Transcript of #2557 - Yakov Smirnoff

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night! All day!

Let's go, Yakov! What's happening, baby? How are you?

I'm doing great.

Good to see you.

Nice to see you.

I know, Jamie's snuck up on us. Bam! Just turned on. Bam! That way you don't have a chance to freak out.

Yeah, thank you.

What's in the bag? Oh, okay.

So there are a couple of things.

Oh, a couple things.

One, yeah, one is, uh, it's a mural, piece of the mural that I painted at Ground Zero, and I thought it would be interesting for you to have.

You painted a mural at Ground Zero?

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so that, that was something, and I actually sent them— Paul Harvey did the, um, the rest of the story about that. And I, I sent them a video if they wanted to.

Yeah, I don't know if we can play that, unfortunately. I think it's got like a copyright to it.

Actually, I was—

We were told. Jamie, isn't that what they said?

It would be tough.

Yeah.

Right.

And so there's the mural. There's a photo of the mural.

Right, right. And, uh, it was— I was in touch with Paul Harvey Jr. asking if that would be okay, and they said it's fine and they'll send it.

Yeah, but I don't think they own it, you know what I'm saying?

They own his voice, so—

Right, but it's probably— if it's on Paul Harvey's television show, right?

No, no, no, it was a radio show.

Right, if it's on Paul Harvey's radio show, it's probably copyrighted. Did we have a problem when we played the Taylor Sheridan one? Remember we played that whole thing? It's just an issue. It's an issue.

It's an issue. Don't sweat it. We don't want it.

So anyway, you had a mural.

Yeah, that's, that's— and there was a couple of other little—

You got to talk into the microphone.

Sorry.

That's all right. Yeah, you wear headphones if you want. That way you can hear yourself.

Yes.

You don't have to.

This is, this is real.

This is real? What do you mean?

No, like, I watch you and I'm in such awe of what you were able to— your, your career. your trajectory, how you were able to sustain that longevity and then transition to this amazing voice. It's just, it's been an honor to know you and be here. So I'm a little nervous.

Well, don't be nervous, 'cause listen, it's all just dumb luck. There's a giant percentage of it that's dumb luck. That's a fact. I mean, I'm very persistent. That helps. But this thing, this— the podcast, is a lot of it is luck. You know how people like talk about like having a vision board? I had a vision board, I imagined. And people say that to me all the time, like, I'm sure you did that with this show. I'm like, I didn't do anything of the sort. I just kept doing it and it got big. But it's just people talking. Simple. Just like you and I talk in the green room.

Yes.

We're talking here. It's no big deal. It's just a bunch of people get to listen.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Nothing that spectacular. The spectacular thing is my guests. That's the fortunate thing. I'm the fortunate one because I get to talk to so many cool people. Look at you with your fucking American flag on your, on your phone cover. Look at that. Yeah, don't get fooled by the accent, ladies and gentlemen. You know, we were talking about your story in the green room, and I was like, we have to do a podcast because your story is so crazy how when the wall fell, so did your career.

Yes.

Like, you had this massive career. I remember you from the The Tonight Show. I remember you all the time, you know, in Russia. You always had these jokes about Russia.

Yes.

And it was great because, like, you were a Russian comedian doing stand-up in the United States.

Yes.

And then once, once the Soviet Union fell—

Yes, the Letterman, uh, David Letterman had a top 10 list of things that will now change that the Soviet Union is no longer there, and I made number 1 on the list. Yakov Smirnoff will be out of work. And I thought it was humorous because I was living in Pacific Palisades next to Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, I thought American dream will never end. And all of a sudden, it— 6 months later, none of my contracts in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Tahoe, none of them were renewed. And I could not find work, literally. I mean, I tried back to clubs and they wouldn't—

They didn't want you? What?

Yeah, it was the comparison. There was Van Meter that was impersonator of John F. Kennedy. He was an impersonator, was very popular at that time, and then after the assassination, his career went nowhere right away. And so somewhat, in some ways, it was similar to that, that I was associated with the Soviet Union and my humor was associated with that. And it was helping— I was helping President Reagan write jokes for his speeches for when he would go to Moscow. You have a picture somewhere, Jamie, of— I mean, it was amazing. All of a sudden, I was like a joke supplier for the White House. And it was— my career was just growing higher and higher. And all of a sudden, it was gone.

And I was— It doesn't make any sense. I mean, you still had great jokes.

Yeah.

And I'm sure people still wanted to see you. That's what didn't make any sense.

It wasn't— I guess I wasn't relevant because they associated me so much with that. And so I started, after not having work, uh, not being able to pay mortgage, I start looking for a place where they did not know that the Soviet Union collapsed. And I ended up In Branson, Missouri. I joke about this in my show, but it was a blessing in disguise because I was all of a sudden, my humor was family-friendly and this town is very much like that. And they embraced me. And I mean, it wasn't right away, but it grew and grew and grew.

Wow. And what is Branson like? Because I would always hear about it. Like it was always, Like, we would hear about it in LA that it was just like freaky Bible town, that it's like creationist museums and stuff like that. Like, here's a reconstruction of the Ark. Like, that's the kind of stuff that you would hear. I've obviously— I never went, so I don't know.

Yeah. I didn't want to go to Branson. Okay. I was living in LA. I didn't— I mean, I—

Did you move to Missouri?

Eventually I had to. Yeah. Because I had to sell my house. I mean, the whole thing went— yeah. So what happened is I didn't have— I didn't know where to go. I mean, it literally was scary. I have 2 little kids at that time and I can't find work. So my agent calls me and he said, Willie Nelson is doing this Farm Aid concert and would you like to co-host with him? And— I didn't have it, you know, I said, sure, but I don't think farmers would know who I am. And I got there, 50,000 people. I did my set and they gave me a standing ovation. And I went like, wow, this is— I didn't expect that. So I go to say goodbye and say thank you to Willie. And I opened the door and the smoke comes out. And I was proud to say that I You know, I didn't do drugs, but after I opened that door, I couldn't say that anymore. So through the smoke, he goes, Yaakov, you should go to Branson. They will love you there. And I was like, okay, I heard about it, but I was not sure.

So I go to Branson just to check it out, and it is March of 1993. And I've been struggling now for 2 years after the Soviet Union collapsed. And I go in and I walk into one of the shows and it was Soji Tabuchi show. It was a Japanese fiddle player that was just playing country music. I didn't know about him and I walk in and it's a matinee and there are 2,000 people in that room.

Wow. Whoa.

And I'm going, what is going on? Right? This is crazy. I was in Vegas. I didn't see— It was parallel universe. Right. So then I go Andy Williams' show, and it's the same thing, 2,000 people full. And I'm going, wow, if they can do this, I can do it as well. And so I, in May, I rented a small theater and I just set my shop there, put my name on the wall, and I got— first show, 17 people came in. And I'm going, oh boy, I, I, I don't have a place to go, but this is not gonna work. But then I started doing— I, I was pretty creative. I started— I said, I'm gonna serve breakfast in this, in the showroom. I'll, I'll call it Yak in a Box. and I'm just gonna make my mother's recipe of breakfast, and people will pass it, eat, and hopefully more people will come.

Wow.

So I would do 2 shows a day, uh, on, on, in the morning and in, in the evening, dinner and breakfast. And little by little, it grew, it grew, it grew. And then a year later, my average was like 400 people a show. And then the buses, that's the big business there, is the people come by bus in those days, a lot of them. And they would just discover me, and I started to become more and more popular. And then I bought 2,000-seat theater, and now I entertain over 6 million people there.

Wow.

And it became, yeah, this is, uh, this is kind of— it's—

That's your theater.

Yeah.

Look at you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's been a very successful journey overall. I'm, you know, I'm kind of the, the only celebrity or nationally known person there now.

Wow. And so how often do you do shows there?

Now I got down to like 30 shows a year towards fall, but I used to do 400 a year just to make more money. And people were coming and I— it worked out for me.

Well, good for you for adapting. I'm sure that must have been very nerve-wracking though.

It was.

Especially with young children.

Big time.

You're, you know, from another country. You come to America, you're killing it. You think, oh my God, I'm the American dream. This is incredible.

And then it's nightmare all of a sudden and you don't know what to do.

That's the problem with the world before social media, right? Because before social media, like, you couldn't just put some clips out there and show that you're still performing and still going places.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because back then there was like a narrative and if that narrative got out, you were done. So the narrative was so—

Yeah, I was canceled and I didn't have anything to do with it. It's not like I had a scandal or something. It just, I was helping Reagan to chisel the wall down, but there was writing on the wall that I didn't see. It says, get a day job, you know, and I didn't see it. Right. So that's how it happened.

It's amazing that you found Branson. And what would happen if you didn't? That's what's really crazy. Like, what do you think? You would have been able to figure out a way to tour? Was it that clubs wouldn't book you or people wouldn't come?

Both. Some— because people were not buying tickets, the clubs didn't book me, and the whole effect is just, you know—

So it was just the fall of the Soviet Union that people got in their mind, oh, Yakov is done.

Yeah, it was that quick.

That's what's fucked up about it is because, like, you have very funny jokes. Like, you're a good comic. It's like the idea that you can't be a great comic and talk about other stuff is so stupid.

But what happened, it was an evolution for me. I think that I look back and I'm going, thank you for this, because it was kind of a a one-note tune. And then it made me, forced me to go, okay, that topic is not necessarily the right thing right now. It's not, nobody cares because Soviet Union not there and nobody's scared of it. Because I was kind of like a, you know, it was a headache from the, you know, or— a pain in the butt of Soviet Union, and I'm preparation H, and I— they used me. And then after swelling and itching went away, you don't need it anymore, right?

Right.

So that's how it happened. So, so I went into it. That also coincided with my divorce, and, um, and I was struggling trying to figure out what's— what direction do I go. And I realized that this— I was helping the Cold War to end in some ways by being involved with Reagan and helping with that. And when that happened, I figured, you know, my divorce is happening. I know laughter helped the world become a better place. Why is there laughter in the beginning of the relationship with men and women, And then when there's divorce, the only people laughing are attorneys. And I put that question to my audience. So it became kind of like my laboratory of laughter. I just start asking people. I said, how many of you remember laughter being part of that honeymoon stage of your relationship? And they all applaud. And then I go, how many of you would go on a second date? if you didn't have laughter on the first date? And no one applauded. So I became like, this is kind of a universal thing that I was— my dad was an engineer and inventor, so my brain is kind of constantly— I'm looking for reverse engineering.

Why is it that laughter goes away in a relationship? So as comedians, we gauge our relationship with the audience with laughter. Every time.

Did the relationship fall apart because you had to move to Missouri? Or was it just—

Well, it challenges— yeah, it added to this. But I think I was looking for the root of this more, like, what is that that I am missing that I didn't do? Because, you know, I was—

You had a gimmick.

Huh? I had a gimmick?

Yeah.

But that was with my audience. What was happening with my wife? Why was that falling apart? So I start seeing the parallel, and the kids were little at that time, and I was trying to explain to them what was going on. And I can show you what I did. I brought this with me. It's— I showed this to— I know, show and tell. I brought it for For my— I started, I took magnets and I was showing my kids. I said, look, Mommy and Daddy, and we attracted one another and we had you and we had love and laughter and what was happening. And then something happened. And I don't know if you can show it, Jamie.

There's people listening as well.

Okay. Oh, okay.

So the magnets, they attract.

But then when things don't go well, they repel. So I was going, what is it that's attracting us and what is it that's repelling us? And then after doing this, and I went to University of Pennsylvania, got my master's degree in psychology, got my doctorate degree at Pepperdine. I mean, I was digging in. I was—

You did all this while you were doing Branson?

While I was performing Branson, yeah.

How were you doing that?

I would travel. I would just go do, I would take my schedule and make it the way I want it, and whatever I had to do, I would just travel to Pennsylvania and do that.

And you were taking in-person classes?

Yeah, yeah.

But how were you doing that?

On the weekends.

You were on the weekends?

On the weekends. You can do that? There were classes, yes. Wow.

So you would work all week and then fly on the weekends to— why were you doing that?

Well, it's interesting. That sounds exhausting. I was searching for a purpose. I think that was— I noticed something that was universal, and I wanted to prove that scientifically to myself and to— and I did because it was important to me. And what I figured out, and as a comedian, you'll understand it, every time we tell a joke, the setup is we're meeting their needs. They're interested in that topic. You and I talked in the green room, like you need more topics, for example, for your 1 hour more to add. And so the topics that you're looking for are the— you're meeting the needs of people. They want, they are curious. And then your humor is the punchline And that creates laughter. If you don't meet their needs, if they're not interested, then your humor doesn't matter much. So in a relationship, the same thing happens. So if I put this, and I know people are listening, but they can maybe picture that. If you put needs in the middle, then you—

You're talking about magnets. You gotta remember a lot of these people are not watching.

Are listening, okay. So I'm gonna abandon that. Yeah, it's bad.

This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. There's no excuse for a bad website anymore. Squarespace makes sure of that. Squarespace's AI website builder gets you something that looks genuinely professional in just a few clicks. No design skills required. You can lock down your domain, build something that actually looks like you, and keep it all protected in one place. Head to squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch, use the offer code ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So I get what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah, the, the needs is, uh, the flexible thing in our humor stays the same, but the needs or the setup is different. So if every business successful when they figure out what is the need of people. Like Apple, for example, they say, we develop product that you don't know you need, but then you can't live without it. That's their motto. So the same thing, a restaurant, if they figured out what need is that community has, they're successful. You figured out what is the need that people have and they're listening to you and they love it.

I don't— is it a need? Like we're talking— the word need is a weird one because for me, need is like food and shelter and community. That's the real needs. Everything else is desires.

Well, in the—

or interests.

In the hierarchy of needs with Maslow, they just go higher and higher.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

So when you find— he called them needs. I couldn't find a better—

No, it's not— that makes more sense now. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, um, it's, uh, I feel like the most important thing about comedy is you have to be actually— excuse me— you have to actually be interested in what you're talking about. Obviously it has to be funny. That's the most important thing. But other than that, the second most important thing, or the thing that like really resonates with people, is when someone's on stage and they're talking about something that means something to them, right? I get invested.

Exactly.

I'm invested in people that are fascinated with stuff. I'm invested with people people that are— that have like hobbies that they love. Even if I have no interest in it at all, yeah, I want to hear them talk about it.

Exactly, exactly. And I, I totally— that's— you found that whatever you want to call it, desire, need, whatever you want to call it, but whoever zooms in on that and understands it, they're, they're successful in what they do. So in marriage, my focus switched from the Cold War between countries to Cold War between couples.

Oh.

And understanding that men and women are different is very important because they have different needs. And so part of my dissertation was to give that understanding. So then the person is not like searching and doesn't know what he's looking for. I'm married and I'm happily married now, and my main goal is to figure out what does my wife need. And if I can anticipate it, then we have love and laughter and it's living there. But if I don't, or if she doesn't, then we start arguing, and that happens in every family.

Hmm.

I'm easier. So there's a book by Dr. Willard Harley called His Needs, Her Needs. And what he did, he was dealing with a lot of couples that was getting a divorce, and he was trying to help them in marriage counseling. And he asked— he identified like 10 emotional needs, and he asked these people to prioritize men and women. And it was interesting that he said, I was shocked that 5 top needs for men were totally different from 5 top needs for women. So if we don't know that— so the, the needs for women were affection, conversation, openness and honesty, family commitment, and financial support. Not Not for every woman, but that was majority. And then for men, it was sexual fulfillment, it was admiration, sexual fulfillment again, but it was admiration, attractive spouse, recreational companion, and domestic support.

Makes men seem really base.

They are.

Base and stupid.

We are.

That sexual attraction is number uno.

Yeah.

And then it's in there—

how's it in there twice?

That doesn't make any sense.

I just fucked it up. Yeah, no, I was joking around. Yeah, I was joking around.

Yeah, that's funny. Like, admiration's a funny one.

Admiration is huge. That's hilarious. You need admiration from your wife.

That's hilarious.

Well, but it's not, because if you, if you think, if you think that, uh, I ask the audience— so here's what I do in my show, uh, and it's— they're laughing, but they're also learning something. I say How many of you gentlemen here, at least once in a while, would like to hear your wife say, you're such a good man, thanks for doing things for us, applaud? And few people applaud. And I go, well, not every man is applauding because they're scared. And they laugh. And then I go, so let me ask you the same question from an opposite point of view. Any of you gentlemen disagree with that?

Silence.

Then I go, you see, ladies, you used to do it. You don't do it now, but you used to do it in the beginning. That's what that attraction was, is the man needed that, and women don't. They don't want to be acknowledged or admired for what they do. They want to be loved for who they are— kind, beautiful, smart, selfless, And I ask women, is that true? And they applaud. So, and it's subconscious, but I know for me, that's a very important thing that if I'm doing something, all I need is like, thank you. And sometimes it's overlooked and that doesn't feel right.

That's interesting. It definitely resonates that men don't necessarily care if a woman does a thing, like if she's really good at a thing, right? Like men— I mean, I mean, this is obviously a great generalization because there are probably some men, of course, that one of the things they love is the talent that a woman possesses or the drive.

Absolutely.

But for the most part, what men want is someone to be nice. Be nice and be pretty. Yeah, like my friends have joked around about this before, my single friends, about like, I don't give a fuck if a girl works at McDonald's. Is she nice? Is she pretty? Is she nice? You know, and is she not like completely annoying to talk to? Is she fun to talk to? Like, you don't care what her job is.

Wow.

If she's cool and she's fun. But a woman meeting a cool, good-looking guy that's nice that works at McDonald's, like, you fucking loser. You know, unfortunately— no shame to the people who work at McDonald's. I worked fast food when I was younger too. I did, uh, I worked at a couple— the first place I worked at was a burger place called Newport Creamery. I worked at a place called Papa Gino's. It was like an Italian fast food place. Nothing wrong with working at McDonald's. Point is, women don't respect it for whatever reason, especially the women that want to have a family and settle down and all that jazz. They look at a guy working at McDonald's like, you don't have any ambition. And that's the thing that women want from men that men don't seem to really care that much from women. Women want a guy that has ambition, and men do not care, right? Generally. Although I gotta say, Phil Hartman, when he obviously did not have a good marriage because his wife killed him and then killed herself, obviously didn't have a good marriage, right?

No.

When he had almost got divorced a few times, and I remember one, one time he and I were having a conversation about it, and he said, he goes, he goes, if I fucking get divorced, he goes, my next wife, she has to like something. He goes, I don't give a fuck what it is. I don't care if it's rock climbing. You have to be into something.

Yeah.

So that was his thing, was like that he was really into things. Like, he got his pilot's license. Like, the place that I actually bought in California, I found out about that part of California because of him, because he took me up in a plane and he was explaining to me like there's other counties that you could live in, and these counties, like, they have land. It's like, yeah, it's a drive, but it's like more peaceful and relaxed. You don't have to be like in the heart of everything. everything. So he was into being a pilot.

He had—

he played music. He always had a bunch of different interests that he was pursuing on top of being an actor and being a comedic actor. And so he was very frustrated. One of the things he was frustrated is that his wife didn't have any ambition. She didn't have any interests.

Well, but she also probably didn't admire him for what his accomplishments were. I think she wanted to be famous as well.

I mean, we should probably talk about this too much, but, uh, and I think there was probably some resentment at his success. I think she was trying to be famous as well.

Well, that's like those magnets repel. Yeah.

Well, it's like sometimes when a couple— I've seen it the opposite. Like a friend of mine, she was dating this guy who was a comedian, and when she started doing well, he started getting really shitty with her. He, uh, he started getting very resentful, and he would be insulting, and she could tell that there was— she was— he was not happy that she was doing well.

Yeah.

Because she started to take off and he wasn't.

Yeah.

And it was like he was very frustrated and they broke up. And she was like, that always really hurt because I really felt like if I was doing well, if he loved me, he was, he was gonna be happy too. And he wasn't happy.

It's nice if this was discussed in the beginning of the relationship.

Well, sometimes a man doesn't know and the woman doesn't know how they're gonna behave. You don't know what your character flaws are until you're presented by something that tests you.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So my My goal was to understand it better, and there's a painting I sent Jamie. If you— I painted this painting that kind of helped me. If you can find it, it's a Tree of Love, and it helped me to understand better what my role is because my first marriage, I did not know what my role was. I was I met a woman, American girl, beautiful, everything was great. When I shook her hand or she shook my hand, she almost broke my hand. And my subconscious was like, my mother was very strong in my parents' relationship. Mom was the leader and dad was creative, wonderful man, but he would follow her. And I subconsciously went with that script, the manuscript of my life. And so this helped me to see something that I wanted. Who do I want to be? I wanted to be that strong man who is able to give life to a woman that she can be free, creative, bring our, you know, fruit children, so she doesn't have to worry about that. In my previous marriage, I didn't understand that. So on stage, I came across like I was this, you know, strong guy who was invited to the White House to perform.

I was, you know, I was commanding a big group of 2,000, 3,000 people, and she saw that. And then in a relationship, I became like, now she knows what to do, I don't have to do anything. So I said I do, and I didn't do it. I didn't know what it was, what my role was. So it took me 20 years and all that education to get to that place that who do I want to become to attract a woman that wants to be in that role.

Damn, dude, you thought about this shit deep.

I did.

You were going through it, man.

I gotta tell you.

You were going through it because you're going through that, which is always a bummer for people, especially with children when you're getting divorced. But then on top of that, your career goes away because the Soviet Union collapsed.

Yes.

And then you said, fuck it. That's very admirable. You said, fuck it, I'm gonna get educated and figure out what's wrong with me and what's, what's, you know.

Yes. Yeah, and I don't know if you have a picture of my my wife and, and the kids and the kid. Now I'm 75 and I have a 1-year-old.

What?

Yes, I know.

When did you get married? How long did you—

7 years ago. So this—

So you spent like 20 years single?

Yeah.

Just trying to figure yourself out?

Yeah.

Damn.

Yeah.

You went on a walk to build yourself.

I went to Tony Robbins, uh, what? Yeah, all of his trainings. I mean, I needed to become— I wasn't that strong person. I was more like my dad, and I needed to become who I wanted to be. I wanted a woman to trust me that I can sustain no matter what. And I have a feeling there's my wife.

And did you meet your wife in Missouri?

No, she is from Ukraine. That's an interesting—

You have a 1-year-old? Dude, it's time to get you on some peptides. All right, we're gonna— that's crazy. You're 75, you have a 1-year-old.

I do.

We gotta go to work on you. We got to keep you alive. That's, that's nuts.

Uh, it's, it's wonderful.

You're almost 20 years older than me and you have a 1-year-old. That's crazy.

Well, I'm, I'm, I'm excited. I'm excited because I figured that I figured out something. So the way— so I, I was— you'll, you'll get a kick out of it. So I was married to an American woman, then I was dating other women, it wasn't happening. So I took my kids, grown kids, to Ukraine and I wanted them to show— I'm from Odessa, all right? So went there with them. They were like probably in their 20s. And so, and on the way back, I forgot my passport on the plane from Odessa to Kyiv.

Oh, no.

and I had to stay behind for a day to get a temporary passport. So I went to a park and I was waiting for this and I see this lunchtime and these gorgeous women are going to lunch and back and they're like, I feel like I'm in Paris watching a runway show. I mean, it's like beautiful. women, and I'm going, I can relate to that. I would like one of those women.

Wait a minute, but how old are you at this time?

That was 10 years ago, so 65.

And how old are these ladies?

Well, my wife is 42, so— but in their 20s, 30s.

42 and 75 doesn't seem offensive. For whatever reason, you know what I mean? Like 20 and what would be the equivalent?

Well, I wasn't looking, I wasn't looking, I wasn't a playboy. I was looking for a wife. I believe you.

But women don't care about that. If they find out that a man is like that much older than a woman, they kind of get upset.

Well, it probably in that culture is a little bit different than American culture. And so what I did, I said, okay, how do I do that? So I went to Ukraine and I tried to meet women through like agencies that introduce people. It wasn't working a couple of times. Then I decided I am going to just hire 3 different agencies at the same time and I am just going to go for 2 weeks and I had 51 dates.

So you went to Ukraine just to meet a woman?

I went to look for a wife. It wasn't a woman.

Right, but I mean, it has to be a woman, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, yes, so that's what happened. And I would just have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with different ladies. And it didn't take me very long because I had all that training and education. I knew, and I was looking for a woman who has a father that is really good for her. I mean, I knew that if the father if they're afraid of masculine energy, if they've been with the abusive dad or something is not right, they will not trust my energy.

Hmm.

And that was through the handshake. I could tell pretty much if that woman— and all 51 dates were— it didn't work. I mean, I just knew in a couple of seconds that it wasn't right, but then I have to eat, you know, so I gained weight just because I had to eat all this Time, 3 meals a day. And anyway—

You were going out with 3 different girls a day to try to find a wife?

Yeah.

That sounds kind of crazy.

Well, it— so then— Doesn't that sound a little crazy? So then, so then I go, it didn't work, right? So what do I do? So now I, I decide I'm going to do a seminar in Kiev, uh, on relationships because I was teaching at Missouri State University. at that time. So a professor from America is going to teach this course on relationships and laughter, right? That was my hook. And I figured—

But you did this all just to meet women?

Yeah. Yes, I did. Well, I'm not ashamed of it because I was very focused.

Listen, it's pragmatic.

Very focused.

A good strategy.

Very focused.

It seems like the same strategy that led you to like serve breakfast in Branson. You're an industrial guy.

And get out of the Soviet Union.

Solutions.

Exactly, exactly. So then I need somebody to promote this and to find the venue and bring women. But the logic was that the women who will come to a seminar are different kind of women that go to those agencies. Those agencies, they're hunting for somebody from outside the country. They're looking for somebody. These women just wanted to know more about relationship.

So what do you mean they are hunting for someone outside the country? So they are trying to escape Ukraine?

Yeah.

That is what they are doing? So they are trying to find a husband that is going to take them out?

Exactly, exactly. So they are more in the masculine energy, they are more like, I am going to get somebody, and I wasn't into that. I wasn't interested. So someone recommended this lady who can do this, promote this, And it was my future wife. It was my Olivia, who I'm now married to. And when I met her and she promoted this, I already knew that I didn't need the seminar. I just, I met somebody that I really wanted to be with. And it didn't, it wasn't immediate because we're age difference. So at first I was like, what? What are you talking about? And I wasn't— I was just professional and doing this professionally, but little by little, we started learning about each other. And then I invited her to America, proposed to her on her birthday on a hot air balloon ride. I mean, I was, you know—

Very romantic, young man.

Yeah, yeah. That way she could not get out that way. I could keep her there.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, that is a creepy place to propose.

To propose? Well—

Like, you're already scared. You're there. You're gonna take care of me, please?

But I put the big—

Get this thing down on the ground.

I put a big, big banner on the ground. Will you marry me?

Aww.

Aww. And, and she didn't know how to read English, so she—

That's hilarious.

She did not say yes. Uh, and then, then I opened the ring and And, you know, and then she said yes.

So, um, does she speak Russian? Is that what they speak in Ukraine?

Yeah, primarily.

Is there a Ukrainian language?

Yeah, there is, there is. That's the tension between 2 sides of Ukraine. One is very Western, very Ukrainian. The other one is Russian-speaking, and they, uh, Russian-speaking don't mind the, the other side. The other side does mind. So Yeah.

Got it, got it, got it. Well, it's like, what was it like starting out doing stand-up in the Soviet Union? That's where you started, right?

Yeah.

How old were you?

I was 15.

And what is it like over there when you're 15? Is there like a version of The Tonight Show in Russia?

Well, no, it's a lot— at those days, you know, it was Very structured, very Communist Party controlled. So there was only like 2 comedians in the whole country that were government approved. So they, they would be on the radio and television, and nobody else was really doing comedy. So—

What were the comedians like? More like vaudeville kind of—

Who were the names? Arkady Rykin. You could probably Google him, Arkady Rykin. He was the main guy that I would listen to, and in each apartment there would be a little speaker that would be on all the time so they could brainwash you.

Oh, you had a speaker in your apartment all the time?

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, so So, but then on Sunday mornings—

This is what, '66?

Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm 51, so yeah, yeah, that's about that time. Yeah, that was the guy. Yeah.

Wow, that was the guy.

Very famous. Uh, the only people from America that we saw were Charlie Chaplin, and that's it.

Just Charlie Chaplin?

Charlie Chaplin.

So you thought America was just silent movies?

Well, they portrayed it.

Oh, he even had a— he did a Charlie Chaplin impersonation.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, uh, he's got wigs and shit.

I would listen to his— so every other Sunday or every once a month, he would have a different monologue that was written and approved by the Communist Party. Yeah. So I was really into it. So I would record it and we had the big tape recorder like this and I would record it and I would memorize it. And because there was nothing to be approved because it has already been approved, then I would go to like a club in my school and I would tell jokes, his jokes, and people knew that it was his jokes, but they would laugh. And that is how I got my understanding that I really wanted to do that.

Wow.

Yeah. And, and little by little, then I went to military and I did that there kind of as an amateur.

And then, uh, so you did stand-up for the military?

Yeah. Yeah. But it would be just like holidays, like if it was May Day or—

A big event.

Yeah. October Revolution, they would look to me to entertain. So I would do that. And then I went to— came out of the military, went to college for art degree. My parents didn't think that I could do anything. Comedy would not be like— nobody even thought that that's even a possibility. And so I kept doing it and then start working on the Soviet cruise ships. Um, and they, they had in the Black Sea Soviet cruise ships. So I went, uh, they asked me to go and perform there on the cruise ship. Yeah, you're, you're like, really? They have? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was—

How old were you at the time?

I was 20, 21.

Okay.

Yeah. Um, now I'm getting paid and I'm getting Um, a cabin. And now prior to that, I lived in a communal apartment with my parents in the same room till I was 26 years old.

Whoa.

So yeah, so no phone, uh, 9 families.

What if your parents wanted to get frisky? They tell you to go for a walk?

Go look out the window.

Go look out the window?

Well, I joke about this.

Oh, okay, okay.

Yeah. And then, and then they say, what do you see? What do you see in the window?

I might jump out that fucking window.

Yeah, and they say, what do you see in the window? I said, our neighbors being frisky. And they say, how can you tell? I said, because their son is looking at me. So that's the joke I tell. But that was my life. And here, all of a sudden, I'm introduced to this. tourists from other countries would take those cruises around Black Sea. And all of a sudden, I'm introduced to this group of people that I was not allowed to talk to— foreigners. We were not allowed to even—

What countries were they from?

Germany, Britain, some Americans, some Australians, Yugoslavians, whatever, from Soviet bloc.

And who was the president of— or the—

Brezhnev was the president at that time. Yeah. And so I started— so I did one week of performances, and then they said, would you like to stay on board? And I said, can I bring my parents? with me, can we give another cabin for them? And they said, no, you don't get any special privileges. We have hundreds of people like you. Get out. And I was like, okay. So I left and a couple of hours later, a messenger comes. We have no phones, so it's like messenger comes and brings 2 sets of tickets for me and my parents. And I never heard that it's even possible, like, that they would go back on their word. So I go on the cruise and, um, and the, uh, I go to a cruise director. I said, what happened? And he said, well, here's what happened. These ships normally are rented to European companies for like 9 months out of the year. And we learned from them that if somebody is valuable, we give them more perks. The captain liked your performance and he told them, the company, that even if you have to give him my own cabin, I want him on the ship.

And the light bulb went in my head. I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you saying that in capitalistic world, if you're more talented, you get more things? And they go, yeah. That was— it's hard to imagine. It was like, changed my life.

Well, it's hard to imagine for people that didn't grow up in the environment that you grew up with a speaker in your apartment.

Yeah.

Like, just you saying that to me, my mind is rattled. I was like, oh my God, like they could just broadcast in your apartment anytime they wanted. Yeah, and what a great way to brainwash people.

And, uh, they would jam like, uh, because we had a big radio and they would jam Voice of America. Uh, but my dad would wake up like in the middle of the night. He was wanting to know what's happening out there and he would sit there and listen to that quietly. And I remember as a kid, And I asked Dad, what are you listening to in the middle of the night? And he goes, shh, don't let neighbors hear us. This is Voice of America. We're not allowed to listen to it.

Wow. So you had to keep it secret?

Yeah. But at nighttime—

How did he listen to it?

Just quiet. Just sat there.

Right. But if they jammed it, how did he listen?

No, they would jam it during the day. But at nighttime, they didn't think anybody would wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and sit there and listen to it.

How do they jam it?

It's just— I don't know.

Say that again.

Yeah, I don't know.

So they had some way to jam that signal? Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Whatever signal was on?

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's shortwave, so it goes in and out anyway.

What did he get out of listening to Voice of America? Like, what, what was he— does he— did he talk about it? Yeah.

Yeah. I would then start also waking up and listening and, and it would be just standard American thing, give me your tired, your hungry, your poor, something like that. And, you know, and they would— that there's a Statue of Liberty waiting to greet you if you come to the United States. And he would always say, you know, this would be something that I would love you to experience. And And my mom was— she hated that because she was afraid that we will get in trouble, and so she didn't want to even talk about this. So if I drew a picture as a kid, I would draw a picture of Statue of Liberty, and she would like, don't do that, don't let anybody see this, we will get in trouble. And when after I experienced the cruises and got to know this different environment, I came home and I go, Mom, Dad, I think we should consider try to get out of— and Mom was like mad at my dad. And my dad stood up, which was good for him at that time. Normally, he would just be quiet, but he said to my mom, Clara, don't you— would you like your son when he is my age sit there by the radio and listen to Voice of America hoping, wishing that he would be doing something like that, or would you like him to be in America doing this?

And my mom kind of went, you know what's going to happen when we apply for a visa. People who are considered your friends, they will cross the street and they will not want to talk to you. be seen with you and you're going to go through hell. And my dad said, yeah, we will. And she said, well, if you're willing to do it, so am I.

And that's all you had to do is apply for a visa?

Well, what was happening at that time, Jimmy Carter was the president here and he wanted to see some human rights in the Soviet Union, and the Soviet leadership was— they were starving. They didn't have food, so they needed food from America. So Jimmy Carter made a deal that we are going to give you grain and you allow people to get out.

Wow!

And that's how we were kind of exchanged for some wheat. You know, that's how we got out. Wow.

Holy shit, man.

Yeah, yeah.

Just, you sometimes need to be reminded how fortunate you are. You know, Americans in particular, we're very— you know, it's not our fault. You know, people become accustomed to where they live.

Yeah.

And they think this is normal, which is one of the reasons why this push towards communism amongst young people is so infuriating to me. It's like, I understand that it comes from this desire for empathy and kindness. I get that. The idea of socialism comes from an idea of empathy and kindness that you want— you think the world would be better if we all shared, and that why are there people that are so rich and people that are so poor? And you're right. But the solution is not to make the government decide who gets what.

Right.

Because they never decide the right way. They do what people do. What people do when they have power is they enact total control over the population so that they can maintain power, and then they live in luxury, and then you wait in line for bread. And that's how it is all over the fucking world. And if you step out of line, they shoot you.

Yeah.

That's where communism goes. So what we need is like a more— a more moral and ethical version of capitalism. So we need capitalism but with empathy, capitalism but with philanthropy. Like real philanthropy, not like scams where you find out that 90% of the money is actually going to all the people that work there and there's a small percent— we need to figure out a way to be more empathetic as a culture, but recognize that the pursuit of freedom and the ability to have freedom is so huge and it's such a great gift. We're so lucky that we have this experiment in self-government that is the United States of America.

100%.

And that we were— that at least I was born here.

Yeah.

We're lucky as shit, you know, and you don't throw that away because it's not good enough.

Right.

Don't throw that away because it's not, it's not perfect. You're not gonna get perfect with human beings, but this is the best system. Is it corrupt? 100%. Yeah, that should be fixed. The corruption should be fixed and guardrails should be put in place and maybe more regulations in regard to some things should be put in place, but the purpose of this whole thing is to allow people to have freedom to do whatever they want. And that's not ubiquitous in the world. That's not everywhere. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. People can get pretty creative when it comes to job hunting, like creating interactive portfolios online. Or have you ever heard about the person who handed in a resume on a custom candy wrapper? Well, you don't need unusual stunts to see how much someone wants the position though. You just need ZipRecruiter. Try it free ZipRecruiter.com/Rogan. ZipRecruiter's new feature shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, and candidates can add a personal note explaining why they want the job. ZipRecruiter makes it easy for amazing candidates to get your attention. 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.

Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com/Rogan.

That's ZipRecruiter.com/Rogan.

ZipRecruiter.com/Rogan. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

No, no. And I've been, I've been kind of a poster boy child for American dream in a way.

Look at your phone. Uh, look at that phone case. That's— if I had that on, people would call me a fascist. We have a giant American flag.

Yeah, in Branson. That's That's not—

That flag to me doesn't represent whoever is in— it didn't represent Biden when he was in office. It didn't represent Obama. It didn't represent Trump. That represents all of us, right and left, independent, Black, white, Asian, Russian, fill in the blanks, Filipino, everybody from everywhere. Who cares? It's America. This is America. This is the great melting pot. And that's how we really should be. And that flag shouldn't represent— some people think the flag represents racism or colonialism. Like, come on. Come on, stop. That flag represents hope. And if you were a kid like Yakov Smirnoff—

That's right.

Is that your real name?

No, no.

What's the real name?

Pokhis.

Say that again.

That's why. Pokhis, P-O-K-H-I-S, is my real name. But I was a bartender, a bar boy at first when I came here, and my first job was a bar boy. in the Grossinger's Hotel, uh, in the Catskills.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And what year was this?

'77.

Who did you get to see perform there?

Oh, Freddie Roman.

Wow.

Eddie Fisher. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Freddie Roman. Old school, baby.

Old school. I was learning—

Red Skelton. Did you see those guys?

Uh-huh. I did, uh, later, later in Atlantic City. But yeah, yeah, I, I was learning English I was learning about Chappaquiddick or stuff like that. I was like, what is that? You know? So I was definitely learning English there.

Have you ever seen the television show on Amazon, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? It's really good, man. Yeah. The first scene, the first season rather, is incredible. It's about a young woman who's married and decides to become a standup comedian. Like, she's married with kids, the whole deal, and she decides to do stand-up. And part of what she does, she does some stand-up like in the Catskills.

Interesting.

And like, that is— for people that don't know stand-up, there's like— stand-up comedy as an art form is a very new art form.

Yeah.

Very new.

Yeah.

In terms of human history.

Yes.

It's only existed like in this form that we call stand-up, where you have comedy clubs and stuff like that. It's only existed like that since the '60s.

It's true. It's, it's vaudeville pretty much started that, right? Yeah. Uh, it's a different form, uh, but that was— I was learning from those shows.

But a big part of it was the Catskills.

Yes.

A big part of it, because people from New York and Pennsylvania, they would go into the Poconos or the Catskills, and they would do that on summer vacation, and people would get jobs there, and comedians would go and book themselves at these places. And it was a big deal.

It was, it was. And I, I didn't know, um, about that.

Uh, so you just got a job there?

Well, how it happened, I, I decided I need to learn English. I didn't speak English, right? So to, to start with, so how do I learn English? And I just, I thought maybe if I can be a bartender, because on the cruise ships, bar was in the same, uh, proximity as the stage was. So I figure It's the same people coming to enjoy evening and I can talk to them individually and learn English. That was my clever idea, right? And so I went and got a bartending, it's called degree of mixology. In New York, there was a makeshift school on Fifth Avenue, 2 weeks, $200, and you get a degree. of being a mixologist. And I don't speak English, but I collected that $200, got the degree. So, and they promised you to get a job, right? So first job they got me, there was a restaurant in Lincoln Center called Monk's Inn. And it was, you dress as a monk and it's a French restaurant and you don't have to speak. You're a waiter, but you don't have to speak.

Perfect. perfect.

And then, at the same school, said they're requesting some bar boy in the Catskills at the Grossinger's Hotel. And I didn't know anything about it. And I, on my day off, I went upstate New York and went, walked into this place, and it was gorgeous. It was a beautiful bar. like 18 bartenders or whatever. It's huge. And then 2,000-seat theater. And when I saw it, in my brain, I said, I don't care what they pay me, I want to work here.

Hmm.

And so I took that job and actually I was nervous because I didn't know that I can quit. the other job because they just gave it to me like a week ago.

Right.

And so I go back and I am so nervous. I go to the manager, I go, I know this is— you gave me a break, but there is an opportunity here. And he said, Yaakov, it is America. You should take the opportunity. And if you ever need the job, you get it here. And I was like Rocky. I was like—

Was he calling you Rocco— Yakov? Or was he calling you— you'd already used that name?

Oh yeah, Yakov is my real name. Yakov is my real name.

But you said it wasn't your real name.

Pokis. Pokis is my last name. Oh yeah, yeah. Yakov is my real name. So I took Yakov Pokis. And I— and I— people could not pronounce my name. So in the bar, they would— I would see that they can say, I'll have some Smirnoff. And I'm going, hmm, maybe that's a good name. And I— and it stuck. And Yakov Smirnoff became my name.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

But when you think about how many different people in show business changed their names back then, that was a super common thing. Like you didn't keep the name that you were— if you had a goofy name, like Arnold Schwarzenegger was a groundbreaker. 'Cause he was like one of the first guys to say, regardless of whether or not you could spell my name or even say it, that's my name. I'm gonna keep that name.

Right, right.

So many people changed their names and made their names sound more appealing.

Well, mine, mine kind of worked because Yaks is like jokes, yaks, and Smirnoff kind of makes people happy.

Right.

So it kind of worked.

Oh, it works great.

Yeah.

It's a great idea.

Yeah.

So you're a young kid and you're at these Catskill shows. How long did you work there?

Not very long, about 8, maybe 7, 8 months.

And did you slowly learn English when you were working there?

I was learning English and I was translating jokes and I would try them on the audience or my customers. And I would just tell a joke and if they laughed, then I knew that I'm understood. And if they didn't laugh or I didn't get a tip, then it wasn't working. So that was my gauge.

And you were a busboy when you were in Vegas?

I was a bar boy.

Bar boy.

So I'm always bringing ice and mixing piña coladas, whatever. And then became a bartender. And then I would ask the guy, I asked the guy who was the manager of the main room, Barry Wise, his name, and I asked him if I could try my comedy. And he said, no, you can't do it in this room, but in the lobby, in afternoons, they have a game with older people, Simon Says. And the guy who— master of ceremonies there, We'll probably let you do a couple of minutes of stand-up. So I did. I walked on stage and I— it's a little stage in the lobby and I'm telling a couple of jokes and some woman in the back started— I thought she was laughing. It was like, ha ha ha ha. She had seizures. And I didn't know. And I'm thinking I'm doing well.

Blah.

And they're getting her on a gurney out of there and people coming over and saying, you were killing, you were killing. I'm going, no, no, I wasn't killing. The whole thing was— but at least I told a couple of jokes and that gave me some confidence. And then I did a couple of shows in Catch a Rising Star, which wasn't very good. for me.

In New York?

In New York, yeah. And then, and then I was working as a shipping manager in a company called Greeting Bells, and just to make some money. And the lady said, I know somebody in Hollywood, um, uh, his name is Ted Bergman. He is the producer, executive producer of Three's Company, which was a huge show at that time.

Sure.

He said, if you go to Hollywood, I can arrange a meeting. And I said, okay, I'll go. So I had a plan. I bought a ticket for 10 days to go to Hollywood, become a star, and then come back to New York and buy a Fifth Avenue apartment for my parents. That was my desire, which is crazy, right? But I go, okay, he's an executive producer of Three's Company. He'll put me in the show. I'll become a star right away. It— I know it's, it's crazy, right? But I, I really was that naive, right? So I go there and Ted Bergman says, I would like to see you perform. So I need to find a spot. And I go to The Comedy Store. and I get on the open mic list, and then the message comes that he is not going to make it, but I'm already committed, so I'm doing my 5 minutes, and I'm bummed because now it's day 4, and I'm not even close to getting a television show. So I'm walking away and I'm on Sunset and this girl, Chrissy is her name, was Mitzi's secretary at that time. And she runs after me and she goes, Yaakov, Yaakov, congratulations.

And I go, why? I mean, the guy didn't show up. And she goes, no, no, no, no, no, Mitzi liked you. And I go, who is Mitzi? I know, I know, it's silly to see in front of her portrait. And she goes, she owns The Comedy Store. Go talk to her. So I go sit down next to her in that booth that is next to—

Yeah, sure.

The original room. And I have no idea who I'm talking to, but— and she says, You are very funny. Stay in Los Angeles. There is always place for good and different. And I'm again, I'm like, okay. I said, I'm sorry, but I, you know, I have parents in LA, in New York, and I need to go back because they rely on me. And she goes, so what does your dad do? And I go, he's a building construction engineer. And she goes, can he be a carpenter? And I go, I think so. And she goes, okay, why don't you bring him here? I'll give him a job.

I like your Mitzi impression. That's pretty close.

And, and she goes, And where do you live? I go, I'm staying with some friends. She goes, I have a house up the hill and you can rent a room for $120 a month if you want to.

That was Crest Hill?

Crest Hill, yeah. So I still don't know again who I'm talking to. And she goes, and come back tomorrow. and watch a regular show. So I come back.

How old are you at this time?

I'm 26, 27 now. Yeah. So I go in next day and I sit in the back and first person that Harry Speed, you probably remember.

Sure.

Yeah. Harry Speed introduces Robin Williams first on stage. And he was— he just hit number 1, uh, show on—

Mork and Mindy?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And after him is Billy Crystal. After him is David Letterman. After him is, uh, Richard Pryor.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. It's lined up like— and I'm sitting back there and I'm going, this is day 5. I'm ahead of schedule. If she likes them and she likes me, I'm staying. I don't care. And that's how it started. And she gave me a job. So basically I was helping my dad as a carpenter because she wasn't— I wasn't ready to perform there really. But—

But she believed in you.

Yeah. And she gave me a break. And little by little, once a month, she would say, why don't you go up and do what you, you know, and I was practicing. I would do other clubs meantime just to get better and better and better. And then, you know, she had been an amazing supporter, you know, and I continue. I built a lot in the belly room. I built a lot of things in And she— my main job was to go to her house. And Paulie was a young kid who was smoking pot. And to prevent Mitzi from walking into him, he would take off the doorknobs of the door and he would throw them away. And my job was to go and buy new doorknobs. and put them in. It was like a full-time job, you know. And so, yeah, she's been a blessing, a blessing for me.

Paulie's at the club this weekend.

Oh, is that right?

Oh, cool. Yeah, he's on the 25th.

That's cool.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

And so how good was your English back then?

It was getting better, you know.

Were you taking courses?

Yeah, yeah, I was relentless. I would I would do whatever it takes to learn. I was— I mean, I isolated myself totally from Russian speaking except my parents. I was speaking to them in Russian, but everybody else I spoke in English. So it was getting better and better. And then little by little, I got, you know, kind of— Robin got me a part at Moscow on the Hudson movie. That was the first—

This is all in the '70s, right? So this is probably like you got arrived there like what, '78?

'78, yeah. And then the movie was '80 and started in '82, came out in '84. So at that point, I was doing Night Court a lot. Did like 7 episodes. I could not get on The Tonight Show. there was a producer, Jim McCauley, who didn't think that Carson is going to like me, right? And so I became— and he would come every day. Mitzi was very supportive of this. She would have like a showcase once a year of people for him to look at. And he would come and he would say, Carson is not going to like you. He's not going to like you. He's not going to like you. And on year 6, he came and he said, Yaakov, let's save time for one another. You'll get on that show when the hell freezes over. I swear. And I— so I started watching Weather Channel just to— Well, I didn't have a shot. I mean, and I just kind of moved on. And then I got Miller Lite commercial, which became very popular. I don't know if you can show that, Jamie. You could probably see it. It became really big. All of a sudden, I was during Super Bowl shown, and all of a sudden, people kind of got to know me.

And then Carson saw this commercial, And he told Macaulay, he said, this guy is funny. How come we don't have him on? And Macaulay said, oh yeah, we were just about to get him. And so Mitzi calls me. I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the club. And she calls me and I remember on the payphone, I call her back and I go, what's going on? Guess who called? I go, who? Macaulay. He's an actual— he's such an ass. He now wants you on the show right away. And my gut reaction was like, uh, I want to tell him to go shove it. And then I go, no, no, no, I gotta. So I, I did The Tonight Show, and Carson liked me and called me over to the couch, which was Uh-huh, yeah.

Wow.

Which was kind of a, um, a big deal at that time. And I, and I sat down and I said, Johnny, you know, in America you have things we never had in Russia, like policemen have warning shots. And he almost fell off the chair. And we went to a commercial and Macaulay comes over, gets between me and Carson, goes, Can you do— can you do another shot like this, like, a couple of months from now? I go, when the hell freezes over? He goes, touché, touché. And I did 6, 7, 7 episodes of Carson.

And people today, young people especially listening, don't understand what a big deal it was to be on Carson. And I think the only thing that's close today is Kill Tony.

Yes.

Kill Tony is a place where people's careers are actually really legitimately launched. And there's a bunch of people like Cam Patterson's on SNL now. You know, there's guys like— when I did a show, a podcast with the Black Keys, they were asking for William Montgomery to perform. Like, can we go see William Montgomery? Like, there's people that are stars from that show now.

Amazing.

Well, it's pretty cool.

I'm here with you because I did that show and And here I saw you and you invited me. So I'm very grateful to Tony that kind of got us—

Well, Tony's done that for a lot of people. I mean, he's blown up Adam Ray. He's blown up so many of these guys. Kyle Dunnigan. So many of these guys have taken off because of Tony. I mean, it's a really amazing platform because it's just comedy.

Yeah, totally, totally.

Love it. It's like a more important platform for comedians than a regular podcast like this one, because this podcast is not always comedy. Like, sometimes I'm talking to scientists, sometimes I'm talking, you know, talk to a lot of weird different people.

Yeah, absolutely.

But that show is just funny, and there was nothing like that back then. So the closest thing to it was The Tonight Show. And if you got on The Tonight Show and you did stand-up, I mean, that was the first time I remember watching Richard Jeni. was on The Tonight Show, and there's a bunch of other people that I saw on The Tonight Show too, but everybody would stay up late at night, and when there was a comedian on The Tonight Show, you'd get excited.

Yeah.

Like, oh, there's a comedian.

Yeah.

Let's see if they're funny. And if you were good and you were on The Tonight Show, then you could perform at clubs all over the country.

Right.

And they would say, as seen on The Tonight Show. Like, oh, The Tonight Show.

Yeah.

It was a huge deal. And if you had that credit and people had seen you—

Yeah.

Also back then, like, what were the numbers? The numbers were crazy.

30 million.

Yeah, because there was only 4 channels. 3 at the time, not even 4. Fox didn't even exist yet. So there was 3 channels and a huge percentage of the country was watching this one thing.

Yes. Yeah, I was very blessed.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

30 million.

Yeah. And I, one time I offered them— he loved to do impressions of Reagan, Carson. He was— and I offered them to do a skit of me as an interpreter, he is Reagan, and then had a Gorbachev lookalike. And it was a huge hit. It was really very, very well received. So, and that's another interesting thing that, you know, like when I met Reagan, I was still fairly unknown. And I was playing a club in Washington, D.C., and it was called Comedy Cafe. And somebody came over to me after the show, and a guy, I didn't know who he was, and he said, I'm having President Reagan and Nancy Reagan as my guests, dinner guests, at my home in 2 weeks. I would like to invite you to be one of the guests. And I am thinking, this guy is nuts. Who is this? You know, and he was chief editor of Washington Times newspaper. And he— the reason I brought this up because, so he sent me tickets, I come back, and then this is like a scene from like Die Hard or something. We are pulling into his house, towards his house. There are helicopters, 2 helicopters are hanging over the neighborhood.

There is FBI everywhere and I am going, this is going to be a mess. You know, they are going to— they won't let me in. I just didn't think it is possible. So they get him out of the car, they frisk him, they ask for his IDs and he said, I am the owner of the place where the president is going to dinner. And they said, we don't care. So they get him and then they shine the light. I'm sitting in, in there, uh, in the passenger seat, and they shine the light on me and the guy goes, Miller Lite commercial, right? Go in.

Wow.

That's how I met— that's how I met the president. And then And it was, uh, he— the moment we met each other, it's like locked in, like the same wavelength. And all of a sudden he was like, have you heard this joke? And he starts telling me Russian jokes. And then it was back and forth. And suddenly 18 people in the room and everybody's laughing. And that's how it started, that relationship.

Wow, that's crazy.

Yeah. And then I get a call from his— Dana Rohrabacher, who was his head speechwriter. And he calls me a couple of weeks later and he said, Reagan is going to go to Russia to meet with Gorbachev. He is going to do a speech in front of all the Russian politicians in the University of Moscow. He would like you to write some jokes for his speech. And this is like insane for me to hear this. I'm going, I'm thinking, if something doesn't go right, I don't have any countries to go to. This is like, where am I going, right? So I write some jokes. They put them in the speech. And then Dana goes, do you mind looking over the speech? Because we want to make sure that the tone of the speech is right. I'm going, this is too much. This is too much responsibility. But I was honored. I read it and I said, I personally don't think that the tone is correct. I think you're kind of talking down to them and they're not going to like it. And he goes, then rewrite the speech. I'm going, okay. So I just changed— I didn't rewrite the speech.

I just changed some tone of kind of putting them on the equal level as opposed to being talking down to the Soviet leaders. They didn't appreciate that.

Can you explain how he was talking down?

Just teaching them that capitalism is so much better than what they got and they should switch. to that form of politics as opposed to kind of appreciate what they— and they're, you know, their empire at that time that is still very big. So I didn't— I just felt that I would be just nicer and they liked it. They changed some of these things that— and they kept it that way. And So, I don't know how— Mitzi used to tell me, you and Reagan changed the world. I go, yeah, Mitzi, you're right. I'm just telling jokes. He goes, no, it was his secret weapon that he used to get to Gorbachev. Well, maybe there's some truth to that.

Well, certainly truth in that you kind of understood how they would receive what he was saying, that he was saying something that would— they would become defensive and they would be offended by it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was my concern that— but, you know, I get it.

Well, you know that culture way better than anybody else. Exactly.

And that's what he was asking me. I mean, at some point he goes, how would you deal with Gorbachev? He was literally— it's like, and I'm like going, am I the most qualified person to answer this question? And he goes, you are. Because you, you lived there 26 years. None of us politicians have. So he was really very receptive to my suggestions, whatever they, you know.

Wow. That had to be weird. I mean, you're talking to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Yeah.

While Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.

I didn't write that joke. I did not. No, it wasn't a joke.

It wasn't a joke. Yeah.

Yeah.

crazy that it actually happened. Changed the world.

Yeah. Changed the world.

Literally changed the world.

Changed my world for sure.

Unfortunately. That's what's crazy. What's crazy is that it's like— but that was the problem with the world back then with only a few channels.

Yeah.

They could just decide you were done and you were done.

Yeah.

I mean, that happened to a lot of— like, if actors ran afoul of certain people, you got cast out, you got blackballed, and that was it. You never worked again. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that happened to a lot of people. Yeah.

Well, I'm happy that I found Branson. I'm happy that I was able to adjust, you know, and it's just like when you look at trajectory of my life, I realized that that's one of my strong skills to be able to adjust, coming, just having the idea that I will be able to do comedy in America was insane for most people.

Well, just adjusting from the culture of living in Russia to living in America is insane too. You made a lot of adjustments. A lot.

And when we came— because we were coming through Italy to come to America, and they would— in Italy, they kept us 3 months to check all the documents and make sure that we are not like Communist Party or don't have a record. Or a spy. Yeah, right, right, right. And we had to survive. That was another interesting moment of our life because we're going and they didn't want people to leave because that looked bad for the Soviet Union. So they They would do all the— they would only like change you $100 per person and you are supposed to survive like 3 months of living in a foreign country. And so, but they would give you a list of things that you could take with you. So like a photo camera, hat, something you could sell there to live on.

Oh.

And yeah, and of 2 suitcases for each person and very strict list of things. What was an interesting kind of loophole, we found out through the grapevine that condoms was a very expensive item in Italy for some reason. In the Soviet Union, you could buy them for a penny, and in Italy, you could sell them for a dollar.

Hmm.

And so my quest was like when I learned that, and there was no restriction how many you can take with you. So I would go to each pharmacy, whatever I could get, and just, I was, you know, we got like half of the suitcase of condoms and we put it in my mother's suitcase so that way hopefully nobody is going to ask her what, why, you know.

Right.

They would be embarrassed or whatever, so they didn't ask and we got through. And so my job and my parents' job was to go on the open market every Saturday and Sunday and try to sell those condoms so we can pay rent and food and whatever else. So my parents, it was so funny how they transitioned. They were these 2 very conservative people and they are embarrassed, but then they realize we need money to eat. So they would— Mom became pretty smart, she translated it from Russian into Italian. If you don't want to have a kid like this, and would point at me and would hold that card and said, then buy a condom.

Ah!

And people would laugh. They would laugh and they would buy 2 or 3. It was just more of a joke, but we were we were, you know, surviving on that for a long time.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah. So it was kind of bang for the buck, kind of a, you know, it was not expected, but we survived. So a lot of those moments in life when you— I look at my life and I go, that was a survival. Then coming to America, And getting a job and getting to, uh, God is that helped you and me to become who we are. Uh, that's just God's hand on that.

That's amazing. Yeah, you adapted, man. You adapted multiple times. That's so crazy.

God.

Yeah, just trying to survive in Italy. You didn't speak Italian.

No.

Did you guys speak anything other than Russian?

No, no, we just— but there was immigration, there was other Russian people that you could kind of communicate with. And I would go, even in Italy, I would go to a movie theater, and I was so determined. There was one movie theater in Rome that would, for a dollar, you can sit and watch English Uh, speaking movies, and you can sit there all day for a dollar. And so I would go. It was like my— I was learning English, listening to it, listening. And, and, and then one time I remember a, a couple— I, I needed to practice, and there was a couple. I asked them, uh, speak English? And they said yes. And the guy The girl was from Belgium, the guy was from Washington, D.C., and they said, we will help you and we will just come every week like on Monday or some, whatever it was, and we will just go to a coffee shop and we will talk to you so you can practice English. And I remember they asked me like, what did you do in Russia? I said, I was a comedian. And somehow through dictionary, whatever I could to make that.

And they said, what do you want to accomplish when you're in America? And again, I don't know anything about America and I have this— I asked them, I said, where is the most successful people, comedians perform? And they said, Las Vegas. And I said, in 5 years, somehow I delivered, I'll be in Las Vegas. And it's exactly what happened. 5 years later, I was at the Tropicana Hotel with Murray Lansdowne, the unknown comic, doing a show in Las Vegas.

I remember that guy with the paper bag over his head. Yeah, from The Gong Show.

Yep.

Yeah, which is a great show.

It was a great show. Yeah, it was kind of an early version of Kill Tony.

In a lot of ways. Yeah, in a lot of ways, because some of the people were just like unbelievably untalented, and then you would hit the gong.

Exactly.

That show was great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Didn't they try to bring that back? Didn't they try to bring The Gong Show back at one point in time with someone else?

I think they did.

Who did they bring it back with? Do you remember, Jamie? But do you remember? You don't remember.

I don't.

Off the top of my head, no. It was someone that you're like, huh, I wonder why they chose that person. Actually, oh yeah, 2000— oh, Dave Attell. Oh, was that— that's right!

Who was it?

It was Dave Attell.

Oh.

That's right. It was 2012. Well, this is briefly in 2008 and then again in 2017, and then I don't think he was involved in that one. Oh, 2008, that what you said?

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, he's perfect for that. The problem is once a show's been done, you try to redo it, right? Like, it's always gonna—

right?

Yeah, there's been the 3 different versions of Fear Factor now, you know. This is like, now they're doing it with Johnny Knoxville. It's kind of crazy, like, the amount of different things that have happened in your life, you know, and then now to find yourself with another revival because of Kill Tony.

Yes, like, yes, and, and going back on tour, I have a poster. I know people on the radio can't see it, but I have a poster of my tour.

Well, we'll send them to the website.

Yeah, so I am I'm excited.

And where are you going, to comedy clubs?

Yeah. All over the place? Yeah, Atlanta is the next one.

No one can read that.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, put that down. They'll go to the website. Jamie will pull up the website.

Yeah.

You got brought up fucking—

It's on Yakov.com.

Yakov brought us on, man. That's hilarious, man. So what was the Kill Tony experience like?

It was great. I mean, I am, um, obviously my, my show is kind of a G-rated. And so Kill Tony is not. And so, but yet it was—

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

He was so respectful of this, Tony, and set me up, you know, I mean, I felt like my head was this big and he was seeing me as a super legend. And I am very grateful. It's hard for me sometimes to accept that, that people see me because I've been doing this for 60 years. 60 years comedy.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Well, I remember the first time we met. We met at The Comedy Store.

Uh-huh.

Ooh, I want to say, was that like 15 years ago or something like that?

Probably, yeah.

You dropped in and I'd never seen— and I was like, oh, like, what is he doing in town?

Yeah.

And you just decided you wanted to come by the store and see what was going on with the young guys and do some stand-up. And we hung out for a little bit in the, in the green room. I'm like, and I remember telling everybody, Yakov Smirnoff's really funny, man. He's fucking cool.

Thank you. Thank you.

It was fun. It was fun to hang out with you. You know, it was like, it was fun to see you hanging out with all these weirdo young pot-smoking fucking animals.

Coming from Branson, right?

Yeah. You were coming from Branson. You're hanging out with Joey Diaz. We were laughing though. We had a good time, man. It was a really good time.

It was fun. It's fun. And I go back I'm still doing the clubs, and my goal was really to— last year, I would go to small clubs and develop an hour of material that is totally current. I talk about relationships. I talk about having a 1-year-old in my life. I talk— and it's interesting, I was doing it at your club. And it's great to watch the reaction of the audience, how they have a lot of respect, but they're also laughing. And they're seeing it's fun because I talk about relationships. So they might come in disconnected, but then all of a sudden you see how they put their hands next to each other and then they put— yeah, yeah. But I like it.

You're a uniter. You're bringing couples closer together with your comedy.

I, I— that's really my goal.

I like that you like that.

I enjoy, I enjoy seeing families. Like, Nate Barghetti is really the one who kind of got me out of Branson because he, um, shown that, that there is a need for that humor.

Yes.

And families come And when you go to his show, it's like looking around, see grandma and grandchildren and parents.

But everyone's laughing. The thing about Nate that's so unique is Nate is hilarious to me. Nate is hilarious to a 20-year-old kid in college. Nate is hilarious to their grandmother. Nate is hilarious to your children. You could bring your 10-year-old kids to see Nate. Nate is a genius. And he's got— and that is who he is all the time. He's like a really funny, very smart guy. Yes, who's got a perfect style. It's like, I mean, he's— didn't he make like the most money ever or something like that last year doing stand-up? Sold the most tickets ever?

$80 million.

Or something crazy. But it's like he's doing this, like selling out stadiums 2 times in a night.

Exactly.

Yeah, and he does like 3 PM shows. It's nuts, right? It's incredible.

But it shows that there is a need for that.

Well, it shows that it doesn't matter It's just funny. Like, Brian Regan's another great example. Brian Regan, squeaky clean, unfuckingbelievably funny. So talented, so funny. Yeah, and it's just funny. It doesn't have to be clean or dirty or— and we have that at the club too. I mean, this is like, the club gets labeled as some like kind of extreme anti-woke thing. It's nonsense.

Like, I played, I performed there at your club a couple of weeks ago, they totally loved it. Nobody expected anything, and they just enjoyed. They laughed all the way through. I love doing that. So to me, I see young people who don't know me, and they're totally relating, and I'm relating to them, which is great. That's what I want to do.

We're human beings telling jokes. That's it, right? That's all it is. And, and if comedy done correctly is done from your perspective—

Yes.

Whether your perspective is Nate Bargatze or your perspective is fucking, you know, fill in the blank, David Tennant. whoever it is, right? Joey Diaz, Brian Holtzman, like whatever it is, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's like, it's what's funny is funny, and it might not be your thing. Like, that's the thing too. One of the problems with comedy is that there's only one, there's like one label, and you might go see like Brian Holtzman is like death metal comedy, or you might see Nate Burgazzi who's like, you know, I don't know what's the, you know, what's equivalent.

Well, Leanne Morgan is another one that was kind of of out of nowhere, uh, became very successful because she has that, uh, clean Southern humor. And, um, the Netflix embraced her and all of a sudden she is touring and doing concerts.

Yeah. All you have to do is be funny. It's like funny from whatever perspective you're coming from. And again, it's not going to be for everybody. That's just how it is.

Right.

There's a lot of people that aren't gonna like A or B. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

It's just—

but the thing about comedy is like when you go to a comedy club, you don't know what you're gonna get. You might get Run-DMC or you might get AC/DC. You have no idea.

Right, right.

It's just, it's all just comedy. But I think that's one of the cool things about it.

Right. And I, I totally agree with you and I want to be able to do that that 1-hour straight comedy. No, uh, there was an interesting thing that happened about a year ago or so. Um, I— a young comedian, uh, um, he, he said, you know, I, I was writing some jokes and he was helping me, and he said, Yaakov, do you know that you're not a standup comedian, you're a one-man show. And I go, at first I was like kind of, what? What are you talking about? And because I tell, in France it's like more storytelling and not just punchline, punchline, punchline. And he was correct. So I, at first I got kind of frustrated. Like, what do you mean? Who are you to tell me I'm not a stand-up comedian? And then I go, uh, ChatGPT, uh, is Yakov a stand-up comedian or is he a one-man show? And ChatGPT said, Yakov Smirnoff used to be a stand-up comedian and now he's a one-man show. And now coming from ChatGPT, I'm going, dang. That's That's now official? Wait a minute. So it took me a whole year to rewrite everything that I needed to rewrite to say it's punchline, punchline.

It's just straight comedy. So I became a stand-up comedian again.

Well, there's nothing wrong with one-man show stand-up comedy either, because some people do their comedy like a one-man show. Some of the best comics like Colin Quinn. Colin Quinn does a series of one-man shows, but if you ask ChatGPT who is Colin Quinn, it'll say he's a stand-up comedian.

Right, but ChatGPT got me wrong, whatever it was.

It doesn't know. It's not even a person.

Right.

Fuck ChatGPT.

But it's actually helped me to tune in my comedy, and because I maybe a little bit more relaxed being in my own theater with old people coming to see me.

Right.

So it's not like you're in a club when you're like, uh, with other comedians when you have to be really, really sharp.

Yeah.

And that's what I think it did for me. So I spent a year doing that. Now I have that hour and I'm ready to go. And that's why I'm I went on the tour.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I love when comics are still interested in it and still writing and still love it after all these years.

Absolutely.

You know who I draw some inspiration from as well is Argus Hamilton.

Yeah.

Argus is still killing it.

Yes.

Still killing it in LA.

Keeps going.

And every time there's something new in the news, he's got— always got a great fucking line about it. He's a funny dude.

He is.

And he's still getting after it. He still loves it. And, you know, Argus used to like famously be into the substances, and now all he does is run. And I remember one time we were at the Comedy Store and we were in the parking lot, and it was after the show, and Argus showed up with fucking running shoes on, just ran in. And I'm like, what are you doing, man? And he's like, I have to run every day.

And do a set, because to him that's his motivation.

Yeah, he does like— I think he runs like 10 miles a day.

Yeah, he's in his 70s. And interesting that, you know, when I was so naive because Argus was very friendly with Mitzi, and I would go to their house and I would see Argus there in the morning. And I was like, why is, you know, and I couldn't connect those 2 things. I mean, I could not. I mean, honestly, it was— I'll tell you how naive I was. So Mitzi gives me that work, right, up, and I live in that house, and Andrew Dice Clay moves into that house, right? And Andrew teaches me English, okay? Can you imagine that?

Uh-oh.

Rub-a-dub-dub. So, but that was a party house. I mean, this was a house where Was Kennison living there then? Kennison would just hang out there all the time. And they would scream at each other, Andrew and Kennison. And that was just kind of a joke between those two. And they go, ah, ah! And I would have to go to bed because I got to get up early in the morning to go work. And those guys are screaming at each other. Uh, just for fun. And I go downstairs and I go, hey guys, you're friends, stop. So I'm— we're playing this joke and they're, yeah, screaming. And I go, you know what, why don't you— you're close to The Comedy Store, why don't you go downstairs and scream there? And they looked at each other and go, okay, let's go. So it's midnight. And we're all going, whoever lived there, going to The Comedy Store. And Sam gets on stage and starts screaming. This is the first time that he ever got on stage. And he went to the— and very few people in the audience. And he went into their face.

Ah, you— No way.

Yeah.

That's where it came from?

That's where it came from. And then after that, it just became like his thing, and the rest is history.

That's crazy.

Yeah. That was happening there. A lot of stuff was happening there. They would come and do drugs, you know, like Robin and Richard Pryor, they would do. And I tell you, this is silly. I would wake up in the morning and I would see a mirror on the table, right? Okay, so bear with me. So, and there's like white powder on the table.

So you'd clean it up.

I was thinking they're eating donuts off the mirror. So I would clean whatever it was, hang it up, and next morning I go, Argus, Why don't you guys use plates? You have a dishwasher. And they would laugh at me and they wouldn't tell me what's going on.

But weren't they mad that you threw away their coke?

No, no, there was not much. I mean, it was just, yeah, whatever residue. I had no idea. I wasn't testing.

That's how much coke they had that they left some of it on the mirror.

Yeah.

Isn't that crazy? That's crazy.

It was. And but I didn't know, so I kind of lived in that wholesome kind of world in that—

So you were there while Kinison was developing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did he arrive at the store around the same time that you did?

A little bit later.

A little later?

Yeah, a little later.

Well, like, what year did he arrive?

Probably '79, I would say.

And he really hit around like, what, '85?

Yeah.

'86?

Yes, yes.

I think '85 he did Letterman.

Yes, yes. And then I would say—

And then in '86, he had that HBO special that blew him up?

Probably.

Yeah. Probably.

But—

You know how I found out about Kinison? It's a funny story. I've told it before. I apologize if the audience has heard it. I was working at a health club, at a gym called the Boston Athletic Club in South Boston, and I was a trainer. I would teach people how to lift weights. And there was this girl who was a volleyball player. She was hilarious. She was this big girl, big athletic girl. She was very fun. She was just, like, boisterous, like a really loud, funny lady. And she was, like, my age. And she told me about Kinison, and then she told me about his bit. She's like, oh my God, I saw this guy on HBO. She had a heavy Boston accent. This guy on HBO, he was so fucking hilarious. And he did this bit about people having sex with corpses. So she does this bit.

Yeah.

She laid down in the parking lot of the Boston Athletic Club and did that bit. So Kinison had a very famous bit about homosexual necrophiliacs who were paying money to spend moments alone with the freshest male corpses. So she is lying down on the parking lot, on the ground in the parking lot. She's— and she's like, and like, oh, I'm gonna lie down. She's— she did the whole thing. I'm gonna be with Jesus and now I'm dead. Oh, what is this? Feels like someone's fucking me in the ass. You mean life keeps fucking you in the ass even after you're dead. It never ends. So she was doing his bit, and I was laughing at her doing his bit. I'm like, I gotta see this guy. This is crazy. So that was my introduction to Sam Kinison.

Wow.

My friend lying on her stomach doing an impression. I'll never forget that, man, because I was 19 years old. I remember that. And I remember thinking— so it was '86. So I remember thinking, this is crazy.

Unbelievable. That's— It was so—

I had no desire to do comedy back then. I wasn't even thinking about it. It wasn't even on my radar. It was never even a thought. I loved comedy. I loved watching it, but I never thought about it.

So what made you— what was the transition when you started?

Well, I was heavily invested in martial arts. That's all I wanted to do. All I wanted was— my goal was to compete And that's all I was doing. That's the reason why I got the job at the gym, so that I could have a place that I could work out, and also I could make money there. And my friends that I used to train with, they're the ones who told me to do comedy. But I was like, listen, you laugh at me because you're also psychos. Like, the things I'm saying are fucking crazy. Like, you're— we're all fighters. We're all traveling around the country fighting. Like, this is not a normal activity. You're— these— this is not normal humor. But my good friend Steve Graham, who I'm still friends with to this day, he's the one who talked me into doing it. And then I went to an open mic night and I realized, oh, everybody sucks in the beginning. Like, it's just like martial arts, right? Start off, right? And then you get better at it. But my introduction to comedy was that lady, really my introduction to Kinison, rather, the idea. Because I— when I saw Kinison, I was like, oh, comedy is a lot of different things.

It's different.

There's a lot of different forms to it.

Yeah.

'Cause I always saw guys like Jerry Seinfeld who were very funny, and they'd tell these jokes, but I never thought that was me. I couldn't do that. But I saw Kinison, I was like, oh, this is a bunch of different kinds of comedy.

Right, right.

This is very interesting. And then when I started out in '88, boy, the guys in Boston used to talk about The Comedy Store like it was Mecca. Like you had to go there. You had to go to the store. The store was where. Richard Pryor started and Sam Kinison and all the— all these comics and David Letterman. They all made— they all came out of the store. Bill Hicks, the doorman at the store.

Yes.

And everybody talked about the store. It was one of those things where it was like, you know, you had to go there. And then when I first maybe got on a television show, I flew out to LA to do a pilot, and that was the first time I ever went to the store. And I remember being so weirded out just being in the building, like, wow. I can't believe I'm at The Comedy Store.

Now, when did you meet Mitzi?

I met Mitzi in '94. So I did the pilot. The pilot wound up getting picked up. And then I came out, and I was on a TV show that— it only lasted like 6 episodes. It was called Hardball. It was a sitcom about a baseball team. And I played the star player. I played this crazy dude who was always crashing his Lamborghini and that kind of shit, you know? And so I would spend my nights every night at the store. I didn't have any friends, and I didn't know anybody there, so I just would just go to the set, and then after the set I'd go hang out at the store. And then I eventually— Mitzi showcased me. I got— became a non-paid regular, so I got to go on after the comedians performed.

Right.

So the way it worked at The Comedy Store, they'd have a show that was scheduled from like 8:00 p.m. to like 1:00 a.m. or close to it, and then after— it was probably like really midnight, but it always was like 1:00 AM by the time we got out. And then I would go on after everybody else. And I did that for a few months, and then she passed me. And I remember thinking, like, when, when she passed me, like, I was like, oh no, I think I can be a comedian now. Like, this is— I actually can make a living doing this. Because before then, I wasn't sure.

Right.

Even though I was getting paid and I would do comedy, I'd get paid to do comedy, it was still like very iffy. I'd bomb a lot. It was like— it wasn't—

Right.

Also, it was like in the middle of this sitcom, so I was working all day. I didn't want to do that anymore. I mean, I liked it because it paid a lot of money, but it wasn't really my thing. I wasn't into acting that much. It was— to me, it was like comedy was more exciting. It was live, live audiences. The sitcom thing was fun because you got to use like your skills in telling jokes as a comedian, But it wasn't the same thing. And then I got NewsRadio, which was a much more— much better show. And then I was like, well, this is different. This is— there's other levels to this. And that's how I met Hartman and all those other people. But it was, to me, the most important thing was getting passed at the store. I was like, wow. That was more important to me than getting a sitcom or anything. I was like, I can't believe it. I got passed. My name's on the wall of the fucking Comedy Store. Wow. It was so exciting.

In life, too now, right? Do you have it? Is it in neon inside?

Yeah, I'm on the wall inside. Yeah, it's just like this lady, Mitzi Shore, like people don't understand. She was the most important figure outside of all the comedians, the most important figure in comedy. Yeah, by far. There was no one like her. She was a mentor. She was like a— she was a curator of a mental health asylum. And she would joke around about it. She's like the inmates are running the asylum. And that was originally when we came to Texas. I was gonna call it The Asylum.

Really?

Yeah, because I thought as a nod—

Motherfuckers went further.

Yeah, yeah, it turned out much further. But as a nod to Mitzi, the idea was that like she was always saying, the inmates are running the asylum. She would say that all the time while we were there. Like, she encouraged it. She liked when comedians were out of their fucking minds. She loved it. She loved that environment. And so as a nod to her, we were gonna call it The Asylum. But then I was like, one of the things that someone said— 'cause, you know, Ron White was the first guy to move here. He was really like patient zero in the Austin Comedy Experience and the new version of the Austin Comedy Experience. And he was like, it's just the center of the country. I love it 'cause I could fly to New York, I go to Florida, I go everywhere. It's in the middle. You know, it's not like the flats aren't as long. People are nice. I love it here. And I was like, oh, well, it's like the mothership, and then all the other places like launch out. Yeah. And also, I'm obsessed with UFOs, obviously.

I can see.

Yeah, obviously. I have a bit of a UFO problem.

Yeah.

So that's why we called it the Mothership. But I mean, the bar's named Mitzi's.

Yes, yes. And it was— I you know, losing her that early, I still think she went too early, you know, in—

Well, for me, it was like she suffered for so long.

Yeah, that's true.

It was really hard to see her, you know, she had a neurological condition later in her life. It was very hard to see her. She would come around the store. But, you know, she nurtured so many comedians and helped us all. And not always, like sometimes she had terrible advice. She would change your whole act, make you have a fake name. She tried to turn Joey Diaz into Fat Baby.

Is that right?

That was his nickname or his name. So on the lineup, instead of Joey Diaz, it would say Fat Baby.

Ah.

She did that for like a couple years.

Wow.

Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, you can find some of the old lineups. Jamie's found them before online. It'll still like line up from like 2001 or something like that. It says Fat Baby. That's what she was calling him. Yeah, and she was a special person, such a special person. And just that lady loved having that place. She was— she knew that there was something going on there, and there had been something going on there that was very unique in the world of comedy. And it was necessary, you know, to have a place like that where the comics all felt at home.

Yeah.

Like, we would perform at other places, like we would do sets at the Improv, we would do sets at I remember one time I did New Year's at the Improv, and I came back to the club, and Harris Peete says, I love it. You go over there, you do your shows, but you come back home. I was like, yeah, we're all— this is our home. This is our weird fucking home.

Yeah.

You know, the home for lost children. Like, Mitzi would call it the home for the island of broken toys.

Yeah.

Just a bunch of weirdos, you know, but all like like feeding off of each other.

But to be able to see somebody who barely speaks English and does 5 minutes and spot him somehow.

Well, she loves developing comics. She loved developing comics. She loved finding a comic and getting them, which is one of the problems. Like, she didn't— it's really interesting. Like, Jerry Seinfeld, and she didn't pass him because he was already developed.

Right.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

Like, she didn't like that.

She was already— he's done. He's done.

She liked taking people when they were really raw. That's true.

And shaping them. Roseanne was her big project.

Sure. Yeah.

She came from Denver.

She had a lot of big projects.

Yeah. And, uh, and, and so is, uh, Jim Carrey, uh, and many, many others.

She also had, like, very specific like techniques she would use to test you. Like, she would always take comics and put them on, like, especially the young new ones after all the really good comics, like she did with you when you're talking about like doing that set. Yeah, Richard Pryor's going up. Yeah, Robin Williams. And that's what she would do. Yeah, she would take young comics that she thought had potential and she would shove them after the biggest names. Yeah, people that were killing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was such a unique person. and such an important person in comedy.

And Peter, that was a big moment of my life. I went to her funeral, and Peter, her son, asked me to be one of the pallbearers in her funeral, and I felt like full circle, you know. She gave me my life, you know, in a totally different way. If I didn't meet God knows what, what I would be doing.

No, I mean, she, she helped all of us, and I think it's one of the reasons why we talk about her so much. It's the reason why we named the bar after her. Yeah, just in the spirit of what she was trying to do at the store, we try to do at the Mothership. It's all the weirdos. Welcome, weirdos. Welcome, weirdos.

I'm in.

Let's have fun.

I'm in.

Yeah, let's go.

Yeah.

How many times have you performed at the club now? Just 2 sets?

Twice. Yeah, yeah. It feels like the original room, the little room, the little boy's room.

Well, you know what I say? That's like the little room is like if the original room and the belly room had a baby. And then the big room is like the original room and the main room had a baby.

Right, right.

It's very, very close.

It's true. But you've done a great job. It feels It feels like home when you walk in there.

Well, I basically copied everything that I learned from her. Yeah. And added more stuff that the comedians requested.

And it's interesting that I was helping to build that belly room and then Kill Tony started in the belly room.

Yeah. You might've been the last person to work on that belly room too, because that, that fucking room scares the shit out of me. I've been in the bottom. like in the, the bar area ordering a drink and like Roast Battle be on stage and you see the ceiling move, you're like, Jesus, Yakov, get back up there with a fucking hammer and add some support.

I'm not taking the responsibility. I was just doing booths and—

Oh, okay.

I wasn't doing structure.

Okay, that's good. Somebody was. Yeah, I just think something like, especially There's no— Roast Battle. When you had Roast Battle up there, like, they would get so wild and rowdy and it would be packed. It would be packed, and it's only supposed to seat like, what, 70 people or 80 people?

Right, right.

It would be a lot more than that. The fucking ceiling would move a little when you were in the bar. You're like, bro, I hope this doesn't cave in. That would suck.

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

That place is a magic place, and it's also a magic place because it was like a magnet for crazy people. You'd have the weirdest, nuttiest people that would just come there. Like that one guy, there's one guy that used to come there. He was a really nice guy, and he would always dress as Jesus.

Yes, I remember that. Yeah.

Do you remember his name?

Heavenly Light.

That's right. And he wound up dying, and everybody was so sad. They were really sad because this guy was— it seems like a gimmick, but it We got used to it, and he was really nice, and he was just like this nice guy that dressed like Jesus all the time. There he is. But it was part of the fucking cool, crazy weirdness of The Comedy Store is that we had a guy that dressed as Jesus that was there all the time.

Yeah.

You know, and like, I don't know if he ever did stand-up. Did he ever do stand-up? I never saw him on stage, but he would be in the room sometimes, and he definitely had timing to, you know, to give a joke. But like, I don't remember ever seeing him with a mic in his hand. Isn't that crazy though? Like, he was just always there hanging out, and he was like— but that was the part of how nutty that place was, right? The place was just strange. Yeah, we ran into so many like completely schizophrenic people in the parking lot. Like, they would just wander their way back there and start talking to us. Explain to us about the voices there. Brody's show with Zach. Oh, wow.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean, Brody had him on his show. It was just— that's how weird that place was. It was just such a fucking— just an unusual spot.

Yeah.

And so we've done our best to make our own version of that here.

And, and the— that Crest Hill house was also a crazy place, you know.

Yeah, I'm not doing that. I think that was a terrible idea. I'm not gonna buy a house and have a bunch of comedians live in it. That sounds like a recipe for fucking disaster. I just can't manage all that, you know. I almost bought Crest Hill at one point in time.

Oh, really?

Yeah, they were selling it, and I was really thinking about buying it, but I had a dog at the time. His name was Frank Sinatra, and Frank Sinatra was an escape artist. That was not a big enough I, you know, if you— I'm a firm believer that if you have a dog, you really have to have a big yard. I think otherwise it's cruel. I think the dog— dogs need exercise.

Right, right.

They need something.

Yeah.

If you don't have a big yard, you got to be able to be able to take that dog out every day and exercise them and bring them around. Otherwise it's rude. And Crest Hill had that little tiny backyard, remember? And it was on the hill. I'm like, he's getting over this fence. Like, he was a pit bull. I'm like, he's getting over that fence like that. That dog dog could get out of anything. I was like, that poor guy, I'm not doing that to him. So I never bought it because of my dog. Like, literally, I was thinking about buying that house and she was selling it. And but it was— I went to look at it. I went to look at it to see if I could buy it. I think some comics might have been even living there at the time.

Yeah.

So this is like—

They sold it several times since then. I was just there not too long ago and there it's all kind of destroyed because the guy is kind of wacky and he's remodeling it. But it was a big part of my life. It was a dream. I was living there in a little room. Andrew does clay downstairs, and he's teaching me how to date women. I know, I know, it's crazy, but I was so naive. And he was clean at that time. You know, his act was very clean. He would tell, you know, he would do impressions of Elvis and John Travolta and Sylvester Stallone. So he's— and he would be very funny. We were pretty good friends. He would just— but he would play with me. He would say, He would play that, you know, I would have a girlfriend come and he would say, so now you want me to go downstairs? Can you imagine Andrew being this, you know, crazy guy? So now I gotta go downstairs and I'll be all by myself and you're gonna be with this girl and you're my best friend. And how is that gonna— I go, get the hell out of here.

She's gonna be here here. And then she would come and he would do it in front of her. Well, you guys are going to have fun now, and I'm going to have to go downstairs. There's nothing there. And he would just play and play along, you know. And then Tom Wilson was living there too. Tom is the guy who did Biff in Back to the Future. He was the the bad guy, right?

Right.

And so Tom was kind of a clean-cut guy, and Andrew was, you know, um, not. So, so, uh, so one time I was supposed to break up with this girl. I wanted to break up with her, and he goes— Andrew goes, I, I have an idea for you. We're gonna go to a jewelry store. We're gonna get a gift for her so it will be easy to break up. So we go, we buy a ring, and I'll bring it. I brought it back and I go, uh, Tom, um, Andrew told me to buy this ring to give it to this girl so it would be an easy breakup. And he looks and he goes, it's an engagement ring, you know that, right? And I go, but Andrew told me to buy it. I'm great. He goes, Tom goes, Andrew is not a representative of the human race, so don't listen to what he's saying. So that's how it was kind of a fun relationship. But it was interesting because I was very enterprising. And I'm working for Mitzi, you know, she's paying me whatever, minimum wage. But I'm saving money and we live with those guys and we have a 2-car garage but no cars in it.

So a friend of mine says to me, why don't we go to Germany together? We'll borrow some money, we'll buy 2 Mercedeses and we'll sell one and we'll get one for free. It was a Mercedes. a kind of an interesting idea. So we went with some complications. I was able to bring 2 cars and sold them. So here's— these guys are sleeping till like noon and they don't have a car and they don't— they're just bombing around. And I have 2 Mercedes in the garage. I sell one and then I go to they hired me to do a Bob Monkhouse show, which was a kind of a Johnny Carson show for England. And I fly there and they give me a bag of money, €10,000, not euros, pounds in a bag to do this show. So I buy a Rolls-Royce and ship it to America. So now I have a Mercedes 450 SL. And a Rolls-Royce. But I live in a room for $120 a month, right? And so this is how weird it is. And I wanna buy a house, but I don't have enough money. So this realtor passes by one day and I'm polishing a Rolls-Royce.

And she goes, can I borrow like a hammer to put a sign? And I go, you know what, you're a realtor, maybe you can help me. I'm looking for a house. Um, and I liked when Mitzi had that big house, 5,000 square feet overlooking LA. I'm like, I want something like that. And I, I said, I tell her, I want a 5,000 square foot house, um, with an acre of land. and I wanted to buy it for— with a view of LA, and I want to buy it for $150,000. And I'm thinking she's going to hit me with a hammer. She goes, I may have something for you. And I go, really? And she goes, yeah. And she— there was a house literally like a block away from where Mitzi's was, similar structure, only it was destroyed. It was a house that Lenny Bruce used to live in years ago.

Wow.

Uh, it was, um, Seymour Cassel, who is a— he is a character actor. I don't know if he's still around. Maybe Jamie can find it of him. Uh, he was a character actor and he got into drugs and lost that house to his attorney. And so I go look at the house. It's totally destroyed, but my parents needed a project. They were— and I needed them to have a project. So I said, how much would he— and he said, he'll take $150,000 because it's totally destroyed. There's stuff, swimming pool, but there is a stuff in the basement like flooded, the windows are broken, destroyed.

Got it.

So I buy that house, but I want to buy it, but I have to get all the paperwork. And I go, I need this. There is some kind of discrepancy that a sliver of the land belongs to a neighbor or something like that. like that. So I need to sign— that guy Seymour Cassell is supposed to sign something off. And I go, where am I going to find him? I go— the attorney goes, I know where he is. He's in jail. So I go to jail and I figure I'm going to offer him money to sign this paper. And, uh, I, I go in, I have like $500 in my And I go, I need you to sign this paper. And he goes— I said, how much? And he goes, $50. I go, $50,000? He said, no, $50. I go, why $50? He said, they won't allow us more than $50 in jail. So now I'm in jail with a $100 bill. trying to get change, which is not a good place to do it. I got it, and now I own that beautiful home.

You still have it?

No, I sold it and moved to Pacific Palisades that time. And when my kids were— my daughter was born, and then had to sell that house and lose a lot of money. to move to Branson. So—

And are you in Branson still?

I do, yeah.

You live in Branson?

Yeah, I own a theater there.

So how did you start coming out here?

It was a desire to kind of do what I felt compelled that I can still offer something valuable to the audience out there. watching Nate Bargatze doing that. And he had me, actually, I was in Florida and I wanted to go see his show. And he's in this Hertz Arena, 12,000-something people. And I asked if I could just come see the show. And he said, said, why don't you go on stage and do a set? And that was like, I walked out there and I felt like I was back in the '80s, you know. The audience just, the moment they said my name, they knew who I was. That audience knows who I am. So they just went crazy. And I felt like Rocky standing there bowing. And then I did like 8 minutes. And so he's very respectful and very— he feels like I'm one of the people that kind of paved the way for comedy to be what it is today.

That's awesome.

So I've been very blessed that, you know—

And so how did you wind up in Austin?

I came here for the festival that was that—

Moon Tower?

Moon Tower. And then I had Adam, your— Adam got me a spot. And that's when I met Tony. And Tony said, why don't you be a guest judge on my show? And I was going with my family to Europe. Because my family's from Ukraine, so my wife's family from Ukraine, so they moved to Europe. And so we went there for 2 months, and I said, Tony, I can't do it right now, but end of August I would love to do it. And that's how it all kind of came together.

Wow.

Yeah, that's a small world.

What are you doing tonight?

I don't have any plans. I was just just was hoping to get through, through this, but because you never know. I, I'm hoping that, you know, I'll be happy to do whatever is out there, you know.

You were hoping to get through the show?

You were— Well, you have to know, I mean, you, your show, I don't think you can fathom how big your show. I mean, I know you know the numbers and you But to get to have the conversation for 3 hours and not really knowing where it's going to go, what's going to happen, how it's going to be, you get nervous. And I feel like I was going to Nashville, and that was Nashville Comedy Festival, a year and a half ago. And I went there and I walked into Ryman's Auditorium and Brian Dorfman, you probably know.

Sure.

He's a promoter. He remembered me from the years in the past. And there was a show that all the Nate Barghiazis, the protégés, were doing. And I walked in, I didn't know what was going on. And he said, you want to go up? And I go, okay, I'll go up. And I went in the middle of the show and I did 15 minutes and the crowd gave me a standing ovation in the middle of the show. And I know it's I get emotional because I feel like an ugly duckling that goes in and doesn't know if these young people are going to accept you or not. And can you still do it? I was— I'm in Branson for 33 years. I'm very comfortable in that environment. But going into with the young comedians, it's like a boxer who hasn't been out there And there is respect, but also respect only lasts 30 seconds after they introduce you, but then you have to prove that you got what it takes. And that's what I feel like I want to continue to do this because I believe I can still offer something valuable to the audience, that family audience that could learn something from me, could laugh with me, whatever it is.

That's very wholesome, Yakov. You're a wholesome guy.

Well, thank you.

I mean that with all sincerity.

Well, I'll tell you, it's interesting. I was— when I graduated from Pepperdine and I came to Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach.

I love that place.

Yeah, me too.

Shout out to Mike Lacey.

Yes, yes. He's the best. And I showed up in my cap and gown, kind of proud. And Jay Leno is there all the time, every Sunday. And Jay goes, so what's up, what's up, what's up with that? What's up with that? And I go, well, I decided to get a doctorate degree because I really think that there is research on laughter that you could really help people understand it better. And he goes, Yakov, you're a comedian. You write a joke, you tell a joke, you pick up a check, and you go, and you go, and that's it. And I go, but what about like humanity No, no, he goes, no, no, you don't get it. You write a joke, you tell a joke, and you pick up a check, and that's it. I, I feel like there is more that I can do.

Well, you know, that's Jay's perspective, right? My perspective is much more aligned with yours. I think there's a lot more going on, and I think comedy is very valuable to people, including me. If I don't feel good, then I can go watch people tell great jokes and laugh, I feel better. I like it. I like it. People like it. People keep coming to see it. There's a reason why people come. It's, it's medicine. It really is. I know that's like very cliché. No, no, laughter is medicine, but it is. There's something to it.

It's a lubricant. It's like engine without— if you don't have oil in the engine, it will not go. And I think laughter in the relationship is that lubricant.

And with friends, it's just a fun thing to do.

Absolutely.

That's one of the reasons why I like going there.

Yes.

Like, we get to hang out together and laugh.

Yes.

Speaking of which, do you want to do a set tonight?

Sure.

All right.

You know anybody?

Yeah, I got a guy. Who can get me in? I know a guy. It'd be my show.

I'd love it.

So you can do a set on my show tonight.

Oh my God.

Yeah. Okay.

I'd love it.

All right.

Oh my goodness.

Wow. We'll have some fun.

What a gift.

Thank you. And if people want to see you other than that, you're on tour. Um, what is the website? Is it Yakov.com?

Yakov.com. Yeah, my next show is in Atlanta this weekend.

Well, people can go to it. It's up on the screen. There it is. Yeah, stand-up podcast host legend. You have your own podcast?

I, I did for about a year.

What happened?

Uh, um, a baby was born.

Oh yeah, you're doing a lot of good spots. You're doing The Punchline. You're doing the Punchline in Sacramento. You're doing Cobb's in San Francisco, Comedy Works in Greenville— Greenwood, rather. That's the other Comedy Works. There's 2 Comedy Works.

Nice.

Side Splitters. Great spots.

Beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah, people will come see you, man.

I hope so.

And you're very funny.

Thanks, man.

It's good to see you out there.

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. My pleasure.

I really enjoyed talking to you in the green room. I'm glad we did this because that's a crazy-ass story.

Thank you. Thank you.

My pleasure. You're a good dude, Yakov. I love you.

Thank you. All right. I love you too.

Bye, everybody.