Melissa Rauch

Published Dec 3, 2024, 10:59 AM

Meet Melissa Rauch, an incredibly talented actress and one of my favorite guests on the old late night show. I’m delighted to welcome her to the old podcast today. You may know Michelle from The Big Bang Theory, The Bronze, True Blood, and she currently stars in the reboot of Night Court!  Join us for chats and snacks. (Bring your own snacks). EnJOY!

The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me, buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones. I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but you should at least know what's happening, and it is. The tour kicks off late September and goes through the end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or at your local outlet in your region. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. I don't know if you know this about me, but a few years ago I used to do a late night show and one of my favorite guests on that show was an actress who was just breaking through as I was doing the show, and she became a big star in a show called The Big Bang Theory and she was just fabulous and she still is. Please welcome the lovely Melissa Rownd shipperboy Melissa. Yes, do you are you doing a podcast yet?

My own podcast?

Yes?

No, I'm not.

I'm not think I think you have to think. I think you're Yes, I've always thought, well, you're very chatty, you're very personable, You're nice, and you deserve money but clearly don't need it because you run a sick come again.

But I would like to I'm glad you said this. Maybe this is in spray. I need to start it. But if I do, can I TM it at the end and say that Craig Furgerson told me to do this, and every day I.

Think you probably can? Does TM mean take money? Tall man? Uh Tiddley maniac? I oh you above all the above. You look very well. I'm glad to see you look very well. I wasn't worried about you in any way, but but I was.

I haven't seen you for a long time, so you since I did late night.

It's been a very long time. Do you know that you were my very first late night show ever.

Oh is that good?

It's wonderful. It was such a wonderful exerience.

I love doing that show so much, but I was and then I nervous at what.

Point towards well, you know what I loved. I loved doing it. See this is why I used to have a podcast, because you're asking me things like going, well, I'll let me tell you about my career. I love doing it, and then I go board with it. And then when I decided I was going to leave, I love to doing it again.

Oh interesting, because there was an insight.

Yeah, the last two years I did it. Well, you know this because you're an actor, right, if you you're still an actor. When you do a job as an actor or anykin performer, it's like a it's not forever job.

You do it and then you're done and you move on to another show.

Yeah, right, and late night unless you jump, you know, it's kind of like the Supreme Court. You're there. You know you've got you've got to recuse yourself from late right.

So then once you knew it was ending, was it a saber every moment feeling of this is going to be ending at some point, I see it ending.

So I want to hold on to the memories while they're here.

A little bit like that and a little more like, I don't give a shit now they can't fire me again. That was a lot of fun that there was such freedom in that, and there was about eighty months of that when I thought, Wow, okay, what are they gonna do? They're gonna get rid of me. I'm done now anyway, and it really felt good. When were you first thought? Do you remember?

Oh goodness, that's a good question. I mean it must have been.

Maybe like around two thousand eleven ish twelve ish.

Yeah, something like that.

Does haway through the run?

Well, you're doing Big Bang Theory the time, I think.

I think it was the first late night talk show I did for a Big Bang And oh my gosh, I remember going to the Century City Mall to get an outfit for it and practicing how I was going to sit in the dressing room and just so like if I sat down, I wouldn't show my business on like the chair, and that's important.

I mean, that is important.

Yeah, But you were so kind and you put me at ease right away, and I just I love that show so much.

I loved talking to you so much.

Ah that See that makes me very happy because that was the idea. I always thought, if you host the show, you should maybe host the show like you host a party, like make sure everybody's got nibbles and dip and let them have a nice time. And he was to do cocaine in the bedroom if you can avoid it. So listen, tell me this because I mean, I'm interested in you doing night core because you're you're doing night cooret again.

Right, doing night Court.

Yes, and what I am fascinated by. First of all, I really like nightcore, and I really like Larry Kay. He's isn't he like a special human being?

So so do you know him?

Yeah? I do. He was actually a very early guest on Late Now, and he was on quite a lot, and then he stopped being on for a while. I don't know why, but I wasn't, you know, in charge of any of that. But and then he was back on later. I don't know, but he was always a favorite guest for me because he he's just very funny and very just a real gentleman, you know what I mean. It's like a I loved him. But I remember that show was that the eighties, that show.

Mm hmmm, yeahly nineties, and it was always a favorite of mine growing up. It was one of those shows I remember sitting and watching with my parents and a lot went over my head and there was a lot of like cover your ears to things that I didn't understand, and they, I mean, they got away with so much. But there was something very special about it. The comedy was very irreverent in a way that was unlike anything else on at the time.

And I was always such as right, Yeah, it was a real It had a very kind of had a kind of like a different kind of a narcic vibe a little bit. It was naughty. It was quite a naughty show.

Yeah, and John describes it as, I mean, it was essentially vaudeville in so many ways. But the and John just obviously was such a standout, and getting to work with him has just been nothing short of a dream come true.

It's yeah, I know he I've never heard a bad word about him. I've not got one myself. He's a lovely man. He He and I share a kind of similar early story as well, which is, you know, he was a little back in the day as well. I think, but not for a long time, A long long time. So did you grow up in your family? Are in show business? Here are they?

They're not.

I grew up in Jersey suburbs of Jersey. Father's an accountant and who worked as a legal secretary, and then she was home with my.

Brother and I for a lot of my childhood. But very much like small town upbringing.

But my parents were so wildly supportive of me choosing this career for a family that didn't have anything to do with it.

We were always a very like.

Musical family. My grandfather was a music teacher and my mom. My parents like loved going to shows and they loved loved the arts, but fight and they had no real connection to anything.

Fascinated. I'm fascinated by that because I just had a conversation today for another episode of the podcast with Richard Kind.

Who you know who is lovely lovely man?

Love him? Last week?

Oh he did?

Was he on Night Court?

He was on Night Court?

He's he came to join us since the second season and he comes back in the third season.

He's amazing. I love that.

Yeah, if he turns up for one episode, he'll be there for a season. A bit like you're in the Big Bang Theory. Actually you you commend for an episode of That's it. But he he was telling me the same thing about he got into show business as well. His family were very supportive, but they knew nothing about show business.

And I wonder if that's why your.

Family can be supportive, because they don't know how dreadful at.

That is so true. I actually remember.

Calling my mother from the back of the sports bar I was working at after you know, years of auditioning, and my parents were, I mean, they really were so great.

They came to every one.

Of my you know, community theater shows growing up. And my father I remember saying to me, there's no job security in anything, so just do what you love. And I had been out of work and just you know, trying to get work in New York City and doing stand up but doing theater and like laundromats, and I was working at this sports bar as my bread and butter, and I was so beaten down and I called my mom from the payphone in the back of the restaurant, sobbing and saying, why did you let me follow my dreams?

This is terrible parenting. You never should have done this, I'm never going to work.

I have nothing to fall back on because I majored in theater with a minor in musical theater.

So there's literally which.

That's that's stilen down. I'm doing down.

I had nothing, and I was so freaked out, and she was sort of laughing and just saying, just keep going, just keep going.

Be Okay, you must have.

Been pretty young when you were doing that, because yeah, I mean you were pretty young when you broke through, weren't you.

Yeah, I mean I got big thing.

I was twenty nine, I was Richard and I were talking about that's the time we have to break through. Yeah, I'm not kidding between like twenty nine and thirty three, if it's gonna happen, it's going to happen. About that, certainly, that's the way it was for me.

Really was your first first gig? How were?

I got sober when I was twenty nine, so that that made a bit of a difference. But also between between then and then going to like I was a phone down. I was falling down drunk when I was twenty nine, and but the time when I was thirty two thirty three, I was on the Drew carry show, and I know it's crazy. It was like a huge difference. But I remember thinking at that time, how long so you'd been out of college. I guess what six seven years something like that.

Yeah, I was in New York.

I went to college in New York City, and I was doing stand up pretty much the whole time I was in college, much to the chagrin of my conservatory teachers, like we're doing Shakespeare joining the day, you should not be doing stand up at night. And so I was doing that and then trying to get work after college, and I started writing this one woman show right when I graduated college because I was just trying to create work for myself because there really was just I auditioned like nine thousand times to be a victim on Law and Order, and I never never got Kaz.

There was hardly anything shooting there.

So I started writing this play for myself with my now husband, and it was so self righteous and boring when I still have something, it was awful. It was just about that phase whor you're graduating.

College and you're like trying to make I'll get a black box and do it so bad. And and then.

We saw Jenna Bush speaking on TV at the Republican Convention. We were like flipping channels and we saw it and she was about the same age as me, and she we read that she was going to.

Be teaching public school and.

She was talking with her sister and she had this one joke at the convention and she killed and she like turned to her sister and was like and she just had She was like very like, she nailed this joke. I was like, that's a really interesting dynamic that she had up there, that like of her sort of enjoying.

Getting this laugh.

And so we ended up combining my story with hers of she's meeting and at the time, she was in the press for getting DUIs, and so we thought, like, remember that, what if we combined this coming of age story for her while also spewing the.

Bush presidency.

With the story I was writing for myself, which was like individuating from your parents and trying to become adult, an adult, And so we wrote it that it was the night before she was going to start teaching and she needs to become this.

Adult in one night. And so we did this show.

It's called The Miseducation of Jenna Bush, and I did it in New York at the New York Comedy Fest, the New York Fringe Festival, and then that was sort of.

What got me out to LA.

We ended up doing it in LA and at the Aspen Comedy Festival and then sold a pilot about it to CBS. But it really was what got me out of waiting tables. At the time, I was still doing that the side, but that helped get me out to LA.

It's interesting talk to me a little bit about stand up, because I actually didn't know you'd done stand up, But I think that's quite interesting because you were one of the people that could really hang in late night, right, and everyone that could hang has some kind of I think it's a kind of darkness. I think to be able to be able to ref and be that way stand up I think maybe not now because it's such an aspirational thing for young people because of tach talk and stuff, But it has.

A kind of darkness. Do you have that darkness?

Do you think? Do you have that?

That's interesting?

I think we all do in a way, and it just depends on how much you want to tap into it. But I definitely think I was always a kid that felt other growing up and I think, yes, that was very much where my comedy came from, in the fact that I was a kid who, like I was an indoor cat.

I couldn't really do sports. I always I was a weird kid. And there's like.

Video of me at like seven doing stand up stand up at this beauty pageant. I should have not I shouldn't have been in a beauty pageant. There's you look at pictures of.

Me as a kid. This was not something I should have been doing.

But I don't know. I don't know if anyone should be in a beauty passion, to be honest, but that's probably a different thing. But why why you were doing stand up at a kid's beauty pageant?

Yeah, because I got a pamphlet in the mail for this. It was like the Cinderella Scholarship pageant at the ra Modern Renaissance Hotel in New Jersey. And I was like, they said that there was a terrifying It was terrifying, but they had a talent portion and I was like, I was obsessed with stand up. I was watching Star Search and I was like, this is amazing, but there's no place to do it. So I thought if I could get into this talent competition, I could do stand up And I begged my mom and she said, if I saved up half the money, then.

I could do it.

And I mean I was toothless, like I wore a dress that I wore my cousin's wedding, and I mean I couldn't wait to get to the talent park because it was a lot of like, Hi, I'm Melissa Roush from Marlburn, New Jersey and I'm seven years old, and I couldn't do that like with all the like Toddler and Tierra type kids. But I got to the talent portion, I was so stoked that I.

Did my tight five.

I guess it was, but it was mostly impressions. It's so weird, and that's what I would do for show and tell, and everything was just like I need to work on my comedy.

And so it was just weirdness. It was just a lot of were you were you brillied?

Did the other kids pick up on the weirdest?

Oh? Yes, yes, I mean once in a while I got up because I was also doing impressions that weren't It wasn't the right demo. I was doing like don Nott's from three's company.

Yes, and it's not.

It doesn't really killed with the second grade crowd.

So yeah, I was picked on a lot also because of my There was a lot of picking on me because my height.

Were you very because you're you're still quite little large?

Yeah, I never I never hit five feet, so I'm it was tiny. But then, but then I sort of realized that if I made fun of myself first, then that would help.

My mother told me it was not the.

Greatest advice, but she said, if anyone calls you short, say that your mother accidentally puts you in the dryer and shrunk you, which she was really trying to help me do a bit.

But I know it just made me weirder.

Do you know it's funny? It's such an odd thing when people good naturedly, and in that case, your mother, but people could initially suggest things that they think would be funny for you to say. I mean, I don't know how to tell you that this is not funny at all, and I can't make it funny. Did you ever try? I tried getting chat gpt to write me some comedy. Have you ever tried to tell me to do it?

Really?

Yeah, it's really reassuring, because what you do is I said, write me a short monologue in the style of Craig Ferguson, And it wrote me this monologue and it was either I'm delusional about how good I am or I really suck or something, but that that was awful. It was awful, and I was like, oh, good, So that's something that they can't do. Not Yeah, I just don't think they can write comedy.

Wow, okay, I want to do it.

That's you think it's because well it wrote it. We're a weird little thing about giraffes, about like, aren't giraffes dumb looking and stuff? And I'm like, I do not think giraffes are dumb looking. I like giraffes. I mean I was thinking about them that much. But when I do think about them, I'm like, well, the magnificent giraffesweeping across the sangetti. I don't think these dumb assholes.

That's crazy. Who would not like giraffes.

So I guess in a way it inspired me to do a pro giraffe piece of stand up comedy, which I've been I guess wanted to do for some time and didn't know.

It okay, but I like this.

It's just a it's a source of inspiration, which I think that's what you know. I keep going back to this darkness is where comedy is born thing for myself, and I think that it's it. Perhaps isn't darkness phaps is just interesting. Perhaps if you just got an interesting story, it makes you funny, hmmm, because I don't know very many funny people who are not interesting.

That's very true. That is that's I think that's very very true.

And I think, you know, whenever I think about, you know, parenting or things that my parents did or things they told me, I'm actually I'm grateful for any missteps because.

And they were wonderful, wonderful parents.

But I gotta say, the people you know who had like picture perfect childhoods kind of boring.

Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. Yeah, you don't want to peak in high school? That would be bad. Yeah, I think also, you know, look, there's nothing wrong with peaking in high school. And just in case anyone who pequed in high school is like, wait, I picked in high school and then my life is great. I'm like, Okay, then you didn't peak in high school. But I feel like you have kids on your own now, right they do?

Yeah, didn't it?

Like for me when my kids were born, it's like everything like a complete one eighty I everything I thought about everything changed, not that day, because it took It took a few months before I started to realize the enormous change that was occurring within me.

It's the perspective shift. I know it's a cliche, but it's unbelievable.

I actually did an apology tour to all of my friends with kids after I had kids. For any time I said I was tired or busy, I felt so bad that that version of me just didn't I thought I.

Got it, but yeah, I needed to go back.

Like, Oh, I remember.

Talking to someone who was about to have his first kid, and you know, his wife was about to have his first kid, and he was telling me about how good a parent he was going to be and how it's going to do it and stuff. And I didn't say this to him at the time, but I remember thinking at the time and I still I still think it, like, you'll never be as good a parent as you are. The last three or four months before your first kid is born, that's when you're.

Really great, good, so good.

I'm just gonna be so cool about things and it's gonna be fine, and like, why are you dying? Oh my god? Get the mad be's still very young though, right.

Yeah, there are yeah, I got little ones. And but it is. It's a hard explosion.

There's really nothing like it.

I don't.

Need the happiness that I have from being a parent. I just it's otherworldly and I love it. I knew I like it, but I didn't think that I would love.

It this much.

It's kind of interesting as well, because, first of all, I will tell you this, all the great philosophers didn't have children. Really, I don't know if that's true, but I'm spreading that as a rumor all the great philosophers. I think it's true. I think it's partially true, probably. But the other thing is that because you has time for that shit once you have a kid, it's like, oh, thinking about life in the universe, so you can think about that when you have kids, you know, think about life in the universe. And the other thing is you're like, oh, my god, don't pick your finger at that thing. And then and then the other part of it, you know, when they say and maybe This will annoy some people, but you know, it's a risk you have to take sometimes when people say my dogs are my kids, you know, or my cats and my kids, and go, you know, I have dogs and I have a cat, and they're not kids. They're not there. You can love them, but they're no kids. It's a different game. It's different. Then do you have dogs?

I don't.

I had a dog growing up that was my family's everything.

But I haven't got a dog since. Eventually I'll get.

My people said at my wedding that they had never heard people talk about a dead dog more than at my mit. You know. The comedian Jessica Saint Clair, she always says that she's like, I've never heard someone referenced a dead dog more than when I'm around your family.

This dog was my childhood dog, Lucky. We got them when I was six.

And then lived until I was about twenty two. And yeah, so we had a dog, was Lucky, German shepherd husky.

I have German shepherds, Oh, oh greatest. They're very clever.

They're very clever. Poor Luckies.

Last words that Lucky heard on this earth. We're Lucky had testicular cancer and that's how he ends up passing into he had I'm gonna go here with you, Craig. I'm sorry, but he had very large testicles at the end, and it was very uncomfortable for him. And as we're all putting him to sleep, it was my mom and my dad, my now husband, my brother. We're all around him and telling him how much we love him and hugging him, and my mom in all her Jersey ways. As we're putting him down, she goes, we love.

You, Lucky. No big bulls, Lucky, No one big bulls. And that was it. And that was lights out for Lucky. That was the last thing that Lucky heard.

It's beautiful. It's sad and lovely. And you know my dogs don't have testiculars.

We get them smart, smart, We should have done. You have how many dogs?

I have two at the moment, yeah, which is actually a low count for me right now. I have a really one German shepherd and and I.

Jack Russell, Oh oh did they get.

Along sort of as well as the Irish and the Germans can get along. It's it's it's it's high impact comedy. It's it's like an episode of canine wipeout. Every day. But but they're not my kids. Uh. And it's an interesting thing. So I guess why is Lucky such an important figure in your family? That's interesting, I said. When you first mentioned Lucky, you said, the dog who was my everything, everything in my family.

It's true.

I mean when I talk about like feeling other like that dog was truly my best friend. I would talk to that dog as a you know, seven eight year old and tell him things that I didn't tell anyone would sleep with me, I mean, And he just brought he was astray. He literally like found our family walked up to my house in a snowstorm, and my father had no plans in getting a dog. My mom loved animals, but my father had no, no, any experience with animals.

And this dog walked up.

We were my brother and I were shoveling the driveway in a huge snowstorm and this cord he had ice schools hanging from his stomach. And my mom said we should bring him into the garage. And we called the local please see if anyone lost him, and he just he showed up at our house and my father said, it's gonna be very cold tonight, let's bring him inside and set up some blankets room in the basement and that that was it.

And he just stay with us.

But he left, he never left it and just brought so much joy did community theater with us, played Sandy and Annie.

He was just the greatest, the greatest dog.

If my brother was like wrestling with me and like tacklinghim on the floor, he would like pull my brother off me.

It was he was just he was so great great.

I feel like you grew up in a wholesome movie from the nineteen fifties. Is that accurate or not?

No? I mean it's like with a Jersey twist.

It was very you know, lots of hanging at the mall, mall, the mall, the mall. My accent was I mean, I almost got kicked out of acting school for that accent.

Yeah, my accent was pretty broad when I was a kid. It wasn't Jersey, but I had an accent. It was something. So tell me that. Then you're waiting tables and you've got this highly marketable theater with backup musical theater qualifications. How did the Big Bang thing come about? Was that was not your big break? Was the Big Bang thing? Right? It was?

I had, I guess I moved to New York. I'm from New York about four years prior so. When I first moved out to LA it was just a lot of driving around crying in my car.

And everybody does that.

So much crying in the car, A lot.

Of crying driving in your car. Let me assure you you can do it, even if you've got a late night TV show as well.

The drive cry it's fun. It's fun. It feels just like a real scream chamber.

And yeah, I did scream chamber as well. Did you do screaming in the car as well?

Yeah, it's fun.

And there was just a lot of like a couple pilots that didn't go a show that I did a handful of episodes of that never aired. When I was really I mean I was at the unemployment office the week that I got Big Bang. It was just this guest star part that I audition for the show was already doing well, and I was. I was so excited because it was a show that my parents really liked.

And I called them and said, I have this audition.

And actually I had gone a really long time without any auditions, and I'm not good at being a squeaky wheel or advocating or like doing the thing that you're supposed to do, where you you know, check in with your agents and.

Say like, hey, what's happening. Yeah, because I just I just the.

Rejection on top of the rejection just always felt terrible, and I just didn't want to bother people when I wasn't making anyone money, which is not.

A way to live, but I was. I was really broke. We're having trouble paying our rent.

And I got up the nerve to call my agent and say, I haven't had any auditions in a while.

Is there anything that you think i'd be right for?

And I don't know had I not made that phone call, if I would have gotten the big bang audition. Oh really Yeah, because that audition came in that night, and I really don't think that it would have happened otherwise, which has been a lesson for me when I don't want.

To spend it for something.

Yeah, you particularly, I think in Hollywood.

I mean, people who say how great they are, people believe them. It's weird. It's like they're great. You go, oh he's great. You know he told me, he told me he must be. Then yeah, I say to people, now I'm a world record breaker and stuff.

They're like, oh, congratulations, Oh I'm gonna start doing that. That's good.

Yeah, right, you're doing fine.

You don't have to do anything.

Yeah.

But I've said to people like, yeah, my podcast they won the Oscar for Best Podcast.

People just go, wow, that is big news.

That my wife changed her name on the airline thing, so she's now Lady Megan Ferguson as well. And they're like, oh, you're just do and all that.

Kind of stuff for real, you can do.

Yeah, it doesn't.

That's great, it's fantastic.

Yes, I will believe someone if they tell me then that sounds correct.

Yeah. Yeah, and there's so you push your agent and.

Yes, and they I got the audition that night.

I remember I was at dinner with friends, my best girlfriends, and we were sitting there and I was we were all commiserating of how hard it was like being out of work, and this audition came in. I was so excited and I ran home to work on it. And I remember going into that audition so nervous and putting such pressure on myself because we were so so broke, and I was just terrified that I.

Was going to have to pack it in.

And do something else, because it was starting to get to starting to get to that time where I would go back your jersey and like my parents' friends and everyone would say like, what are you gonna m try something else? And that audition was everything. And I remember I got the call back for it and being they had narrowed it down to I guess like four or five of us, and that whole drive home just praying that it was gonna, like, please have this happen.

I got a call. I remember as I.

Was coming up to my apartment that I got the part, and I thought I thought it was going to be a one week thing and which I was thrilled about just to get read money. So the fact that it ended up being what it was was just amazing dream.

A dream that's kind of in a sort of slightly less dramatic way, it's almost exactly what happened to me with the Drew Carey show in the night. Really yeah, I had twenty seven cents in my bank account when I got that job. And you know, I don't know if you know this, but you need a dollar to take out twenty seven cents from your bank account. So I couldn't even get twenty seven. Yeah, I was what broke, Oh my gosh. And also I was on a work visa, you know that, So I was on a six month visa. If I didn't, you know, get something, if I didn't click into something, it was get out, you know. So the stings were high. And I remember the same feeling from the audition, like I actually didn't even audition for that part. I auditioned for another part on a different show, and I didn't get that part, but they gave me the part on the Drew Gerris.

Oh my gosh, it's crazy.

How long between auditions did that happen? When you auditioned for the other one and then you got the DWO carried It was fast?

Like Actually, what it was is, I don't you might even know this guy?

Do you know?

Ton Yes, he's the greatest guy.

Right, Tony was so much.

He's awesome, right, he's ever think to Tony? I owe everything to Tony. Suppose what happened was Tony was casting it. He was casting at Warner Brothers, right, and that's where the Drew Carrey Show was made, and they were in their first season and I. There was some clerical mix up and I was pulled into audition for the part of the Hispanic photographer on a brook Shield show called Suddenly sou and I I'd like, I you know, I riffed my way through the audition, but everybody knew, like I knew the minute I saw everybody else, I'm in the wrong place. And I, you know, I did the audition that we were dicking around and having a laugh, and everybody knew I wasn't going to get that part. But when I left, Tony followed me out at the room and said, hey, obviously you know this is not the part for you. I went, I know, thanks for seeing me anyway, and he and he said, no, no, they're looking for They're looking for a guy on the Drew Carrey Show. Can you do an English accent? And I said, so, said George Jessica and I did, and we I got the I got it for one Get one show. It was for one show, and then I did six years, eight years, nine years on it.

Oh my goodness, that's amazing. I didn't know that was totally.

With stories though, right, you've got the same one.

It's like they do happen that's incredible. I love that it's Tony. He is just gem of gems.

My very first meeting with anyone in Hollywood was Tony.

It's interesting because he's so pivotal in a lot of people's and he's very every time I tell him that story, I owe every time I see him. I haven't seen him for years and years. Every time I see him, I always think him and he's like, no, no, you I had nothing to do with it. And I'm like, you had anything to do with it.

Oh, He's on our set every week a night court.

He's yell, tell him I've never forgotten what he did for me.

Now I sure will. He's just instant happiness when you're around him.

Is he does he do the casting for He's.

Still Warner Brothers?

Yep?

All right? So you know if you guys need and like, would you you know?

Would you?

Yeah?

You kidding me? I guess asked me work for you and Larakett. Sure I could be Larket's drunk brother from school.

I'm taking you up on this. This isn't gonna happen.

Oh my god, I would do it in the heart, but you kidding me? In a heart? So fun yeah, it would, Oh my god, it would be a riot and I you know, I'm very reasonably priced. You know, scale plus ten is just fine.

It'll be fine that I am so excited about this.

I would it would be.

So say in years, that would be funny.

Did you love doing it?

I did? Do you guys still do it with like a studio audience?

Oh? Man, that is the greatest life. That is the greatest life.

Wonderful And there's nothing like a tape night.

It's the electricity that is fabulous.

It's so funny. But it for years and years and years and years, and I never get tired of it. It was amazing. So are you Tuesday or Friday?

We're Friday Nights. And we started very differently because we started we were developing this all through the pandemic. So when we shot our pilot, it was I mean, we were really just coming out of COVID, so we couldn't have a full audience. Everyone was just it was socially distant. It looked like a hospital waiting room. Everyone was masked and socially distance like six, you know, feet away from each other. But now we got get to have a full audience and it's We've been at Plexiglass up at one point because of COVID rolls, but now it's I mean, it's great. We have a full audience every Friday night and it's so special, and of course.

It's such a lovely way to make television. I'm sad that it's not done so much. I mean, it's such a cool, cool thing to do, but it fail out of favor.

Yeah, you know, and I I really I don't know why, because, like you said, it's such a fun way to make television. The the comedy rhythms that you get in front of a live audience. Yeah, there's there's just truly nothing like it. And I agree, it's such a relationship between the actors and the audience, and you find things just in their laughter or just in the moments where you're holding for their laughs.

There's just wonderful little moments that you're delicious.

I know exactly what you mean. Like I remember when I started Late Night because I'd come off all these years on the Drew Carey Show and when I started Late Night and they were getting me to read these jokes like you know, hey, guys, have you seen the playoffs and stuff? And I'm like, I even fucking I ain't know what I'm talking about. I don't even know really what playoff is. And I said, let me just let me just talk a little bit. And it changed. The whole vibe of that show changed when I was allowed to just mess around with the audience and the camera because when they're looking at the monitors, because they all look the audience will look at the monitors like it's on TV, uh huh. And then but they could also see you dicking around, so they get some kind of weird participatory enjoyment of it. It's a very odd, special thing that I don't think exists for any other audience.

TV audience gets a very weird experience.

It's so true.

You know, I just had this very distinct memory of waiting in the dressing room to do your show and watching you do that monologue and just the brilliance of it and watching you. I truly remember, I remember, like them working my handbrakeup and all of it, just watching you on that screen because it was so there was talk about electricity. Just the relationship you had with them was so it was so special, and it was just such a nuanced genius model and that you would do on that show.

And I just I just.

As I think that what it is with performers, and you've got this. People who can hang have got this, people that like that's how I describe, but people can hang eight people can do it. Larraquet's got this.

Yeah.

If there's sometimes that Richard kind has this some performers that you see on a stage or you see in a movie or any kind of performance. I think it's the same as certain sportsmen like or sportswoman, the same as athletes who like I used to take there's a Scottish soccer player called Kenny Dull Gleish and Keny Dell Gleish when I was a kid, was the greatest soccer player in the world. And uh, every time he got the ball wasn't necessarily going to score a goal, but fucking something was going to happen. And I feel that about certain performers, that every time they're there, something's going to happen. You know, it might not be great, but you go to watch and I think that that's that to me is the essence of the whole gig. That's why I'm fascinated and kind of delighted to know that you did stand up because I always thought of you of someone who had that. I kind of have a bit of a rule about that on the show, to be honest, that it kind of when I'm talking to performers then it is mostly performers I talk to. They have to be people who I think can hang.

Oh. I love that.

I love doing that about your show so much because I remember doing the you know, the pri interviews and talking about what the style of the show was, and I remember them saying, just really have a conversation, because that's what Craig's like to do, Like we could talk about the things that you're going to talk about, but just go with the conversation.

And it was such a relief that it didn't feel like going.

On, I'm gonna tell you're gonna ask me a question, I'm gonna tell my story, and I have to tell it exactly.

How I told it.

It was truly like a lot of the times we would just end up talking about whatever happened in that moment, and it was so nice. And it's also I loved watching the show so much because they were genuine, real conversations.

Well, I think what was what I was lucky and as well is the sense that I had been on a lot of talk shows as a guest, you know, as an actor, and I was like, I had to do that very thing, you know where they would say, oh, tell that story the way you told it, and I was like, but I've already told it, why would I tell it again? And it got a little it got a little weird, It felt it always felt a little false to me, and I never loved that aspect of the whole game. You should do an interview show, though, because you're good at it.

Thank you for saying that.

I also liked what I also like you You're easy to talk, talk to what happens somebody's good.

That's a real trick as well. Only interviewing people you like. That's I mean, it's it really makes the difference.

Because if someone's a dud, I don't know that I could. I think I'd freeze up and do a lot of so.

Tell me more.

Well, that's why I started doing things like you want to smell my finger and all that stuff. I like, nothing to say, but if you say to someone, hey, you want to do an open pause, or smell my finger or talk to the rule book, it kind of people.

You know, something will happen.

I don't know if it's going to be doing, but something will appen.

We're at the awkward cause that was so fun. It was just such a genius. Genius. But where did that come from? That?

I think I think it came from It came from exactly what you're talking about originally? Is it talking to people who just that's kind of what they were and to Sometimes people would come on the show and I'm like, why are you doing a talk show? Why would you come on a talk show if you don't want to talk? It doesn't make any sense to me. But I think sometimes actors of a particular type and it would you and musicians as well, they feel like they're going to be fine, and then they get out there and they kind of freeze. And I don't think there's any malevolence in it. I think it's I honestly think it's nerves and shyness sometimes and they just like shut down. And that's why it's interesting, because when you talk about doing stand up and then doing your one woman show and then seeing someone doing a joke and going ah ah, and you find it something that's such.

That's it that's the thing.

I think. That's the thing.

Now you're right with your husband, right.

I do? Yeah?

And you guys always been always written together.

We have. We met in colin and we were friends.

We were writing partners through college and but we didn't we didn't start dating until right before we graduated college. But it was very much that's how that was the basis of our relationship was we would go and write comedy sketches together, most of which never saw the light of day, but we just both connected over this love of comedy and love of writing.

Do you make each other laugh? Is that right?

Yeah?

Yeah, it's that he made me laugh harder than anyone that I had ever ever know. I remember my roommates at the time, I was just dating such jerks and guys that just weren't right for me. And we've never seen you so happy. You're every time you're with him, you're hysterical laughing. And it's still there's and I got to say, and watching he makes me laugh so much, but then also getting to see my kids when they laugh at something, there's also a special joy in that too.

Oh my God, making children laughs fabulous. I don't know if I'm quite ready to be a children's entertainer. But you know, I don't think I'm qualified, but I got scared them. I think I scared children.

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm not BLA.

It's interesting because when you talk about, you know, writing with your husband, I do you still do you still write together?

See Write or nineteen?

He's a producer on it with me.

He's not in the writer's room, but we we always work together. And we wrote the first movie that we ever produced, The Bronze, that we did years ago, which I think, gosh, it's like about ten years ago. Now.

That was our first feature we wrote together.

And we've always sort of used our our writing together as a way to create roles for me that I wouldn't necesss sarily totally.

Yeah, I get it. I mean I ended up writing stuff with my We've been married for years and years and years, and we I ended up just listening to stuff she was saying and saying, you know that that's stand up, and she'd be like, no, it's not, and I'm like, it is, it is stand up. She made an observation once about this is to me, I think why I think she's a really good writer, and why all it takes is for someone else to go, wait, you are a really good writer. She said, I can prove the existence of God. I went, all right, tell me prove the existence of God. And she said, seek freedom Roy. I said, what do you mean, seek freedom Roy? She said, well, look the chances if you're a young gay Austrian line Tamer growing up and saying, I am a young gay Austrian Line Tamer, there's no one in the world for me.

I'm doomed to be so lonely.

And you both been to another gay honest being line Tabor, Line Tabor, I find you attractive. The answer that happening without a god and an intelligence design and the ambarrasser impossible.

And I was like, that's a piece of stand up.

But I did.

Yeah, I made it, and I used it and.

I and it's gone. But it was a thing. And I think I think that's part of the chemistry of of of being a couple, you know, is that if you make each other laugh, don't you.

Think a thousand Absolutely there's.

It's truly the basis of our relationship, both as a writing team. But the phase of our love was me Yeah, started the laughing over something You're saying like, oh, that's that's what I want for the rest of my life. I want to feel that happiness because obviously, you know, like the joy.

That's the last time you know, yeah it is, And then you laughed so much. She end up with children. Then you're just tired and you never write any philosophy ever.

Again, no philosophy is your wife.

Was she starting in comedy or she just you just don't notice that she was.

She's a dealer. I mean, she writes. She she's actually very good writer. But she I mean, but no, she had was not in any way drawn into that world. She's she's a blue bloody Yankee. She get none to do with showfolk.

She can make you laugh.

And that's oh my god. Yeah yeah, like like no one else can. Uh maybe Josh Robert Thompson, but he's not my type. Josh is the guy who did Jeff Peterson the robot on the show.

Oh oh my god.

Oh my god, you talk about an improvised vizational genius. My god, Oh it was so.

And when did that did the robots start at the big beginning?

Was that part of right?

No, we were about five years in. Oh wow, okay, so, oh my God, that fucking robot. I mean, I still weep with laughter. I can just be on the have a conversation with Josh on the phone and he can have me weeping with laughter. I don't know what it is, just some people just boom.

Did you know him before the show?

No? No, he commented to do bits on the show. He was a friend of one of the writers who had seen him do some bits and pieces and he commented to do I think it was an impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger or something, and he just you get you know, it's one of these Hollywood things. It's like you meet a guy who meets a guy who knows a thing who doesn't, and that's how it always works, you know. It's like when people in Hollywood say, my agent doesn't get me any work. You go, yeah, they don't. They don't do that. They charge you money and they come up and had you a small ball water and tell you how gifted you are. But that's only after you get the job. It's so funny, Melissa, it's such a joy to see you again. I'm so happy that you're killing it with this night Court thing. Oh congratulations, it's just lovely.

I couldn't have to a nice person.

Thank you so much. I'm so I was so so excited to talk to you.

Truly.

I just have the best memories of talking to you on the show, and you really it was such an amazing, such an amazing training for me for that to be my first talk show. Say, okay, this this sets the bar.

This is how you have.

You're just amazing. I'm so happy to get to talk to you. And I'm gonna hold you to this. If I really we get more Night Court episodes I want, I would love love.

Put me in the pitch for the next season. Oh my god, work for Scale. I'll do it.

In a fucking harpy, I'd do it for sure.

Oh my god, I'm so excited kidding.

And this is legally binding because now we're on a podcast and that makes it legally thing.

That's to be our trailer.

If we get a season, work, then Craig Ferguson comes in and works for Scale.

Works for Scale. That's the story. But I'm nobody knows that Craig Ferguson always works for sale. All right, take care of yourself. It's lovely.

You're wonderful, Craig. Thank you so much for talking to me.

Oh my god, thanks for being It's lovely

To see you you too, Take care bye,

Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson

Storied late-night talk host Craig Ferguson brings his interview talents and singular world view to  
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