Arsenio Hall

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From the creators of jury duty comes a new installment full of high jinx, hilarity and

hot sauce.

This season, we're taking the comedy out of the courthouse and into the mountains for an

annual company retreat.

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Hi, my name is Arsenio Hall.

And I feel relieved about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

Hey, welcome to Conan O'Brien, needs a friend.

Sonia, did you finish your string cheese?

Sonia, I look over.

I'm about to start, and Sonia has string cheese hanging out her mouth, and she's shaking

her head like, don't go yet, don't go yet, you did it so fast.

You jammed it under the table.

Yeah, I did.

I'm holding it.

Okay.

Well, be proud of your string cheese, you know.

There you go.

There we go.

Yeah, how is it?

It's a good string cheese.

It is good.

Thank you for having it in the, in the fridge.

I didn't know we had string cheese.

You don't do the grocery shopping.

I used to, and then about a week ago, where I thought maybe I shouldn't do it anymore.

I would always be rushing out just before guests are here.

Al Pacino's almost here.

I've got to go to the market.

He likes his provalome.

The market.

The market.

That's right.

I said the market.

That's like where people in a fairy tale go shopping.

Papa Bear is down at the market with Goldilocks.

Sonia, good to see you.

Good to see you too, Bob.

And we're also joined, of course, Matt Gurley is out.

He's on the paternity leave, and we're very happy for him, but David Hopping's sitting

in with us.

Hello.

Yeah.

I'm here.

Wow, you light up a room.

All right.

Listen, you had that coming.

You know you did.

No.

No, you're a fantastic fellow.

Hey, thanks.

Yeah.

And you're about to move into a new apartment.

I am happy for you.

But you made the mistake of showing me a video of your apartment, and all I've done is

give you a hard time.

I was excited.

We were together whenever I got the email that we got approved, and I was like, oh,

here's the new apartment.

And ever since then, I've regretted everything.

Because I've used anything I saw in the apartment.

It's very nice.

Yeah.

It's two floors.

It's got two balconies, and I started to go after him like, oh, two floors, huh?

What am I paying you?

Oh, God.

You've got two balconies?

I don't have two balconies.

And so any time you open up to me as a friend, I quickly use it against you.

Yes.

You know what?

I don't want to speak anymore about our trivial matters because I am over the moon about

today's guest, very excited.

This is a guy who I have a lot of respect for.

I have a lot of respect for him.

And we have worked in a similar profession, and we have a lot of things, I think, in common.

And I just have always heard he's a lovely guy, and I'm so excited that we get to chat.

So let's get right into it.

My guest today is an actor.

He's a comedian.

He's a talk show host who now has a new book, and I've read this book, and it's great.

It's titled Arsenio Memoir.

I am just, well, this isn't a job.

This is just a really fun thing I get to do.

Arsenio Hall, welcome.

Relieved.

Relieved.

Why relieved?

See, I should have prepared.

Okay.

Being totally honest, if you have to take it out, take it out.

Last night, me and Howie Mandel arrived in Beverly Hills to do a benefit for abused

animals with Jay Leno.

Yeah.

So because this is last night, about eight o'clock, and I am thinking, get to bed, get up tomorrow

through Conan, and I'm looking at Jay in this green row.

And I don't keep up with all white folks' business, you know, I guess white.

I do.

I only keep up on white folks.

But I do remember that you all have friction and water under the bridge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, Jay, your friends are laughing.

Water under the bridge, but I thought about it and I'm like, wow, I hope Conan doesn't

hate me.

You know, because what?

No, no, no, because I, you know, Jay is like a big brother to me and we fought to me

and Jay, we're like, Kane and Abel, we're brothers, but we have almost killed.

He does.

He does.

I'm the better fighter.

I don't know.

No, no, no.

Jesus Christ.

No, no, no, I honestly, I'm just, I, this is going to sound so corny, but I am so happy

with my life and I get to do the things I want to do and I honestly don't think about

any of that stuff.

I really don't.

And I think of it.

White folks' business.

I honestly don't know what happened, but I do remember there was something I was breastfeeding

back in that era, you know, you just had a baby.

You were a medical miracle.

How did you, you're actually lactating right now.

You know, listen, I am, I, I, I still want you just to be a happy person in the world because

I was telling Adam today that I don't know when I've had a guest, I mean, I filled my

book with things I want to talk to you about.

I read your book, your memoir.

It's fantastic.

It's great.

I mean, really great.

And you have such a unique story and you're so honest in this book about everything about

how you were feeling.

And one of the first things you address in the book is you say, I want to write this book

because I want to clear up some misconceptions.

And one of the misconceptions about you is there are people out there that think you're

a recluse.

And you are not a recluse, you know?

You might be hanging out with the wrong people, but you're not a recluse.

And I'm talking about how he manned out.

No, but, no, but, but, but, but, Arsenio, you wrote this book to sort of tell your story

and it's, and it's a crazy story.

It's a fantastic story.

Yeah.

There are a lot of things that I'm sure people will read and say, that, that couldn't

have happened.

He was a magician.

Johnny was a magician.

So he thought, I'll do the, the, the, the, he was outside a park after playing basketball

with Mark Jackson and he saw Muhammad Ali doing a magic trick with a Kleenex.

You know, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes it sounds amazing and hard to believe, but I think I've just been blessed with

an incredible life, which is why I was so cool going home after quitting the show and

chilling.

Yeah.

You know, first of all, you and I both know what these shows take and then you were dealing

with a lot of stuff that I never had to deal with.

So I take my experience, which I thought was really difficult and I love the job as

you did, but it's difficult.

It's draining.

It takes everything you've got.

And then I think, okay, but Arsenio is dealing with a whole other layer that I didn't

have to deal with.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got, when you're doing your show and we'll get there because I want to do

a little of your origin story, but I want to get to, you know, it's 1989 and people forget

that your show starts in 1989 and even though that sounds like it's the modern era, there's

still stuff happening in 1989 where you're getting network notes, like don't say brother

so much on the show, you know, don't go into the audience too much because there are a lot

of black folks in the audience.

You're getting notes like that.

I think about that calculation, you dealing with that kind of stuff on top of everything

that I know about and I think that's an achievement to be present for all that and keep your

spirits up and do a great job.

And you know, my desire was to do the show and put people in the mix that weren't in

the mix.

But when I was a kid, I'd watch the tonight show or I don't know, Diana Shore.

You also watched a lot of daytime.

You watched Merv Griffin and it's really, it's, and Mike Douglas and you know what, there's

a lot of young people who don't know those people.

Those were guys that had talk shows in the day time and they had a certain kind of energy

that I think you brought consciously or unconsciously into late night, which is you didn't have

a desk because those guys didn't have a desk.

You.

By the way, when I took over Joan Rivers had a desk and my producer, you know, my dream

weaver, she made me get rid of it because she came to see me do stand up one night and

she says, I don't want anything in front of you in case you want to stand up in case you

want to move forward and it will create who we are.

Yes.

You, I mean, this is Marla Kelbrown, is that right?

Who you're a really good friend and your producer.

The two of you had this mission in mind, which is, and I just want to take people back for

a second because we're talking about it.

We might as well talk about it now and then we can get to the other stuff.

I remember when your show came on, people can forget how revolutionary that was.

You came out and you were doing a show that was completely different from anything that

was going on.

And in all fairness, you talked about daytime energy.

There was a lot of things that I picked up, things on my hard drive from my childhood.

There were times when I remember a specific day looking and seeing this new rapper that

I knew about, but the public didn't quite know about yet and his name was Fat Joe.

And he was with a friend who was on the show that day.

And I remember thinking Ed Sullivan used to have Diana Ross stand up.

So the mass public didn't know who he was, but my audience needs to know.

And that is what I thought my job was.

And I was like, you know, I didn't say it like over there in section V, you know, I didn't

do it that way.

But I said, yo, Fat Joe, stand up, take a bow.

And that was from my childhood scene, Ed Sullivan say, Diana Ross, take a bow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a horrible Sullivan.

But, you know, I didn't know that was Sullivan.

Yeah.

I know he thought it was a guy.

He's doing merrigan.

Yeah.

Or someone struggling with a neuromuscular disease.

That's what I was getting.

And I thought I had a problem with this week.

Yeah.

But I think the thing that I always really admired about you and to this day is that at

a time when everyone thought these late night talk shows are this certain kind of thing,

you came along and you said, I'm going to do what's right for me, what feels comfortable

for me.

So that sounds like an easy thing to do.

I remember the one of the first times I met Johnny Carson and he gave me advice.

He said, just be yourself until he saw who I was.

And he said, if you got anyone else, you can be, but, but, but it sounds like an easy

thing to do.

It's one of the hardest things to do in the world.

And you came along and you and your producer Marla and you're like, this is what the

set's going to look like.

There's going to be no desk.

We're not doing that.

This is going to be a party.

This is going to be everything that I've wanted my whole life.

Because in your book, you detail that even as a kid, you're pretending to be Johnny Carson,

you're pretending to be a talk show host.

You, Oprah would say you manifested this.

And you really did.

I mean, it's pretty kind of a talk show in my basement, the ghetto of Cleveland.

I'm also a magician.

And there's a recipe for getting your ass with every day, every day you walk to school,

you're going to get your ass beat, you know, give me a quarter, but do a trick with

it.

First mother fuck.

You know, that was my life.

They hit you in three pigeons fall out of your sleep.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's so fantastic.

No, you were, I mean, we're going to just jump around because that's the kind of

interview this is going to be.

We're going to jump all over the place, but this is going to be a jazz interview, jazz

interview.

And everyone loves jazz.

You go in, you go in with the things that you wanted to do and you, you did them right

away.

You were completely yourself.

And it was a phenomenon.

I mean, the show was, it's all anybody was talking about is a big hit.

And one of the things that people forget because TV is so different now, it's not even

called TV anymore.

It's just there's entertainment everywhere on all these different platforms.

Back then it was next to impossible to crack into one of these shows.

You do and you say, I'm going to do this completely my way.

And I remember the guests, I mean, these were not people you ever saw on television.

And these are the people you saw that they weren't making me turn down.

Like I was having ice cube stop by the studio and say, yo, dog, look at this and tell me

what you think, you know, and it would be him performing with NWA.

And I'm like, I can't even say the title, you know, Niggas with attitude.

And I went to Paramount.

I tried to get them on.

So there were people you didn't see because early on before you couldn't get them on.

Well, yeah, Paramount wouldn't let me put NWA on eventually.

I brought ice cube on and Dre on and and easy on separately after they broke up.

But in the beginning, Paramount would just say no.

After the show took off, I would push harder and say like, like I went through the same

type of meeting when iced tea came up with cop killer.

And I'm like, I want to do iced tea and I want to let him explain.

This whole thing he's going through right now with this album.

And they said, no, and I said, no, we're doing this one.

I stopped letting them say no, because I had a little bit of power.

And I'm like, I got to do this.

Otherwise, I'm murve.

Yeah.

You got to get the power first, you know, and you got the power and you start to exercise

it.

And I'm just going to, because this blows my mind, I was, again, I love the book.

Your guests, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, Miles Davis, Michael Jackson,

biggest star, one of the biggest stars in the history of the world.

You got Mike Tyson, Whitney Houston, Maya Angelou.

And she was so nervous.

Is this true that you guys, she wanted backstage.

She needed a little something to come her down.

Yeah.

And I think we were at this point where our green room wasn't supposed to have liquor

in it because something had gone wrong.

And she knocked on my door and she says, hi, baby, can we talk for a minute?

And she goes inside and I offer her a drink of what I have because somebody, a talent

coordinator had told me, you know, Maya wants just a little tidy to relax her.

And it became a tradition whenever she came on the show, you know, me and Maya went

in and had a little sip together.

It relaxed us.

I'm just curious.

It was a brown liquor.

I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was probably that stuff in the purple

bag.

You know, it's that brown stuff that goes, I think that's what I hate.

Crown Royal.

Yeah.

Crown Royal.

Crown Royal.

Yeah.

I did that, but it was cough syrup.

What?

And it wasn't Maya Angelou.

It was Al Roker.

Oh, wow.

That's a party.

Yeah, I was working a different thing, you know.

You had these people on.

You had this music on and there was, I mean, I remember nights where it was an event.

I remembered, I could be making this up, but I seemed to remember a night where like

Eddie Murphy's there and, you know, Eddie's the biggest thing on the plan.

And, you know, I think Michael Jackson comes by and you're looking at, oh, you know,

back in the day, I used to host the MTV Awards.

Yeah.

And like, I think I did it for three years, but one of those years, Michael couldn't

come to the MTV Awards.

So we made a deal that the award he was getting would be given to him on my show the next

week.

Wow.

And there was also an award in the film world for Eddie.

So I'm like, let's see if Eddie will come and Michael and Eddie can kiss each other's

ass.

You know, no, Michael and Eddie, okay, I tune in for that.

Michael and Eddie can each give the other an award and that's how we did it.

Michael said, Eddie, this is best comedian in the history of, you know, and Michael gave

him and Eddie is like, yeah, oh, it's Michael, so this one is for you and Eddie gave him

and it was the best segment ever.

Yeah.

So, especially with me and Eddie are out there and Michael walks out.

Yeah.

We knew he was walking out and it fucked us up.

Yeah.

No, but Michael, that was an event.

People talk about everyone's trying to make events happen on TV and I think they're

fewer and farther between.

They don't happen that often, but you come along at this moment.

This is just unprecedented, this is unprecedented and you brought all these entertainers that

meant so much to you and you bring them, you're so true to what you want to do that you

start getting it from both sides.

You get white people saying or white, you know, it's a network node, I think sometimes

they wouldn't, it's not a network node.

I shouldn't say that.

It's too black.

The show is too black.

And you're too black.

Okay.

Was that a thing that was actually said to you?

Oh, yeah.

We talk in meetings.

Nobody could text back then because it hadn't been invented.

And they would not only tell me you're too black, but they would give me examples of what

I shouldn't do and, you know, you mentioned one earlier.

We're calling everybody brother, but that was an interesting meeting because I went over

to an executive's office and they said, I was listening to the show because the executives

would have monitors on watching everything.

And the executive said to me, stop calling your guest brother.

And I said, what do you mean?

It's tonight.

I'm listening to the show and all I hear is your brother this and brother that.

And that sounds like it's not inclusive to your larger audience and what they didn't

do was pay attention to who I was talking to.

Because I was calling Mark Wahlberg brother.

He was with Marky Mark and the funky bunch.

And so what they learned with me is, yeah, there are a lot of things I'm doing that maybe

need to be ironed out or changed, but pay attention because I call everybody brother.

And some of this stuff, if Mr. Rogers was on, you'd say, hey, yeah, Mr. Rogers had identical

jackets that we picked out for the show one night.

And I was like, brother Rogers, yeah, but you know, that's, you get that, okay?

Which people would probably, and the one more thing, and you know, the hardest part,

the hardest part is when black people come at you, they come at you with bars and spit

like when ice cube was mad, he found something that Ryan would arsenale.

You know, and released a track, you know, people asked me, yeah, you know, when you

know I'm thinking, when you make strison, man, it's not as much a problem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But but ice cube, that motherfucker.

Well, since what I want to talk about, you know, people ask me if I like the bicentennial.

I hate it and I hate our cine, yo, it was some shit like that.

It wasn't his best rhyme, but you know, that's the point I'm making is that you, yes,

you're getting, you're getting these notes from white people saying it's too black,

but you're also at the same time getting black from the black community saying it's not

black enough.

Yeah.

And you get some flack from, you know, Spike Lee, and you get some flack from some other

people who say, this hasn't gone far enough.

And why is it as their own before me, excuse me, why is this the black show, right?

Yeah.

I thought things would be different.

And the fuck is Ed Azner coming out before me on the black show too.

Yeah.

You know, and it was rough.

It was because I have a flaw in my personality.

I love to please.

I love to make people know what you're talking about.

I want them to go home.

You know, I want Mike Epps to go home happy, you know, and sometimes you just can't make

everyone happy.

But I tried for six years.

Well, this is the thing is that you're in this bind because you can't make everybody happy.

You just can't all the time.

Spike Lee was angry because I simply couldn't give him the day he wanted.

You know, sometimes when you're rolling out a movie, if the movie opens tonight back

in the day, movie opens tonight in the theaters.

Spike wants to be that Friday night guest, also knowing, you know, and this is just an

example, also knowing, say, for instance, that more people might watch on a Friday because

they don't have to work on a Saturday and sometimes numbers on a Friday are better than

Monday.

But he had a specific day he wanted, and we were already booked with our first guest

out.

And he got angry at me.

And you know, and that stuff happens every day back then you build up a thick callus on

your heart because you get attacked every day by somebody for something.

Okay.

That I don't believe because you strike me, I think we, there are some similarities between

us.

I think that I try to pretend things don't hurt me, but they do.

And I know you, and everyone knows you to be a really decent, good person.

I think that it did really bother you, probably, to get it hurts because you're so trying

to make everyone happy with this show.

And then suddenly you're thinking, okay, I accept that there's a white executive who doesn't

understand, but I would, I would, I would, they fight Lee, why would you say, I want to

do two numbers with Bobby Brown.

And they'll say, the model and, and you realize yo struggle is straight up here, it's going

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I just do.

I've been an incredible work ethic.

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

I demand that it be portable.

It's a great snackle come out and it's over 600 pounds.

I can't lug that around.

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It's great for a grab and go option busy.

I'm going to grab my NutraGrain bar, chomp chomp.

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Yeah.

You can choose between strawberry flavored NutraGrain for delicious classic or new NutraGrain

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You didn't see that come and did you?

Do you guys think you're hard working enough to merit these new NutraGrain bars?

I'm obvious.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know if there's more hard working assistance.

Okay.

Tell me what you do and I will assess if you're hard working enough.

You know what?

You look really nice today.

I massage your ego, which is important because you go up in front of an audience.

So you don't mean it?

No.

Okay.

I look terrible.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, you know what?

That does take a lot of energy to lie to a man with an incredibly fragile ego.

Yeah.

And you've been doing that for years.

For years.

That's a ton of work.

I think you might merit a new NutraGrain barber.

Thank you.

See about David Hopping.

David, what do you do?

I want to state the obvious.

You're here right now, which means that this recording was in your calendar.

There you go.

You look back there.

There you go.

You look back there.

So you think you are hard working because you clicked into a computer and typed.

You know what?

And then hit save.

I'm proud of both of you.

You're both.

Your both hard workers.

Yeah.

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Going back to your origin story, your dad was a preacher and very charismatic, performing

preacher and you're looking up, admiring this guy and you talk in your book about how

it meant the world to you to try and police him and that you're still trying to do that

to this day you go through and I know what you're talking about because my parents are

very loving.

I wanted attention from them.

I wanted to make them laugh and that is kind of the chemistry behind everything you

do.

And here I am all these years later and they're gone, but I do think they're still part

of me.

It's trying to win them over.

And so there's so many things in your book where I go like, oh my god, I understand.

My dad's a microbiologist.

He's not a preacher.

But it's the same thing.

Did he want you in the family business?

I kind of think he wanted all of us to get into one of us to be a doctor and then he

quickly saw easy idiots.

I don't want them operating on me.

So he was happy that I got into comedy.

But I mean, don't you want me to be a preacher so bad, Conan, that he would bring me holding

my hand into the pulpit on a Sunday morning and sit me down next to his guest pastor or

assistant pastor.

And so my life was watching the congregation and watching my dad from the back.

As a matter of fact, in coming to America, when I told John Landis about my background,

John Landis the director of coming to America, he created these shots when the preachers

on stage at the black awareness page and he created these shots that were really me describing

to him my experience watching people.

Yes, Lord.

That's what I saw.

I saw that lady.

I saw my dad from the back, you know, well, you know, I was, again, we're jumping around,

but I love this because I have it in my notes, like coming to America with all my stand-up

is.

Yeah.

But no, it's just like Miles Davis with some kind of fintin' all of some, you know, it's

like, but this I like.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I'm sorry.

But no, but this is, this is, this is how it's going to be because this is the best way.

But I have come into America, like, 75 exclamation points because yeah, Eddie's great in that film.

You are so good in that movie.

That is such a great performance.

And I remember when you were the preacher and I didn't know that your dad was a preacher

and then I read in the, in your book that of course you could play that part, but I think

you channeled your dad.

And my, my mother was a male barber.

So I was able to channel that to a barber shop.

I mean, and, and I also didn't know that you made coming to America while you're waiting

to kind of hear about whether you're not, you're going to get your own show.

Yeah.

And there's this downtime and that's when you and Eddie, who were friends at the time

and he brought you in and the suddenly you're making this movie together, that's some project

before you start your big show.

Yeah.

And they turned coming to America down.

We went and pitched it at Paramount and they said, no, thank you.

And we were like, give us some notes.

What should we do?

And they were like, we're not sure, but you know, it's a fish out of water.

We've seen this a billion times.

And coming to America at that time didn't have the barber shop.

It didn't have the preacher.

Didn't have Eddie as the old Jewish man.

It was a guy named Ned Tan and I believe who was running Paramount who eventually gave

us notes.

And he said, everybody wants to see Eddie do characters again.

Eddie misses SNL.

How about if the people you meet in America are played by Eddie?

And I was sitting there saying, could I get y'all a drink?

And it's Eddie that said, I saw our Sunil do stand up on this HBO thing and he does this

thing about Jesse Jackson.

I know he can do a great preacher and we can come up with some barbers and Eddie came

up with the specific characters.

And I just sat there shaking because I'm like, I got to do characters with Eddie Murphy.

That's like since, you know, check Jordan, you know, lock that motherfucker down.

So I was a nervous wreck going into coming to work.

You're great.

You're great.

Thank you.

That's up and this I need to explain to people because I don't know if people understand

that you're actually because it's really fascinating.

There's a whole part of your book.

I think people should read because it's really lovely about you as a kid.

You take up magic.

We also have something else in common.

I was a different kid as you can imagine and you're a different kid.

We both had names.

No one had ever heard before.

So you're our sinneo.

I'm Conan.

If you have the same thing, but my dad didn't even know about Conan and the barbarian.

That wasn't a big thing when I was growing up.

It wasn't like a known thing yet.

So people used to get really hung up on my name and I'm a strange kid with like a giant

pompadour.

And they're like, what is this Conan guy?

And I swear to God, sometimes if they give you a name like that, it makes you become something

interesting.

It's a weird theory, but you're a one name celebrity even when you're a kid.

You're a sinneo.

Yeah.

And people must have thought, what the hell is in our sinneo?

Yes.

Yes.

Because there are no our sinneos anywhere.

You know?

There never has been in our, we've got a national man hunt for an our sinneo.

I did something like that like a few years ago and they're like 18 of them now worldwide

and a lot of them were born around when the talk show was on.

But back in the day, you were in Cleveland and you at the basketball court in the ghetto

of Cleveland and people are picking up and it's like, I got Lee Roy, let me have no

neck.

Tyrone, you with us are sinneos and you're, and you're there in a magician's hat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's been, our sinneos got in a magician's hat.

Yes.

And you're like, well, look what I can do.

I'm like, the smell of fuck with a cake dunking on people and you and, and people need

to know you were, you were really serious about, you were really serious about the magic

and you took the magic pretty far.

You were good and you were getting up on stage and you were getting on TV shows, getting

on TV shows as a magician.

I mean, people don't know that.

You were a, the real deal, they flew me to, they flew me to New York the first time I

ever left Cleveland.

They flew me to New York to do a PBS show and, and I did my vanishing candelabra, which

was something I'd never done on television.

I mean, just, so you're, you're, you're that guy and then at one point someone sees you

do your act and you, of course, funny is in your bones.

You were being funny in between the, the, the, the, the, the tricks you were doing or

the illusions you were doing and someone said more of that, but the, the comedy, you should

be doing the comedy.

You can't hurt my feelings, though, because, because back then my soul is, you know, I'd

had dinner with Harry Blackstone, Jr.

Yeah.

My soul was that of a magician.

And when this guy, Hank Morehouse in Yipselanti, Michigan, says to me, you should get rid

of the magic.

And do you know what a stand up comic is?

You should be a stand up comic.

I, because I would take tricks, like I had a trick where you tie two handkerchiefs together.

We call them silks.

And, uh, and I put the handkerchiefs in your shirt and then I take another silk, which

by the way, this became what Ali was doing in front of the playground.

When you saw him, you saw him, yeah, so, so I do this.

This silk disappears and it appears between the two that are put down here in your shirt.

But what I would do is I would do the trick twice.

The first time I'd get a, a lady from the audience, I put the two silks in her shirt.

And when I first pull them out, her bra comes out in between the two silks.

I'm 10.

Yeah.

You know.

You know.

Tell me because you were canceled at 10.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's hard to do.

And now you can't even, you can't even touch a lady's, you know, so, so this guy was

saying, you're making adults laugh.

And I, I remember, and then I do the trick again, I, I make it happen correctly, but the silk

appears in the middle.

And I remember Tony Lipford, a little girl who lived in my building when I went to,

I went to New York to do this and went to Colin Michigan to do the convention.

She would let me use this training bra.

And it was important because my mother's bra and all my aunts bras, they were like parachutes.

They were huge.

Yeah.

You know.

I, I have, you know, my, my aunt Mabel, she never had a bank account, my aunt Mabel.

She used to have $400 and a Kleenex at church.

And for the bride, $30,000 in quarters, go flying, and two people died from suffocation.

But Tony Lipford loaned me a little training bra because we were the same age and it was

one of those bras that almost has no cup.

Yeah.

You know, and that, that was easy to use and make that trick work.

So someone sees you, you start doing stand up and this is when your life takes a major

chance because you're doing stand up, you're getting really good.

By the way, in Cleveland, while I'm watching TV one night, my grandmother's in Cleveland

at the house I'm living in, I'm in Kent, at Kent State.

I'm watching TV and I see a street, you know, how they interrupt the news.

I see a street and it's on fire and these houses are burning and one of them looks like

a house at the corner of my grandmother's street and I realize the whole neighborhood's

going up.

That's my grandmother's house.

I jump in a car and I drive from Kent State to Cleveland.

My house burns down that night and that's where all the magic equipment was.

So I was forced to get funny and get more bras.

Yeah.

It's like, but it's like divine intervention again.

It's like, okay, I'm going to be a stand up and you start to get to the point where you

could get potentially a booking on the show, tonight's show with Johnny Carson, but their

bookers like, yeah, you're not a Johnny guy.

You're not a Johnny guy, which, you know, is now sounds ridiculous and insane.

But I get it.

The show had a distinct personality.

You know, you have a stationality.

I wasn't surprised when I saw Deon Cole on your show.

You have a stationality that's very specific to your brand of humor and your demographic

and everything.

And for me, I got that Bobby Kelton and Argus Hamilton.

Those were Johnny guys.

Those are the gatekeepers.

Yeah.

Tonight's show.

Yeah.

And Johnny liked them.

Tom Driesen had done, you know, 4,000 tonight show appearances.

Right.

And I waited for Joan to go on one Monday and I knew I was probably more a Joan guy.

And I got on the first time with Joan and then got to sit with Johnny when I come into

America.

So to instruct everyone who doesn't know, this interesting thing happens.

Joan Rivers is a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's tonight show.

She gets offered her own show.

She does it.

Causes a major feud with Carson because he does not like that.

She's on Fox.

She does the show.

It implodes.

It doesn't work.

It comes apart.

But you had gone on that show as a standup.

I just stand up.

You had been successful on that show.

And then when Joan leaves, they need someone to kind of, this thing's still on.

So many of you guys.

11 weeks with just a set.

Yeah.

And Joan leaves.

She's not coming back.

I think Edgar, her husband, killed himself.

He did.

So that ship had sailed.

And they went through a lot of guys letting them have the show for one night.

From Wally Cox to Malcolm Jamal Warner to Suzanne Summers, because I remember Suzanne Summers

did very good.

And in the end, they were choosing between me and Suzanne Summers.

Wow.

That's so.

So you come on and then they more or less say, Hey, Arsenio, you're really good at this.

Why don't you just, this show is ending.

Why don't you take over till it ends?

Now, here's the thing you don't know.

That show ends.

And there's kind of a feeling like, wow, that Arsenio guy did really well.

He's going to come back.

Okay.

And here's the thing you don't know.

There's a replacement show after Joan show.

Wilton North.

The Wilton North.

I do know this now.

Okay.

So the Wilton North report gets announced.

This guy is going to put on a show.

There's no host for it yet, but they get some writers before they even have the host,

which is kind of unheard of.

And I get this call and my writing partner and I go in and we get offered jobs to write.

We need work.

We haven't worked in a bit.

So we say, sure, we'll do it.

We don't know what this is.

Who are the hosts?

They say, we don't know yet.

We're going to find them.

And so one of the first meetings we had, you were still, I think, finishing up your show.

And we were just having an early introductory meeting.

I leave and I hear there's something I go, it says, right, I need to eat around here

and they go, yeah, there's a snack room in there.

I go into the snack room and I see you.

And you were at the refrigerator getting something and I said, oh, I knew who you were.

I'm like, that's the guy who's been, you know, you weren't holding down the fort.

You were holding down the fort and I was like, oh, hey, and you were so nice to me.

You were like, oh, hey, hey, you were very gracious.

And you were like, I am so, I am so glad this story goes like that.

No, no, excuse me, white meat.

Well, you did call me white meat, but you were very nice about it.

You were like, you are really white meat, and I'm like, well, white meat.

Yeah, and then, no, but I remembered you being really nice and I went back to the room

and I went, oh, I, I, because I was, you know, super young.

And there's a guy who's been on TV for a couple of weeks.

And I knew, I recognized you and that's like a big deal.

So I was like, oh, I just saw the, you know, the guy, is it our sannyel, is it?

You were just new.

So we, we work on that show, we're way behind the scenes.

It implodes.

I hear two DJs from Northwest, right?

San Diego, San Diego.

There were two DJs from San Diego and they, they hired them and it wasn't their fault.

It was just a weird, you got to start with the person.

You got to start with the person.

You can't, or talk show, you all know, because you work for Conan, but, but that guy is

the engine.

You can take a body of a car.

We've seen this done.

I saw, Jay Leno, I, don't apologize, I, you know, I saw you.

You're a problem.

That's not my problem.

I, I, I, I noticed guy who's a mechanic.

And he put, he put a helicopter engine in a truck.

Sure.

Yeah.

It ran different than a Chevy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The motor.

Yeah.

We're the motor.

So this mechanic, he was like, he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got to go.

I got to go.

Yeah.

I got to go.

I got to go.

I got to go.

I got to go.

I got to go.

I was gonna cut the lot of money and wait a lot of time.

So I thought, baby, I do it.

But anyway, whatever this guy's name is, he's, he's having fun.

That's the important thing.

This is what I was afraid of.

This is what I have.

Oh, my.

But, so this is, this could be my favorite episode ever.

Seriously, and I have this man to thank.

But, but you know, so I met you, then they decide, okay,

this, this Arsenio kid has something,

and Paramount, you get the syndication deal,

and your show starts, and here's the thing

people have to remember, I remember this very well,

your show started, I think, at the very beginning

of 1989, like early January.

Yeah, I wanted to get away from the September cluster,

that's when they make everyone, that's when I had to go,

September 13th, it's when a lot of shows start,

you show up, it's like second week of 1989,

and it is a smash immediately,

and here's the thing that's really interesting,

you talk in your book about your ratings were huge,

I think you were second to Johnny that first week,

but what you had is you had 35 and younger,

your demo was through the roof,

and what's interesting is that was good news for you then,

but what you couldn't possibly know is today,

to have a demo like that, that means you're on the air

for the rest of your life, the demo is more important

than how many people are watching you,

and I think you existed at the time for advertising,

for advertising, because now, I mean,

for a chunk of my career, it's the demo that saved me,

it wasn't that everyone in America wanted to see me,

it's the young people who buy things wanted to see me,

and that's what made a difference and saved me,

I think that you were in a much more difficult time

where you had a great demo,

and then you're also expected to get everyone

in the country watching you, which is complicated.

You know what I mean?

I mean, first of all, I just think that that was a challenge

you had that no show can pull off today,

no show can do that.

You know, even when you deal with the world of comedy,

I had an audience that was loving when I bring on

a new guy like Chris Tucker, but if you like Chris Tucker,

you probably don't like Argus Hamilton.

You know, it's a different thing,

and for me to be a different show every night

is very complicated, it was tough to balance it,

and they were telling me, especially around the time

when Johnny was about to leave,

they were telling me, if you do the right show,

you can inherit the King's Kingdom.

They'll come here when Johnny leaves,

because we don't even know what they're gonna do,

and who they're gonna replace him with,

that was all a mystery,

so they were really pressing me at that time,

because like I would get a call

from Michael Bivens of New Edition,

and Michael Bivens would say,

I just signed four guys out of Philly called Boys to Men,

and I'm not finished with the album yet,

but I would love to tell them

that when we finish, they're coming on your show,

and it'll inspire them and everything.

I said, even better than that,

might bring them next week,

and I've always wanted to put the temptations on,

because I used to tour with them,

and they were my heroes.

I want to put Boys to Men and the temptations altogether.

Like I want to have 40 niggas doing choreographer, you know?

And so, so let's have the temptations and Boys to Men,

and it's a beautiful line of men performing the old,

the new Boys to Men's Idol,

my idols, and stuff like that.

Paramount was like, you're not gonna get Johnny's audience

doing this, right?

And so they wanted me to change my persona.

I remember one time them saying,

could you get rid of the earrings, you know?

But that happened, and by the way,

that's not a black thing.

I've seen producers tell how he man-deil

to take off his earrings, you know,

or make them smaller or whatever that.

That's just what they think the culture in America wants to see,

and I would have like a nice jacket,

but my jeans would be ripped, you know?

And they were like, there's no reason to have your jeans ripped.

You know, one time I carved adidas stripes

in the side of my head,

because that was happening, then, not for y'all, but-

Yeah, yeah, yeah, David,

what did you have carved in the side of your head?

Yeah, the lyrics from Frozen, like that.

Yeah, just let it go, let it go.

Let it go around his head.

That's hilarious.

It's just really cool.

He was in a different culture than the Midwest.

But you can imagine when you do something like that,

they're like, yo, no, no, no.

But here's the thing, they forget that this idea

that you have to get everybody into the tent is incorrect.

If you want to be ruthlessly yourself,

which you understood, and it's been always been my credo,

you got to do your thing,

and if it doesn't work for you,

or if it doesn't feel authentic,

it's your job not to do it.

But you are doing television at a time

when you're at the forefront of a lot of this, you know?

I mean, there were a lot of people

who the first time they saw,

I mean, a black person with their own show,

and a late night show, which is, it's just unheard of.

So you're the first person doing that,

and the first is hard.

You know what I mean?

It's, and you must have so many people

that have come up to you over the years,

and said like, no, I grew up watching you,

and I saw whatever, my values,

what I like reflected back at me, and that's massive.

Yeah, I get enough love in the streets,

that I never have to work again, man,

and you forget, you forget.

Somebody reminded me in Vegas,

I go to see Bruno Mars, and the dude backstage says,

I remember when you put him on,

and I forget things like that,

Bruno Mars was like an embryo, you know?

I mean, you know, they were,

he was born on your show, you delivered him.

Oh, he was performing and slipped in some placenta

when he did, just one, you know what?

He made it look cool.

Oh, he slid all the way across the street.

That's Bruno.

But, you know, his dad and the people around him

were kind of secretive about his actual age,

but I think he was like five, you know?

And I still have people come up and say, dude,

and the cool thing also is they're not always black.

Sometimes it's a white dude who's a lawyer,

who says, we used to stay in and watch you,

then we'd go out on a Saturday night, back east, you know?

Well, here's the thing you knew.

What I could tell is something authentic

and new is happening here.

And that has nothing to do with race.

That has nothing to do with.

This is just someone who knows what he wants to do

and has a vision and is expressing himself

and bringing all these different people in.

And it wasn't just, I mean, you have people like Prince,

you have all these incredible performers come on

who weren't doing other shows.

But Madonna is coming up.

People that don't do these shows are showing up on

Robert De Niro.

Robert De Niro, that was his first talk show.

Yeah.

You know, I could get him though,

because I had a lot of black women on the staff, you know?

Well, if he's going to do a show,

he's going to be this show.

I got a lot of sisters named Tukki on the staff, you know?

And at the same time, at the same time,

well, Tukki.

Hey, we got a, where's my Tukki?

Where's Tukki?

At the same time, while this is going on

and I'm experiencing this life, I'm leaving the lot,

you know, and there are other people in the lot

like Ted Danson doing cheers or Mary Hart

doing entertainment tonight.

I leave the lot one night and the guards ask

if they can search my car because some instruments

from my show, Stage 29, the Posse, the band,

some instruments have been stolen

and we're supposed to search all the cars

leaving the lot tonight.

And of course, that's when I become black.

You know, that's when I get too black

because you're the host of the most successful show

and don't get me wrong.

I'm sure Mike Douglas steals, you know,

from time to time when he was here on Earth,

but it was just, sometimes you're going through stuff

and that's the straw that broke the camels back

in a moment and I did things that I should not have done.

But I was like, you're not searching my mother fucking car.

Did you search Ted Danson's car?

You're not searching my fucking car.

I'm a part owner in my show

and the instruments that was stolen,

that's money out of my pocket, motherfucker.

I don't steal my own shit

and they give me that shit free.

If you want a E3 or a Clavinet,

you know how many basic guitars I have at home

and Fenders just were sending you another chest

and a precision in the man, you know.

So it was just absurd and me and this guy

that I was rolling with, we break the gate,

you know, the gate that goes up and down.

We broke that motherfucker off.

Those are not very strong those gates.

They need, you know, I think everyone's on your side

on this gate breaking thing.

But yeah, so I got in a lot of trouble

for the problems at the gate that night,

but I was just, you got it.

That's insane.

Yeah, you know, but Lucy Sohani called me the next day

and she's like, come over and let's talk

about what happened at the gate last night,

but I was pissed and I didn't handle it right.

And if a young comic asked me for advice, I'd say,

you know, don't get into it with the guys

and don't break the gate off if they say you can't leave,

you know, but I was like, you gonna hold me?

You're not gonna, it's not gonna happen.

You're not searching my car and you're not keeping me here.

I thought it was amazing.

Doing your show and the LA riots start.

And I lived in LA then and it was,

that was, I think I was working on the Simpsons

when the LA riot, I was, when we were on the Simpsons,

I'm on the second floor, we're working on the Simpsons

and we can tell things are, you know,

the air's the office.

We were on the Fox lot.

Cause you could look, you could go on the roof

of some of those buildings and see smoke

from South Africa.

We started to hear, we heard about the verdict,

we hear that there's violence breaking out

and of course whoever was running the show at the time

was like, well, we gotta get this, you know,

what does Marge say next?

We don't know what Marge says next

and some of us are thinking,

can we just go check the TV?

Hold on, does Homer speak here?

I think it should be Marge's line.

And then someone went out to get make a cup of water

or something and was standing on the balcony

and saw just all this smoke.

No, at some point we're all watching TV

and we see Reginald Denny dragged out of a concrete truck.

He's dry, he's dry out of a truck

and hit her over their blocks.

Cinder blocks, yeah.

And it was, you know, it, it, uh,

so I jumped to my car at Simpsons

and I drive back to my apartment

cause the, the guy said, what's,

let's figure out that Marge line later.

Everybody go home and so it was a very strange upsetting

obviously time and you were advised,

well, you can't do your show.

Yeah.

And you said, I'm doing my show

and you had very strong reasons

for why you thought it's important

for me to do my show right now, which were.

But, but yet, by the way, as, as an EP,

I understood where they were coming from.

They were talking about insurance,

they were talking about somebody getting hurt.

Yep.

You know, I got what they were saying,

but I also got that this ain't the time

to shut up and dribble.

Yeah.

You know, this is a time for an entertainer

to use his vehicle in some way.

And I understood that at that point,

I thought, maybe this is the night

I booked somebody like FairCon.

I got a book somebody that can reach

the brothers out in the street

because I think we're about to tear up our own neighborhoods.

Yeah.

And obviously everybody thought that would distract

from what I'm trying to do and what's going on

and it would be bigger than the riots.

And I said, oh, yeah, no, I get that.

And so we got Tom Bradley, Sean Penn popped by,

Sinbad, everybody.

And then I invited 200 members of first A&Me in my church.

So I put my church, they signed waivers

and everybody sat in the audience

and we did the show that night.

Which a billion things are going into my mind

because I also remember Tom Bradley.

Sean Penn brought a guy with him

and Paramount sent a lawyer out to say,

the guy with Sean Penn, we can't talk to him.

So don't go over there.

And to this day, I, okay, okay, I had so much on my mind.

To this day, I wonder who that guy was.

And it's also interesting because from Ice Cube

to Minister FairCon, I look now at what you guys are going through

and being told what to do, what not to do,

who to book with Colbert and who not to book.

And Trump wasn't in my mix, but it's funny

because I never thought to publicly talk about me being censored.

Yeah.

Or publicly talk about them not letting me have someone

that I want to have because politically that person is wrong

or whatever.

I also remember when I booked Bill Clinton,

I grew up thinking that you always bring the other side.

And I thought that was a law, but I guess it's changed

or it's vacillated a little bit these days.

But I remember putting an offer out to Mr. Bush.

Yeah.

I wanted both of them, but he can't play saxophone.

He can't play saxophone.

I mean, tell me about another thing.

That's in history books.

Bill Clinton with the Ray Bands playing saxophone.

With Ray Bands and my tie.

Yeah.

On your show, that hadn't happened.

You know, I mean, all these things were happening

that were resonating, you know, throughout the country.

I mean, that's a moment that's going to endure.

And the thing I'm thinking about is your instinct

about have the other side.

I think you had this idea of let's open up the house,

invite everybody in and see what happens.

And if you lead with goodwill,

and that's the, because you're always about goodwill,

we lead with goodwill and we get everyone together in a room,

I don't have to agree with everybody,

but this is going to be interesting.

And to me, that's, that's a nice sentiment.

And sometimes now people get so locked into being angry

about everything that we're not inviting the other people in.

Yeah.

I remember having the first openly gay stand up comic on

a young lady named Leah Delaria,

who went on to do oranges and new blacks.

She's great.

She's terrific.

She walked out.

I'm a big bike.

You know what she, and I'm like,

whoa, I have no paramount.

We'll be over later after the show to talk to me.

They're no longer worried about the gay.

Yeah, yeah.

Forget the gay.

What the hell was that?

Yeah, it was, so it was, it was tough.

It was a tough time because they didn't want any of that.

They wanted me to just cool out, dude,

and wait for Johnny to leave.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Man, tax time.

Tax season.

It's stressful.

Yeah, it is.

In the old way of doing taxes was such a pan that gave you

a shoe box with your receipts.

Yep.

You're scared, you're nervous.

You're like, wondered, I buy this.

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One of the things that I didn't know is that you decide,

you do this for six years,

which is a real stretch.

These are hard shows and you're doing it.

As I said, you're carrying a heavier backpack

than certainly than myself and other hosts.

Or a different backpack.

Because I also don't like to put myself in a position

where, oh, it's tougher for me.

Everybody has some burden to bear.

Okay, that's fair.

I'll give you that.

That's fair, but I reading your story

and seeing what it is that you were dealing with.

I have crazy respect.

I'll put it that way.

Crazy respect for what you did

and that you always kept it.

Like I say, the emphasis on goodwill

and let's try it.

That spirit of let's get boys to men and attentions

and see what happens.

That's a beautiful thing.

What I didn't know is that you start to burn out.

You're like, I think I've got to stop doing this.

I need to put this down and you go to Paramount

and you write them a letter and you say,

I'm going to leave and they say, okay,

well, don't say anything about it yet.

And they sit on the letter and they tell you,

you can't tell anybody.

So you keep doing your job,

but you have every intention of leaving

and then they announce that they're ending it.

Which is, I don't have another word.

It's just a shitty thing to do.

I don't think they realize how important truth is

in the long run.

In that moment, it's like, I will beat you,

but they don't realize I'm a human being.

I'm a person with a legacy

and I want to inspire people to know not just black kids,

but to know dream and you can win.

And I want my story to reflect the truth

of what that journey was like and what that ending was like.

I've seen two books.

My son is involved with a bookstore in Lamert Park

and I raised him right.

He could have done it in Beverly Hills,

but he's doing it in Lamert Park

and doing a lot of business over there.

And one day he shows me two books that are about me.

And it's one of the times when I said,

I gotta write a book.

I just didn't know how to go about it

because I realized I don't even know these books exist

or who these authors are.

We tried to search one of the authors

and it's not even a real name.

It was written under an alias.

And I'm like, she didn't even want me to know

she was telling this stuff about me, you know?

So I really wanted to leave a book on this earth

that I wrote about me.

And it's also, it's really important

people to know that you were like,

this now needs to end and I want to end it

and go out on my note and then...

Am I put the letter in the book?

Yeah, it's there.

And remember when you used to fax things

and it was on that kind of paper

that like a cocaine dollar bill rolls back up

Oh, do I know?

Do I know?

It was that kind of old, horrible paper

and it doesn't last well.

And that creates a misconception

that, oh, because you know,

very publicly disagreed with a lot of the things

that Farrakhan was saying and rightfully so,

but you wanted to confront him about those things

and talk about it.

And of course that got everybody freaked out.

And so there was this perception

that Paramount was saying because you talked to Farrakhan,

your show has to go when you had sent them

a letter long before saying I'm ending this show.

Yeah.

And they told me they said,

let's get together with the publicists.

Let's decide the way to position this

and how to send out, back then we would send out a press release.

You know, now you treat it.

Yeah, or you do Snapchat

so they don't have it next month.

You know, I didn't quit.

What the fuck?

No, talk about it.

Show me.

Yeah, show me where I quit.

I won't receive it.

But they kind of fucked me up.

It was like a relationship that,

that's how these things tend to end.

I have to tell you these talk shows.

Yeah, they tend to end that way.

We've kind of been through yours with the net.

Yeah, you go through this stuff,

and they have more power and more ink than us.

So they're always good.

But then you realize that, you know,

I think like you, I've always tried to take the attitude.

I was really lucky.

Just very lucky person.

That easily could not have come my way.

And I think I'm a hard worker,

and I think I have some ability.

But mostly it's a lot of luck.

And people need to hear that.

Yeah, and I, it's not just talent.

Yeah.

I saw a prince get booed when he first hit.

I think he was opening for the Rolling Stones.

Nobody had more talent than prince,

but it's luck and timing that goes with that talent.

I know a lot of talented people,

funny people, great musicians.

That doesn't...

Yeah, and trust me,

I have made it a life's mission to say,

you can maximize your chance of getting luck

by working really hard,

and by being a pleasant person to work with.

But this book also makes it clear

that you were working so hard,

and you had all these different arcs before we got to know you.

And I mean, I didn't know anything about the magician stuff.

It maybe wanted to cancel this book.

You know what I love, too, that's in the book.

The time that you're outside a comedy club,

and you don't know Eddie Murphy that long.

You guys are just, and you're like hanging up

by a parking meter outside the comedy club.

He hadn't met him at all.

He hadn't met him at all.

And Keenan Wains is going to introduce

us.

Yeah.

And you're chatting with him,

and you confess to him that you were,

spent a lot of your career as a magician,

and then he confesses to you that he was a ventriloquist.

What?

Yes.

And here's another crazy part.

I talk about this in the book.

There's a night, and you'll relate to this.

This is just for me, and you're right here.

You ever asked the guest that question,

and they've decided that what their pre-interview

had in it, or whatever their publicists told you,

they don't want to talk about that.

So I say to my friend, because I know this is a great area.

And I know that he, you know, at home,

I know we've smoked a joint at some point,

and he's done send your winces.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know I've seen the ship.

Sure he has.

Right.

And that shit is funny.

And this guy could afford a dummy.

Yeah.

He said lipstick right here, you know, and so.

So I say to him, and I know I can lay back,

because this is going to be two minutes.

And I say, so you were a ventriloquist,

and that motherfucker says, no.

Oh.

Yes, and more than it moves on you.

But you were a magician.

Yeah, yeah.

And we go from there.

And I couldn't believe he begged me like that,

but he didn't want to do that shit.

Yeah, yeah.

He didn't want to talk about me.

But recently, I've kind of been exonerated

from the House of Lies, because he did a documentary recent.

Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

And in the documentary, my fucking decided to tell the truth.

You know, but their law on TV, in that moment,

he left you hanging.

Oh man.

And you have no idea.

I didn't feel exonerated until recently,

when he's on his little documentary,

and he's got a Richard Prior and a Bill Cosby

ventriloquist, don't we?

And he's like, this is the way I am in games with the police

in his head.

I don't know why this motherfucker put people to sleep like that.

And he's doing this.

And I'm like, yes, yes, I told you motherfucker.

He was a ventriloquist lying fast.

You know, that's when you're yelling at your TV.

Three in the morning.

Yes, they have to take you away.

Oh, yes.

My wallet puts me in another room.

Let me go.

Let me go.

What's the better episode than this episode?

Oh, this is fun.

No, you've had some fun stuff.

Yeah, yeah, guess what?

I don't know.

I don't know.

This was, this is just insane.

We got to, I mean, we got to do a part two sometime.

We really do.

Yes.

How long have we been in here?

I don't know.

I want five minutes.

This is much more than we do.

We don't stand up.

We'd go like that.

Yeah, but you know what?

We got to do a part two sometime.

I just want to make sure you got to get this book.

Arsenio a memoir because it's beautiful.

It's really funny.

It's an incredible story.

And even if they don't read, get the book.

Get the book because you can, you can, if you've got a table

that's uneven in your home.

Yes.

Yeah.

Or the microwave.

Sit on something, sturdy, or I hate to quote other comics

because sometimes that can be perceived as stealing.

But I love Chris Rocks' take on books.

You know, it's like, how'd your money go?

That's the last place.

A nigga going to look.

You know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So get the book and put some minute to hat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It is, I was so excited today for you to come in.

And I'll tell you this too, I have so many friends, so many writers of mine.

People I know who are stand-ups, they've worked with you, they've bumped into you.

Universally, everybody says, you are an unfailingly nice person.

You're a really good person.

And that means the world to me too.

Except that guard at Paramount.

Oh, come on.

I think I'm on your side on that one.

I try to treat people the way God would want me to treat people.

And I know that sounds corny.

But also it doesn't.

Okay.

That's where I'm from.

That's who I am.

And I try.

I've fallen short in my life many times.

But when I came up, nobody says good things about Cosby anymore.

But I remember a time when you could pop by Cosby's dressing room in Atlantic City or in

Vegas.

And I've had Jerry Seinfeld agree with this.

He would sit and talk to you for four hours, give you advice.

We'd have conversations.

Richard Pryor.

I want to have my open for Chaka Khan at the Universal Amphitheater.

And I was so proud to tell Richard I got a gig, you know, and we're at the Comedy

Store.

Richard's working on his special.

And he says, I'd like to come to that.

And I say, really, I can leave your tickets and I leave him and his guy, Rashan, his

body man, uh, two tickets.

And Richard comes early and watches me.

And then when Chaka comes on stage, why don't you get started, uh, uh, uh, Richard gets

up and comes in back.

And I know he loved Chaka Khan on a couple levels, you know, not just music, but, uh, uh,

he's a Renaissance man.

He's a Renaissance man.

Yeah.

And a Coxman.

And, uh, and, and, and he loved him some Chaka, but he came backstage to tell me, you

did a great job.

That was wonderful.

And that's the greatest moment of my life, sure, that Richard took the time to come to

the Amphitheater and then got up and came backstage after the opening act left the stage.

So I try to treat young comics and young entertainers that I meet the way the legends

taught me, the way the legends treated me.

I remember having Quincy Jones come to watch me at the Roxy.

The next day he calls me, has me come to the studio and I sit with him while he masters

something called off the wall.

Oh, wow.

That we didn't even know.

And, and he's going, he's like, listen to this.

This is Sheila E. Hidden, uh, different, uh, solar bottles with different levels of

water in it.

And it makes different noise and it's tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.

And he just plays that part.

And I think it was the beginning to, don't stop until you get it, you know, but, but, but

sitting there and he's a, yeah, man, Michael coming back, man, he coming back hard, you

know, and then he played a song.

He says, you're from Ohio, right?

This is the first time I've ever met him.

You're from Ohio, right?

And I'm like, yeah, John, leave me tell me you're from Ohio.

Let me, let me play you something else.

He plays a song called Find 100 Ways.

And he says, this is just a scratch track by a guy who's letting me hear how, how it

can sound.

And I said, what's his name?

He said, his name is James Ingram.

He's from Ohio.

He's from where you from.

And I'm saying, let him sing it, you know, and he says, yeah, yeah, this is my first day

with the demo.

And, and he, uh, puts on his album, Find 100 Ways and just once and allows the guy on

the scratch track, the demo, uh, James Ingram to sing it and James becomes a huge star.

Those kind of moments are incredible blessings and all I can do in fairness is try to return

them every time I get the opportunity with a young man or a young man.

I always hear you do that.

You do that relentlessly and with great kindness and our Cineo, we're going to have to do

a part two at some point because you have, there's so much more to talk about.

There really is.

You've got so many great stories like they say in our business, we get off script.

This was not a script.

This was me loving the book.

I'm talking to you about it and being really excited that you're here and, uh, fan-boying

a lot.

So that's me being me.

I'm a fan.

You remember I came up to you, were you outside the four seasons hotel and you came up

to me and I was like, I was sitting there, walked up to me, yeah, but so nice to me.

Yeah.

And I'm always that way.

You're above the crowd wherever you are, you know, there's a lot of little guys with

uniforms running around.

I'm like, look at Conan above all the uniforms.

Before you said, I didn't, I didn't realize you were that tall and no one does.

You have the personality of a very small man, but in the paint, yeah, oh, yeah, um,

please come back, okay, because people are going to love this episode and we got to keep

it going.

Okay.

Thanks for letting me come.

Are you kidding?

Thank you all.

Thank you.

He looks like, um, one new kid's on the block.

You know, there's a lot of stuff.

Oh, there's a, there's a dude and new kids on the block who look like you.

You know, I say that my sister's loved you kids on the box.

You look like his son because he's he's spiked 50, but I think he's 80, but you look like

the son of one of new and one of Mark Wahlberg's guys, anyway, but I hope we're off the air

at this point.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Cessian, and Mack Gourley, produced

by me, Mack Gourley, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leo, theme

song by The White Stripes, incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

Take it away, Jimmy.

Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer

Samples, engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns, additional production

support by Mars Melnick, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and BritCon.

You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on

a future episode.

Got a question for Conan?

Call the Team Coco Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message.

It too could be featured on a future episode.

You can also get three free months of Sirius XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash

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If you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien, Needs a Friend, wherever

Fine Podcasts are down the road.

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