Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media. Hey, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily
Speaker 1: comedy news, daily briefing on stand up comedy, comedians and
Speaker 1: the comedy industry. A sentence the algorithm love, so I
Speaker 1: keep saying it. The Oscars are tomorrow night. They will
Speaker 1: be hosted by Conan O'Brien for the second year in
Speaker 1: a row. Conan said, it's not just about being funny
Speaker 1: moments a moment, it's also about acknowledging what there is
Speaker 1: in a larger sense. As the host, I'm sort of
Speaker 1: the human avatar or whatever. I'm the entryway for the
Speaker 1: person watching at home, the person the audience member can
Speaker 1: relate to. I've been working for a really long time
Speaker 1: on material for the show with my writers, and it's
Speaker 1: still evolving. Because we live in a very fast paced world.
Speaker 1: Jokes we thought of two months ago are relevant now.
Speaker 1: There might be things that happened this week that will
Speaker 1: find their way into the show. He recalled last year
Speaker 1: there were a lot of challenges. The LA wildfires had
Speaker 1: him working well displaced. Conan said, so this year, I
Speaker 1: get to wake up in the morning in my own room,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a small thing, but it's a huge thing.
Speaker 1: So this year, all the movies are so different, they're
Speaker 1: also vibrant. There's so many different voices, so much artistry
Speaker 1: went into them. I think it's one of the best
Speaker 1: film years that we've had in memory. As for a hosting,
Speaker 1: he doesn't see the job being punchlines all the time.
Speaker 1: He explains, it's not necessarily about being one hundred percent
Speaker 1: funny all the time. Sometimes there are moments where it's
Speaker 1: my job to move us along to the next moment.
Speaker 1: He and the team talk a lot about prep and
Speaker 1: design and getting everything just a certain way and practice practice, practice,
Speaker 1: But when this show happens, it's an organic thing that's
Speaker 1: unfolding in real time. The show will be a living organism,
Speaker 1: for better or worse. Conin did several interviews during the week.
Speaker 1: When with The La Times, they talked about the elephant
Speaker 1: in the room, which is the ongoing war in Iran,
Speaker 1: Conan said, my job is to always try and hit
Speaker 1: this very very thin line between entertaining people and also
Speaker 1: acknowledging some of the realities. It's a dance that goes
Speaker 1: on up until the show begins. Between us, and he
Speaker 1: referenced his executive producers. We'll find the right tone. Conan
Speaker 1: recalled when Johnny Carson hosted the Oscars during the Iran
Speaker 1: hostage crisis. When I was a boy, Johnny Carson parodied
Speaker 1: ABC's Nightline with the joke It's Day four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty four of the Oscars. Conan said, it was such
Speaker 1: a funny, topical joke that touched on something everybody was
Speaker 1: thinking about and at the same time got a big
Speaker 1: laugh and was unifying, and that was meaningful to me. Now,
Speaker 1: what about the rumored safety threats. One of the showrunners said,
Speaker 1: every year we monitor what's going on in the world.
Speaker 1: They have the support of the FBI and the LAPD.
Speaker 1: The show runner said, this show has to run like clockwork.
Speaker 1: Everyone is coming on the show that is witnessing the show,
Speaker 1: even a fan of the show. They're standing on the barricades.
Speaker 1: Who want everybody to feel safe and protected and welcome.
Speaker 1: On Late Night or Bill Carter spoke with Conan. You
Speaker 1: can listen to that entire interview on the Late Night
Speaker 1: or Podcast Feed Wednesday's episode the Bill Carter Interview. Conan O'Brien,
Speaker 1: I just added that to my cue. Let's see how
Speaker 1: absurd my cue is. Right now, this is a real number.
Speaker 1: If you follow me on LinkedIn and or the substack.
Speaker 1: I've been mentioning, this is a real number. Okay, Right
Speaker 1: now I have two hundred and sixty nine episodes of
Speaker 1: podcasts downloaded to my phone. That would take two hundred
Speaker 1: ninety hours and twenty eight minutes to listen to all
Speaker 1: of them. However, it's getting warmer out. Johnny Mack will
Speaker 1: either walk the dog or sit out in the yard,
Speaker 1: or fall asleep in the art, or sit on a beach,
Speaker 1: or sit up at the new summer place that I bought.
Speaker 1: So don't worry that number is going to get lower.
Speaker 1: I'll eventually listen to Bill Carter and Cone and I digress.
Speaker 1: Carter asked, is it true that the Motion Picture Academy
Speaker 1: asked Conan to come back before he even left the
Speaker 1: stage last year? Conan said, not quite, but it was
Speaker 1: pretty quick. He talked about being a complete unknown back
Speaker 1: when he took over for David Letterman. He said, now
Speaker 1: we live in an arrow where there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as a complete unknown. Anyone like me starting out today
Speaker 1: would have six hundred hours of YouTube clips. Conan described
Speaker 1: his resume back then. He said, a writer, but he's
Speaker 1: got an interesting vibe. Will there be a cold open
Speaker 1: on the Oscar? Conan said, you can expect some things.
Speaker 1: We have more than one thing. We have some pieces
Speaker 1: I really like. We have some live things I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about. Very vague, Conan said, what I love most
Speaker 1: is the process. I love hanging around the writer's room
Speaker 1: in my post late night life. The two things I've
Speaker 1: missed most are having a writer's room and having a band.
Speaker 1: When first asked to host the Oscars last year, Conan said,
Speaker 1: I was intrigued right away. I had done award shows
Speaker 1: in the past. I like the format. I like being
Speaker 1: out in front of people. I like the feeling of
Speaker 1: ceremony because you can kind of play against it. So
Speaker 1: when they asked, yeah, I have to try this, I'm
Speaker 1: curious about it. I know it's a lot of work
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna put myself through some misery, but let's
Speaker 1: do it. And as for the second ask, yeah, I
Speaker 1: like to try that again. I had such a good
Speaker 1: time the first time. I'm glad I did it. They
Speaker 1: talked about it being a tough room. ConA explained, the
Speaker 1: people in the room, you're literally the last thing they're
Speaker 1: thinking about say his barometer. If I'm having a good
Speaker 1: time and feeling the flow of it all and I'm
Speaker 1: making myself laugh ninety nine percent of the time, it
Speaker 1: means it went well. I call that the hallway ratings.
Speaker 1: I used to talk about this. It's serious a lot.
Speaker 1: If I was walking down the hall and feeling good
Speaker 1: about a show and people stopped me in the hallway
Speaker 1: to talk about what they had just heard on the radio,
Speaker 1: That's how I knew we had a good show. And
Speaker 1: like this show here. You know, you do it every day.
Speaker 1: Some episodes are better than others. Be realistic. You know.
Speaker 1: Some days I find a muse and the episode is
Speaker 1: a little more fun. Sometimes I'm just going through the headline.
Speaker 1: Some days there's nothing to work with. Some days I've
Speaker 1: find inspiration on the fly, so I know what Conan
Speaker 1: is saying. Conan says it's even better if something unexpected
Speaker 1: comes up during the show. It's a little like Olympic diving.
Speaker 1: You get grated on the difficulty if something just happened,
Speaker 1: people are looking for the host to guide them through that.
Speaker 1: If you could do it in a funny way, the
Speaker 1: potential payoff is much greater than anything you thought of
Speaker 1: three months ago. Does Conan miss standing in front of
Speaker 1: an audience daily? Hmm, he says, no, I do not.
Speaker 1: You get one life. I spent a long chunk of
Speaker 1: my life doing that. I really enjoyed it. It was thrilling,
Speaker 1: and now I like trying out all these other things.
Speaker 1: I thought I would miss it, but I do not.
Speaker 1: As for a late night, he said, my assumption has
Speaker 1: been that it's gonna morph as everything does. Now. People
Speaker 1: are watching their favorite comedian who no one else in
Speaker 1: the room has heard of. Had he worked Linden Late
Speaker 1: Night in the fifties or sixties, I would have left
Speaker 1: after the tonight show and you wouldn't have heard from me. Again.
Speaker 1: Would Conan consider hosting SNL asked Bill Carter, And again
Speaker 1: you can hear that whole interview on Late Nighter. Conan said,
Speaker 1: good question. I never want to be that guy comes
Speaker 1: back and says, hey, this is my old high school.
Speaker 1: I used to go here. Hey kids, I'm groovy. But
Speaker 1: never say never. If it came up, it could be
Speaker 1: exciting to try. I'm not banking on it, certainly not
Speaker 1: asking for it. Conan got a big cover piece in
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Reporter under the headline, Conan O'Brien just can't
Speaker 1: help himself. Conan said, we work in an industry where
Speaker 1: everyone's constantly hyper analyzing where they are on a certain scale.
Speaker 1: All I can say is I get to do the
Speaker 1: thing that, for better or worse, I was put here
Speaker 1: to do. The article quotes John mulaney, who said, I
Speaker 1: don't watch a lot of these things, but I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking, is this the greatest Oscars ever? Conan is
Speaker 1: a true artist and an incredible broadcaster. He's also got
Speaker 1: one thing you cannot fake and can't only earn, which
Speaker 1: is stature. Jeff Ross is quoted he had told Conan
Speaker 1: when the first offer came in. I told him you
Speaker 1: don't need to do this. You've got nothing to prove.
Speaker 1: When we quit late night, the goal will only do
Speaker 1: things that are fun, things we want to do well.
Speaker 1: This is what Conan wants to do. This is interesting.
Speaker 1: Mike Sweeney was Conan's head writer and says, if anybody
Speaker 1: knows O'Brien's tail when an idea tanks, it's him. Sweeney
Speaker 1: explains his tell his tail is that he mocks at
Speaker 1: mercilesly for at least five minutes. He's most delighted in rehearsal.
Speaker 1: When things go wrong or they're just bad. It's like
Speaker 1: delivering fresh meat to lines gauge. If it's your bit
Speaker 1: that's getting eviscerated, you're laughing as hard as anyone. You
Speaker 1: may be curious, how much do you get paid to
Speaker 1: host the OSCAR? Is not all that much in the
Speaker 1: scheme of things. A twenty thirteen article in The Hollowod
Speaker 1: Reporter suggested a number between fifteen and twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Seven years ago, Jimmy Kimmel said I got paid fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to host the OSCAR. Wanda Psyke said hosting
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty two ceremony actually left her out of pocket.
Speaker 1: I find that hard to believe. But okay, by the way,
Speaker 1: remember twenty twenty two. Now, that was the year with
Speaker 1: the famous slap. Every time I see this sentence, it's
Speaker 1: just my brain fries your host that year Wanda Sykes,
Speaker 1: Regina Hall, and Amy Schumer. Amy Schumer hosted the Oscars.
Speaker 1: Let's just all ponder that for a second. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to just stop and think for a second. Now,
Speaker 1: if I said to you, hey, you know who's hosting
Speaker 1: the Oscars tomorrow, Amy Schumer, you'd be like what, wouldn't
Speaker 1: you wouldn't you be like what? Well? Twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Amy Schumer hosted the Oscars. That's the thing that happened.
Speaker 1: The New Yorker asked Conan O'Brien, it's a high risk,
Speaker 1: maybe even the low reward gig, isn't it? And Conah said,
Speaker 1: I choose not to see it this way. It was
Speaker 1: really fun. I grew up watching Bob Hope do it,
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson do it, so it's a very cool thing
Speaker 1: to be connected to. And as you know, I'm very
Speaker 1: interested in history, and this thing has been around for
Speaker 1: one hundred years, almost a hundred years, solet's have fun
Speaker 1: with it. That's my attitude. What I've learned myself over
Speaker 1: time is I can't fake enjoyment. I need to find
Speaker 1: ways to make sure that I'm having a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I need to prepare. I mean, I'm a big preparation person.
Speaker 1: I work with this brilliant team of writers who are
Speaker 1: just downstairs from where I'm doing this podcast. I go
Speaker 1: down there, they're all around a long table and they're like,
Speaker 1: these premises are no good. Yeah, these premises are no good.
Speaker 1: We got to get the Glengarry premises, and I yell
Speaker 1: at them, I'm the Alec Bald when it comes in
Speaker 1: and gives that great speech upfront. I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: movie now. I think we all know that, not the play.
Speaker 1: They asked Conut about the slap and he said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want anyone to slap me. I'd
Speaker 1: like a streaker, you know what. I'd really like a
Speaker 1: streaker to slap me. That would just satisfy so many
Speaker 1: of my dormant Catholic hang ups. But it's a weird
Speaker 1: duality here. It's a weird thing. I like to plan
Speaker 1: and I like to prepare, and then I love when
Speaker 1: something goes off the rails. If accidentally a light falls,
Speaker 1: you can make a whole show about that, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: about human beings, but they instinctively know when something is
Speaker 1: real enough the moment, and then they say, you react
Speaker 1: in real time like a human being and make something
Speaker 1: funny out of it, and that has ten times the
Speaker 1: value of anything you could have written. So you have
Speaker 1: to be open for things to slightly go wrong, and
Speaker 1: it's fun and electrifying. My whole life has been prepared,
Speaker 1: but then, like any good quarterback, be ready for the
Speaker 1: whole play to fall apart and then wing it. The
Speaker 1: New Yorker asked Conan about the performance of it all
Speaker 1: being a heightened you. Now, I'm just a dude in
Speaker 1: the podcast. But this is how I teach this. I teach,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been a media executive for thirty something years,
Speaker 1: and I teach the college class and I always tell everybody,
Speaker 1: you have to be real, but you ramp u up
Speaker 1: to one hundred and five percent. And you know, I've
Speaker 1: talked about this candidly. John doesn't like Adam Sandlor movies.
Speaker 1: I don't find them funny, and I just go on
Speaker 1: with my life. But Johnny Mack, who records this podcast
Speaker 1: in the basement, as you know, Johnny Mack hates Adam
Speaker 1: Sailor movies and loses his mind and they even exist.
Speaker 1: You can even hear how it just changed my speaking delivery.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm getting more animated, so that that's the
Speaker 1: performance part of all this. Conan said, I'm always this guy.
Speaker 1: There's a heightened me, but it's really not that much different.
Speaker 1: I routinely would just t to people on the street,
Speaker 1: complete strangers, and then that will lead to me doing
Speaker 1: a bit and trying to get them into it, trying
Speaker 1: to do improv with random people on the street. And
Speaker 1: I've been maced. That's funny. Well it's not funny. But
Speaker 1: you know, wait, John, you're hanging yourself here, is it.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's funny that Conan O'Brien got mased? No,
Speaker 1: not at all, that's not funny. I was just laughing
Speaker 1: at the way I imagined Conan telling the story. But
Speaker 1: of course it would be horrible if someone maceed Conan O'Brien.
Speaker 1: Did I dig enough of a holy yet? Coda said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a height in me, and there's a depressed me
Speaker 1: that just wants to crawl in a corner and read
Speaker 1: a book. But I have access to this guy a
Speaker 1: frightening amount of the time. My father, who was a
Speaker 1: very smart man and very analytical and a scientist, was
Speaker 1: looking at me once and he watched every late night
Speaker 1: show and he said, oh, I see you're making a
Speaker 1: living off something that should have been treated. And he
Speaker 1: wasn't choking. He said, I see your synapses. Is the
Speaker 1: rhythm of your circulatory system, and then you found a
Speaker 1: way to be compensated, and I thought, thanks Dad, it's
Speaker 1: probably a good time to remind you. If you like
Speaker 1: this program without the commercial interruption, open up the Apple
Speaker 1: podcast app. There's a banner there it says uninterrupted listening.
Speaker 1: Click on that, and then for just five bucks a month,
Speaker 1: you get this show and a bunch of others on
Speaker 1: the network. I also host five Good News Stories, and
Speaker 1: I'm the writer on Palace Intrigue. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of fun making these things, but all those would be
Speaker 1: commercial free for just five bucks a month. It's a
Speaker 1: great way to support the show. South By Southwest Comedy
Speaker 1: tonight at seven o'clock at the Creek in the Cave.
Speaker 1: It is the Don't Tell Comedy all Stars in partnership
Speaker 1: with a sponsor name. Everything has to have a sponsor
Speaker 1: at south By Southwest. It's very corporate. I think the
Speaker 1: people that go there think it's really cool and like
Speaker 1: in a fun sense. It's not cool. It's very corporate.
Speaker 1: It's all about money. None of this is about art,
Speaker 1: none of it. None of it. None of it, none
Speaker 1: of it, none of it. Anyway, You Don't Tell Comedy
Speaker 1: all stars include Sophie Buttle, Paris Cichet, Chloe Radcliffe, Antonio Kareem,
Speaker 1: and Gavin Mattz. That's seven o'clock at the Creek in
Speaker 1: the Cave. At eight o'clock Esther's Folly's hosts Funny or
Speaker 1: Die Approved. Now who has Funnier Die approved? Funnier Die
Speaker 1: has approved. Pete Lee, Paris Cichet again, She's gonna all
Speaker 1: over town, Tone Bell, Alex English and Jared Freed. Then
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock at Esther's Folly's, The Stand presents Pete Lee,
Speaker 1: Devin Walker, Gavin Mattz and Jamore Neighbors. Then you can
Speaker 1: catch Devin Walker and Alex English at the Dead Show
Speaker 1: at eleven at the Creek in the Cave. That's your
Speaker 1: south By Southwest Comedy tonight. One thing I'm noticing in
Speaker 1: the past there have been like pretty shiny comedians at
Speaker 1: this thing. I don't see them this time unless they're
Speaker 1: all doing like podcasts, so they're not showing up on
Speaker 1: the comedy tab as I check on that. How about
Speaker 1: that south By Southwest again? Oscars tomorrow. Tomorrow will be
Speaker 1: a normal episode in Oscar's recap obviously on Monday morning,
Speaker 1: and then Monday at noon Eastern the results of comedy
Speaker 1: Survivor meets you back here in the morning.