Darin Cox

greetings and welcome to an episode of the letterman podcast my name is mike chisholm i am very excited about this show uh i cannot wait this is one of our earlier episodes uh the enthusiasm that i have for this subject and for what it is that we're talking about here is boundless at least we're going to test that theory uh with this show anyway i am very excited you as the listener or the viewer whether you're listening in your ear holes or watching on the youtubes are going to uh see a very enthusiastic person about david letterman week in and week out as we do this show i would love to say that this show was brought to you by i love i love back in the day where uh like public broadcasting this is the point where someone say this show has been brought to you by a grant from the chubb foundation and i don't know if the chub foundation is real i just like saying chubb foundation we're not brought to you by anybody except for the peace and love and dedication of david letterman enthusiasts not just david letterman david letterman company i say that because the man was awesome but the people around him were also awesome and that is uh who the enthusiasts love as well so i'm just gonna every once in a while do a random uh letterman related product and say we're brought to you by that today we are brought by mark carson's late night bumpers book um if you haven't gotten this book and you are a fan of david letterman you are uh obviously uh in the category of looking at seeing if you're insane or not because this is a phenomenal book that every david letterman fan should have highly recommend it go source it out get it mark is a friend of the show and we're very excited about some of the things that we are going to be doing with this book on the show please go and get that book and we can go from there um the thing about this show is uh just like dave's uh dave's incarnations all of dave's incarnations included bringing the audience in on the joke or making the audience the joke part of the show and that's the the secret sauce of this podcast is that we're not just going to be talking to you know the whole thing wouldn't be hell the goal to have dave on every single week that's not what we want to do um i mean don't get me wrong dave obviously you're not listening but if one of your minions are listening we would love to have you on the show that'd be fantastic but that's not we also see a much bigger picture from this we want to have folks who worked on the show and of course uh i've got a brush with uh with the show from from a fan perspective it's that picture right behind me this is my left i don't know through the miracles of uh technology if this is left or right to you but this is my left and i know that because i'm left-handed that picture is david letterman using me as a speed the comedy speed bag and uh that was about a month before the show ended one day i'll come on here and in long form i'll tell the entire story about how that happened but that was a moment that changed my life it really did and i'm a broadcaster and i'm a podcaster now i've got a men's mental wellness podcast inspired by dave inspired by my affection for him and his skills over the years and um you know it's funny how the guy changes people's lives well there's a lot of folks out there who have had experiences with this show and have just been itching for five 10 15 20 25 years 30 years do i hear 40 almost you know we're beyond between 30 and 40 who still love telling the stories who still want a place where they can talk about what it meant to be affected by the show today we have somebody who has been affected by the show in many many many ways like me also a podcaster a broadcaster he hosts the irritable dad syndrome podcast and he has assured me that his last name is his real last name and not a performer stage name of any sort we have darren cox on the show today cox darren cox thank you darren for taking time out of your day you got lots of stuff going on just like i do but we we take time out of our days to pause to talk about our enthusiasm for dave and company thank you for taking time out of yours to be on the letterman podcast well thank you for having me and let me just say it's an honor to be your first guest that you reached out he's like we're doing this we've got to get darren on first and i am flattered is um uh just beyond the word that i can think of right now to be on this show thank you so much how are you darren you are in the podcast world what we call a get you are uh it's so good to have you tell people how hard it was to get me oh i know i know the uh you had to go through people that he knew that i knew that knew somebody else and then uh some strings are pulled yeah yeah so i'm happy to be here and we're not going to talk about bribes or uh blackmail yeah because that's not what we talk about on the show because that's what you call a trail of evidence that's right that's right and we're not going to refer to that at all um before we get going on the dave stuff uh i want to hear the irritable dad syndrome uh delightful title tell us about your podcast and how folks can get can get it as well we'll do that at the end as well but yeah okay well i've got a buddy his name is mike odle and he and i met because our friends um our kids were friends so we met at like birthday parties and it's like and his friends or my son's friends would come over and and mike would come over and pick up his kid and over time we started talking and chatting and we realized that we had like a million things in common and on days where we would be waiting uh at scouts or uh at a basketball game or whatever and talking these conversations that we had the people around us were constantly looking at us and and we noticed that we were always getting an audience over our conversations yep and mike was like you know what we ought to start recording these conversations i'm like you've got a great idea there and a buddy of mine who lives in chicago said that our podcast is like you're in a bar and you're eavesdropping on the conversation behind you right yes and it's irritable dad syndrome not it's not like a parental podcast we don't give good god we don't give any advice on raising kids yeah okay and we're irritable dads uh uh because of our kids but we still love our kids right but the podcast is basically just stuff that happened to us through the week and it's like i can go to the grocery store down the street and get two stories every single week you know there's there's and i just i don't want to bore you but we went or i went to the grocery store one week and this woman she was talking about how she didn't like she couldn't open the bags the plastic bags that you put your vegetables in sure and so she's like she's like i'm going to get my hands wet and she puts her hands on the beats okay and she gets them wet and she opens her bag and she says hey you want to touch my beats and i said no but you just named my podcast for this week so and then i went home and my wife she says how do you how do you run into these crazy people every week i'm like i don't know they're gravitated towards you're a magnet exactly but it's irritabled syndrome.com we just recorded our 85th episode we have been downloaded in uh 20 different countries over 400 different cities we've uh almost at 9 000 downloads overall so i mean is it the biggest podcast in the world no is it getting there we're working on it do we take pride in it we absolutely and we have fans who have recorded uh this one got reached out to me last week he's on his third listen of the entire thing he's listened to it he started over and listened to the whole thing and he's on a third round i never dreamed that somebody would uh be such a fan of something that i was a part of but that's that's what it is thank you for letting me play i have three things to say in in in response to where you just went with uh with all of that number one uh wherever you're from the uh uh the the the public uh perception of what behavior during a pandemic in a produce department is astounding to me that's fantastic uh well done to that lady um well done number two um the the the feeling and by the way she she bought those beats she didn't just touch them and leave she fought those beats okay excellent i i appreciate i appreciate the uh the clarification on that um number two the gratification i have i have a men's mental wellness podcast my wife is building a men's mental wellness platform called he changed it um her and her team are gonna change the world and i'm just kind of watching from the sidelines eating a sandwich but i'm also hosting the podcast for it and i can i can identify with that gratification you were talking about um and and when someone comes up to you and talks about how your podcast made their day in some cases changed their life or or did something there is a feeling that comes from that that is unique um and i'm sure the germans would have a word for it but um yeah yes absolutely which leads me to the third thing though because that's not why we do this no we don't do it for that you're having your conversations with your buddy in the bar regardless yeah because we just enjoy talking yes yeah yes and and and that part the process like i love this like i haven't had thank god and and please technology gods don't let this happen especially today i haven't had it happen where i've lost an episode yet i've i hear people who who have these shows and oh i forgot to hit the record button or the hard drive right or whatever i haven't had that yet hopefully you almost had that happen once oh yeah i mean i can see the frustration in that except for the fact that the process itself does something and you know what i'm saying like like i i love the connection in the conversation and the back and forth and and and uh the joy that comes from the process i can feel it as you're talking about the irritable dad syndrome podcast i i dig it man and and uh we're we're we're definitely brothers from another mother um you know it's funny i i i don't know how inspired you were to do this by dave and how much of dave's um you know the the the comedy dna that he has put into us since you know uh for all these years but for me i'm tremendously influenced by him how much do you think dave has an influence on on on your broadcasting oh my goodness well i mean my main job is i am a producer for antenna tv and rewind tv and they show classic television shows before that i worked since 1993 in television and local television i started about uh boy about a month before dave moved to cbs yep okay and so when i was in college you know i was going to go into either uh public speaking motivational speeching speeching good god motivational speaking you've been good at it there it is right there oh yeah nothing better than me or speech writing i was i was thinking about any type of uh avenue uh like that because i wanted to go into that area and i needed a minor and the building where i was at east tennessee state university they had a broadcasting program and uh the guy's like well you could mine her in broadcasting like well that sounds like fun yeah i thought that's just the way to pass the time and the more i took these classes the more i loved broadcasting more than the avenue of public speaking thank god because anyway um when i was in speeching yeah when i was in college i hosted a game show called useless knowledge and my friends sandy and leanne and shannon the four of us we put it together we basically stole everything from the two tv shows late night with david letterman and remote control hosted by ken ober okay that's what we made this game show out of and then when i started in in television i mean you know it was dave who wanted made me want to get into television and do what i do and so since i chose a behind-the-scenes avenue of broadcasting you know editing and yep audio and that type of thing um did i still want to be on camera yeah but not as a reporter and i had no interest in being a weather person and so um i wanted to host a game show and yeah that's i mean anybody can get a game show now yeah but in 93 not so much well again god by the way thank god we did you know we we're at a place now where anybody can have a play set and do this we we anybody can have a show and and dave you know i i uh i've got a lot of i got a lot of stuff up in here um you know he's been talking for years longer than the internet actually um saying that oh anybody can have a show now yeah and at the end of the day like you think back to the big three networks um you know especially you know uh johnny carson and his um stranglehold on that time slot yeah you know dominance um and nobody can talk no right and and i mean you know the only guy that's getting those kind of numbers now is joe rogan like like it's and it's crazy like nobody's gotten that kind of uh cachet or or or you know i hate to use the word power because it's influence um you know since johnny carson you know joe rogan's the only guy that's gotten numbers like that and carson used to get that every single night yeah so that's where i'm astounded by dave not only that that he could surface um and i mean obviously he counter programmed and carson you know ran you know carson was um the part of dave's first show but the fact that dave could um have a show it was given the time to to to to breathe and to ruminate and grow and evolve and all that stuff and he's right anybody can have a show now and thank god for that because now you and i can scratch some itches that we wouldn't have been able to scratch otherwise right well you know meryl marco was saying that the reason late night was became what it was was because carson and his people told them all the things that they couldn't do yeah like well okay so this is what we can do nobody said we can't put a guy in a velcro suit and jump on a wall right you know nobody said we can't roll down the steps and you know and all the nutty stupid crazy things that they did you know they're like okay this is what we can do yeah and they weren't never once did they say we were limited to all this it just didn't affect them we talk about this sometimes on the uh on the mental wellness podcast uh that i do sometimes i'll have a life coach or a counselor and they talk about the idea and there's a there's a name for it but i am a simpleton and don't remember clinical names about things but but here's what it is it's a it's a condition uh that we as humans have where if there's no boundaries whatsoever we actually paralyze ourselves if if the if the the choices and i see that with tv you know the more channels that we've gotten the harder it is to land on a show that we want to watch right like yes and and and so sometimes parameters like that can really hone in because you have this vision we want to entertain we want to be different we want to be uh zany we want to be counter culture whatever the words were used to say this is the things we want to be then when given those limitations you can now laser focus um the creativity that you want to put out there and see what sticks and and i think that that is a really good example of um you know the stirring of the cocktail of ingredients that they had to work with as to make late night is what created late night yeah i absolutely i'm i'm super stoked to talk about this um like i don't know about you uh i i love when i encounter somebody in life that has an interest in this stuff and it's it's rare like i mean you know it's it's cool that we can get together and talk about this stuff um the big premise of the show obviously is to get folks who are connected with the show in some way to talk about the things that made them happy about it we don't talk about salacious stuff we don't talk about uh you know anything this is a positive it's a celebration of the massive massive body of work that if we don't do this is just gonna be thrown away because it's so big and right the fans themselves with the interactions that we've had with the show are part of that show and they're part of this show because we can get together and talk about this stuff you have a bunch um and and and we're gonna have you on as a guest multiple times you and i are already down that path made those decisions uh those payments have been made um that evidence has been curated um i want to talk about uh well first off you gotta prop with you you gotta you've actually got something with you there that we can talk about before we get to your story i mean of course i've got my late show mug at a boy that i keep on my desk i've got my box of exploded pop popping corn the world's only atomic popping corn um i think that's probably expired but my favorite thing from the show is uh you and i are both members of the afl fan club on facebook yes and it's the piece of the stage let's say something else put the camera back on you it's the it's the yeah it's the piece of the stage that a gentleman uh uh on the show he he had dumpster dived after they tore the thing apart and he had all this all these pieces of stage and his wife was like you've got to get this out of my house oh sorry no no no no we can curse here we're okay we're on the internet and so he he cut it into nice uh uh whatever by whatever size pieces and mailed them to whoever wanted them for free and i cherish this and every now and then i do stand up comedy yeah and when i do stand up i like to take this with me and i like to set it on the floor and i don't tell anybody what it is because people are gonna think i'm a freak which i am but whatever you know you put your foot on that and uh it's just i don't know it gives me a little bit of inspiration to try and be funnier i have goosebumps uh all over right now no no no no no you don't understand like i've done stand up again i look at dave's biography dave's the guy who okay uh i'll truncate it really really quickly um not an a student below average student uh talk about hey you might want to think about trades you might want to think about that you know and then he has a communications class where they say you know talk about yourself for three minutes or something like that he doesn't go oh i can do this okay but this is what i want to do i discovered that when i was 40.

um i didn't have that moment when i was a kid and so i've looked at him and and and then it was the idea of hosting a show like this being able to go back and forth repartee to ratato but he knew to get there he had to use stand up as a vehicle to do it so yeah started my podcast i thought you know what that guy yeah i'm gonna do that so i've started stand up too now the reason why the goosebumps are going all over my body first and foremost i envy that piece i i i'm not a huge covetor but i i get excited for people uh who are like-minded i love that you have that yeah and and you've taken it a step further and you have uh when you do stand up and again it's not because we want to necessarily go out on tour and and even have it as a paid gig i'm never going to get a netflix special i just i know that yeah you want to get the skill under your belt though right yeah exactly me too it's like i want to learn how to fly fish i know how to fly fish it's like it's like i want to learn a new skill and stand up is just that skill and the process is the beauty of it last episode of our podcast my co-host spent the whole time talking about uh how he hated the movie river runs through it because that's all we talked about was fly fishing and here we are talking about fly fishes tell uh hey tell mike stop from me exactly another mic is uh you got ribbon ribbon when i do stand up i wear one of my worldwide pants jackets um and yeah i don't have one of those see and and there you go and i mean you know i know you're happy for me because i'm happy for you with that stage but i also know that you you know uh you'd slip my throat and grab because because that's just that's if you were over here and you accidentally left your jacket at the house i would not call you and say hey you left your jacket i'd be like i haven't seen it because i'm that type of guy i don't know what you're talking about are you sure you wore it a world it said worldwide pants no kidding see but but you take that stage and you you take that piece of stage and put it under your foot and it's like it just gives you a little bit more of a harmony that's the only way i can describe it yeah it's your rabbits it's your rabbit's foot yes i feel the exact same way and and the handful of times that i've done stand-up this last year it's been tough you know pandemic all that stuff but there's been opportunities and and i've done it and and and and again the curse never gotten crickets um and don't it's been it's been uh painful don't get me wrong but boy i have yeah oh have you gotten crickets have you have you gone on a bombing run oh yeah yeah but luckily you know i was on a night where i've done shows where um like they've had they booked a show at this burger place okay is up near dayton ohio yep and the crowd was there to eat okay it's a restaurant and then they decided that this wednesday night was going to be open might not at this burger place and nobody there knew that they were coming to a comedy show oh boy so and all i can say was they're setting the stage they're setting the stage and on the sign and i'll have to find the sign to send it to you the s had fallen off and so it said comedy how i'm like yeah how are we gonna pull this off because nobody wants to see a comedy show tonight they want to eat a burger yeah okay and their french fries and their beer and then they want to go home yeah and so knock on wood everybody bombed that night because we were doing comedy at a restaurant and nobody knew that it was open mike so we were of an annoyance more than we were entertaining you know i got some smiles sure i've done comedy before i did a show once with an audience of three people okay and two of the three over these ladies and they just stared at you the whole night they just stared at ya it was uncomfortable and the other guy was so drunk and passed out he got mad and left because we wouldn't let him hold the mic and tell a joke so when he left we lost 25 of our audience okay after the show one of the two ladies who just stared at me she said okay um the other guys were up there and they were doing their bit and i couldn't stop laughing thinking about that stuff that you were doing she says you were you were hilarious thanks for letting me know thank you you could have laughed had you thought i was hilarious but instead she sat there going he's funny he's really funny don't you think he's funny yeah yeah i do killing me and and so and i'm up there doing this bit about uh the peanuts gang and all the stupid dances that they do and i can do all the dances i can do linus i can do that i can do it i can do it but i'm up there just just bombing doing all these peanuts dances i'm like this is the pride of my life i'm camping i wish my kids could see this and then after the show she's like you're hilarious i'm like thank you hey i don't want to make this thing about race but uh can you do franklin's dance franklin didn't wasn't on the stage okay all right all right well i was gonna say because if you could if you as a white man could dance like franklin you you'd be on something there that'd be uh that'd be pretty good the the lioness is my is that that's my moneymaker right there that's one to go home that's the go home bit is the minus one okay what a great bit you know and it's funny i've been working on one similar um i'm in the pro wrestling world like i have yeah it's weird like i've got a weird set of experiences um i have a pro i i co-founded a pro wrestling promotion where i'm from it was a charity endeavor i own a financial firm and uh many of my counterparts when they want to give back to the community they do it through like a golf tournament or a walk and i'm just like shoot me in the head um i want to do something different and don't get me wrong i enjoy golf but you know it's it's it's kind of that's a that's an experience that only a few can be a part of um i thought well why don't we put on a pro wrestling show and we built a business model around it and we just thought okay this is going to be ridiculous and we uh uh we would bring in a wwf former star draw the show around them and then this is like okay so the community can all be a part of this we're going to entertain the entire community and we can raise money for a good cause and we raised a couple hundred thousand dollars over a few years it was a really good endeavor good experience but in that i've met a lot of pro wrestlers i got the curtain pulled back and i understand how the business works and so i've got a bit where i imitate certain pro wrestlers swagger the dance their walk to the ring right whatever and then the bit finishes off with if i was a pro wrestler this would be my swagger and that's kind of the thing i love the uh so so i feel like that's a little bit uh of a cousin of the peanuts dancing bit that's very i love that that's very clever i think it's safe to say that you and i are iconic in the world of stand-up comedy i would say the exact same thing and it's uh it's it's it's amazing when one icon can get along with another icon i know i know thank god right i feel like we're healing the rift between dave and jay right now darren and mike can do this anybody yeah yeah yes exactly by the way you've got i i know we're here to talk about dave but sure uh there's there's a lot of light glare behind you there's a picture behind you i've just realized that's wayne gretzky when i first got on the camera i thought it was barry manilow oh well you know what either one would do um yeah yeah the reason that my apologies to wayne gretzky and and barry manilow oh my again mine as well that would yeah apologies would be appropriate for both as well yeah canadian boy this is probably why by the way uh in the handful of times i've done stand-up that i i haven't had crickets is you know canadian audiences right so the polite laughter is is uh oh yeah are they better audiences uh i wouldn't say better uh there's definitely more facial hair and flannel i would say um well there you go it's like i'm performing in canada let me write some more brian adams and gordon lightfoot material oh you're gold you're gold you're gonna you're cuts like a knife my friend so the uh the idea that um again people who don't they won't understand the stage that having a certain jacket whatever they don't understand now let's take it a step further we've watched dave for a long long time the idea that we could actually be one of those chuckleheads that has a brush with the show is kind of like uh well hey would you rather find the cure for cancer or would you rather have a moment where you actually have a brush with the show as a fan it'd be almost a coin flip for many of us um like-minded people when it comes to being enthusiasts um you've had a brush with the show and that's what i want to talk about for our first one here i want to talk about i want to talk let's uh hey let's not bury the lead i want to talk about al mccurson okay so it was january of 96 and i lived in tennessee and my buddy don garner uh he and i decided that we're going to go up to new york we're going to see the late show with david letterman and we he sent away for tickets and i sent away for tickets yep mine came in first and so we said okay and then like a week later his came in and uh uh we ended up going the first time and i'm glad we did the guests that night were elle mcpherson david spade and d'angelo was a musical guest that night yeah okay and uh i think talking about the 90s right there hello right no no offense to paulie shore but paulie shore i think was the guest when don's tickets came in sure and we we watched that show i mean i watched all the the ones on cbs yes i was too young when when late and i came out and i i missed a lot of them because you know i was a kid i had to go to bed at times and then you know he wasn't on friday nights uh in the summer time everything so i missed so much of late night but late show i saw almost almost every one of them yeah unless the vcr didn't record anyway so we go and the deal was if you're going to the show you you have your tickets but that doesn't guarantee your entrance into the building right and they tell you that yep and so you have to be in line i think is it four o'clock yeah and there's no early early yeah yeah yeah so we get to new york and we get uh we stand outside of the theater at noon and a woman comes out and she says go get out here go leave no you you don't you need to get back here at what at four or something so we left we came back at one she told us to leave again so we were talking a sandwich come on back exactly we walked around a little bit more we did go to roofers yep we walked around a little bit more and we got back at like 1 30 1 45 and she's like fine you two stand right here right here so we're first in line yep we're guaranteed we're absolutely first in line and then uh like around four o'clock all these people came up we're standing on the street yep on the sidewalk all these people started lining up at the door and we're panicking because a lot of people are lining up at the door and we're like we were told to stand right here and that lady who came out she goes no no no no no no everybody no you stand behind these two right here you here you go and she and so we're like there you go so we go yeah yeah exactly we go in and we are right in the very front okay where the front row of the at the ed sullivan theater and i reached over and i put my hand on the stage and i'm convinced that it's the same piece of stage that i have oh it was it was the same piece it looks so familiar right so there we are on the front row and you know david spade is hilarious as he as he always was and elle mcpherson comes out and she's i can't remember what she was promoting uh but she was great and whatever after elle does her segment all the writers come around and hover around dave's desk and for people who've never seen the show the second they go to commercial break dave's jacket is off yep takes off the jacket and dave stands up and i don't know what they were pitching him he kept saying no no no and we're like what we're trying to figure out what are they throwing that he's not catching or that he doesn't want yes and finally they work on something and uh uh in the front row there's a section with three seats there's dawn me and this girl who uh i don't know why she was there by herself but anyway she she filled that seat yes they walk down and they ask her do you mind um do you mind getting up for a second please she goes no no and i thought holy crap they're gonna shoot a segment where somebody's in the audience i'm like oh god is it don knotts is don knotts going to sit right here you know it's or something they're going the ghost of ed sullivan is about to show up this is midsole yeah and so um when i went i wanted uh my goal was to get a big ass ham i wanted a big ass ham so bad yes i brought this was after cabin boy i brought a sock monkey with me okay so i'm sitting there with this sock monkey and um one of the writers comes up and says uh do you mind can you put the stock monkey under your seat okay okay anyway elle mcpherson walks down and sits right next to me right to my left and um and all my friends are like oh my god did you ask her out yeah yeah okay listen i had a mullet at the time okay a beautiful glorious mullet yet still a moment okay i had been out this is winter in new york i've been out all day i am just like my skin is all shaved and red and i've got like four days of beer growth and i'm just a dork sounds like you're ready for romance mr cox exactly exactly l it's not going to get any better than this right and and the true story is it's like yeah it was awesome to meet elle mcpherson yes but i was so excited that i'm going to be visible on the late show okay exactly that's and that's and that's the honest to god true yeah it was great but david spade could have sat next to me and i would have been the same amount of excited even though she smelled amazing oh really oh god she smelled she smelled better than any actress i've ever met if you want to name the smell uh that that that comes to you is it is it is it blossoms of some sort is it uh vanilla is it like like if you could you put a name to the smell so she's sitting right there and they bring her this giant box of uh a valentine a heart-shaped box of chocolates okay and so the segment that they shot uh this is during the commercial break and dave says uh uh you know cisco neighborhood are here uh neil diamond is here what uh what what was that uh what is that right oh mcpherson's here and they go to the camera and the camera is zooming in on on the three of us right and and i hate this for my friend don but they they zoomed him out of the shot to get on her but they stayed on a two shot of me and l because this dork this is just dork with this mullet right and she kisses the chocolate and she throws it she says happy valentine's day baby and then dave catches it right and then and then they zoom out and i'm like yes and so you know this is my that was my claim to fame i worked at a cbs affiliate in johnson city this is wjhl so the next day oh my god nobody would shut up darren was on letterman last night yep and it was on the morning show they ran it on the noon show they ran it at five o'clock and they ran it again at 11 o'clock yep and bob lewis rest his soul he he passed away many years ago dear friend of mine he was our main anchor he says this is a moment that many people in the world will forget but not us because darren yep darren won't let us well done don so that was that was my claim to fame and you know i on the fan page you know i know people who went to see him 20 times 13 times yep i never went back because i knew that it's not going to get that good any any other time i go will be it's like yeah it'll be great to see dave live again yes but me being front row me getting on the show it's not gonna happen again and so i wanted my memory of my only appearance at at the studio making it on television and that was it and by the way and this can be for another pocket but the next night we went to see conan yes we made it on conan's show too uh we'll we will talk about that in the next i mean we get well you know what let's let's stay on that trip we can talk about it now i'm gonna tease for the next time you're on the podcast though because this is not the only uh connection that you have had with dave and company and and and we've got other stories that we can talk about and we will uh ad nauseam everybody so to be excited about that um because we're excited about this and now i but before we get to the conan part um i wanna i wanna you touched on something that i think many of us who will gravitate you know the dozen or so fans that this podcast is gonna garner over the years um we'll we'll all be able to connect with the idea that when you had a spot on letterman especially before the social media thing my spot with on the show was after the social media thing but before the social media thing if you uh in an out of new york market guest um had some sort of a spot on the letterman show i'm i'm saying this is a canadian the local news would cover it it would be in the paper people would be talking about it with you for a long time you would take that big time experience back to the small time life that we had and people would would would would talk about it and somebody somebody at the grocery store recognized me from not from the show but from seeing the news piece about it that they ran all day long he was you were the guy that was on letterman i'm like yes yeah how did you how did you know that and he says yeah it was on the news yesterday or whatever the threat it was you know my brother told me before i went he says darren if anybody is gonna make it happen and make it on the show he says i know you're going to i know you will figure out a way to make it on the show and all i did was just you know we got in line and we got a front row on the day they happened to shoot a segment yep well and it's okay so this is where again i go back to some of the the other conversations i have in the other podcast because i mean we talk about um we talk about personal development things including energetic personal development things and you talk about manifesting and and i just say that word and people who i because i had the same thing happen i've had people in my life say okay because they know how insane i am for the things that i adore and i become a real big enthusiast for them and and i had the same thing happen to me uh with my experience on the show if anybody can make this happen if anybody can because the whole thing my whole thing started from i wanted a picture behind dave's desk uh because because it was like yeah kind of unrealistic that i would ever get it to me crazy what ended up happening but people the week before i went to new york if anybody can make it happen it's you and you and i are not the only people who can say that as well there's going to be a lot of guests on this show on this podcast the letterman podcast um that that that have that same feeling and how fun is it you talk about fly fishing again this is for you mike um you know there's a saying a fisherman can always recognize another fisherman and there's a whole bunch of us in the afl group and other groups that are out there um other letterman enthusiasts who this is a communal experience where it's like okay you're that big of a fan something magic might happen and uh you're gonna be on the show and we're all gonna see it and back in the day when it was just three networks before the internet blew everything up and everything got compartmentalized and diluted the way it has um that was a big freaking deal yeah and we're still talking about it what we're 30 years later almost 30 years later 20 20 22 23 years later or something like that i'll tell you what's wild is a friend of mine made it on one of the top 10 lists okay i've got a friend who was on stupid patrick's i've got a friend who wrote a letter on viewer mail she wrote the letter that had gerard mulligan dressed up as the cicada she wrote that in from his famous letter okay i was so so jealous but still very excited for her and then i have a friend but my buddy don who went to the show with me when we met elle mcpherson yep he worked in at wish tv in indianapolis and whenever they would go live to dave's mom's house it was the fine folks that wish we would go out there and shoot that and he did her show appearance twice yeah and i've got a great story about that oh man i can't wait good oh you're setting the table oh look at you you're a pro you understand what it's like to leave them wanting more yeah this ain't my first radio um the night after you see the late show you have this crazy experience um you know you haven't gone home yet you don't know what's waiting for you on the vcr necessarily you don't know what's you know you you don't know the local reaction yet other than maybe some uh some phone calls from the hotel room um the next day you go to conan and and conan at this point here i mean if you're 96 i he's probably off the uh you know the 13-week commitment but not by much uh yeah we i mean we got our tickets that morning you know for letterman we had to request them six months in advance or a ridiculous amount of time uh conan yeah just get them that day and we did my uh i'm gonna do a shout out to my good buddy jay ryan uh my buddy jay ryan was probably working on the show as a pa or an intern at that point um who was the uh who was the guest that night the guests that night were and right now we're summing up why this is the letterman podcast right now remembers every detail of the letterman no no no well i'm trying to remember besides because it was jay thomas who was the guest oh no kidding yeah yeah famous for the lone ranger story the greatest story ever in television history jay thomas was the guest for most promoting mr holland's opus and then uh amy mann any man from till tuesday was a musical guest and she was the team that that escaped me yeah oh that is a fantastic uh like what what a nice little coda to the trip uh yeah and jerry springer came out and did a bit of conan o'brien the uh on audiotape and he read like excerpts of the show on audiotape oh that's i remember i remember i think that was a bit that they would do um i i yeah i i remember that if it's uh that particular episode or if it's if it's a different one but yeah that's uh yeah oh that's great you got to see some cool stuff and jay thomas yeah also uh you know throws me a mean football out of me yes he does but no jay thomas was talking to conan and conan said so this is your first major motion picture he goes well no no my first major motion picture was uh a movie called chud oh i remember chud and so my buddy dawn and i start losing our mind clapping and jay looks right at us and he goes do you do do you know what shed stands for well go ahead say it say it and we're like cannibalistic humanoid underground yes yes okay and the cameras swoop around on a second here just directly uh get a two shot of these losers in the front row because we were front row on that night too that and that was completely the fluke absolute fluke because we had to bend the hundredth person in line crazy and they they they all go down and they fill up the left side of the stage or the of the the seats and then they filled up the right and so and they were front row on the right after they filled all the left and so we said cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers the cameras shoot around and jay thomas looks at goes he goes you probably don't do it anymore but you probably smoked a lot of dope you watched the movie right and don and i like we loved it and conan says why is the whole the whole show is turning into a forum for these two guys and jay says uh they're friends of mine i'm taking them out to dinner later i wanted to get them on camera and when jay was done he walks off and he waves at us to give us the you know the old finger gun there and waves at us and smile and uh we get a call at the hotel so where did he take you for dinner and we were on cloud nine because not only were we on letterman then we're on conan and i'm like you know what that son of a didn't take us out for dinner yeah exactly oh he said he was taking us out to dinner and now he's dead so he's never going to take us out to dinner you know show business relationships sometimes disappoint my heart i know i know but so many people you know remember him from the lone ranger story but i've got this personal connection to jay thomas because he he got us on uncommon the night after we went to see letterman it was great this is why we don't pre-interview folks um this is like for years i watched letterman then conan uh for years you know i i made the switch back over and i mean i don't know you but but around that time it was you know that dicey thing but the moment dave showed up on conan um and and basically blessed him you know uh yes how how did you get this show you know i was in a context i know i came in right like like yeah okay so david yeah yeah on on letterman's last night yes um it's like you go back and you watch um and i still tear up when i watch dave's last night okay uh i watched jimmy kimmel talking about dave on his last night and jimmy's in tears yep and i think jimmy really encapsulated what a lot of us were thinking a lot of us who grew up watching letterman you know not only was he just something to do at 11 30 or 12 30.

yeah he just became a part of our lives he seriously did and you know when uh letterman was talking about carson that if you're having a good day you know is icing on the cake watching carson but if you're having a bad day carson would always make it better and that's what letterman was for me i felt the same thing when he said those words i felt the exact same thing at that moment yeah yeah but then you know you watch conan on dave's last day you know conan's you know he would not never would have succeeded because j you know or jay could god edit that out jay did everything he could to make sure conan didn't succeed right when dave went on his show and that boosted you know he's like god if dave likes our show and that just really lit a fire under their butts and they were able to continue and conan made a name for himself and just really far more succeeded than anybody thought he possibly could absolutely and i i feel that way to this day as well and and um yeah that is a that is a perfect way to kind of move over to the closing of of this show i i it's almost like you've done this a time or two um i i agree that's that last night i also had the had the tears i loved conan that night um i i annoy people because i if i meet conan in real life of course is conan i've called him conan since he showed up because i just love the idea that conan the barbarian yeah has this a guy the same name has a talk show and looks like him so i've always called him conan but conan yeah the night of dave's last night um kimmel did his thing and and conan after he said his words and i forget who the guest was but they're like stop watching this show go watch dave go watch dave and they were telling everybody to turn the channel yeah to go watch dave because his tbs show showed up at uh at 11 right he's on 11.

yeah yeah and and and i just i love that so much and um some of this stuff as i'm as i'm kind of moving into the into this world a little bit um i'm an outsider i'm a canadian that just i got major gaps so when i meet some of these people uh who worked for the show there are some things that i know like razor sharp and there are some things where there's massive massive massive gaps um as that's been happening i've recognized that i've been having the curtain pulled back and seeing that there are some things that are showbiz relationships like your you know relationship with jay for example jay thomas jay thomas um conan and his of his of his his affection for dave there's nothing showbiz about that um and and it's it's crazy how uh while dismantling the tonight show which dave was doing he was throwing rocks and throwing rocks and it didn't matter that if jay's on you know okay year and a half dave's beating jay and then suddenly jay leno uh you know comes back and okay he has the better numbers that's not the biggest point that's right the point is you've never had that franchise had rocks thrown through its walls you've never had somebody be able to not only sustain but be as profitable if not more profitable and it was more profitable because of the the 18 to 35 demo and all that crap that you know who cares about that at this point you know and simultaneously while he is saying screw you for not giving me the tonight show i'm walking across the street and doing some unprecedented stuff oh i'm also gonna put the shine on the guy who took over for me on the show that i created and nobody in my opinion nobody talks about that enough uh probably because they're worried about covet or war or something like that but i think that it's a point worth making you know what you touched on something that um that really gets under my skin still to this day whenever they bring up letterman they always throw in the fact that uh he was next in line for the tonight show until they gave it to leno and i'm like how long are you guys going to define dave by the job he did not get yeah and i am so tired of journalists everywhere it's like you know when they were doing his going away thing dave started out as a weatherman that he had his morning show that and then they and he followed carson then when he was supposed to get tonight show and they gave it to leno the chin i'm like stop okay him not getting that show is not what defined him his 33 years on late night is absolutely what defined him yes and i'm i'm just it really bugs me that they just keep bringing that up and like when he dies which i'm hoping that never happens yeah are they going to mention that in the obituary probably and it's and it's it's crazy they mention that and they don't mention the coda that i talked about where no no he actually created a foothold so with something that could compete against the tonight show he actually and and that's the holy crap like i i just i love that and it astounds me that they don't talk about that as well they've got their talking points and they go from there that being said i mean it led to what you're talking about led to uh one of my very very very favorite dave moments of all time which is the first joke he told uh on the last late show well it's beginning to look like i'm not going to get the tonight show which uh i believe dave mulholland jim holland i believe jim holland wrote that joke and and phenomenal like boom like okay fantastic and yeah um i still i'd okay i'm gonna finish with this question here okay okay um i'm gonna ask this question to other educated fans and i know that the answers are going to be all over the frigging map and i guess you're counting me as an educated person okay great even though i said speeching yeah that we're we're grading we're grading on a curve and you made the curve um so so have this i'm an optimist i'm a total optimist i've got love and light that shines out of me like a freaking fountain um and and and i understand that i also have rose-colored glasses sometimes but i personally would love i don't think it'll ever happen not because of dave by the way i i don't think it'll happen because of jay um this is what i would love to see and i believe the circle would be complete i'm a star wars fan i'm a fan of the circle now becoming complete um i would love to see jay show up on my next guest and they do a long form together and then i would love to see dave show up on jay leno's garage and and be a special edition of jay leno's garage because dave doesn't talk about his car collection and his enthusiasts that are out there all want to know about dave's car collection want to see him talk about his cars and all that kind of stuff i understand why he doesn't do it i understand that midwestern you know and the humbleness and the the private privacy and all that stuff yeah but these guys aren't getting any younger and if we're gonna have a moment like that i would love to have it um i don't think it'll happen by the way because i don't think jay would sit down with dave uh for an hour and let dave ask him whatever he wants to ask him i don't think jay would do that that's just me but i still want it to happen like that i kind of think jay would yeah i i feel like he would because you know the the doritos commercial yeah how did you get jay and oprah for that doritos commercial yeah fantastic no i mean well done good pull my friend i will never forget you know dave doing that bit he's like so here we go we got jay we got oprah how'd you get him on the doritos yeah absolutely he calls jay and says jay i got this great idea to promote my show yeah my show the late show my show and jay says yeah okay i'll be out there yeah yeah yeah yeah and so jay where's the i guess the fake mustache in the hood and and flies out there doesn't tell his goons over at nbc he just he just flies out there and shoots it because dave asked him to yeah so i totally think that jay would do that because you know it's like after the whole thing i i you know i watched jay talking about it yeah in the on clips i did i got a camera the last time i watched the tonight show with leno i think billy joel and elton john ron and i watched it because i loved those two sure it was painful watching jay you know it's like i don't hate jay as a person but i never thought he was funny after he took the tonight show when he was a stand-up comic you know he jay used to tell the story about buying his dad a new tv with the remote control right and his dad he went to visit him his dad kept the remote and the drawer says dad where's the where's the remote yeah i keep it on the drawer yeah that keeps the batteries fresh oh dad you know come on i'll buy you new batteries but i don't want to start a fire dead i'm not going to shoot a laser you know okay that was well done hysterically funny okay the story that he told about his dad having the toilet seat with the 75-year warranty and he digs it up right and then he writes it and renews it and he puts it in jay's name like it's his inheritance yep okay that's hysterically funny absolutely but it was i don't know what it was about jay's monologue that i had trouble getting through i i don't know i thought it was funny when they take shots at bradford marcellus for sure like i didn't watch it that much i did a little channel flipping um but i recorded i'm a late show guy as well uh um for a variety of reasons and we'll get into that i think i talk about that in the first i've got an episode zero that's going to go up that at some point people might watch um and i think i talk a little bit about that in in in there how i'm i'm more a late show guy i love powerful dave um the culmination of everything that they did was the late show where he was more yeah the word powerful but but more influential more everything than the guest beside him even if the guest was the you know john mccain let him know letterman was real powerful so that was the late show years and i really enjoyed that um but it took the late night years and all of the hard work and genius stuff and jay being beside dave and that repartee and where it's not just that a comedian feeding bits and being fed their bits by the host uh it's the host also throwing a monkey wrench in there every once in a while right and jay being so good to catch it and make something out of it that was um so yeah so you're like me you would love to see them have some sort of a reconciliation i think it'd be entertaining as hell yes i think you know and dave still says that james one of the funniest people he's ever known yep you know and uh jay still says that dave was you know one of the best words there's an interview yeah yeah yeah jay does a thing about how jay's strength was this and dave's strength was what dave's strength was in the writing is that what it was and then jason he's a word smith yeah he's a worst smith and then jay had the jay had more confidence on stage i think that's what he said don't quote me on that something like that no but but they're talking points both those guys have been saying those talking about this is the part where um in in talking to some of my friends who who are in the business um and by the way even the fact that i say in the business now i need to go slap myself in the face as i write outside but but this is the part this is good oh well yeah absolutely and business is rolling um but this is where they say these are talking points that these two very public very professional uh men have about each other but would it ever go past the talking points and that's the part where i i think it would be a phenomenal example during this um this this time that we live in with cancer culture outrage culture all the the that we're seeing uh the polarization that we're seeing these days and and very this is as close as i'm gonna get to getting serious on this podcast um but i think it would be a very cool example from some of our elders um to say okay you know what yeah we had this thing but let's talk about it and we can go away whether we go away with more respect personally not just talking points but or not we at least gave it a shot to try and rectify um right i would love that i'd be entertained by it like you said i'd be i'd be spellbound by it um you know bill carter would write a book about it uh and and i'm you know that's something i would love to see so that's a question i'm gonna ask um enthusiasts like us who are on the show i'm gonna ask them would you like to see it would you like because there are some people out there who have some very different opinions than you and i right now when they're like yeah f that guy no way would we want to have that happen and so i just i was curious what you'd think about it yeah i mean you know and i also think it'd be you know it'd be a good example because so many people assume that they hate each other which they don't and unless they secretly hate each other but from everything i've seen you know they have a mutual admiration for each other and i know dave just absolutely loved it when jay was and conan were going when he was still in the sideshow backfire that's my favorite part of the late show i think i i think if i had tried to pick a run that i thought that playing conan don't play oh yeah don't blame conan oh my god oh my god don't believe and then still to this day i tell people i have no idea what i'm talking about hey don't blame conan i'm sure glad i'm sure glad that he said that because the uh the amount of lines that he probably changed with that statement were just and the the person who was having the most fun after him was kimmel loved watching that and he said he destroyed leno the other night did you see when jimmy and jimmy switched shows wasn't that great yep yeah he was jimmy kimmel was doing the thank yous and thank you for letting me have the tonight show except you know this time it wasn't taken by jay leno yeah oh yeah no fantastic 15 years later or whatever how long has it been and the fact that yeah with kimmel still a reference 100 it's still a reference and and and it wouldn't matter even if you know the the the the millennials in the audience didn't get it it all went over their head or whatever because it was funny to him and that's the thing that dave would do they would do things that were funny to him and that's what jimmy's doing as well and i love that um people it's funny people in the letterman community were like oh you know like oh dave and jay leno never would have done that blah blah blah blah blah i'm like no no no no no that's not the one i would would have wanted to see back in the day april fool's joke when the jimmy switched shows that was genius i loved it fantastic um back in the day can you imagine if dave and johnny did that that's what i would have wanted to see yeah dave on the tonight show one night and johnny hosting late night one night that there's there's the missed opportunity there where holy cow something today actually makes you go that's original i love that that was a remember the time you remember the time when dave was short a joke they were supposed to have one extra joke and they faxed it from johnny so his angels says but and by the way it left here funny oh such a good line johnny how you doing pretty good the wild the mudslides are putting out the fires love that line you know still got it yes look at this and and folks who are by the way uh folks in the letterman camp who are listening to us riff this from from our heads the way that we're doing uh the restraining order expect your restraining order soon i'm certain mine is gonna show up we are over time here uh darren um no no it's good it's good i'm not cutting anything by the way but but but you know the goal is for 45 minutes and and we went beyond because of the enthusiasm that we have darren um and i mean i still believe that darren cox is a uh performer name and good on you for that um my performer name is darren and that one you can edit out i'm not i i choose i choose not to um you're looking at a guy who's heard last name jokes for 51 years oh yeah yeah well my my last name is chisholm sir so i i know a little bit about that as well hey good one haven't heard that one before that's my yeah tip your wager is anybody here from denver can i get a ride home we're all from denver he's from denver she's from denver i uh oh my god this is this is uh been the great it's the start of my day right now and uh what what a better way uh not many better ways to start this day in fact i'm i'm gonna go out i'm actually gonna wear a pants jacket when i go out today uh because of this conversation i appreciate you i i appreciate this so much there's lots of meat on the bone um the irritable dad syndrome say plug where people can get it one more time because i'm certain of the dozens of people that listen to us now uh one or two are definitely going to come over so where can you get the irritable dad syndrome podcast thank you so much for letting me do this you can go to irritabledadssyndrome.com okay and on our website there you know you have access to all 85 of our episodes and uh i recommend you start at the new and if you like that one listen to 84 and then 83 82 listen to them in reverse it's not chronological this isn't a game of thrones you're not going to be lost uh if you start later because there's a lot of people who when you're in a show as long as we had ours there's some people who are skeptical about starting a podcast like well i need to start from the very beginning yes and listen to all of them and that's nice that people think that you could jump into our show anytime and you know we have fans who have listened to us from the very beginning who swear that they enjoy the previous episodes mike and i we listened to the first ones yeah i was going to say this it's evolution in reverse if you do it that way right exactly we have learned a lot about uh our craft of podcasting and we feel that we're better podcasters now than we were when we started that's like if you want to listen to the earlier ones great but we really uh hit our stride around the i don't know the early mid 20s and 30s yeah and uh i'm gonna brag i think it just keeps getting better we're really proud of our product and we have a lot of fans who uh um who have stuck with us and listen to us all the way so but yeah irritabled syndrome.com thank you for letting me plug it and we'll have to have you as a guest sometime oh man i can't wait um and and by the way you're getting subscribing uh subscribes and likes and comments from me too so they're kind of fantastic yeah man absolutely yeah yeah um thank you very very much now there there we go that's thank you for having me oh darren my god you're uh you're part of the late show or that you're part of the letterman podcast family uh as of as of right now uh the jury was out but now they've they've come back and uh you know it's my wings it's six to five but you're in um no it's great i just appreciate it so much again a fisherman other always understands another fisherman brothers from another mother whatever uh whatever uh analogy you want to use i'm so grateful thank you so much you're welcome thank you yeah thank you for having me i've enjoyed this there it is folks episode one in the can um i wasn't sure if we were gonna name this one episode one and uh and then have mark and and and do a doci doe and and put them out but no this is episode one for sure uh this is exactly what the podcast is going to be about um we're going to have you know one of letterman's bridges in the background and some other little changes and and maybe some maybe some adding of some edits and some mail and things like that but the spirit of what darren and i did today is exactly exactly what we want out of this show uh i am so excited about this project it is a labor of love uh nobody is sponsoring this thing it's not about anything except for the community the connection and uh hopefully a little bit of entertainment and insight for you insight probably not entertainment more likely um thank you very much for taking this trip down memory lane with darren and i today that is this episode of the letterman podcast thank you and goodbye