In the Field with Ronny Chieng

Published Mar 23, 2025, 7:30 AM

Venture out of the Daily Show studio and into the real world with Ronny Chieng, as we revisit some of his best field pieces. 

Ronny heads to Arizona to dig up the dirt on body donation scams, then to Washington D.C. to try his hand at law enforcement policing plastic straw bans. Next he plugs in to the world of Bitcoin and stupid meme currencies. Heading to Chicago, he goes to jail to find the best pizza in town, then all the way to Australia to learn about compulsory voting. 

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If you gotta talk about Arizona, you have to talk about old people because they're everywhere here. See which brings me to death? No, not yours. Obviously, you still have a long road ahead of you, and here in Arizona, people thinking about the afterlife are choosing something new, whole body donation.

More and more people are choosing to forgo traditional burial and just donate their bodies to science.

There is a twenty percent increase in the number of people donating their body right here in Arizona.

That's about forty seven thousand people.

To investigate, I hit up a popular spot for the old folks to see if body donation really was all the rage.

What do you want to happen to your body after you die?

I'd consider whole body donation.

Have you considered whole body donation?

Yes? I have it already shared it up.

So you seem pretty old and close to death. What do you want to happen to you after you die?

I'm gonna be donating it to science.

What made you think of doing that?

I have no living relatives, who's gonna bury me?

You have any friends?

Uh?

Yeah?

They don't care about my body.

Well, maybe they should care, because when I turn on the news, I discovered this scandal involving a body donation business in Phoenix.

The owner accused of selling bodies and body.

Parts, essentially running a chop shop for human body parts, a.

Human chop shop. These what people not cause you stripped down for pots? I turned to a team of lawyers trying to end this horror.

So, what the fuck is happening in Arizona?

People are getting people to donate their bodies and telling them that they're going to treat the bodies with dignity and respect.

And they were sold off like you would sell off the parts of a cow.

And then ultimately the FBI they rated this organization here in Arizona.

So what did the FBI find?

There were coolers and freezers of disarticulated body parts, you know, a cooler of.

Arms, a cooler of legs. They found heads.

They found the torso of a large human male with the head of a small female sewn on them.

All right, okay, we get it enough already, Jesus. And when you have a poppyac and pet for ten seconds just to clear my head.

And they found a giant bag of penises.

They found a bag of dicks.

Yes, it was referred to as a large bag of male genitalia.

So it's a large bag of dicks. Yes, I'm sched to even asked. But what they're going to do with this lodge bag of dicks, Well.

We really can only speculate.

We know that some of it may have gone to the black market in Southeast Asia for something like penis wine.

Okay, I'm from Southeast Asia. I've never heard of penis wine.

What is it?

I think it's a wine that has a penis in it that's supposed to make.

People more virile.

That is disgusting, I thought. So is it red or white?

I don't even get close enough to it to you.

What kind of flavor profile is this? Is it nutty?

I didn't taste it?

Have notes of foreskin?

Can we move on this?

This is a serious case.

Oh yeah, that's right, Holly. We'll just gonna mention penis whine, not talk about it.

This case is about the harm that was done to people and families, not about penis wine.

She's right.

People thought they were donating their bodies for research to find cures for diseases. But instead it was real life invasion of the body snatchers.

How are they going to fix this?

We need regulations, licenses.

For example, you don't need a license to deal with dead bodies, correct. You need a license to do You need a license to fish, You need a license to drive a fork lift.

Pay your money, fill out a form, and you're a medical director.

That has to change.

This is horrific.

This is not just an Arizona problem. It's a nationwide problem. And if you think it's not happening in your backyard, you're mistaken.

Okay, sorry, Can we just go back to the penis wine for a second. Did they stomp on digs the way they stomp on grapes? Are they squeezing out the penis or are they just fermenting it?

I don't know, and I'm really not sure. I want to know.

Know.

Once you have that dead body violated, or that genitals turned into a tasty beverage, if people are going to donate, they should at least know exactly what they're getting themselves into.

They need to know the truth.

Until Arizona puts regulations in place, all we can do is all of competing services introducing give ronnieobody dot com. Just give me your body and we'll take care of the rest.

With us, you'll know exactly what you're getting. We provide services such as.

Into a human ventriloquist, useful weekend at Bernie sequels, literal body pillar he fill out of oscars.

Those are just some of the many things we can do.

Sound horrifying, you bet youa, but it's also perfectly legal until Arizona changes its laws.

Give Ronnie youoorbody dot com.

Give me your body. I want your body.

Ronnie Change is un license and has no experience in this field, which is not a problem in the state of Arizona.

So avoid the service altogether and do your research or donate to medical summers.

Here in America, we use straws for everything.

Drink it, snorting cocaine.

Okay, just those two things, but still that's not nothing.

Yet.

Recently, local governments across the nation have been challenging our god given right to bear straws.

Straws represent only zero point h two percent of the nine million tons.

Of plastic waste that is estimated.

People would like to keep the plastic straw just.

Saying conservative Big Bird actually has a point here. So I headed to Washington, d C.

The latest they need to ban straws to meet Lilian, an environmental inspector.

Her actual job is to go into local.

Businesses and make sure they're not using plastic straws.

That's right, she's a straw.

Carp So what do you hope to accomplish by banning something that's like zero points zero zero zero zero zero or zero zero zerst.

One percent about trash?

You know, that's a good question. It's a perfect symbol for our Our over use and dependence on single use plastics rank so much.

What you do if I don't use straws? What you want me to do? You want me to do this?

Yes, absolutely, that's what I would love.

Lilian explained that over forty percent of all plastic manufacturing is single use, throwaway items that will take somewhere between four hundred and fifty years and.

Forever to disappear.

But still, why are people suddenly so angry about straws?

Why do you hate straw so much? What did straws have to do to you?

I think that really started with the straw video, the plastic straw getting stuck up the seat girl's nose. It has over thirty five million views on YouTube.

Wait, this is all because of a dumb viral video.

Look, I've seen a lot of shit on YouTube. I'm bad to this.

View turns out really bad. Ugh straw Okay, okay, I'm done. No more straws. But the video did leave me with one burning question.

If I stick a straw on my nose, I could get thirty five million views on YouTube.

I can't guarantee that, you know, people might not connect with seeing a person in a full rottensult with a strap or no, the same way connect with the sea turtle.

I wouldn't go.

No, no, that stuck. No, I'm uh okay, So tell me what you do on a day to day basis.

Turns out that Total was not faking it.

We actually go out and do some random and inpections, and we talked to business owners about the new rules and how to come into compliance.

When that sounds great, it was time for me to hit the streets and shadow Lilian on an actual straw rate.

First step case the.

Joint clear clear clear clear clear clear clear all right clip.

So once we enter our business, usually we kind of take a look around, right. We want to see if we can see any straws. Yeah, I mean we're looking at the straws.

For people.

Next look for contraband, So these are what we use.

Okay, that's excellent. So these are absolutely incompliance.

Turns out this guy was clean at least for today. But I knew things were about to get real when we hit the mother Lode, a coffee shop with enough plastic nosecandy to take down Nemo's.

Oh goddamn reef.

And it looks like these are plastic. Right, so you are currently out of compliance.

That's right, you're buster, and now the straw cobs are gonna make you pay right now.

We haven't switched yet, but we are in the process of switching.

Oh really, that that's convenient. Just happened to be switching when we walk in.

Okay, I'm sorry.

So what I'm gonna do today is I'm just gonna give you a warning letter.

Well we mean warning letter.

So Lilian just walks around warning businesses. That's it. I'm taking a lead on this investigation.

Straw straw, straw, straw.

We got straw over here, crazy plus straw in a straw cob.

Sorry, this is your straw? Whose straw is this?

Straw straw here, sorry, Falsel, it's fine. This paper.

Dispatch.

We are entering premises over. I see that guy over there, the black hoodie. He's just gonna go ask him a few questions. Oh, he's gon he's going go, go go go.

Strabols. Strabols, drop the straw.

Get But despite the successful raid, Lilian wasn't happy.

Yeah, that was absolutely useless in getting people to come into compliance.

Well let's agree to disagree.

Yeah, it takes a lot of time and energy, and there's one on one conversations to really the natural change.

Okay, change people's minds through constructive conversations.

I can do that.

Do you know how many turtles are dying in the ocean because there are straws of their nose?

Why?

Because mothers can't seem to drink from.

Cups without straws.

Just put the cup to your mouth.

Just put the cup to your mouth.

That's it.

You don't need a middle man.

Do you know how much damage this you gonn due to a dolphins and us and always still can eat this and suffocate to death. It's like you guys don't even care.

We need to go back on the police.

You can't call the police.

We are the police. We are the police. We are the police.

Show your badge, Yeah we're not show a badge. Now she has a bad show her the badge.

After a successful conversation, we voluntarily left the restaurant. Come back, I see any plastic straws in here? I'm burning this play still ground.

And hey, if.

A restaurant can ban me just for doing my job, how hard can it be to ban straws cryptocurrency? Is this some fake something you know it's made up on the internet to steal our money?

Or is it a future of finance?

There is no way all these people buying cryptocurrency have any idea what the hell they're investing in.

And it's not just bitcoin.

Ethereum, the number two cryptocurrency, has risen five thousand percent since the start of this year. Why if you imagine bitcoin as being a gold coin, Ethereum is a coin that has a magic spelling it.

What the hell does that mean?

I spoke with one of the founders of Ethereum, Joe Lubin, to find out first question, what is it?

What is it?

Ether the cryptocurrency that lives on the decentralized Ethereum platform, it's actually a much more programmable cryptocurrency than bitcoins.

That doesn't mean anything, what is it?

We created a platform for decentralized applications.

Does everyone in cryptocurrency talk like you?

Pretty much?

Isn't just everyone just going decentralized? Women in the dark word and drugs online?

Exactly?

Does cryptocurrency make you feel angry and confused?

Well, it should to.

Make it easier to understand.

We ripped off the big short and asked Margot Robbie to explain it in a bubble bath, but she said no. Cryptocurrencies are transparent and decentralized. When two strangers exchange money over the Internet, it requires a middleman like PayPal or a bank who takes a percentage of the transaction, and that transaction is vulnerable to hacking. Cryptocurrencies are recorded in a public ledger called the blockchain, so it's impossible to cheat. They actually solve a lot of problems with exchanging money in a global digital world. I'll get thet it, but still is that worth a bajillion dollars? Why there's so many suckers on the Internet? Sorry, I mean people believe fake money as value.

If there's real it's based on faith and the Ethereum blockchain. When you get enough people believing in cryptocurrency, then you can snowball into something that a society actually deems valuable.

It's like the US.

Dollars, Well, what do you mean the US dollar?

The US dollar is based on faith in the system.

So the only thing backing this money is belief in the competency of the US government.

Unfortunately that's true.

Damn.

So not only is cryptocurrency faith, all money is fake. Wake up Wall Street. You know money isn't real, right, All this stuff is all faith. But Wall Street doesn't care if money is real as long as they're making lots of it. They've been pumping millions into Bitcoin and Ethereum, driving the creation of thousands of new cryptocurrencies.

But how low is the bar for entry?

Let me get this straight.

You took bitcoin and you just changed the font to comic sans.

And we put a dog on it.

This was the guy to talk to.

So tell me about the genesis of doggy coin.

Well, firstly, it's dirish coin, but I created wise it doge It's actually based on a meme. What it's not dog e coin electronic coin.

Dog e coin Oh that's pretty.

It's not.

Actually it's not.

But guess what, this stupid med currency is worth almost four hundred million dollars, So why does its creator have some problems with cryptocurrency?

When you see price charts go up into the ride exponentially, ultimately, it can be a sign of a bubble.

Yeah, bubbles are great. What you're talking about. I love bubbles. People are gonna lose a bunch of money.

And sure, cryptocurrency might destroy the planet through climate change and supporting road nuclear states.

But this is America. So I decided to make my own cryptocurrency. But that has to be an incredibly complex done.

That was easy, I get it.

It literally takes ten minutes to go on a website and make your own coin. Time to make it rain chan coin and kick start the financial revolution?

Do you accept chang coin?

Chim chang coins? I dig coin.

It's disrupting global financial systems using blockchain technology.

No no, no, look at.

I'll send you money over the internet.

Money I'm going to demonstrate.

So imagine if I send you this right, no, no, but digitally no no no, no, give me back my five.

How are people not getting this?

No?

I'm paying you.

I'm paying you in chance, out of my camp. Out of my camp.

Remember this moment, Remember this moment when you had a chance to jump on chan coin and you did it?

All right?

His loss invest in chang coin. Just don't ask me how it works.

Chicago, big city, windy city, opinionated city. Whether you're from Hyde Park, Lincoln Park, or Wicker Park, why is everything a park?

Their food is as iconic as their corruption.

L's Italian Beef Sandwich, Garrett's Addicted popcorn Mix, Fortillo's Jumbo hot Dog, and of course the legendary Chicago pizza.

I've heard so much about.

What the four is this?

This is Chicago deep dish pizza.

Yo.

I said, I wanted a pizza, not some Italian guys dump on a plate. This looks like me eating pizza and then throwing it up into a bread ball and then leaving in the sun to drive.

This is how Chicago does pizza. I refuse to believe you.

Can't get a decent slice of pizza in this city.

All right.

This is the birthplace of Lincoln Obama, Michael Jordan.

None of those people were born here.

Burthers, Oh, this is what people in Chicago called pizza. Where can I find a decent slice in the city. So this stupid bull, I couldn't find a single place that sold real pizza, just these deep dish dough dumpsters.

This isn't pizza, This isn't even human food. After hours of only deep dish.

I finally found a place that served delicious, normal pizza pot the Cook County Jail. That's right, the best pizza in Chicago is in the biggest jail in America.

This goalmet pizza.

It's actually made by and so to inmates as parva training program called Recipe for Change.

Recipe for Change is made it a point to put together a program where we have phenomenal pizza.

Thomas dott is the sheriff of Cook County Jail. He's been running the pizza program for four years.

We have a lot of good pizza in Chicago.

This is really good, though, what do you mean that's good pizza in Chicago.

Have you tried that deep dish Chicago pizza?

Yeah, but the inmates didn't want that.

So they're telling me even in jail, people did not want deep dish pizza.

They haven't been asking for it.

Recipe for Change is one of several rehab programs out of the Cook County Jail, along with drumming, painting, chess, gardening, and more So, what made you become a hero sheriff and not a Joe Pio Sheriff?

You know we said raised like seventy percent. It's expensive to incarcerate people. It's not expensive to give him a skill.

The man giving them that skill.

Local restaurant here Chef Bruno about it, who volunteers his time and expertise to tease inmates how to cook the best pizza in Chicago. Chef, what do you think about this deep dish pizza?

It's got to be People should not eat this. It's like a brick. Look at this. Look I mean, I don't know where do you buy this?

I don't want to know, but this is shade.

After a straight hour of shutting on deep Dish pizza, Chef Bruno finally got around to telling me more about how his program is affecting inmates. The program Racing People Change is here to open your mind, to open your brain, give you whole, give yourself, Steven Gibby.

Give you pizza.

Everyone in the Cook County GA wants to be a part of this great program.

I learned how to be a better leader.

I learned how to work with a lot of other people.

I basically I've learned how to eat better.

It was great to be with people in Chicago who understood what pizza supposed to look and taste. Like, Guys, this pizza is genuinely awesome.

You must have people lying around the block by this.

Actually it's only for inmates.

Guys.

We gonna rescue Chicago from that boat deep this pizza.

Ohkay, know, the pieza is great, but this is not how you dere a conflict.

All right, I'll be right back.

Hey, where are you going with the pizza?

Ronnie knew pizza this good wasn't meant to be caged. He also really loved prison escape movies.

Ronnie, where are you?

Look at the Messa? Say pizza, look at you?

Why?

In October twenty seventeen, Ronnie Chang smell of thing across pizza out of Cook County Jail. Oh RUNI loved pizza, but he also hated Chicago beet dish. He had to find a way to get thin crust pizza to the people of Chicago. All it takes to get pizza out is cheese, dough and time. That and a big ass poster.

Run a chanan.

He crawled through a river Marinella and came out smelling like basil.

In the last presidential election, forty four percent of Americans did not vote. That puts you in twenty six position among developed countries.

That's pathetic.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

That's garbage.

It's so garbage that in twenty sixteen Trump got.

Elected only a quarter of eligible voters supporting him.

That is a broken system.

Some politics nerds are proposing a solution. Jewelry duty and taxes are mandatory, why not voting? But America is the land of the free, where the whole point is to do anything you want, even dress up as fat iron men in Times Square on a Tuesday afternoon.

So can you really force Americans to vote? Do you think in America voting should be compulsory?

I think it should, but it's not going to happen because people won't even wear a mask.

If we were told to do something at this point, exactly get we wouldn't do it.

Do you think.

America would ever accept mandatory voting?

Definitely not.

Why not?

Because Americans are lazy?

In general, America is the land of the free. People come here because it's a.

Free place, and that includes the freedom to not Yeah, pretty much. Do you think mandatory voting can happen in America?

No not, I do not.

I think that American values are like a toxic version of what freedom is.

Isn't that what makes America great?

It's not so great at the moment.

Maybe Americans think it's impossible, but mandatory voting does exists in twenty two countries, including one that's even drunker, crazier and whiter than the US. I'm talking about Australia, where they've had it since nineteen twenty two.

It was quite a small step for Australians to think, well, we want the majority of people to be selecting our government and that gives it greater legitimacy.

So basically, in Australia, you force people to exercise their democratic rights.

That's right, Yes, that's right. I don't think people in Australia regarded as a particularly big deal. You've got to turn up on election day, which is a Saturday. You know, it might take you like fifteen minutes, and the Parents and Teachers Association will be there selling sausages, and that's where we get the term democracy sausage.

Okay, for Americans, the term democracy sauces has had a bad taste since the Clinton administration. But for Australians, consuming child and testing meat on brad has been a voting tradition since the nineteen forties. But what about the people who don't think age sizzle is enough incentive to vote? What kind of punishment do you have to enforce to make it certain all the ninety percent of people don't involve?

What jail time, public spanking you have to wear? I didn't vote sticker?

It's a twenty dollars fine, that's it.

That's a bargain.

I think.

Look, there's big advantages in our system because the political parties don't have to get the vote out, and that means they don't have to appeal to the base, So you don't get the same sort of extreme ideological appeals, and so it makes our democracy, I think more moderate.

Doesn't that make your election process very boring?

Well, just make it boring. Look, I don't know that that's a problem for me. What democracy means is that the majority of people participate, and I find the extent of voter suppression in the United States truly shocking. I don't understand how the Americans can call themselves a democracy at all.

Political science Wall Star is gonna love this, But how do every day Australian see it. I took a twenty five hour flight and spent two weeks in quarantine just so I could talk to them myself in sunny Brisbane, Australia. What do you feel about the fact that voting is compulsory in Australia.

I feel very proud that it is. And for people who don't want to vote as you go and live somewhere.

Else, everybody has to decide and it's mandatory to vote, so if the result doesn't go your way, you can't complain if we lose, We're said, but at least we've had a chance to vote.

And that's it, brother done to just do it.

It takes five minutes, You just go in mid vote, you get out, no time nowhere anyway, Just shut the f happened?

Vote?

Or what do you guys think about mandatory voting in Australia?

Thanks pretty much?

Yeah, so ertand of it.

We don't care what we work with.

We're just going there and take a few boxes and then things crossed, we get the right one.

Are you guys drunk right now?

Yeah?

Shot yea with Brecky you know man that is.

But why do you think voting isn't mandatory in America?

Oh? Now I ready think it?

Actually, maybe there's a purpose for America Australia.

Which one's doing better?

I feel like I'm a witness to cavemen discovering fire right now?

Yeah that's fair.

Eno'm actually yea. Even drunk Australian bros can see the benefits of mandatory voting. But for America, the good news is that voter turnout in twenty twenty is on track to hit record levels. All we needed to get people to vote was to elect Donald Trump and then guess what people turn up?

We don't need to force people to vote.

Well, that's a pretty big price to pay. I'd rather pay twenty dollars fines than have to put up with president.

Four years tuche Judith.

But hopefully one day Americans will also learn to enjoy the sweet, sweet taste of democracy sausage as much as our drunk vote loving mates down under.

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