I was watching, because it is the all-time greatest show, Cosmos. Yeah, oh, yeah. Just so great. And I'd seen it at least twice before.

all the way through. But this, I think, was the pilot. And, you know, it was just like being in the planetarium. Yeah. It was... And I remember being in the planetarium. Yeah, yeah. And it was, you know... Yeah, that was an important show. My God, we need that show now more than ever, don't we? That was 10 years. You know what I loved about that show? Especially that first season. Every week, it... Okay, I don't need that. What'd you drop? The joint, but it's fine. I don't smoke pot. Is this like a...

What? Naugahyde? Oh, it's like... You want to take it out? No, no, no, it's fine. Oh. Just felt like it was... It's fine. It's all good. So, like, every week it would, you know, sort of profile a certain scientist in the history of science.

You know, some of them were ones we had heard of, like, you know, Newton, Sir Isaac Newton. And then some were like, maybe I'd heard the name, but I didn't really know what they did. And some I'd never heard of at all. Pat Patterson. Who? Pat Patterson, who was the guy that said, hey, there's lead in this paint. Pat Patterson was on Rohit.

I believe. Well, Pat Patterson was, Claire Patterson was his name. Pat Patterson was his nickname. He just sounds like a guy who was on Raw Hide. Okay. So, Pat Patterson, whoever. But they all did, like, he discovered, like, you know, something with light or something that was so important in, like, having radio and, like, these fundamental things. And you realize, like, all of the way we live is...

From like a couple dozen people. Yes. A couple dozen. Practice of science. Or else we would just be wiping our ass with bark and eating roots. Only in the past, like you look at the tens of millennia that passed before the advent of science. And then here comes science, what, four or five hundred years ago? Right. Barely five hundred years ago? Yeah.

And suddenly it's like the computer revolution. Suddenly the speed picks up like that. And here we are at club random and with a band that supposedly by your own admission, I was its own thing. Go off. I'll play it for you. I can't regret it, but I'll do it. Oh, I'm sure I will. But, but it's, but it's, but what does that tell you about that tool and the disregard we have for that tool in 2023? Yeah.

And to a certain science, to a certain degree, social trust is a part of science. Because I'm sure you're a fan of Tom Nichols. Tom Nichols. I don't know that. He wrote The Death of Expertise, which is essentially... I've heard of the book. Yeah, great book. He writes for The Atlantic a lot. I think he was a Republican at one point. Now he's very much a centrist.

And the death of expertise was about the fact that, look, we all, this is what civilization is. This is what society is. We all try to

Pick a discipline that works for us and we work hard and that's why there are doctors and engineers. Yeah. And we all trust each other. I know. Another subtle attempt to basically say, I have the science and you don't. No, I don't have the science. Okay, you don't. I don't have the science. Do you know that there's... But without social trust, there's so much that you can't get done.

And too much trust is called naivete. Sure. Okay. So do you know that two years ago they discovered a bacteria that was naked to the human eye? They had never seen it before. Like fully naked? I can't imagine. And then one of the scientists who was describing it said, it would be like finding a human today who was the size of Mount Everest. Okay.

And this was two years ago. You should have seen me when I was 29. This is two years ago. I'm just saying, like...

Enough with the when have we ever been wrong and what information could we possibly lack? We're at the infancy of understanding these things. I think you have a misconception of the way most scientists think. I don't. I don't think scientists, when have I ever been wrong? The whole idea... No, but they want to shut up everybody else who doesn't exactly... But that's why it works. That's why it works. That we're shutting people up? But...

Within the scientific community, that's why it works. Because if you put something out there that's wrong, 10 other scientists are going to come along. But we don't know what's wrong. 10 other scientists are going to come along and say, that's wrong, and here's why, and this guy's put to shame. It's a self-policing enterprise. What you don't get to do is you don't get to be Sean Hannity debating Bill Nye or debating Dr. Larry Brilliant. You don't get to be like...

that person debating because you didn't put the work in. No, I agree. Not Sean Hannity, but 16,000 doctors and scientists. Oh, you're going to give me the Great Barrington Declaration. Correct. First of all, it was 6,000. No, it was 16,000. Was it 16,000? Yes. Okay. Signed something that basically was... Are you sure about that? Yes. 16,000?

Do you want to look that up? Yeah, I don't have to, but we can. And anything could be wrong because, again, I am not the kind of person. I'm always open to new information. Okay, well, here's some new information about the Great Barrington Declaration.

which, for people who don't know, was put out by 6,000 or 16,000 if we both weren't drunk or high. Point is, a lot. A lot. A lot of dissenters who are there. Dissenters. Why are your doctors better than my doctors is my question.

Doctors disagree. I can't get them to agree on my health issues. Here's several things about the Great Barrington Declaration, which basically said probably like a few months before the first vaccines came out, they were like, now's the time to let her rip. It's like being, you know, a month out from the end of World War I and saying this is the time to really fucking, fucking, let's let it all, let's let it all go.

Cut that part out. Let me go back. Let me go back. You're obsessed with this. This is the alcohol talking. So two months before the first vaccines emerged, the Great Barrington Declaration came out and these doctors said, we should just do what Sweden did, let it rip, let the disease run wild because this will be good for people's immunity.

There were a lot of fake names in the Great Barrington Declaration. There's a Dr. Johnny Bananas on there. He's good. He's good. He looked at my gout. He consults with Dr. Vinny Blumbach. Funded in part by the National Institute for Economic Research, which is funded by Charles Koch, the Koch brothers. You wore me down. So there's an agenda there. I can't anymore. You're right.

Can we stop talking about this? Maybe not the most reliable. Okay. Well, the point is, let's forget the Great Barrington. I don't need the Great Barrington Declaration. There is a ruling. I don't need the Great Barrington Declaration. I don't. I don't need any of you bastards. You know what Missouri versus Biden was?

No, now you educate me. Right. Well, see, because if you weren't in your bubble, you would have known that too. But things like that don't get in when you're just looking for the information you already want to think you believe. Okay. But the Biden, very big court ruling this year, which said that the media companies colluded with the government to keep information out of our hands. Missouri versus Biden. Look it up, man. Look it up. And that's exactly what happened. I mean, the New York... In what way? What was the... Well, like, for example, the New York Times, uh,

their Pulitzer Prize winning health reporter, they canned because they wanted to look into maybe the origins of COVID were in a lab in Wuhan, China, which of course they very well may have been. I said from the very beginning, this should not be a political issue. It

It could have started from the wet markets and it could have started in the lab. Let's not politicize it. They did. Now, even Biden administration admits, yes, it might have been coming from a lab, but the New York Times wouldn't let you hear that information. Yeah, yeah. That was misinformation. See, that's a danger in saying misinformation because tomorrow that misinformation might be yours. What's fucked about that? And again, I'm sure there was a conversation yesterday

behind the scenes that went on in this regard is that when you hear originated in a lab, you think, oh, it was cooked up by scientists. It was cooked up by people as a weapon. Like when I think- No, not necessarily as a weapon, studying it. But the average person- Gain of function study. Exactly, exactly. But the average person doesn't think that. They think made in a lab, they think, oh, this was a bioweapon. Who gives a fuck what they think? We're talking about government policy. They vote. Okay, but then-

They're not... I don't know what they're voting on because I lost track of this, but if they're voting on the idea that the virus could have started in a lab...

My theory is it probably did. I don't think they intentionally let it out. But it's also not completely impossible that the government of China would do that. Government of China does a lot of awful things. They do. And that's why the New York Times wouldn't cover it. And their reporter said, someday we're going to look back at this and understand that we shouldn't have been looking at it at all because it's racist. Racist because they're Chinese. They're perfect people. That's where the woke are. Okay, well, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

But at this point in time, when the people who are most likely to dismantle democracy would love nothing more than to hear you. And I'm look, I'm not I haven't I'm not going to comment on something that I haven't researched. You're too tribal.

Everything has to be part of the tribe. That's not it at all. I'm sorry that I can't always say the thing that will not piss off the tribe. If it's true on the other side, I have to do it. I'm not going to contradict what you said because I don't know. I would have to go on my phone after this interview and go, wow, I don't know what Bill was talking about. I guess I should look into it, which I do all the time. I'm not stupid enough to say, yes, is that possible? But we are living in a time where we're caught in this...

neutral zone between the people who would love nothing more than to see the enterprise of the press dismantled completely, gone. And so I'm a little more forgiving of mistakes than maybe I have been in the past because I don't want to see that happen because I do believe the press is the fourth estate. I do believe the press keeps...

a good bit of checks and balances when it comes to politicians. - What do you mean the press? The press is every-- - The New York Times, The Washington Post, even The Wall Street Journal. - Okay, you just mentioned all the liberal press that used-- - The Wall Street Journal. I think The Wall Street Journal is a legitimate-- - Well, of course they are. - Very conservative. It's op-ed section aside, which is batshit crazy.

But the reporting in the Wall Street Journal is solid. That's a conservative. Right. I don't think Fox News is solid, but I think the Wall Street Journal is respectable. Well, but the problem with the media, the world we live in now, is that they— It's not just the liberal press. Okay, but the problem with any press, but definitely including liberal press, is that when I hear something, I'll go, okay, you know what? What you're saying is probably true, but it's half the story. Yeah.

I don't trust either of them. And that's, well, okay. Okay. You're just telling me the part that feeds your narrative. But to say you don't trust either of them is like, do you, it's like, I don't trust the New York Times or Fox News. I don't. You can't equate those two, though. I don't. You equate them. I don't equate those two. Okay, good. Thank God. Never did. Made that point many times. Yeah, all right. Good, good, good. And if I had watched your fucking show, I'd know this. Exactly. Exactly.

Do you have to get to dinner? I don't want to hold you. I'll come out here by 7.15. I don't want to hold you, but I would do this until I had to pee. Do you have to pee? No. Do you not? No. Okay, neither do I. But that was the only...

But you're healthy, right? I am. Oh, my God. What? Yes. No, that was a left turn. I am. I don't see you that often. I am healthy. You know, Bill, it's. You look healthy. I was going to announce it at some point. I might as well do it on this show. You're pregnant. Men can get pregnant now. Don't say different. I'm pregnant. Yeah. No, I'm healthy as far as I know. Yeah, I just did the. Right. I have a physical twice a year because I'm a crazy person.

That's not crazy. That's not crazy. Well, it depends. I mean, there are things that they can do during a physical that would be deleterious to your health, right? X-rays and things like that. Yeah, I don't need that finger in my ass every time. Not every time. Sometimes at 3 in the morning when I get a call and it's like, hey, just want to make sure the prostate's okay. What fucking time is it? How many times do you get a prostate check and enjoy it before you're gay? Ha ha ha!

Five? There you go. See, I was right there. Yeah, yeah. Ready for you this time. See?

Oh, God. That was a nice little squeak. That was real delight right there. That was a delighted laugh. You've always been a delightful person. Oh, I just noticed. Yeah, look at that. This is from the movie I was in. It sits in this room. If anything belongs in Club Random, it is a sign that... It was a cue card from...

A Million Ways to Die in the West. Brilliant concept, by the way. I always told you that. I know you're out there. I can smell cow vagina because I was the comic in the movie in a scene. And my dear friend Mark Monto played the cue card guy holding my cue cards up. And the cue cards, of course, they're big pieces of wood because it's the frontier era. Right. But not only that, you came to set with additional jokes.

Oh, I wrote that whole thing. My guys worked on that. I think there were like three jokes from the script. Oh, yeah. And then you came with like a stack of fucking. You said you wanted a whole monologue. Yeah. The only thing I objected to about this is it implies, see, this is a saver. I know you're out there. I can smell cow vagina. It implies that I can't ad-lib. Shouldn't it be smell the cow vagina?

No, it's too late for rewrites. No, it's exactly the way it should be. I can smell cow vagina. But I've always treasured this. And there's a whole bunch of them. I looted it from the set. Oh, good. I'm so glad because I don't know where the other ones are. No, you gave it to me. Oh, good. Thank God. I should remember that. You also gave me once. I mean, I could probably. Oh, yes, because of Quagmire. I mean. Yeah. You have the original Quagmire sketch from 100 years ago.

You would not believe what this got on eBay. I think that's appropriate. This place looks like Quagmire's home. Right. It's in my home. It's in the most prominent place it can be. And I don't care what they offer me on eBay. And the number keeps going up.

Look, Bill, at a certain point, don't be stupid. No, I'm sure it would fetch a fortune, and I would not sell it for anything. I mean, the neon bill alone. No, I could be living under the underpass, and I would have that with me. I'm joking. I would have fucking sold it and not live under the underpass. Let's be practical here. Come on. I said I want you to die before me. I'm not going to start lying about shit now. Come on. We're past that.

So where are you eating tonight? I'm very curious where a celebrity goes these days. Do you go to the hot spots or do you go, you know, like to the place where you can be like more low-key? I generally pick the more low-key places. We're getting some sushi this evening. You and a lady friend? Mm-mm.

Oh. No, I'm having dinner with my agent. Seriously? Isn't that, yeah. And by the time this glass is empty, I'm going to be giving him 20%, which is just not good. What, did you lose a bet? Huh? No, I'm kidding. Agents are like congressmen. We all like our own.

But they have a terrible reputation on mass, right? Congress, but they keep returning their own congressmen. Congressmen win office like 96% of the time, get reelected. Everybody complains and then they like their own. Yeah, yeah. I love my agent. How long have you been with your agent? You know that joke about me? It's probably, it's been close to, oh, over 20 years.

Well, that's not true. Because I was with him, and then I left for a while, and then I came back. So the totality of it, probably about 15 years. So you know the joke about the... Yes. Can I tell you what joke? Is this the one about the confessional? No. Okay. No. An actor comes home, and he sees his house is in a smoldering ruin. Yeah. You know this? No. Oh, and his wife is all tattered, and the dog is dead, and the kids are dead. And he comes over, and he says, Honey, what happened? What happened?

wife says oh my god your agent came over he burned the house down he raped me killed the kids and the dog and the actor says my agent came by that's like that's not the joke I thought you were gonna tell oh I'm so glad you thought you were gonna tell the one that you always tell me and then every time I act like it's the first time I've heard really what one was that like the guy who goes to confessional what

What is it? I believe you know Mr. Cohen. I never told you that person. You've told me that five times. I've never told... You've told me that five times. Hasn't he told me that five times? He's told me that... Your drinking, the drinking is affecting your memory. I would never... Listen, I'm not going to argue that. You may have seen it five times. It was my first joke. I did it when I was 27 on The Tonight Show. No, you're proud of it. You should be proud of it. I'm not proud. I would never...

never tell a joke even when I was doing it now. I believe you know, Mr. Cohen, that you have, of course you told me that joke. I've never personally told you that joke. Oh my God, are you serious? I am totally serious. You have absolutely, you're delirious. Because somebody told me that joke a week ago and I said, I've heard that joke, Bill Maher told me that joke. You saw it on television or some clip and then you, and then you transposed that to, to,

real life. Listen, you're the one who's smoking too much. You have 100% told me that joke. I would never do such a thing. I believe you know Mr. Cohen. It's ridiculous. Look, don't let the war make you revise history. I've been to town. I've crossed the highways. And the harbors too. I've done some things I never thought I would do. Like tell Seth that joke. I can't believe you don't remember telling me that joke.

This is like, is this how it starts? It totally never happened. Think hard. It never happened. And five times, why would I be repeating my act? You think I was so insecure in my 50s that I was like doing my act for you? No, not your whole act, but that joke. You were very proud of that joke. And you shared it with me. Yeah, when I was 27, I was proud of it. Other than that, it's just a historical remnant.

It was fine for that age. I don't do it. This is what it's like to be fucking married. It really is. This is exactly what it's like. I'm telling you, don't do it. I'm telling you. This is what marriage is like. I'm telling you. Yes, it is. You told me the Mr. Cohen joke. They have chairs like this. They do. They have Archie. These are Archie and Edith's chairs. They really are. They really are. They really are. Yeah. This is like- Stifle! How many of Bill Cosby's sweaters did you have to shred to make these chairs? Yeah.

Well, it is Club Random. It is, yeah. This is very 80s. Oh, I wouldn't trade anything here. But what a great song that is, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, how about the last? Yeah, the one you love. The one I love. It isn't milky white, it's dingy gray. You ask me if I know the milky way. I do. And furthermore, I'd like to say it isn't milky white, it's dingy gray.

especially when your world breaks down because i've been to town what a great metaphor if you weren't doing like a slow push in on him throughout that you that was a missed opportunity and if not you should figure out a way to do it in post just like a slow push in oh look at you because he's giving you the vibrato and everything once you're a director i see you like you get

That thing where you think you can like... No, it's a moment. Right, but I'm saying you see life that way, like I can make... But also, I think... I just don't think you do that for everyone. I sure don't. I don't think you sing... I think maybe... Well, first of all, other than Jack Jones, no one would appreciate the song or know it. I got you into that album, too. You got me into that album. And that is... That is the album I now go to when I've had...

Exactly. A bunch of drinks. Well, if people don't know, we're talking. I didn't take it seriously, and now I'm like, oh, I get it. It's so amazing. It's like. People don't know. Let me set the stage. It's 1969. Frank Sinatra did an album written, a theme album written by a gay man, gay poet, Rod McKeown. And it is thematic. Between all the songs, there's talking parts. It's the little things in life that disappoint you.

Not the big things. The newspaper boy who says he'll bring you a paper and doesn't. The dry cleaner who says your suit will be ready and it isn't. That's in between. Why haven't we done that live? That's in between the songs. Yeah, yeah. But then it's called A Man Alone. Don't ask me about empty. And his voice breaks. Right. Yeah. I'm going to go somewhere. Empty is a string of dirty days. Yes.

How about the end? I'm going to go somewhere on an island with a mess of records. A mess of records and a ukulele. But it's called A Man Alone. Yeah. It's why I thought you would love it is because, you know, it speaks to us. We're bachelors who never got married. We're a man alone. But it says, you know, a man alone but not lonely. Yeah. Except when the darkness comes. Yeah. Yeah. Dreams disappear.

"Midnight Dreams That Fell Apart at Dawn." It's brilliant. - There's something I have to tell you. I do have to pee so badly right now, I can't even. - I know, you got it. - Thank you. - Fabulous. - Anytime. - Oh, really? - Anytime, my friend, anytime. - I loved, we laughed, we cried. - Oh yes. - We fought. - Oh yes. - We loved. - There's nothing I love more than to argue with people I love. - Not exactly.