Ron Howard

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Ron Howard
Hi, my name is Ron Howard, and I feel, frankly, indifferent about being Conan O'Brien. Oh, you know what? No one says this often, but Ron Howard, you prick.

Unidentified Speaker
Fall is here. Hear the l. Back to school. Ring the bell. Walk and lose, climb the fence.

Conan O'Brien
Books and pens. I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Cause I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Yellow there. And welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a friend.

I wanted to start out a little different, so I went with yellow there, and that might become a thing. Yeah, like a midwestern DJ from the fifties. Yellow there. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool.

That's really cool. By my pals. Yes, the cool bar here is exceedingly low. Joined by my compatriots, my confederates, compadres. Co owners, are we.

Unidentified Speaker
What? I have stake in this thing. Oh, no, no, not this. No, no, no. I bought a 1954 Nash rambler, and we're co owners.

I am satisfied. Yeah, it's an old kind of car. Can you just do a different car? That I would know. Yellow, it's Sonam of session.

Conan O'Brien
And yellow, it's Matt Gorley Sona. I just had a very nice experience. I had to go into a jewelry store to have one of my many chain pendants repaired. Why do you have so many chain pendants? Cause mister t sends me one, like once a year.

Unidentified Speaker
Oh, that's cool. And then I feel like, yeah, you. Gotta wear ownership of that. So, no, I had to have something fixed a little bit. And I went in there and they were immediately like Conan.

Conan O'Brien
And it's all because of you. It's because they're armenian and they Sona as a hero. I think you're kind of discounting how big I am in the armenian community. Oh, are we? Yes.

Oh, they did say, where is fussy man? Which is armenian for coolest dude ever. Yes, of course. Why? Just look at my posture.

Anyway, we had a nice exchange. They were very happy that I went to Armenia with you. That is the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah. In LA, especially to have street cred with the Armenians.

Unidentified Speaker
You're in. Yeah. Yeah. Eduardo's nodding a lot. Eduardo, your wife is armenian, am I correct?

Eduardo
Yes. Von Cess. Yes. Check him out. What do you mean, check him out?

Unidentified Speaker
He said, how are you? Yeah, vonses. Oh, I thought you said her name was Vonses. No, her name's Asa. But, yeah, I know.

Conan O'Brien
When you said vonses, no one listening. Just assumed that was her name. Except our armenian fans. Yeah. Which we have a lot of which there are two.

And they work at a jewelry store right up the street. Vonses. Yeah, but he said, I said brev, and he said, inch pasek, and I said lava, and he went, whoa. Yes. Over at him.

Let's not keep it pushing. Yes, yes. Greba. Greba. Don't do that.

State Farm Agent
Why? Don't do your fake Armenian. You're doing so well. And it just a matter of time. Before you didn't know it was fake.

Unidentified Speaker
And I'm fluent. Yeah, and you do say every now and then I hit a real word accidentally. No, I don't grebestavi. Not at all. Hush, hush, hush.

Conan O'Brien
Yeah, yeah. What dialect do you speak? It's important. I almost fell for it. Do you even know that?

Unidentified Speaker
You asked a real question? Yes. Oh, no, you don't. Yes, I do. I speak western dialect.

Conan O'Brien
Yeah. I always assume that I'm a Gorgor. Gorgor? Oh, come on. We say Gorgor.

State Farm Agent
Gorgo. Yeah, it's a trickor. Gorgor. Yes, yes.

Conan O'Brien
Anyway, I'm in. I think I'm doing well in the armenian community. And I think if we go community by community, eventually we'll have everybody under our tent. Did they hook you up? Can I go there and get some shit for free?

Yes, they did hook me up. They gave me six pounds of dried apricot. It's rolled up like a carpet. Hush. Yeah, hush.

It's chill carpet. Well, you remember when you and I went, that's what they kept giving us, was dried apricot and dried pomegranate. And it was very good dried fruit. But I said, you know, we call these bancome a fruit roll up. And they said, why are you speaking in that crazy way?

And I said, I'm doing a comedy character, and this is a fruit roll up. Yeah. And remember then they said, you need to leave Armenia immediately. Yeah, they did. They almost kicked us out of the country.

Unidentified Speaker
And they also were like, that's not funny. Even if we understood what you were doing. They said, we understand the reference now, and it's still not funny. Yes. Yes.

Conan O'Brien
Yeah. And I said, yeah, you could fool me. Cause this looks like a fruit roll up. You double down. Don't double down.

By now it's quadruple down. Cause I think I'm on the fourth go around of fruit roll up. But we had. We had a nice bond. That's nice.

I do sincerely, thank you for hooking me up in the armenian community. They're very nice people. Well, you know what I mean? This is sincere. It was your idea to go there, and that always meant a lot to me.

Unidentified Speaker
So thank you for taking me to Armenia. Oh, of course. Free trips are the best trips. Also, it was your homeland. Thank you.

That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's. It wasn't a Vegas U turn, you know. And what is your.

Conan O'Brien
What would you consider your ancestral homeland, Matt? Would it be Scotland? I always thought it was Irish, then learned it was definitely Scots Irish. But now I think I'm mostly English. So let's just go hit all three, you and me, huh, buddy?

You know what? I'm up for it. Okay. So are you in on this trip? Yeah.

Yeah. You're paying? Well, it's not gonna be me that's paying. We're gonna find a sponsor. Oh, okay.

Unidentified Speaker
Okay. I'll totally go. For reals? Yeah. We're gonna get solo stove to back this.

Do we have to use a solo stove on the plane? We have to fly a plane that's made of solo stoves. They're all welded together, and the plane is constantly on fire, but there's no smoke. Yeah, and it's kind of a jet turbine. Exactly.

Conan O'Brien
So if you point it the right way. No, that's my idea that I've had for a while. And I think I've mentioned this, which is I just start talking up a product a lot. Now, we happen to have a relationship with solo stove. They're not paying for this mention right now.

This is a freebie for you guys. Shout out to solo stuff. But I do think we should start talking about products that we don't have a connection to. Agreed. And then we'll get into bed with them.

And I mean, like Apple. Where's Apple been? Apple's a huge company and this is a cool podcast, Adam. And they need to advertise. Yeah, because you know what?

I. Even hardcore Apple fans, if they aren't made aware that there's a new Apple phone, somehow through advertising or something, they're not going to know. I need to buy a new desktop. I'll wait. Okay.

Unidentified Speaker
I think. Why don't you do a preemptive Apple read right now? Battle gets it. Let them know that you really care about the product. You know, I love Apple and I always have because, well, Apple just gets the job done, you know?

Conan O'Brien
Get her done. Wait, that's not good. Okay? Someone else owns that. This is a good solution.

Unidentified Speaker
It does work because that's Larry, the cable guy on cars, who's a Pixar, which is owned by Apple. Okay. No one else made that connection, though. He just sounded like he was having a breakdown. No, he's not.

Conan O'Brien
He's the rain man of useless information. That's true. So. No, but what I believe is that. Look, look, I'm just gonna say it.

You know, I got the Apple Watch. I use the Apple phone, known as the iPhone to many fans. I see the Apple Watch on your wrist, right? Are you trying to help or not? I wear it when I'm exercising.

Unidentified Speaker
You're wearing it somewhere else. Can I tell you something else? Yes. Yes. They make a special one for other regions of the body.

Conan O'Brien
And we just lost Apple. But you know who we have? Samsung. And Samsung is great. You know?

Samsung is great. Do we really have Samsung? Oh, we have Samsung. A big one. Doing an Apple commercial.

Unidentified Speaker
I thought about that halfway through Conan's Apple read and I got. Can I say something? Bad move. Can I say something? Can I just say something?

Conan O'Brien
Let me just riff off the top. This is just. I just had this thought. Fuck Apple. Yes.

You know what I mean? What the fuck? I'm not buying desktop. I'm buying a new Samsung frame tv. And guess what?

I'll tell you something else. This is why I should have been talking about Samsung. I don't even. By the way, does anyone use an Apple phone? Or is it called an Apple phone orphan?

Is it if phone or iPhone? I think it's if phone, right? No, everyone calls it an Apple phone. Everyone does. Anyway, keep saying it.

Those. I mean, it seems like a badly run company with a product no one cares about. Yes. Here's the thing, Samsung, they actually have a Conan channel on the Samsung tvs. And it just plays me.

This is my wet dream all my life. Well, I'm sorry, my wet dream. I didn't mean anything gross. I meant a dream that I would have at night that would make me. Come on, Samsung.

Are you listening? Yeah. So I guess I did mean what. You thought I meant. That's definitely what I thought.

So anyway, it's this channel. Have you watched the Conan channel? I only watched. It's fantastic. Yeah, it's amazing.

I don't watch anything else. And sometimes my wife is saying, oh, you know, I hear Shogun's really good. And I'm like, we'll watch that later, more. And she's crying and she wears a lot of mascaras, you know, and it's just running. It's classic Liza.

Unidentified Speaker
She's a bammy face. Yeah. It's running down her face like Timmy Faye Baker. And she's like, just. Her show goes, I'm quiet.

Conan O'Brien
This is me in 98. I'm killing it, killing it. So, yeah, Samsung gets it done. And then I guess what happened to Apple, it kind of fell apart for. Them in the late nineties when they were talking.

Unidentified Speaker
They went bankrupt. That's what I'm told. We have that much kind of power. And when I said that much kind of power, that's not a real sentence. That much kind.

That much kind. If I catch myself before you do, it's not a problem. Hey, I'm going to wrap it up right now. I just want to say yellow to all our listeners. And remember, Samsung's the way to go.

Conan O'Brien
And if you need a phone, I don't know, I wouldn't waste my money. Okay. Don't overlook it. And they do everything. What appliances?

Who are we talking about now? Samsung. Oh, I thought you were talking about Apple. Apple doesn't do shit. Okay, now you're going too far.

What if they're about to buy in? Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, we gotta leave the door. What did you think about that? Yeah, I think we should leave the door open.

I'm gonna leave the door open a crack and say, I think they do make a fine product. But we love Samsung. And we also love Samsung. We love Samsung. But, you know, why isn't there room in this world for both?

I don't know what that voice is. It's a good yellow for all of you. And vonces, what'd you say to me? And I can't wait to meet her. I can't wait to meet your wife.

I'll be like, vonces, vonses, you're more beautiful than I thought. And she'll be like, what are you talking about? Why are you saying you're more beautiful than I thought? Eduardo's wife. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause I. You think the vonces is weird? You know what? You're way more beautiful than I am.

That is my. You know what? I've been saying that there's so many layers to that. I've been saying that to women for so many years, and I have to say it. Not getting a good reaction.

No. So many times I say to women, I say, you know, people bring their spouses by, and they go, oh, you're so much more beautiful than I thought. And it's weird. You're essentially saying, I thought you were ugly prior to seeing you. Yeah.

Yeah. And it also implies I'm thinking about you a lot. Yes. And think of you as ugly. Right.

Hey, would you do me a favor, Eduardo? Tell Vonsis. Tell vonsis I'm very sorry for what I said, and I didn't mean it. And I can't wait to meet von sis. Keep her away from him.

All right, we gotta get into it. And what a show we have today. What a show we have today. My guest on the podcast is an Academy Award winning director of such movies as Apollo 13, a beautiful mind, and night shift. He now has a new documentary on Disney called Jim Henson, idea man.

And it is a must.

Ron Howard, welcome.

You have this reputation of being like, oh, he's the nicest guy. And then you come in here and you take me off. I can. Well, I can. I can take it or leave it, you know?

Ron Howard
Yeah, I'm here, but I'm here. I'm here. You know, to be honest, you really could. I mean, I was shocked you showed up. You've had.

Conan O'Brien
You've had a level of success. Frankly, I'm surprised when anyone shows up. But you've had a level of success where. Yeah, you do not need to be here. And I'm appreciative that you're here.

Ron Howard
I've always loved conversations with you. Going back to your rookie year on tv. That's right. You came on. You were one of the early people to come on the show, and you agreed to do a bit.

Conan O'Brien
No one knew who I was, and we were trying very, very out there bits. And we said, what we want to do is we want to saw your arm off. And you said, okay. And we did a bit where you had a stunt arm, and at one point, we're talking, and I just take out a saw, and I saw your arm off, and you're screaming, and you were fantastic. And, of course, most people didn't know who I was.

You were, you know, you've been iconic since, I don't know, 1965 and beloved. And so people, I remember this is back when people would write in with complaints, but people were saying, the way you treated Ron Howard, I didn't really saw his arm off. I loved it. Hey, a funny redhead. There you go.

Okay. I have a very clear, distinct memory of getting invited to some event. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was like a vanity fair, a party, something that. Where I would feel a little bit out of place, thinking, do I belong here?

And I'm with my wife, and they seat me at a table with you and your wife and a couple of other people, but we're all right next to each other. And then you and I start to get into this very intense conversation, and I remember people at the table thinking, wow, what are Conan and Ron Howard talking about? It's really intense. Like, are they talking about film? What are they talking about?

My wife leaned over, and she listened, and then she said to the rest of the group, sunblock. And it was true. It was true. And you were saying, like, yeah, no, no. Here's what I do.

I always try and wear a hat, but, you know, it's gotta be at least a 45. And I was like, yeah, yeah, but is there zinc in there? And you're like, here's the deal, Tony. Zinc can be problematic.

We went really deep. And then, of course, your wife was. Like, yeah, well, my wife's a redhead. Your color. Yes.

Ron Howard
Vivid redhead. And same as Bryce. When Bryce was our firstborn, the first time that we took her in, we went to the dermatologist, Cheryl and I, and brought Bryce. And Bryce was literally in her arms, so she was maybe, maybe a year old. And the dermatologist, you know, gives us each our checkup and so forth, and then he says, you know, you're gonna have to keep a hat on her.

You're gonna have to keep her. And then he looked at Cheryl and looked at me, and he said, you know, she's very pale. She's pale. I said, yes, we know she's pale. You're not going to have any more kids, are you.

Unidentified Speaker
Oh, my God. He meant it. Oh, my God. Yeah. I remember distinctly having a conversation with a dermatologist once where he said, okay, okay.

Conan O'Brien
This is when I'm in my thirties. And he went, okay, okay. I mean, but look at the freckling. You have the sun damage. And I went, well, yeah, I've.

You know. And he said, well, do you do sunblock? And I said, yeah. And he said, do you wear a hat? Yeah.

Do you wear long shirts? Yeah. Okay, but what about some days? Do you ever, like, walk? How do you get from, like, the car to the.

And I said, you know what? I live on the planet Earth, and there's nothing we can do about that because it has a sun. So some son is going to get to me. And it was like, well, it's your death. It's like they're afraid you're going to bring down the level of life expectancy for their patients, besmirch their record.

Yeah, it's going to lead to a lawsuit, probably. You mentioned Bryce, who I adore. She's a terrific talent. Beautiful. You must be very proud of her.

You told me that when she came on my show once. It was a very tense moment for you. Why? Well, I mean, I'm a parent of adults. That sort of constant worrying about your kids is kind of faded.

Ron Howard
I feel pretty confident about that. I don't have that. I never had. I just thought, like, hey, man, I'm in show business. I gotta worry about myself.

Conan O'Brien
These kids are on their own. Good for you.

Ron Howard
You walk your path. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. But she said, I'm gonna cry on demand on Conan's show. And I said, oh, come on, Bryce. And I've seen her do it.

She can cry. She can cry on command. And I said, but that's not. Yeah, I mean, it's a show. It's a live show.

I mean, you know, it's. And she said, no, I'm gonna do it. And so then she told me it worked. So I know that. And yet, when I watched her on the show doing it, I was so edge of my seat still.

Unidentified Speaker
Yeah. I'll tell you, I recommend, if you get a second, check this out. Cause Bryce was on the show and she did this, and it was really. I think. I mean, I can't say this about my own show, but it was a very cool moment of television because she said she was gonna do it.

Conan O'Brien
The whole audience gets very quiet, and there's a process, and you can hear a pin drop. My heart's pounding. Because I'm thinking, I'm the host of the show. I can only imagine. Failure's not that funny.

Yeah, I had gotten used to it at that point, but I was. And then it happens, and it was a moment, and I've heard about it from so many people. And when the tear finally rolled down, I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, no. It might as well have been a Super bowl touchdown.

Ron Howard
But here's the thing about Bryson crying. Her first professional job, maybe not her first. Her first time on Broadway was this tartuffe, this classic show. And so here she is in this theater opening night. She is sick.

Fever. Cheryl and I had to get her to the theater, and we weren't sure she was gonna be able to even do the show. But of course, it's opening night, so she's doing it, and there's this scene where she's at her father's feet and begging for something, and she starts crying. And we're sitting in, like, the third row, and it's, you know, it's theater, so people can fake cry, and it kind of. But she's really crying.

Tears are going down her face. And it's just like an unbelievable moment for me, coming from a theatrical family and all that. And I looked over, and Cheryl's just kind of sitting with her arms crossed, kind of with a little smile on her face. No emotion whatsoever. So we get to intermission, and I said, babe, weren't you knocked out by that moment?

I mean, you know, there she is. She's got a fever. It's opening night. She's crying real tears on Broadway. And she said, are you kidding me?

She did that every day of her life when she was 17.

Conan O'Brien
Cause she couldn't use the car.

We've all seen that.

State Farm Agent
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No, that's not what I meant, but in a way, it is what I meant. Okay, that's a good point. Sona, you have hard earned cash, and it should always be working towards a better financial future for you. Your money shouldn't be sitting around, you know, watching reruns on tv and eating nachos. It should be working for you.

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Ron Howard
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Unidentified Speaker
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State Farm Agent
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You know me, son. I love to grill up. Yeah, some nice beef every now and then. I'm a grill master or sometimes the grill maestro. Depends on which country you're in.

Conan O'Brien
Any hoots? No one's called you that. When I'm grilling stuff up, I need my Miller lite. I really do. And I like Miller Lite cause they keep it simple.

State Farm Agent
It's undebatable quality. It tastes as great as your barbecue. Yeah, it's the beer that strips away everything you don't need, holds on to what matters most. It's a light beer with the most taste, less filling, and only 96 calories. That's good.

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Eduardo
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Conan O'Brien
You mentioned coming from this family, it's really worth noting that your career, improbable in so many ways, because just on Andy Griffith alone, you could have spent the rest of your life setting up a card table and going to conventions and having that amazing experience. And it's so funny because I'm around. I get to interview so many terrific actors. Talking to Walton Goggins the other day, talking to Billy Bob Thornton, both of them cite the Andy Griffith show as being seminal for them, amazing. And I think I understand it because it's character comedy.

Not afraid of a long pause, not afraid of. And I was saying there are scenes outside the courthouse or in the barbershop that feel like waiting for Godot and beautiful. It really does hold up well. It was so much a function of a kind of singular creative voice. Not that Andy wrote, he wasn't, he didn't have a producer credit, but it was his show.

Ron Howard
It was tailored to his sensibility. And Sheldon Leonard, the executive producer and very active on the show, old character actor who had become this incredible television producer who had great success with Danny Thomas and Van Dyke and Andy Griffith show. And for a moment, he was like the comedy producer, but he was there all the time. And they were always stressing character. And Andy used to kill jokes if they were too broad.

And he just kept saying, the south is plenty funny on its own without having to reach for it and do slapstick and stuff. Like, he didn't like Petticoat Junction and hillbilly. Not hillbilly elegy. That's a movie I directed. He didn't like Beverly hillbillies.

Beverly hillbillies, because they were doing sketch, basically, high concert. He didn't like little Abner. And so as a result, I don't know that there have been other single camera shows that kind of held that tone. Maybe real McCoy's a little bit, but they didn't have Don Knott's. I was remarking recently that it's the ability to have two characters just talking about, oh, it's a nice day.

Well, those bits were usually when the show was short. Yes. And they would come. So we would shoot Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, single camera, rehearse on Thursday, read on Thursdays, rehearse Fridays, shoot Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And several times these scenes, the kinds that you're citing, usually between Don and Andy.

I remember vividly Aaron Rubin, our showrunner, coming down and saying, talking to Andy. And then Andy would, he always called Don Jesse, and he would say, jesse, we're short, come on. And at the very last thing of the end of the Wednesday night shoot, would be the two of them, and they would have just talked about it a little bit and they'd wind up doing. Doing one of these scenes. They're amazing.

Conan O'Brien
And it's just. I love watching them because they're just playing the silences and it's so well. And of course, you've got these two consummate, beautiful actors. They're just such great comedic actors, but just, oh, boy, it's a nice day. Sure is, isn't it?

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And you're watching it and you're thinking, I have this theory that comedy has been increasingly compressed to the point now that when any series starts, they have to start at the most dramatic moment. And then that's a flash that turns out it's a flashback because they can't start slowly. You might. People can flip to another streaming platform too quickly.

So every show starts with main character has five bullet holes in them and is screaming. And then you cut to two weeks earlier. And I think they don't trust us that this is going somewhere. And there's a lot of parallel editing and everything. And just the idea that one of the most popular shows in television history could often consist of people playing things.

Ron Howard
And that pace and the fact that the show really does endure. I mean, it's actually on all the time. And especially over Covid, I kept hearing from people that it was like a lifeline for them. But here's the thing. How lucky was I to grow up in that situation where, in fact, the environment was set up for actors to not improvise, but participate, make suggestions, things like that.

And even as a six year old, I mean, my dad was having to read the lines at the read through, and I would just kind of sit there. At first my father rants. But later, when I started to learn to read and so forth, I was in it. And I actually started occasionally making a suggestion. And they never, you know, it never went anywhere.

Kind of pissed me off a little bit in that first year. And I will never forget, it was the second episode of the second season and I had turned seven. And we were rehearsing this scene where I was supposed to come into the courthouse and Otis Howells Smith. Otis was over here and Andy was there and Don was somewhere else. And I came in and I was supposed to say, hey, pa, whatever the line was.

And then I sort of stopped. The director, Bob Sweeney, said, what is it, ronnie? And I said, well, I don't think a kid would say it that way. And he said, well, how do you think a kid would say it? I don't remember what the line was, but I pitched my little fix on it and he said, okay, good.

Yeah, do it that way. And it was just like I was a part of it. I just felt this surge of, you know, of being involved in something. And Andy from across said, what are you grinning at, young un? And I said, what's the first idea of mine you've taken?

And he gave it the proper beat. And he said, well, it was the first one that was any damn good. Now let's rehearse the scene to a seven year old. But you know what's also nice? If you look at the history of situation comedies, especially usually and increasingly so through the seventies and eighties and nineties, the kid's role was to say something overly sophisticated and wise ass.

Conan O'Brien
Wise assy that a kid would never say. So that's where you get all these. The Gary Coleman character that's just like, well, if you ask me, sounds like this guy's paying too many taxes. And I love that episode. I know.

I agree with him. I think we are patriotic. And what I think really holds up well is your character is a real boy. You're playing the reality of the situations, not saying, now, let me get this straight. Otis is drunk again.

Sounds like someone needs rehab. And, like, winking at the camera. Which, by the way, would have been. A great line, but, well, okay, this is something that means a lot to me. And it was.

Ron Howard
And I didn't know anything about it at the time. But later Andy told me this. So when we were doing, like a revival return to Mayberry or one of those interview sort of specials or something, Andy told me this. That in that very first season, the first episode, that my dad was an actor, not a famous actor, but he was professional working. Took it upon himself to just go up quietly to Andy at one point and say, now I see they're writing Opie kind of the way they write the Rusty Hamer character on Danny Thomas.

And like, so many shows where he's a wise ass. And he said that, you know, Ronnie can do that and everything, but what if he actually respected his father? And Andy thought about it and told me years later that he went back to the writers and said, let's write andyopie. Like Ronnie Rance. Oh, wow.

Conan O'Brien
Yeah. And let's try that. And they went for it. Yeah. Well, it stands out.

We've been fed a steady diet of everyone hates dad. Dad's an idiot. And the kid knows it, and the kid knows it. And is always letting him know it. And it got amped up, sometimes stretched out in kind of a meta way, like unmarried with children, where, you know, or sometimes the Simpsons, where they're actively plotting their father's death.

Ron Howard
That does make me laugh. It's effective. No, no, it's really funny. And I think the right way to go. My point is, your dad was wrong, but I don't think you should be here.

Conan O'Brien
That's fascinating to me, that you were part of that and you could have been part of so many shows, but that one's different. Yes. Then you go from that, you film, and then you start to think, you know what I think I'm gonna do? You're interested in directing because you're around, you're watching directors, you're interested in it, and there's a job. You take on a tv show and you think, well, this probably won't get in the way of me going to film school because what tv show lasts more than a pilot or first season?

Ron Howard
Right? And so you sign up for happy days. Correct, you idiot.

Conan O'Brien
Which now? Now, I mean, I mostly know Andy Griffith show, Mayberry, RFT from reruns, because I really come of age in the seventies. The thing is, happy days, like, it's suddenly the only show on tv that we all watch. And you're just right there at the heart of this thing, this juggernaut. And it was not the plan, right?

Ron Howard
No, it wasn't really the plan. And also, of course, the course of the show, it evolved as Henry Winkler's character, Fonzie, took off. The whole show shifted. It was pretty thrilling to be around it. And we went from a solid show to sort of drifting like bet we get canceled, to let's put Fonzie front and center and take advantage of this.

And then I think we became a number one show. Even that first season that we went in front of an audience, which was a huge education for me because I'd never done anything in front of people. And here we have this Gary Marshall, this great bunch of writers, Lowell gans among them, who wound up writing with his partner Bob, Lou Mandel, night shift and splash and so many other movies. A league of their own and city slickers, anyway. But suddenly it was about these hard laughs and that I had never really been around that search.

Don Knotts would sometimes get there, but it was more of a. It was a gentle, you know, totally based on reality. I was terrified doing it. I learned so much. And Jerry Parris was this consummate comedy director.

Conan O'Brien
Just educate film nerds out. I mean, tv nerds out there. Jerry Parris was the neighbor on Andrew Griffith's show. I mean, Dick Van Dyke. On Dick Van Dyke.

Ron Howard
And they had let him direct and found that he had this incredible gift, and he was a funny actor, but he was a brilliant comedy director, and we had him for almost 95% of our episodes, was Jerry. And he was a ringleader and just tremendous and a great teacher. And suddenly I'm feeling the audience, and I'm understanding timing and all these kinds of things in a way that I never did before. Of course, Henry, great stage actor Tom Bosley was on the show. And when I finally get a chance to start directing comedy, where we are going for laughs, which is night shift and then splash, I was so grateful to have in my head the kind of the rhythms that I'd learned about, not from the Andy Griffith show, but from happy days.

Conan O'Brien
One of the things I remember, I think the first time I saw it on Happy was on happy days, and then you later on, saw it more and more, but characters would enter, and, you know, first season of Happy Days, I remember, was single camera, right. And shot more in this very filmic way. And then second season, you're in front of a studio audience, and then the show is becoming super popular. Crazy popular. And so characters will enter, and the audience will go crazy.

And so characters had to. They're entering with important information, like, there's a fire across the street. So, Ron, you'll enter. You'll enter the. Whatever, the malt shop, and you'll be like, hey, hey.

Everyone will go like, yay. And you'll stand there, right? Just take apologies because you can't talk. And you're nod and look around, and then you'll go. Then finally, when everyone dies down, there's a fire across the street, and if you take the reality of it, there's something.

You're like a sociopath. Like, why didn't you tell everybody right away that there's no fire? I was waiting for my applause, man. Well, that was it. I mean, look, that was part of the excitement, was to take all the hysteria around Fonzie and put it in front of an audience and actually directly compete with JJ Walker.

Ron Howard
Yeah, exactly. Which is. Which is good times. Yeah, good times. And that's what they were.

That's what they were going for. And the same thing would happen with JJ on that show. And so it was kind of a. It was kind of a. It was kind of a thing.

Now, you know, I don't know. I don't have. Not watching a lot of audience sitcoms these days. But I don't know whether. I think most people, they don't even shoot with an audience.

I think they just, they block and shoot. It's so funny because tastes have changed, times have changed so much. I think we're in a golden age. Sometimes people decry, oh, tv these days. I agree.

You were talking about speed and density of comedy and so forth. When we were beginning arrested development, Mitch Hurwitz and I talked a lot about the Simpsons, and part of that style was to create, I kept saying, a kind of density of laughs, and I was a big proponent of that. And which kind of led to not only the style, which was sort of supposed to be originally much a little more faux documentary than it wound up being, but, you know, I was pitching the idea of a narrator, and Mitch said, I don't think we're going to need that. And we did it and so forth. And he just, he shot it and it was funny, but he said, you know, we should try it as an experiment.

I kind of think you're onto something. So I was directing a movie in Santa Fe, and he said, would you just temp in the voice? And I. So I did it literally in the sound truck. We were on location in Santa Fe.

I did it one lunch break for the pilot, and so sent it off. Didn't think much about it. A couple of days later, Mitch called back and said, well, I have really good news and news that maybe is good or maybe not, I don't know. And I said, well, okay, well, give me the really good news first. He said, the pilot tested really well.

And I said, well, what's the mixed news? He said, well, I just don't know how you're gonna feel about it because the narrator tested the highest, and now you have to do it. We sold the show. But I said, you're doing it. You're the narrator.

But I loved being a part of that. You know, it makes sense because my son and I watch Rewatch Rewatch and Rewatch arrested development all the time because he's got really good comedy taste. I'm not so much to his liking, but we'll watch it again and again and again. And what makes perfect sense to me, you know, when something's done, you just take it for granted that everything is the way it is, right? So, of course, it would never occur to me that you wouldn't be the narrator of arrested development.

Conan O'Brien
And I think for my money, if you had to say, like, okay, what are the absolute acme. What's the height of television comedy? And you can not one, but you can pick, like, five arrested developments in there. The best of it is absolute perfection. And I do think that people know you.

They like you, and they trust you and your voice saying, meanwhile, buster. Buster had his own ideas. And it's such a dense show. Buster thinking he's in Mexico. Although really, he's only 10 miles from his house, sleeping at his housekeeper's residence.

You know, it's a constant. You're being taken by the hand through this absolute madness. And I don't think that show could exist without you there taking you along. Thank you. It was really fun.

Ron Howard
But whenever I'd have an episode where I really had a lot of lines, I said, mitch, you've been struggling with this one. You're looking for the narrator to bail you out, man.

Conan O'Brien
Now, the reason that was funny is because when you found yourself reading lines like that. But Mitch Bonafide, comedy genius. And that, you know, and the cast that we assembled, oh, my God. From the first moment, it was like, you know, this is a little too good to be true. I mean, it's just home run hitters at every, you know, at every turn.

Yeah, it is absolute. It is absolute perfection. I can't watch it enough. And it's still the go to. If my son's had a hard day or I've had a hard day, or we both had a hard day.

Well, okay, arrested development is still the go to. And we watch it, and there are certain moments that I go to again and again and again that I can't. And I'm friends with a bunch of these guys. So I will corner will Arnett, say, why does it bother you if you're dancing as the magician, but Buster's dancing as well? What bothers you that.

Cause he's often getting like, no, no, no. I do that, but I'll just hound him all the time about that stuff. And he's got answers. Yes, he's got answers. So you've now hit a gusher twice, and that implies that you had nothing to do with it, because you did.

But you've had this great fortune. And then I remember very clearly seeing, oh, there's going to be this movie grand theft auto, and it's directed by Ron Howard. Now, since then, were very familiar with the idea of an on camera person directing a film. But I remember at the time thinking, what? Yeah, I felt that pressure because, you know, I mean, I was.

Ron Howard
That I might as well have had that famous t shirt. What I really want to do is direct, since I was about 14, you know, and I would. And I would get the most sort of patronizing responses when I would admit it, and. But I. But I also made the most out of those situations, and I would hang with the directors and take notes and do all kinds of things.

But, yeah, that was not a transition. And particularly to have been a kid actor on a sitcom, the whole thing, it was ludicrous in people's minds. But you must have a confidence because you knew on some level, you knew I got this. Yes, I did. In fact, I started shooting grand theft auto the day after my 23rd birthday.

But I was disappointed because I had really planned to direct a feature while I was still in my teens. That was my goal, you know, but, you know, again, it was. The business was so much more closed then. And then there were. And there was not even any, like, MTV or anything where you could go and prove your chops somewhere where today.

Conan O'Brien
People can make a film using their phone. You take this phone and you make something. People go, hey, that was. And then you put it online. And if you don't need to convince a studio, if it gets like, oh, this got, like, 10 million likes, you're good.

Ron Howard
Well, by the way, I just got to jump to the documentary that we're going to talk about, Jim Henson. I made a documentary about Jim Henson and the Muppets, but he and his wife Jane were so much like young content creators of today. Yes, yes. Because the new medium, the new thing, the tech that was interesting to them was tv, which was just brand new. And he wasn't even interested in puppets, but he loved television.

He wanted to be a part of it. He was living in Washington, and he went down there and just kind of. They looked for. They were looking for a five minute puppet show to go with the news. I mean, you know, but they were just experimenting with tv.

And he got in on the experiment, along with Jane, ultimately became his wife. But you look at these crazy little six second commercials they did and these little five minute bits they did after the news hour, and it was so inventive, and it was all, bets are off, and just kind of whatever you want to do. But they were doing. They were getting their 10,000 hours in, and they were doing what a content creator does now, which is find your voice, see if anybody's interested, figure out what they're interested in, and go for there. Well, at that time, there was really no outlet like that for me.

I mean, I literally was thinking about going down to public access television and trying to do a show on public access television, because getting the chance to. Direct a feature film entertainment was so much smaller. You said it was closed. It was a very insular world. There's three networks, there's a couple of studios.

Conan O'Brien
They make the stuff. They decide who the people are. And so it's very impossible to crack into that. And especially if they have a preconceived notion, like, I'm sorry, you're the guy from happy days and you're Opie. Now, I could have had a chance to direct Happy Days episodes in a contract renegotiation, but I said no to that because I didn't want anybody other than Jerry Parris to direct.

Ron Howard
It would be not fair to the cast. And the other thing I thought was, well, what if I whiff? You know, every once in a while an episode doesn't work, and if I do well, they say, well, it's his show. If I have an off episode, then he can't even direct his own show, and it's three camera. Not what I wanted to do.

But Roger Corman was one of the few people who was taking that kind of a risk, and I knew that about him. And he wanted me to act in a movie called eat my dust. And I read eat my dust, and I didn't much care for it. I saw no Oscars in, you know, no Oscar opportunities in that one. But I did have a script that I'd written that was kind of a slice of life about a guy stuck over college break in Hollywood.

And I had some short films. I was supposed to go in and have this meeting about. About eat my dust. American graffiti had been a big hit. Happy Days was becoming a number one show, and Roger wanted me to be in this car crash comedy.

And my agent was going to come with me to sit with me to have this meeting. And he was my agent for, like, my whole childhood. And I remember saying, you can't go in with me. I was only 21, but I knew I was going to try to barter. And he didn't care about that.

I knew he didn't care about that. So I remember the look on his face. He was shattered, you know? I mean, his client said, no, don't go to the meeting. So I went in, talked to Roger.

I said, you know, I don't love eat my dust, but what I really want to do is direct. Here's a script. I think I've raised half the money coming out of Australia, 150,000. I need another 150,000 in distribution. And if you do that, then I'll happily be and eat my dust.

He read it. He got back to me, he looked at my student films, and he said, well, that's a character piece. It's very well written, but it's not what I do. And he said, here's what I'll promise you. If you act and eat my dust, I'll give you a chance to write a script.

If you write the script and I like it and you're willing to be in it again, then I'll let you direct that. If that fails, I'll let you direct the second unit on something and the car crashes or the fights or something else. So I thought, okay. So I leveraged my way into a second unit job that's gonna look great on the resume, but I took it. And when eat my dust succeeded, I went in and I pitched so many different ideas, a Sci-Fi thing, noir thing, just different kinds of projects.

And he smiled and he said, when we were testing, he was very erudite, roger. I remember he had been to Caltech, and he was an engineering, you know, an engineer at heart. He said, when we were testing titles for eat my dust, there was another title that came in a very strong second. Grand theft auto. If you can fashion a car crash comedy that we can correctly entitle grand Theft Auto, I'd probably make that picture.

Conan O'Brien
Yeah. My dad and I cooked up an outline. We wrote a script in a month. It was the fastest green light I've had in my entire career as a director. Roger Corman passed, I believe, a week ago.

Ron Howard
A week ago, yes. Age 98. 98 years old. So sharp. I talked to him six months ago.

I mean, he went to see my 13 lives. He went to a screening. He was so supportive of all of his graduates. He just remained. We must have been incredibly proud of what you were proud of all of us.

He was proud of all of us. Jim Cameron, Joe Dante, Alan Arkish. Hell, Francis Coppola and Scorsese Bogdanovich. The list goes on.

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Conan O'Brien
So I had this great treat yesterday, which is I'm told I get to see an advance copy of Idea man. And I have a lot emotionally invested in this film because I have my own Jim Henson connection. I watched the film and it's fantastic. It's a fantastic documentary. There are so many things I learned about Jim Henson that I did not know Jim Henson.

I didn't realize his background. And growing up in this Christian Science Christian. His mom's a christian scientist. His mom's a christian scientist. And he wasn't formally.

Ron Howard
Cause he wasn't all that religious. But of course he was raised in that environment. But he was creative, he was smart, and he wanted to express himself. His dad was a bit of a scientist, agricultural scientist. And so they would travel around to different parts of the country a lot of it in the south.

And. But Jim, you know, was looking for that kind of, that kind of breakthrough, but it was a moment of transformation, and he seized that opportunity. But it's interesting that he grabbed. He wound up grabbing, you know, an ancient art form. Yes.

And elevating it. When I was a kid sitting around, we were talking about the Andy Griffith show. A lot of the character actors who would come on that show would be bitching and moaning because, because radio was dead or vaudeville had gone. And yet we all know that those mediums didn't vanish. There isn't a vaudeville circuit, per se, but there's stand up, there's Cirque du Soleil.

The art forms are as relevant as ever. And I think you're so right, Conan. I just think creative people figure out. A way, they find a way. And what's fascinating to me is so, so Jim Henson is very interested in puppets, puppeteering.

Conan O'Brien
And one of the things that he wants to do early on is, and I hadn't thought of this before, but it's in your documentary, a lot of puppeteering was done just in kind of a wide shot where you see with the theater with curtains, proscenium and little curtains, and the characters are all bashing each other and things are happening. I don't know if it's Jim Henson or his wife Jane, but they understand that the tv camera has to be right up against the puppets, Muppets, and see that. You can see their expressions and you can see a character deflate. And what's really fascinating to me is you have access in the documentary to all that early footage long before. It's very sophisticated.

It's basically Kermit, but they don't know it's Kermit yet, but kind of the puckering of the mouth when there's a little bit of uncertainty and the looking to the side and then maybe looking back at the camera, all that stuff is there, and it's in close up, and they're looking at a, what basically looks like a kinescope. Like the. The technology is very crude, but you can see, oh, my God, this is. Looking at the monitor and sort of seeing, well, where is the camera and where do I fit in? And.

Ron Howard
But the timing on this stuff was just fantastic, you know, and we interviewed Frank Oz, who gave the family was, was great. They made the archives available, but also they made themselves available in a really significant way. And look, they're storytellers themselves, and so they recognize the need to share what they understood about their parents. In a dimensional way. So that was incredibly valuable.

But Frank was there side by side, and he gave so much to the movie through his interview. In fact, stylistically, I tried to sort of channel Jim Henson and that aesthetic. A lot of stop motion, a lot of very kinetic cutting, and some animation. Yes, some animations and things like that. And the idea sort of stemmed first from me watching a lot of Jim's experimental movies that had nothing to do.

Conan O'Brien
With puppets, which I didn't know about, by the way. Yeah, me neither. And they're cool, and, in fact, they anticipate a lot of what you're going to eventually see in commercials or even music videos. Right. You know, I mean, they were kind of hard day's night and stuff like that, you know?

Ron Howard
So, Frank, we did the interview, and I just had this idea. We did it in a cube, because one of his experimental tv shows was called the Cube, and it's like a human being trapped, sort of just with himself and his ideas and thoughts. So we decided to have the interview subjects be in a cube. It also would allow us to use those cubes. They're almost like television tests to keep putting a lot of visual imagery in there and keep telling this story of Jim and the Muppets.

But we did Frank's interview. It was very moving, very informative, very funny. And I said, you know, Frank Mitt, what if we did, like, what if your entrance into the set, we were gonna have you just come and sit down. But what if we did it stop motion? And he, of course, instantly knew what to do.

Conan O'Brien
Yeah, yeah. So we put the camera up high. We had a chair kind of squiggle in, come in and stop, and he went in perfectly, one take, laid out all the steps and all the beats so that we could do it. And it just established immediately for the editors and myself that, you know, we were gonna inform this movie with this kind of aesthetic. Well, also, you were having fun.

Ron Howard
Yes. Which is the essence of Jim Henson. Yes. You know, my connection to it was that my whole reason I'm in comedy is I was always interested in comedy and doing it for my friends. And then I decide I need to be serious.

Conan O'Brien
So I go to a serious college, which turns out to have this very old humor magazine in it. As part of it, the Harvard Lampoon. I get on the lampoon, and almost immediately, the person who's put in charge of it, the first woman to ever be put in charge of it is Lisa Henson. Oh, then she's my boss. I'm working for Lisa Henson, and then every now and then, Jim Henson's around, and I'm losing my mind.

I bet he could not have been a sweeter, nicer man. And, in fact, Lisa graduates. I take over the lampoon, and at one point, Jim Henson calls me and says, hey, we just finished the dark crystal, and we have these thrones that the creatures sit on in the dark crystal. Do you guys want one for your lampoon building? You've never heard me say yes to anything more quickly.

And so I said, yes. How do I make this happen? Because I'm just still a kid. I'm, like, 19, and I'm going, yes, mister Henson. So what do I.

And he said, and it's FunNY BECAUSE when you're talking to jim Henson, you're talking to kermit. Kermit, Kind of. Yeah. So Kermit's on the other end of the line saying, well, you know, just get a van and come on down to New York and pick it up. Yeah, idiot.

And I'm like, okay, Kermit and Henson. Bye. So I hang up the phone, we rent a van, and my friend Mark Gannem ANd MAyA williams, we jump in this van, and we drive down to ManhaTtan, and I'm petrified. Cause I'm like, we're driving to Manhattan. Suddenly it's Like a muppet movie.

Ron Howard
Yeah. And I'm kind of a muppet. And I'm like, what's happening? ANd we get to stay out. Yeah, exactly.

Conan O'Brien
I'm Beaker. And we get there, and sure enough, there's, like, snuffleupagus is hanging from the ceiling, and they say, oh, yeah, here's the chair it's made of. It's not that Heavy. Cause it's made of this super light material. We carry it like a jewel, and we put it in the back of the.

Ron Howard
Sat in one of those chairs at the studio. Yeah. And I drove it all the way back to Cambridge, and we put it in the lampoon building. So cut to. I don't know, like, maybe nine months ago, I'm in Cambridge, and a student comes up to me and says, hey, by the way, Conan, I'm on the lampoon.

Conan O'Brien
Do you want to come by? And I went, yeah, sure. I haven't been there in a long time. So I go by, and there's the chair a little banged up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cause they drink. I mean, the puppets drank. Yeah, it was that way when we got it. But anyway, amazing. Well, Lisa's fantastic.

Ron Howard
She's amazing, you know, and so is Brian. You know, the whole family very talented. But it's kind of a tribute to them, because, look, the reality is, when you see the film, we deal with the family. Jim and Jane had an amazing, very unique, and very specific kind of romance and relationship and working relationship. And the very thing that brought them together was the birth of this brain child.

The Muppets also was the thing that ultimately kind of caused the relationship to erode and the romance to be lost. And yet there was still so much love and respect for one another and for creativity. And the kids are great, and the kids love each other, and they appreciate their parents in a very honest, clear eyed way. And they knew they couldn't make this documentary themselves. They're creative, they're producers and directors and so forth.

But I felt so fortunate that they would trust me, and I got very excited about it when I went to the studio here, the chaplain Henson studio, and saw this archival stuff, because two things happened on that day. One was I saw those crazy tv commercials and that early, early stuff, I saw the experimental stuff that's just weird and strange, and yet you can see very avant garde, very avant garde, very cutting edge, very ahead of its time, but you could see the way that it influenced the mainstream stuff that is so beloved that we all appreciate.

And I also got to talk to the kids, and I recognized that there was this family story to be told as well that would be so relatable, because, of course, there's a cost to that level of output.

There's a human factor there, and we're all the beneficiaries of all that hard work. But we didn't see all the things that he did that kind of misfired and at the time, disappointed him, including labyrinth, which, of course, now is a classic. You know, what's interesting is that you go back and you look at these moments, and a lot of people forget this, but your documentary brings it back. I was a writer at Saturday Night Live for a couple of years. Then I'm doing the late night show, and our studio was on the 6th floor.

Conan O'Brien
Saturday Night Live studio is on the 8th floor, but right down the 6th floor, not far down the 6th floor, there was a little office, because in the early days of SNL, the first season, Jim Henson, Frank Osler doing the Muppets are part of SNL. And they had a little office, and they drew all of these characters on these pipes. And now, of course, it's been put behind glass and preserved. But in my day, you could just go by and there's some pipes there, and they're just covered with those drawings. Yeah.

Ron Howard
Amazing. And I'm trying to wipe them off because I like clean pipes. I just think pipes be clean, but I couldn't get them off. No, but that was a misstep for them, right? Because that didn't.

Conan O'Brien
Is that all the cutting edge, cool, sardonic Michael O'Donohue's wise asses at first season, SNL were like, these puppets, what are they? These puppets are here. I hate these puppets. And so it was very. You can tell in the documentary crushing to Jim Henson, and then he spirals off from that and creates the Muppet show.

Ron Howard
Yeah, but he'd been trying to sell the Muppet show for years and failing. I mean, all the networks turned it down twice. There's a hilarious pitch sort of video that they made that is using the. Muppets to sell the idea and going. Completely over the top.

And it's Jim's voice, and it's just brilliant. You know, it's so interesting because Jim was, you know, you got to really know him. I met him only once, but it's so shy and retiring in person, you know, I mean, just kind of. And you think of him as a performer, but not with a microphone, not with a camera on his face. It's through the puppets.

You know, we were talking about Andy and Don, but it became so clear, not even so much from the interview with Frank Oz, because he was very modest about his contributions. But as I began to recognize and look at these videos, what a comedy team they were. Not just Burt and Ernie, but, you know, Miss Piggy and Kermit. There's a great bit in there with Fozzie and Kermit, and this is timing. I mean, it's like precision comedy timing, and they just nailed these bits.

Conan O'Brien
Well, I think that's the thing, is good comedy is good comedy. So if you're making it for kids on PBS or you're making it for adults, good timing is good timing. That's why, I mean, I always got my timing from early on from Warner Brothers cartoons, because they were shown as shorts in theaters to adults. They weren't condescending. So the timing was pitch perfect on those.

Ron Howard
Yeah. And then I think the same thing with, when you look at a really good sesame street bit, it's just good. Yeah. There's no condescension of, well, this is funny for kids. But I didn't realize how many of those bits that Jim directed.

I just thought he brought the Muppets and performed, and they did that, and I didn't realize that all those bits that used to catch my attention when three year old Bryce was watching them were the counting bits and these great little experimental things that would make me sit down and watch the show and kind of admire what was going on there and envy it a little bit. And I later I realized, well, that was one of the reasons Jim did it, because he never wanted to do kids programming. But they said, bring the Muppets, but we'll also let you do your experimental films, but how about doing them for kids so that they can learn? And he had a son with severe learning disabilities, so that was something that he was clued into. And he was.

Wouldn't you say that the reason it really worked at every level was that he was really a satirist, right? Oh, definitely. He's always there. What's interesting is that the early way that he made money was by making television commercials. So there are these Muppet commercials that I don't know if you've seen them, but they're in black and white, and it's before anyone knew they were the Muppets.

Conan O'Brien
But you can tell it's the same kind of almost the same characters, but they're prototypes. But they're doing, like, hormel ham commercials, but they're very. And they had. They last, like, 7 seconds long, but because they're 7 seconds long, they're very meta, right. They're very.

Today's sense of comedy, they're not buy a hormel ham. They're very weird and very funny by today's standards, and must have looked, like, very strange at the time, and yet. Really popular, you know, so they really, really broke through. I mean, they were doing some kind. I mean, there was almost always an explosion or a gunshot involved in a Hormel ham commercial.

Ron Howard
Somehow. No. Made bacon. They're selling. They're pretty much selling anything.

Conan O'Brien
But they're doing ads the way we, as part of the podcast, we do ads. And I always do them in my sensibility, my way, and then afterwards think, no one's gonna pay for that. And they do. And you can leave this in. I don't think they should, but they do.

Adam Sachs is gonna take that out.

But because they see the value of. We found out that they like that people listen to the ads. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, they were. Look, they were emotional without being sentimental.

Ron Howard
Definitely always had a point of view, and I always had something to say in and around the zaniness. But the Muppet show, I didn't think about it. I loved watching it. I didn't watch him religiously, but, man, I watch him now. I mean, those episodes hold up, but I didn't realize that he was basically taking the english dance hall, sort of almost like vaudeville, their version, and applying that to the show.

Conan O'Brien
And he was making them in England. Yeah. So it's sort of, once again, what's old is new. When put through this filter you mentioned. Earlier, I knew Jim well, and I can't say I did.

I met him on a few occasions, and he was really nice. And he actually suggested he had some show that probably never went. And it was towards the end of his life, but suggested that I. Because people were always like that Conan's got, like a look or something. He's irritating, but he's got a look.

And Jim Henson suggested that I audition for something for one of his shows. And I remember they sent over, I've told this, but they sent over sides that had two actors, two characters, and I didn't know which one he wanted me to audition for. So I showed up and said to the woman who was running the audition, it says Steve and Mitch, and I don't know which is which. And she said, oh, here's the character breakdowns. And she handed me Steve, and it said, women want to be with him.

Men want to be him. He oozes sexuality. And I was just, like, deflating. And then I said, can I see the one for Mitch? And she handed me Mitchell.

Like this gangly, goofy, red topped goon stumbles his way through life. But people like him, despite his many flaws and his asexuality. And I went, I think I'm the second guy. But no, this is a lovely tribute. And one of the things that really got to me is because of my connection when Jim passed very suddenly in 1990, and it was such a shock because it was just out of nowhere he gets this.

Ron Howard
53 years old. 53 years old. I was invited to that memorial, and to this day, it's the greatest send off I've seen anybody have, because it's a funeral. It's a funeral mass. It's a memorial.

Conan O'Brien
And it started with, I guess, a letter from Jim that he had written, which is like, well, if you're reading this, it must mean I'm gone. And he just decided to write this in case he ever passed suddenly. And he did. And it was so lovely. And then all the characters come out, and we're all laughing and crying at the same time.

So you show footage of the memorial service, and I was there. Yeah. And I, to this day, have thought that's what everyone should be like. It can't be because we're not all Jim Henson, you know, but that's what it should be. It really should be a celebration.

Ron Howard
Well, it clearly was. And, you know, his son Brian read that letter, and we have a bit of that in the. Oh, my God. It was a tremendous Tribute and Moment, but he's so loved. I mean, everybody we interviewed, it was actually great to make a film that I thought was interesting, could be revealing, and actually just doesn't have a dark side.

I mean, he literally was just a guy who lived in a positive Light, and he struggled. Ups and downs, difficulties on a personal side in the relationship. Sure. And yet set such a great example, like how you navigate that, too. I mean, winning's easy, but when you struggle, that defines the man or the woman.

And you look at both Jim and Jane and you sort of say, well, that's, you know, we should do that. The documentary is Atomic. I would recommend just watch it because you will laugh very hard. But it's also informative about so much more. You were the right guy to make this because you have just, in every single decade of your life, contributed good stuff, you know, and I think that's.

Conan O'Brien
Who can say that? That's really remarkable, you know? And I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so glad I know you. I'm so glad you let me saw your arm off 30 years ago.

And. And we're still at it. We're still going. Yeah, let's do a little. Yeah.

Oh, I checked out his leg on the way in. That left one looks like it could go at any time. Anyway, make sure Jim Henson idea man is just. It's a gift. And make sure that you check it out.

And Ron Howard, you're a gift. Thanks so much for being here. Great to be here. And let's get together, get a drink and talk sunscreen whenever you want. Beautiful.

Unidentified Speaker
Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of session and Matt Gorley, produced by me, Matt Gorley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Nick Liao and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

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Ron Howard

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1: Early Career

2: Directing Beginnings

3: Comedic Timing

4: The Jim Henson Documentary

5: Reflections and Advice

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